Midterm Results Could Trip Trump’s Energy Independence Plans

Résumé détaillé

Democrats are pushing tougher oversight of AI data centers, including requirements for operators to cover more grid upgrade costs and protect consumers from higher electricity bills.

What I Cover Irina Slav has been writing about global energy markets since 2007, covering the oil and gas industry, energy security, commodities, and the…

The Democratic Party’s decisive victory in the U.S. midterm elections has been widely called bad news for Trump policies, but now, it could interfere with legislation that previously drew support from both parties in Congress—and the GOP’s ambitions for energy independence and dominance.

The bill in question, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, got broad support from the previous Senate in early October, but voting on it was scheduled for after the midterm elections. It was meant to speed up permitting for new energy projects, including both oil, gas, and coal projects, and alternative energy installations such as wind and solar. The bill, according to West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito, was “a major step toward making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure projects.”

Following the midterms, Senate advanced the bill, voting on Monday 73-25 to formally take it up, which likely quenched concerns that the Democrats might turn on the bill in light of their energy transition agenda. It did not sit well with environmentalist organizations, however, which were instrumental in the formulation of the Democrats’ energy transition agenda and vocal opponents of any new oil, gas, or coal projects in the United States.

Even for the most transition-minded Democrat, however, the situation is delicate. A number of the legislators who joined Congress after the midterm elections ran on platforms featuring a rein-in of data centers and assurances they would be made to pay for their own electricity. Texas is a case in point: the state with the most data centers under construction just got a Democratic Senator and a Democratic Governor, both of whom ran on data center-heavy platforms. Related: China’s Coal Buyers Resist Waiver Demands in New Indonesian Deals

Yet these platforms do not mean…

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