Mark McNees

$17 billion for a single gas power plant in Pennsylvania. That's the cost of chasing demand instead of managing it. Storage plus renewables could cut that number significantly. We keep building for yesterday's grid. @PittsburghPG #EnergyPolicy #PowerGrid #CleanEnergy #Infrastructure

$110 billion in savings sitting on the table from grid efficiency. That's not a climate argument. That's a math argument. Modernizing the grid is the single highest-ROI infrastructure investment America can make right now. @LatitudeMedia #PowerGrid #EnergyPolicy #Ratepayers #GridModernization

Meta's Louisiana data center: 23 million gallons of water per day. That's enough water for a city of 230,000 people. Florida just passed SB 484 to address exactly this. But "feasible" still needs a definition. theinvadingsea.com/2026/03/19/dat… @TheInvadingSea #SB484 #DataCenters #WaterPolicy #Florida

Iran conflict is spiking energy prices and the answer is unsanction Iranian oil? That's a short-term patch on a structural problem. Energy security means diversification, not dependency on unstable supply chains. @BenLefebvre1 @politico #EnergyPolicy #IranOil #EnergySecurity

Florida passed Senator Bryan Avila's SB 484. Data centers fund their own infrastructure. Real win. But "feasible" appears in the water provisions with zero definition. No methodology. No standards. No cost baseline. That one word could erase the entire consumer protection. My full breakdown: theinvadingsea.com/2026/03/19/dat… @BryanAvilaFL #SB484 #Florida #DataCenters #EnergyPolicy

When Ohio farmers pay taxes that subsidize data center tax breaks, that's not economic development. That's a wealth transfer from Main Street to server farms. @OhioFarmBureau #DataCenter #TaxPolicy #EnergyPolicy

The power grid isn't an afterthought. It's the bottleneck. US data center development is hitting grid limits — and that doesn't get solved by building more data centers. It gets solved by building smarter grids. #PowerGrid #DataCenter #EnergyInfrastructure

"Renewables aren't the problem, market design is." That's the argument I've been making for two years. It's not the technology. It's the rate structure. We keep pointing at the wrong villain. #EnergyPolicy #RenewableEnergy #MarketDesign

A 30-megawatt data center uses as much electricity as 30,000 homes. CA lawmakers are asking the right question: who pays for the grid upgrades to support that demand? @SacBee_News #DataCenter #EnergyPolicy #Ratepayers

Jellico, TN residents are petitioning because a Bitcoin miner moved in and their utility bills spiked. This is cost externalization in its purest form: companies profit, neighbors pay. @WATE6 #DataCenter #UtilityBills

@DavidSacks The Ratepayer Protection Pledge is a step in the right direction. But a pledge without enforcement is marketing. Who audits whether Big Tech actually covers those grid costs? Ratepayers need more than a promise.

Today President Trump obtained a pledge from America’s leading tech companies that new data centers would not increase electricity prices for residential consumers. These companies (including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI) signed the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” under which they agree to cover the costs of all new power generation required for their data centers, ensuring such costs are not passed onto American households. This is a much better approach to affordability than Bernie Sanders’ total ban on new data centers, which would halt the construction boom currently driving wage growth and job growth for blue-collar workers. In fact, the Ratepayer Protection Pledge will lower electricity prices when AI companies pay for grid upgrades and sell their excess power back to the grid. Since the beginning of his second term, President Trump has championed the idea of letting our leading AI companies become power companies, and now this idea is becoming a reality thanks to his leadership and the commitments of these strong American companies. The right approach to data centers is not to stop progress altogether, but rather to protect residential rate payers from price increases, while making it easier to stand up new power generation.

Iran just made the case for battery storage better than any policy paper ever could. Zero fuel cost. Zero geopolitical exposure. That's not an environmental argument. It's a portfolio economics argument. @evanhalper @washingtonpost

Florida ratepayers pay $7B in rate hikes AND FPL posts a 27.44% profit margin — #1 among U.S. utilities. The average utility profit margin is 13%. Companies don't externalize costs while internalizing record profits. That's not capitalism, it's capture. @evanhalper @insideFPL

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers. bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-…

@business Walmart at least paid for its own power. Data centers consuming half a state's electricity capacity while ratepayers absorb the grid upgrade costs is a different arrangement entirely. @indystar

Ohio households pay more for electricity while data centers collect tax breaks. The report is right: that's not economic development. That's privatized profit on a socialized grid. @EvanHalper @AmyAHarder

@business The answer is always the same: ratepayers. Companies that externalize costs while internalizing profits aren't innovating — they're freeloading. Renewable + storage changes that math permanently. @JoshSaulBLP

Data centers tied to the biggest US grid just tacked on another $6.5 billion to the cost of procuring power supplies, adding to concerns that the AI boom is worsening energy inflation bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

NJ utility customers took a 20% electricity hit so data centers could grow on the public grid. The NJ Senate just said: build your own power. That's not overregulation. That's market accountability. @NJSpotlightNews @JoshSaulBLP

A $19.4B data center in rural NY would strain the power grid and raise utility rates for families who had no say in the deal. This isn't a technology story. It's a cost externalization story. Ratepayers deserve better. @nytimes @EvanHalper @KatherineBlunt