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The real winners from Trump’s ‘AI action plan’? Tech companies
Eight major tech companies spend a combined $36 million lobbying Congress in 2025, averaging $320,000 per day in session. Trump's three AI executive orders roll back Biden-era safety rules, ease environmental permits for data centers and promote AI exports. More than 100 labor, environmental and civil rights groups sign a counter plan.
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Virginia Tax Revenue Losses to Data Centers Soar to $1.6 Billion for FY25
Virginia's data center tax exemptions cost $1.6 billion in foregone sales and use tax revenue for FY2025 — up 118 percent from the prior year. Illinois stops disclosing its own data center subsidy losses. A Georgia fiscal analysis finds 70 percent of projects there would have happened without tax breaks, with annual losses projected to…
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AI’s energy appetite is reshaping the electric grid | Charlotte Observer
Goldman Sachs projects US data center power demand will more than double to 66 gigawatts by 2027, outpacing the grid's ability to connect it. PJM expects data centers to drive 30 of the next 32 gigawatts of load growth by 2030, with the grid needing an estimated $720 billion in new investment through 2030.
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NC anti-data center movement broadens to reject AI technology | Public News Service
This Public News Service wire report surveys North Carolina's growing anti-data-center movement, noting that more than two dozen NC communities have already restricted large-scale data center construction over energy and water concerns. Rania Masri (NC Environmental Justice Network) and Leslie St Dre (Community Land and Power) frame their opposition as extending beyond siting fights to…
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Largest Data Center Project Ever Proposed Is Officially Dead | OilPrice.com
Blackstone-owned QTS Realty Trust withdrew its Virginia Supreme Court appeal on July 2, 2026, officially killing the Prince William Digital Gateway — a proposed 2,100-acre, roughly $100 billion, 37-building/22-million-square-foot campus in Prince William County, VA that would have been the largest data center complex in the world, sited next to Manassas National Battlefield Park. The…
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DOE directs data centers to use backup generators during heat wave | CNN
Energy Secretary Chris Wright orders mid-Atlantic data centers onto backup power during a heat wave pushing heat indexes past 100 degrees from Washington to New York City, freeing grid capacity for home air conditioning. The Energy Department cites 35 gigawatts of available backup generation nationwide, though diesel and gas generators used as backup raise local…
Exposing AI Data Center Threats and Harms