Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe have signed the White House's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, expanding President Donald Trump's effort to control data centers' effect on energy prices. The move reflects growing political pressure over rising electricity costs—average rates have climbed 4 percent in the last 12 months, outpacing overall U.S. inflation—but reveals a stark partisan divide in how states are responding to the crisis.
Electric utilities including Southern Co., Duke Energy, and Exelon are also expected to sign the pledge, according to people familiar with the plans. The nonbinding framework, first unveiled at a White House event in March, asks data center developers to pay their fair share of energy and water use, along with grid improvements and maintenance. Yet enforcement remains fragmented: state legislatures and utility commissions hold the real power to make these commitments stick.
What's striking is who wasn't invited to the table. Staffers for Democratic governors said the White House didn't reach out to them about signing the pledge, even as data center expansion has become a bipartisan headache. The administration's selective outreach underscores how thoroughly the issue has become politicized.
The Real Action Happening in Blue States
While the Trump administration circulates its pledge, Democratic governors are moving unilaterally. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Tuesday to pause most new hyperscale data center construction in the state—a direct intervention in the market to protect ratepayers. "While Washington Republicans play politics and make pledges they won't keep, Governor Hochul is taking real action to keep the lights on and costs down for New Yoraders," her spokesperson Ken Lovett said.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, hasn't heard from the White House either, despite his stated agreement with the pledge's merits. His spokesperson Eric Maruyama emphasized that "any data center development must lower energy costs for Coloradans and save people money on energy." North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, also Democratic, received no outreach but has aligned data center policy with his Energy Policy Task Force, insisting that developers "need to pay their way so that North Carolina residents don't bear the costs of their massive energy consumption."
The U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of mostly-Democratic governors, has already enacted policies exceeding Trump's pledge. Member states including Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have established stronger commitments. Nikki Burnett, a spokesperson for the alliance, pointed to these concrete actions as proof that Democratic-led states are moving faster and further than the nonbinding White House framework.
The Enforcement Problem
The pledge's central weakness is enforcement. Tech companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft signed their own version in March, committing to pay full costs for electric infrastructure and offering backup power to prevent blackouts. But without legal teeth, these promises depend on negotiations between corporations and state utilities—a dynamic that historically favors well-resourced companies over residential ratepayers.
Federal forecasts predict electricity costs will rise significantly in coming years. Some House Democrats have pushed further than the pledge, calling for a nationwide data center moratorium. Others are seeking to codify the president's framework into law. The divide reflects competing visions: one that relies on corporate self-regulation and market mechanisms, another that sees direct government intervention as necessary to protect consumers from bearing the costs of AI infrastructure expansion.
In January, Trump and a bipartisan group of governors did call on the PJM Interconnection—the largest power grid operator in the United States—to hold an emergency auction for tech companies to buy power. That moment of bipartisan cooperation suggests the issue can transcend party lines. But the current pledge strategy suggests the administration is more interested in securing corporate buy-in than in ensuring accountability to ratepayers.
Why This Matters:
Artificial intelligence infrastructure is reshaping America's energy landscape, and the question of who pays is fundamentally about fairness and power. When data center costs are socialized—spread across all ratepayers—while profits remain private, it represents a transfer of wealth from ordinary households to tech companies. Democratic governors are using state authority to prevent that outcome; the Trump administration's nonbinding pledge leaves the outcome to corporate discretion and state-by-state negotiation. Federal forecasts predict electricity costs will rise further, meaning this isn't a theoretical debate—it's about whether families can afford to keep the lights on. The competing approaches reveal how urgently states believe they need to act: some through binding executive action, others through pledges. The stakes for working families and fixed-income households are substantial.