By Katelynn Winebrenner
Capital News Service
As power costs surge across Maryland, the state’s congressional delegation is taking a bipartisan stance in support of legislation that would regulate energy use by AI companies.
The Power for the People Act would require AI companies to bear the costs of increased power demand and any possible infrastructure changes needed to meet the demands of their data centers.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), sponsor of the bill, said the biggest contributing factor to the steep prices is the increase in these centers, which require huge amounts of electricity to operate.
“Consumers should not have to pay the costs for data centers that are [run] by the richest companies on the planet, AI companies,” Van Hollen said Mar. 5, at a press conference on Capitol Hill, side by side with three other members of the delegation.
In Maryland, the average price of energy has gone up by almost 50 percent for residents since 2020, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The concern is bridging the usual partisan lines and drawing support from the sole Republican in the delegation.
“There is bipartisan agreement,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) said at the joint news conference. “The president during the State of the Union talked about the fact that these companies, that are literally trillion-dollar companies, have to stop putting the cost of their energy on the backs of our ratepayers.”
President Donald Trump announced on Mar. 4 that leading tech companies – naming Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI – had signed his Ratepayer Protection Pledge.Under the pledge, companies agree to take the brunt of the costs associated with their data centers by negotiating separate, higher rates with utility companies and state governments, as well as paying for any new infrastructure created to service the centers.
The pledge holds these companies to recruiting local workers where they build and operate their data centers. It also says they will work with grid operators to share their backup resources in emergencies to blackouts and shortages.
“Seven of the world’s largest tech companies came to the White House to sign President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, inking their commitment to the President and the American people,” White House Spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Capital News Service in an email. “The Administration will continue working with these companies to implement the terms of the pledge.”
However, Van Hollen said the pledge isn’t enough without enshrining it into law.
“It’s not worth the paper it’s written on, unless you enact this as well,” he said.
Harris added that the Maryland legislature needs to take steps in the meantime to mitigate the heavy burden on Marylanders as well.
He called on the state legislature to temporarily pause state fees that fund energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction programs in the meantime.
“Put a moratorium on it,” Harris said. “I think we have to provide immediate relief to our constituents.”
Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) said the delegation must take action as soon as possible.
“I’m angry,” Mfume said. “People are paying too much money for heating costs, electricity … and I would say what everybody behind me would also say, that is just not acceptable.”
This article was originally published by Capital News Service.