Trump’s Energy Emergency Declaration Ensnares AI
Additional Opportunities for Engagement with FERC
By Tyson Slocum
On January 20, President Donald J. Trump declared a national energy emergency, decreeing that wind and solar energy have descended the nation into an energy crisis, and proposing as a solution the politicization of national security as a means to dismantle generations of public health and safety laws in order to promote coal, natural gas and nuclear baseload generation. When combined with the January 23 executive order where Trump professed that “it is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security”, Trump is poised to deploy radical emergency powers to support AI data center buildout fueled by natural gas and coal power. During Trump’s recent press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump boasted that his new Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin “and his group” will approve AI data center projects “in very rapid form.” Zeldin serves on the new National Energy Dominance Council, which will be a coordinating vehicle to implement energy emergency powers to facilitate AI data center deployment. It will be essential to develop strategies–including identifying parties who can serve as credible declarants in litigation challenges, and building support for Senate Joint Resolution 10 to nullify the energy emergency order—to stop Trump’s radical power grab.
On February 20, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will unveil a new rulemaking on Large Loads Co-Located at Generating Facilities (assigned docket AD24-11) that will be an important proceeding to establish federal rate policy treatment of AI data centers with co-located load. The rulemaking will either build upon or deviate somewhat from its November 2024 order rejecting a rate filing from grid operator PJM that proposed to shift capacity of Talen Corp’s Susquehanna nuclear power facility away from the broader grid in order to serve a proposed Amazon data center, with FERC citing the harmful cost impacts on consumers that resulted in a violation of the Federal Power Act’s mandate for “just and reasonable” rates. Regardless of how Trump’s energy emergency orders proceed, it will be essential for FERC to hold the line on protecting household consumers from any rate increases.
pdf version: SlocumAI