{"slug": "ai-first-how-the-federal-government-is-prioritizing-ai-over-people-and-planet", "title": "AI First: How the Federal Government Is Prioritizing AI over People and Planet", "summary": "The federal government is prioritizing artificial intelligence over people and the planet by implementing an 'AI First' national strategy, dismantling environmental protections to accelerate data center construction, and enacting corporate-friendly tax policies that allowed Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet to avoid $50 billion in federal taxes in 2025 alone, according to a report from the Climate and Community Institute and Revolving Door Project.", "body_md": "# AI First: How the Federal Government is Prioritizing AI Over People and Planet\n\nThe data center boom shows that world-altering infrastructure can rapidly expand when the interests of state and capital are aligned.\n\n[Winston Yau](https://climateandcommunity.org/bio/winston-yau/),\n\n[Matt Haugen](https://climateandcommunity.org/bio/matthew-haugen/), Jesse Goldstein, Dustin Mulvaney, Hannah Story Brown, Kenny Stancil,\n\n[Sarah Knuth](https://climateandcommunity.org/bio/sarah-knuth/)\n\n# Executive summary\n\n**three key ways in which the federal government is facilitating the AI boom:**\n\n**AI First national strategy:** Asserting the AI “race” as a national strategic priority by entrenching it within the state bureaucracy and propping up the industry’s business model through government procurement, particularly in militarism and surveillance. This also entails weakening and neglecting to enforce antitrust law and a revolving door of influence peddling that allows AI-investors to shape federal policy from within, resulting in a sense that AI is too strategic to fail.**Antisocial infrastructure:** Dismantling environmental protections and accelerating permitting reform in the name of “removing red tape” and warping electricity infrastructure around data centers. This entails boosting and selectively refusing to regulate fossil fuel power plants and backup generators that opens up hundreds of billions of dollars in additional revenues for data centers. It also includes demanding that costly and inefficient coal, oil, and gas plants delay their retirement, which—if expanded across all carbon-polluting plants slated for retirement—could potentially cause $3 billion in costs to ratepayers and cause tens of thousands of excess deaths, alongside enormous additional health damages from particulate and ozone pollution each year they remain open.**Paying for the party:** Enacting corporate-friendly fiscal and market policies, such as low corporate and high-earner tax rates that allow for significant cash reserves to be deployed and used as collateral. For example, just three of the companies driving the AI boom (Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet) avoided $50 billion in federal taxes in 2025 alone. This strategy also includes providing infrastructure tax breaks and public subsidies, and intervening domestically and internationally to “secure” the natural resource base for critical minerals, semiconductor supply chains, and the rest of the AI technology stack.\n\n#### The federal government enabled three companies to avoid **$50 billion** in taxes in 2025 alone, increasing cash reserves for rapid AI buildout.\n\nAlphabet, Meta, and Amazon owed **$65 billion** in 2025 at the full corporate tax rate of 21%.\n\n**$15.3 billion**…\n\nand pocketed **$49.7 billion** for corporate AI buildout instead of public goods.\n\n**Source:** Climate and Community Institute and Revolving Door Project, using data compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.\n\nData center illustration by\n\n[1](#fn-1)[macrovector](https://www.magnific.com/free-vector/datacenter-server-cloud-computing-isometric-interior-composition_4027519.htm)on Magnific.\n\n**CCI’s “Green Economic Populism” framework is an example of such an approach, one which aligns policies that bring immediate relief to working people with building a dynamic public sector that can enact the robust regulations and enormous green investments needed to realize a better future for all.**\n\n[2](#fn-2)**five pillars of a green and democratically planned policy agenda** that abides by shared environmentally and socially just values and prioritizes human dignity.\n\n- Contest Big Tech’s scale and desired expansion with democratic planning. It is necessary to develop a means of slowing and right-sizing the overbuild and overdeployment of AI and AI data centers, including decommissioning excessive private data centers and developing publicly owned computing infrastructure. That requires expanding public control over our economy with a national economic and resource planning authority.\n- Build and invest in a grid for social priorities. The AI buildout has revealed a severely undermaintained US electricity grid, but expanding it to meet AI’s needs will not conveniently meet the needs of working people. A federal public power authority could instead invest in and prioritize socially useful electrification needs.\n- Expand public investments that put people and the planet first. Rather than picking up scraps from Big Tech’s hyper-speculation, alternative government spending could meet working people’s needs with socially useful and ecologically sustainable infrastructure. A National Investment Authority could facilitate such investments in equitably distributed and durable ways.\n- Center the need for well-paid jobs with dignity across the labor market. Resistance to AI and data centers should be coupled with affirmation of working peoples’ dignity and their irreplaceable skills and creativity. A federal jobs guarantee could provide much-needed green public sector work which could backstop workers from disruptive effects of AI. This renewed and emboldened state capacity should provide a floor—both in compensation and quality of work—that raises the level of dignity and security throughout the labor force.\n- Fight Big Tech’s dystopian visions and increase public leverage over AI firms and technologies. A new vision for AI could center on human ingenuity, creativity, and know-how. Doing so requires expanding public control by breaking Big Tech’s monopolistic powers, massively increasing taxes on the rich and corporations, and enacting prohibitions on the most societally harmful uses of AI technologies.\n\n# Introduction\n\n[3](#fn-3)\n\n[4](#fn-4)The ways that the government is prioritizing AI reshapes who bears costs and who controls resources. It also influences whose claims on the government to steer industrial policy, investments, and resource allocation are deemed legitimate.\n\n[5](#fn-5)But it is much harder to “manufacture” energy infrastructure. Access to electricity is emerging as the main obstacle to data center expansion, and Big Tech is quickly becoming agnostic about its energy sources as it rushes to get tons of new natural gas generation capacity built to power its data centers.\n\n[6](#fn-6)Not long ago, the titans of Silicon Valley were championing clean energy and climate action; now Google has shifted from already shaky claims of climate neutrality, while Microsoft’s emissions have grown by a third since 2020.\n\n[7](#fn-7)\n\n[8](#fn-8)**What is AI, and what is a data center?**\n\n## The overbuilding of AI data centers\n\nWhile data centers have been around for years providing various cloud network services and data storage, they are increasingly intended for AI training and usage. This means that AI data centers are significantly larger in size, energy consumption workloads, operational complexity, and cost.\n\n[9](#fn-9)A subset of these are operated by “hyperscalers,” which are “large-scale cloud computing providers that operate massive data centers to support global digital services,” such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.\n\n[10](#fn-10)Conventional data centers have an energy demand of approximately 5–10 megawatts (MW) while a hyperscale, AI-focused data center requires at least 100 MW, consuming as much electricity annually as approximately 80,000 households.\n\n[11](#fn-11)Meta’s Hyperion AI data center campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana, is 5 GW, which is more than enough electricity for every home in the state of New Jersey.\n\n[12](#fn-12)The company is paying to power the facility with 10 new gas-fired power plants.\n\n[13](#fn-13)\n\n[14](#fn-14)#### While conventional data centers demand up to 10 MW of energy, Meta’s latest AI data center demands 500 times that amount.\n\nThe data center buildout is creating years-long backlogs in key energy infrastructure such as high-voltage and distribution transformers and switchgear systems.\n\n[16](#fn-16)\n\n[17](#fn-17)Manufacturers were already at full capacity with backlogged orders, and now must add replacements for destroyed Gulf infrastructure to their queues. In fact, even with sufficient intent, it is not clear that the physical industrial capacity exists to meaningfully speed up production of some of these key infrastructural elements.\n\n[18](#fn-18)## AI that deskills, rather than empowers\n\nOne estimate assesses that “hyperscalers have invested over $560 billion into AI technology and data centers between 2024 and 2025 and have reported revenues of just $35 billion.”\n\n[19](#fn-19)Their anticipated profits, should they materialize, will require a customer base willing to pay significantly more for AI services (or willing to accept a lesser product overrun with ads). When it comes to enterprise customers, these costs will only be justified if AI delivers either expanded productivity and revenues or reductions in labor force expenses. This last point cannot be emphasized enough: a core part of the AI value proposition to its customers (and investors) is a promise to displace workers with AI programs that can do the same work—or close enough—for lower costs. Once dependency on these programs is firmly established, particularly within firms, public organizations, and other enterprise customers, AI service providers can ratchet up prices.\n\n[20](#fn-20)Instead, it is likelier that we will continue to see AI deployed in ways that further concentrate power in the hands of those who already have it—entities like employers, landlords, law enforcement, and dominant corporations—while pushing negative externalities like increased air, water, and noise pollution onto communities, and raising consumer costs of everything from electricity to algorithmically priced-up products of all sorts.\n\n[21](#fn-21)The tech industry has chosen a path for AI development that values scale and market domination at escalating costs. With its ballooning energy demands overwhelmingly met by polluting energy sources, the AI industry has proven its willingness to sacrifice climate change mitigation and the clean energy transition to its own rapacious appetite for power.\n\n[22](#fn-22)\n\n[23](#fn-23)Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year was “slop,” a reference to the increasingly ubiquitous LLM-generated content polluting the internet. AI is adding to and intensifying labor for workers as they increasingly take on a greater range of tasks with less focus and are incentivized to produce “workslop,” or “AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.”\n\n[24](#fn-24)\n\n[25](#fn-25)Polling consistently finds that US residents are much more concerned about AI than excited about it and desire greater regulation and control over these technologies, with opposition to data centers rising dramatically.\n\n[26](#fn-26)A recent NBC News survey found that 46 percent of voters feel negatively about AI while only 26 percent feel positively, and 57 percent believe that the risks of AI outweigh the benefits while 34 percent believe the benefits outweigh the risks.\n\n[27](#fn-27)\n\n[28](#fn-28)# AI First: manufacturing a global AI race that most people do not want to be running\n\n**What seems unique to this moment is how this new state-supported technology’s most palpable effects are to increase the cost of living; degrade the quality of the creative economy, information environment, and education system; and threaten large numbers of workers across sectors with wage stagnation, slowed hiring, reduced bargaining power, deskilling, or unemployment.**\n\nThe government's interest in these technologies deepens ties with dystopian visions of surveillance and autonomous warfare capacities under the auspices of continuing US technological dominance and hegemony, as starkly evidenced by how the Trump administration has used AI extensively in its brutal campaigns of mass deportation and the war on Iran. While the US government’s post-9/11 affinity for mass surveillance and curtailing of individual freedoms and rights are well-established and predate this current technology cycle (e.g., the Patriot Act), AI is undeniably an accelerant. The “AI race” framing is doing important ideological work toward the erosion of civil liberties and democratic institutions, with serious material consequences to people’s everyday lives.\n\n[29](#fn-29)\n\n[30](#fn-30)What we see happening now goes much deeper than simply relying on the state as a source of seed funding. Some of the most lucrative and foundational forms of state support for AI involve the integration and coordinating control of venture capital with the state, leading to a situation where those most heavily invested in the AI technology stack can simply help lobby, shape, legislate and regulate their market into existence. Writer Sinead O’Sullivan calls this “venture developmentalism,” a process “where the instruments of capitalism serve as extensions of industrial strategy, and industrial strategy doubles as asset protection.”\n\n[31](#fn-31)The result is that dominant firms and their investors direct national resources toward their preferred technological future instead of the public interest.\n\n[32](#fn-32)For example, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer wrote two open letters in 2025 outlining their firm’s desired federal AI policies.\n\n[33](#fn-33)OpenAI wants the US government to provide them financing, skilled workers, and electrons, stating that they want to “ensure that frontier AI systems protect American national security interests, including through federal agency adoption.”\n\n[34](#fn-34)OpenAI’s “freedom-focused policy proposals” are structured around a supposedly existential battle between the United States and China’s “[Chinese Communist Party]-built autocratic, authoritarian AI.”\n\n[35](#fn-35)Firms like OpenAI are positioning themselves as key players in a new “space race” that the United States cannot afford to lose in exchange for license to continue their unbridled growth. With significant financial and political power, and a national economic strategy pinned entirely on AI infrastructure, these companies might very well gain the deregulation and agenda-setting concessions they are seeking.\n\n[36](#fn-36)\n\n[37](#fn-37)## Too strategic to fail: state-sponsored oligopoly in the name of geopolitical dominance\n\nAs these corporations accumulate economy-warping power, the government is largely forgoing any opportunities to set consumer, environmental, or public safety guardrails on these technologies.\n\n[38](#fn-38)Framed as a means to cost-containment, geopolitical strategy, and national economic progress, this shift in government policy and practice functions as a massive transfer of public resources and power to private firms and investors.\n\n[39](#fn-39)\n\n[40](#fn-40)However, these efforts were hampered not only by litigation timelines that outlast administrations, but also by a sometimes conflicted judiciary and outdated interpretations of antitrust law. Up against time, an entrenched status quo, and acquiescent Democrats in Congress, the Biden administration made limited strides in undoing decades of corporate and ideological capture of the US government to target the tech oligopoly.\n\n[41](#fn-41)\n\n[42](#fn-42)The administration also launched a DOJ task force in January 2026 to challenge state AI regulation.\n\n[43](#fn-43)The administration is arguing that unraveling Big Tech’s power could see the AI boom grind to a halt, allowing international competitors to gain footing while “[threatening] to stifle innovation.”\n\n[44](#fn-44)\n\n[45](#fn-45)Big Tech CEOs have lavished Trump with money and praise. With around 70 percent of global AI supercomputing power currently located in the United States, and US-based AI firms being uniquely committed to the scale-above-all approach to AI deployment, they have a lot riding on the president’s favor.\n\n[46](#fn-46)\n\n[47](#fn-47)Google brought up a similar argument in its antitrust case, suggesting that it would be too risky to break it up amidst the major technological transformation (toward AI) that they are helping to drive.\n\n[48](#fn-48)\n\n[49](#fn-49)Of course, the opposite is also true: bigger and fewer firms with oligopolistic control over AI means owners and financiers of these firms have leverage to bend and transform the objectives of the state to meet their economic interests.\n\n[50](#fn-50)\n\n[51](#fn-51)Big Tech firms were already becoming significant defense contractors before the AI boom. For example, the Pentagon inked a joint $9 billion contract with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle for cloud computing in 2022.\n\n[52](#fn-52)However, some of the largest AI companies were at first resistant to US military use of their AI tools, in part due to internal worker organizing. As scholar Nick Srnicek documented, “At the start of 2024, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI were united against military use of their AI tools. But over the next 12 months, something changed.”\n\n[53](#fn-53)All four companies reversed their previous stances and joined unabashedly jingoistic firms like Palantir and Anduril in the AI weapons contracting business.\n\n[54](#fn-54)\n\n[55](#fn-55)While AI-related contracts have so far only represented modest sums relative to the total (and anticipated) revenue of the large AI firms, their potential value far surpasses the immediate returns. The contracts represent a deepening of state lock-in for service providers, with the goal of making their infrastructure so inextricably interwoven with government systems so as to prove very difficult to replace—and potentially positioning the companies as too important to let fail.\n\n[56](#fn-56)\n\n[57](#fn-57)The Trump administration has responded by designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” which would prevent the company from doing business with the government and potentially even other federal contractors.\n\n[58](#fn-58)However, this clash obscures the fact that surveillance abroad and killing people with weapons that are not fully autonomous do not violate Anthropic’s principles, that Anthropic’s Claude model has already been used extensively by the US military in strikes in Iran, and that CEO Dario Amodei has framed AI as an existential battle with China—with all of the cold war and militarist implications that entails.\n\n[59](#fn-59)As of this writing, the courts have sided with Anthropic, saying the supply chain risk designation was likely an infringement on freedom of speech.\n\n[60](#fn-60)Anthropic’s gambit could lead to a better position with future Democratic administrations despite its hawkish and militarist orientation. In the meantime, Claude vaulted from relative obscurity to become the most-downloaded app in the United States in the immediate aftermath of Hegseth’s escalation.\n\n[61](#fn-61)\n\n[62](#fn-62)As long as this level of federal spending persists, so will the military-industrial complex and the attendant allocation of resources and technological development toward violent ends rather than socially useful ones. Now that we have established the core linkage between AI data centers and distinctly antisocial purposes of death and destruction, we will turn our attention toward how the state systematically pushes to insulate data center developers and their financiers from any popular challenges on environmental protection.\n\n[63](#fn-63)# Antisocial infrastructure: denying social and ecological priorities to facilitate highly polluting development\n\n[64](#fn-64)Instead of encouraging clean local energy, federal policy is pushing data centers into many of these communities instead.\n\n[65](#fn-65)\n\n[66](#fn-66)One study places the total public health costs of US data centers by 2030 as comparable to those of California on-road car emissions, and emphasizes those costs would also disproportionately fall on marginalized populations, with one study estimating “the per-household health burden [nationwide] could be 200x more than that in less-impacted communities.”\n\n[67](#fn-67)Across the country, this ballooning footprint is replicated. A new Wired analysis found that natural gas-powered data centers in the United States could increase greenhouse gas pollution each year by 129 million metric tons, more than entire countries, and a Nature study found AI servers could come with an annual water footprint of 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters.\n\n[68](#fn-68)\n\n[69](#fn-69)Many of these policy ideas have outlived Biden’s term and were reflected in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and executive orders related to data center infrastructure and permitting reform. These new policies hollow out environmental protections and deregulate polluting energy infrastructure and other industrial projects.\n\n[70](#fn-70)Deregulation derisks data center construction, signaling to markets that governance will prioritize Big Tech’s transgressions over working people’s health and cost of living.\n\n[71](#fn-71)\n\n[72](#fn-72)In the Fiscal Responsibility Act, Congress imposed arbitrary deadlines of environmental assessments and environmental impact statements to under a year and under two years respectively.\n\n[73](#fn-73)Doing so limits nuance in evaluating projects and cuts back on time to redesign projects in response to local conditions, without providing the necessary administrative capacity to accelerate review. The OBBBA further cut down the deadline for an environmental impact statement to under a year for developers willing to pay.\n\n[74](#fn-74)In July 2025, Trump issued an executive order that required the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and federal agencies to find ways to expedite data center approval by modifying regulations promulgated under NEPA; the Clean Air Act; the Clean Water Act; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA); and the Toxic Substances Control Act.\n\n[75](#fn-75)\n\n[76](#fn-76)\n\n[77](#fn-77)#### Regulatory and administrative subsidies\n\nESTIMATED VALUE OVER THE LIFE OF THE SUBSIDY PROGRAM OR POLICY:\n\n$ = billions $$ = tens of billions $$$ = hundreds of billions $$$$ = trillions\n\n|\nPolicy intervention |\nFunction and ultimate benefit to data center buildout |\nWho benefits? |\nValue of policy/direct or hidden subsidies |\n|\nTariff exemptions |\nAvoid tariffs for computer parts (incl. GPUs) placed on similar products from similar regions |\nData center owners and developers, IT supply chains |\n$$ |\n|\nExport control of chips |\nPrevent China from obtaining advanced semiconductor supply chain outputs to ostensibly maintain the US AI lead |\nDebatable\n|\nDebatable |\n|\nSiting data centers and associated infrastructure on federal lands |\nAvoided costs from preferential access to federal infrastructure and assets managed by DOE and DOD |\nData center owners and developers |\n$$ |\n|\nNational Environmental Policy Act reforms and Categorical Exclusions for data centers |\nDerisks projects and accelerates permitting timelines by shortening public participation and review period |\nData center owners and developers; big tech/cloud firms; natural gas, coal, nuclear power developers |\n$$$ (Regulatory certainty derisks finance and can decrease time to recoup investments) |\n|\nClean Air Act reforms to New Source Review |\nAvoids mitigations and allows fossil fueled generation and lower upfront-cost backup generators by changing definitions |\ndata center owners; big tech/cloud firms; fossil fuel power developers |\n|\n|\nClean Water Act inclusion into nationwide permit under Section 404 and Section\n10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act |\nDeregulation and expedited review of projects that require dredging, filling wetlands, or land conversion |\nData center owners and developers |\n|\n|\nToxic Substances Control Act and backdooring of PFAS/PFOA |\nDeregulation and expedited review of projects that use cooling chemicals containing PFAS/PFOA |\nData center owners and developers; cooling chemical manufacturers |\n|\n|\nInclusion of data centers under FAST-41 |\nCoordinates and expedites environmental review timelines among federal agencies |\nData center owners and developers |\n\n## Pushing past fossil fuel retirement and causing volatile and high energy prices\n\n[84](#fn-84)**If Trump expands his mandate across all 54 carbon-polluting plants slated for retirement, it could incur an additional $3 billion in ratepayer costs and cause tens of thousands of excess deaths, alongside enormous additional health damages from particulate and ozone pollution per year that they remain open.**\n\n[85](#fn-85)This, in turn, enables future raising of capital to build additional data centers, and thus expands the potential bubble further. This is before accounting for other direct subsidies or federal land leasing.\n\n[86](#fn-86)\n\n[87](#fn-87)\n\n[88](#fn-88)## Energy abundance for AI, unaffordability for everyone else\n\nInsufficient and oligopolistic industrial capacity makes it difficult to build out necessary supply chains for components needed for clean and resilient energy. Liberalized power markets without deliberate coordination of supply and demand help create price spikes. Undemocratic governance of utilities means public input cannot determine grid access terms and resource planning questions. All of these issues, already exposed by the budding addition of renewable power during the IRA’s implementation, are now bringing the grid to the brink.\n\n[89](#fn-89)At the same time, the federal government eagerly commandeered grid governance to prioritize connecting data centers to the grid, while paying lip service to affordability and leaving grid reliability as afterthought.\n\n[90](#fn-90)To do so, they weaponized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) authority and provisions from the Federal Power Act. The federal government is tying grid buildout to the growth of unpopular data centers and fossil capital. Data centers may “consume a majority of all power delivered by the utility,” which can mean utilities prioritize cheaper rates for data centers.\n\n[91](#fn-91)A strained, marketized grid with these unplanned infrastructure additions means\n\n[92](#fn-92)**more price spikes, higher overall prices, dirtier air and water, locally unwanted data center and energy infrastructure, and less reliable energy.**\n\n[93](#fn-93)## Enabling private equity to rob ratepayers and hijack utility planning\n\nAs the Center for Biological Diversity uncovers, private equity firm Blackstone’s takeover of the New Mexico utility TXNM, for instance, is filled with “cross-subsidization” issues. Blackstone owns electricity component suppliers like MacLean Power Systems and Power Grid Components, co-owns and finances upstream energy producers that could provide reliable energy supply and AI data center deals downstream, who could access favorable rates from TXNM.\n\n[94](#fn-94)These deals often involve minimal rate protection sweeteners and clean energy investments, while ceding control over future investments, rate decisions, and allocation of energy sources to private equity.\n\n[95](#fn-95)Private equity’s troubling history of looting and exploitation in other industries is well-documented, and the implications for electricity users are troubling.\n\n[96](#fn-96)\n\n[97](#fn-97)At the same time, there is a major Google hyperscaler data center proposal right next to a Minnesota Power substation.\n\n[98](#fn-98)Even if Blackrock and Blackstone are not specifically involved in these deals, they are major financiers and, in some cases, shareholders of data center developers where they benefit from data centers getting electricity access to commence operations (Blackrock for instance owns a little less than 7 percent of Google).\n\n[99](#fn-99)Yet all three institutions approved this takeover swiftly, routing power from public to private hands via deliberate regulatory and antitrust nonenforcement. One way a more robust regulatory state could have intervened would have been for each of these named authorities to scrutinize the potential conflicts of interests far more closely and to reject these attempts at consolidating energy entities for AI data centers.\n\n[100](#fn-100)#### Infrastructure and utility governance subsidies\n\nESTIMATED VALUE OVER THE LIFE OF THE SUBSIDY PROGRAM OR POLICY:\n\n$ = billions $$ = tens of billions $$$ = hundreds of billions $$$$ = trillions\n\n|\nPolicy intervention |\nFunction and ultimate benefit to data center buildout |\nWho benefits? |\nValue of policy/direct or hidden subsidies |\n|\nFERC requires regional transmission operators to conduct reliability procurement reform |\nPolicy signal that favors fossil fuel generation even at higher long-term financial cost to ratepayers |\nData center owners and developers, utilities |\n$ |\n|\nFERC order on large-load interconnection |\nCommandeering authority on data centers with co-located generation that have transmission-level impacts to coordinate faster interconnections for these assets |\nData center owners and energy developers |\n$$$\n|\n|\nDOE 202(c) must-run orders under Federal Powers Act for fossil fuel power\nplants to continue operating |\nForcing polluting and costly plants to stay open at working ratepayers’ expense |\nData center owners and developers |\n$$$ |\n|\n$625 million for coal upgrades |\nForcing polluting and costly plants to stay open at taxpayers’ expense |\nData center owners and developers, coal plant operators |\n<$ |\n|\n13 million acres of federal land for coal mining |\nDegrading federal lands to ensure fuel supply for data center power demand |\nData center owners and developers, coal mine operators |\n$$$ |\n|\nNuclear executive orders |\nChanges regulatory structure to accelerate reactor licensing, fuel supply chain actions, advanced reactor deployment |\nData center owners and developers, advanced nuclear and supply chain companies |\n$$ |\n|\nRegulatory non-enforcement on private equity buyout of utilities |\nAllows for better coordination of private equity interests in powering new data centers |\nData center owners and developers, private equity |\n$$ |\n\n# Paying for the party: federal financial support for the AI boom\n\nThere have been several examples where the Trump administration used a combination of equity stakes, warrants, debt service, guaranteed loans, and price floors to boost investments up and down the supply chain to support an AI-centered, even if incoherent, vision.\n\n[104](#fn-104)This should be read as an expansion of Biden administration policy rather than departure from it. For instance, the CHIPS Act of 2022 has resulted in the dispersal of more than $40 billion in grants and loans to 52 projects to establish a domestic semiconductor supply chain, with significant amounts of that capacity enabling the mass manufacturing of chips to fill data centers.\n\n[105](#fn-105)\n\n[106](#fn-106)\n\n[107](#fn-107)#### Direct expenditures\n\nESTIMATED VALUE OVER THE LIFE OF THE SUBSIDY PROGRAM OR POLICY:\n\n$ = billions $$ = tens of billions $$$ = hundreds of billions $$$$ = trillions\n\n|\nPolicy intervention |\nFunction and ultimate benefit to data center buildout |\nWho benefits? |\nValue of Policy/Direct or Hidden Subsidies |\n|\nDirect investments (incl. equity stakes, warrants, debt service, guaranteed loans, and price floors) |\nControl over supply chains, improved access to credit/borrowing terms, potential to guarantee offtake/buyer |\nTech companies, critical mineral and rare earth extraction and processing firms, downstream buyers, defense companies |\n$$ |\n|\nCHIPS Act investments to build out semiconductor manufacturing facilities |\nSubsidize buildout of semiconductor factories that create infrastructure without direction for what socially useful application that infrastructure is supposed to support |\nSemi-conductor firms, data center developers and owners |\n$$ |\n|\nUSDA (incl. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and IRA grants for broadband and rural power), American Rescue Plan Act investments |\nDirect capital support for digital and power infrastructure for data centers, improve revenue certainty for bigger tech risks |\nData center owners and developers, IT supply chains |\n$$$\n|\n|\nGrants and loans from the Export-Import Bank of the US (EXIM) and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) |\nSupport export of AI (incl. Expanding DFC’s lending capacity by $140B) |\nData center owners and developers, IT supply chains |\n$$$ |\n|\nGrants, procurement and loans from Small Business Administration, Federal Reserve, NSF, and DOE |\nStood up firms along the AI value chain and support with demand and direct capital injection |\nData center owners and developers, IT supply chains |\nN/A (difficult to quantify) |\n\n## Tax “breaks” are actually just corporate handouts\n\nThat economic thought has become mainstream policy, and the data center boom is just the latest iteration.\n\n[109](#fn-109)Lower corporate tax rates function as a form of government spending. However, this type of expenditure allows corporations to retain more cash reserves and increase their collateral, which Big Tech has been using to finance AI development and data centers at a worldmaking scale exceeding that of the interstate highway or New Deal buildout as a percentage of GDP.\n\n[110](#fn-110)\n\n[111](#fn-111)## Intensified corporate tax avoidance\n\nFor context, the top marginal rate was 52 percent in the 1950s.\n\n[112](#fn-112)A clear consequence of lowering the corporate tax rate is that revenue collected as a percentage of GDP fell from almost 6 percent in 1952 to less than 2 percent in 2024.\n\n[113](#fn-113)Making matters worse, the OBBBA, a Trump-backed Republican budget reconciliation package enacted in July 2025, extended certain tax breaks for big businesses and established new ones.\n\n[114](#fn-114)\n\n[115](#fn-115)While these firms have many options at their disposal for reducing the amount they pay, TCJA lowered the ceiling of social responsibility.\n\n[116](#fn-116)#### The federal government enabled three companies to avoid **$50 billion** in taxes in 2025 alone, increasing cash reserves for rapid AI buildout.\n\nAlphabet, Meta, and Amazon owed **$65 billion** in 2025 at the full corporate tax rate of 21%.\n\n**$15.3 billion**…\n\nand pocketed **$49.7 billion** for corporate AI buildout instead of public goods.\n\nCorporation | Taxes owed at 21% rate | Expected federal tax bill | Amount of tax avoided |\nAmazon | $18.7 billion | $1.2 billion | $17.5 billion |\nMeta (Facebook) | $16.6 billion | $2.8 billion | $13.8 billion |\nAlphabet (Google) | $29.7 billion | $11.3 billion | $18.4 billion |\nTotal | $65.0 billion | $15.3 billion | $49.7 billion |\n\n**Source:** Climate and Community Institute and Revolving Door Project, using data compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.\n\nData center illustration by\n\n[117](#fn-117)[macrovector](https://www.magnific.com/free-vector/datacenter-server-cloud-computing-isometric-interior-composition_4027519.htm)on Magnific.\n\n[118](#fn-118)## Tax policy as a feedback loop for oligopolistic political power\n\nA team of University of California, Berkeley economists estimated that “the total effective tax rate—all taxes paid relative to economic income—of the top 0.0002 percent (approximately the ‘top 400’) averaged 24 percent in 2018–2020 compared with 30 percent for the full population and 45 percent for top labor income earners.”\n\n[119](#fn-119)According to the study, “The top-400 effective tax rate fell from 30 percent in 2010–2017 to 24 percent in 2018–2020.”\n\n[120](#fn-120)This is a long way from the 50 percent effective rate that the top 0.1 percent paid in 1945.\n\n[121](#fn-121)Billionaires have used money gained from tax avoidance to bankroll reactionary or pro-status quo candidates, lobby for upwardly redistributive policies, buy media outlets, or otherwise undermine democracy.\n\n[122](#fn-122)In the 2026 midterm elections alone, Meta is projected to spend $65 million in Illinois and Texas.\n\n[123](#fn-123)Likewise, a new $100 million Leading the Future PAC funded by Open AI, Palantir, and AI venture capital firms is flooding cynical ads (often not even mentioning AI) against candidates who support AI regulations.\n\n[124](#fn-124)And beyond elections, the top nine AI-related tech companies spent more than $95 million on lobbying in 2025 alone.\n\n[125](#fn-125)\n\n[126](#fn-126)## Accelerated depreciation to accelerate capital—speed, scale, and speculation\n\nThus, these tax expenditures accelerate the accumulation of risks to the entire financial system, which has severe potential consequences downstream for working people.\n\n[127](#fn-127)Even if demand for these data centers drops, gas plants run for decades and leave behind both a financial liability and a polluting legacy for years to come.\n\n[128](#fn-128)#### Tax code expenditures\n\nESTIMATED VALUE OVER THE LIFE OF THE SUBSIDY PROGRAM OR POLICY:\n\n$ = billions $$ = tens of billions $$$ = hundreds of billions $$$$ = trillions\n\nPolicy intervention | Function and ultimate benefit to data center buildout | Who benefits? | Value of policy/direct or hidden subsidies |\nLow corporate income tax rate | Increases cash reserves on hand that allow for greater political spending, and collateral that can be used to borrow larger sums against | Data center owners and developers | $$$$ |\n100% bonus depreciation on qualified property | Improves cash flow of private companies by allowing accelerated write-off of data center equipment and buildings | Data center owners and developers, IT supply chains | $$$ |\nModified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) accelerated depreciation | Tax treatment that allows assets to rapidly depreciate so companies can write off taxes earlier; makes infrastructure/asset investments like data centers more attractive | Data center owners and developers, Big Tech/cloud firms, power sector developers | $$ |\nProduction and investment tax credits (and bonuses) | Allows geothermal, nuclear and energy storage projects to reduce tax liability by some amount, most commonly 30 percent, plus potential bonuses; reduces energy investment costs for data center developers. | “Clean firm” energy and storage companies, utilities, merchant power generators, data center owners and developers (indirectly) | $$$ |\nElimination of R&D capitalization requirement | Allows companies to immediately deduct domestic research and development costs; allows companies to recoup unamortized R&D costs that were capitalized between 2022 and 2024. | Data center owners and developers | $$ |\nTax breaks for executive stock options | Allows companies to report larger tax liabilities to the IRS and larger profits to their shareholders simultaneously | Data center companies and their executives | $$ |\nTax breaks on foreign-derived income | Enables companies to pay a lower rate on income earned from intangible assets, including various forms of intellectual property | Data center companies and their executives | $$ |\n\n[1](#fn-1) Elise Bean, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff, “How Congress Can Stop Corporations from Using Stock Options to Dodge Taxes,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, December 10, 2019, [https://itep.org/how-congress-can-stop-corporations-from-using-stock-options-to-dodge-taxes/](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://itep.org/how-congress-can-stop-corporations-from-using-stock-options-to-dodge-taxes/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1781036240441280&usg=AOvVaw1AipcCVXo7i6AygYVIfsuZ).\n\n[1](#fn-1)[2](#fn-2) Hughes, Joe, and Spandan Marasini. “Fifteen Companies Each Avoided More than $1 Billion in Taxes from a Single Trump Tax Cut,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, May 23, 2025, [https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-trump-tax-cut-fdii/](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-trump-tax-cut-fdii/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1781036240441678&usg=AOvVaw3qVeLGEfCVf91XxywfYnvO).\n\n[2](#fn-2)# People and planet first: Green Economic Populism\n\nAfter enduring more than three decades of industry-friendly bromides about the potential alignment of market forces with environmental goals, now AI’s off-the-chart energy needs are leading to one more round of industrial leaders walking back their voluntary pledges and vague commitments to “save the planet” or to achieve “net zero” while the planet continues to burn.\n\n[131](#fn-131)Big Tech’s AI offensive is an unpopular, ruling class-driven project that people are increasingly and justifiably worried about. Rather than merely accommodating and making the best of Big Tech’s buildout, these democratic assertions of power and resistance open space to collectively imagine alternative visions.\n\n[132](#fn-132)\n\n[133](#fn-133)\n\n**In other words, it is necessary to rebuild the state capacity to make choices for working people as opposed to working for AI and elite investors.**\n\nTo that end, we offer several points of alignment upon which we invite collaboration:\n\n[134](#fn-134)### 1. Contest Big Tech’s desired expansion and scale with democratic planning\n\nIt is also necessary to develop a means of slowing and right-sizing the overbuild and overdeployment of AI and AI data centers, including decommissioning excessive private data centers and developing publicly owned computing infrastructure.\n\n[135](#fn-135)**That means creating a new economic and resource planning authority capable of democratically deciding what a sufficient and sustainable number of data centers might be—as determined by social and ecological welfare, not profit motives.**\n\n### 2. Build and invest in a grid for social priorities\n\n[136](#fn-136)### 3. Expand public investments that put people and the planet first\n\nThe antidote is public investment in economically robust and environmentally sustainable regional economies and redistribution. Rather than having cyclical industry booms drive new investments,\n\n[137](#fn-137)**a National Investment Authority can help deliver more equitably distributed and durable economic investments, such as those that meet local needs for social housing, broadband, accessible public transportation, water and energy infrastructure.**\n\nThat will also require bolstering local governance and civic capacity to conduct spatial planning of infrastructure and develop the alternative industries that communities desire.\n\n[138](#fn-138)### 4. Center the need for well-paid jobs with dignity across the labor market\n\nThe only way to unite labor against the AI First agenda is to offer a material alternative: a people- and planet-first agenda that offers working people a meaningful and secure alternative ready to hire (and train) skilled workers\n\n[139](#fn-139)*today*, not in some hypothetical future.\n\n### 5. Fight Big Tech’s dystopian visions and increase public leverage over AI firms and technologies\n\n**This includes dramatically increased taxes on the rich and strict regulations on political spending, alongside reimagining and reinvigorating antitrust law to more strongly consider market architecture and a diversity of objectives beyond geopolitical supremacy and consumer access.**\n\nThis must include wholesale prohibitions on the most societally harmful uses of AI technologies. “No” has to be a viable answer.\n\n[140](#fn-140)- Matthew Gardner, “Four Big Tech Companies Avoid $51 Billion in Taxes in Wake of One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, February 6, 2026,\n[https://itep.org/trump-meta-tesla-alphabet-amazon-obbba-taxes/](https://itep.org/trump-meta-tesla-alphabet-amazon-obbba-taxes/).[↩](#fnref-1) - Patrick Bigger et. al., “Stop Greed, Build Green: A Working Class Climate Strategy,” Climate and Community Institute, April 2026,\n[https://stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/posts/strategy](https://stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/posts/strategy); Climate and Community Institute, “Stop Greed, Build Green: A Working Class Climate Agenda,” April 2026,[https://stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/posts/agenda](https://stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/posts/agenda).[↩](#fnref-2) - The four hyperscalers they named are Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft; Michael Cembalest, “Smothering Heights,” J.P. Morgan Private Bank, January 2026,\n[https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-pb-aem/global/cwm/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/smothering-heights-jpmwm.pdf](https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-pb-aem/global/cwm/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/smothering-heights-jpmwm.pdf).[↩](#fnref-3) - Signe-Mary McKernan et al., “The American Affordability Tracker,” The Urban Institute, accessed April 8, 2026,\n[https://www.urban.org/data-tools/american-affordability-tracker](https://www.urban.org/data-tools/american-affordability-tracker).[↩](#fnref-4) - The White House, “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” The White House, July 2025,\n[https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf)[↩](#fnref-5) - David Dayen, “The AI Bubble is Bigger than You Think,”\n*The American Prospect,*November 19, 2025,[https://prospect.org/2025/11/19/ai-bubble-bigger-than-you-think/](https://prospect.org/2025/11/19/ai-bubble-bigger-than-you-think/). Here we define the AI industry as an amalgamation of different sectors and technologies, the biggest names of which include Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthrophic, and Google/Alphabet. The AI technology stack is oriented around business models where success hinges on military and domestic surveillance, the automation and algorithmic decision-making of public services, and widespread workplace deskilling and labor-force reductions.[↩](#fnref-6) - Rafe Rosner-Uddin, Nassos Stylianou, Dan Clark, Caroline Nevitt, and Jamie Smyth, “”The Power Crunch Threatening America’s AI ambitions,”\n*Financial Times*, December 8, 2025,[https://ig.ft.com/ai-power/](https://ig.ft.com/ai-power/).[↩](#fnref-7) - “Big Tech Backtracks on Climate Goals,” American Planning Association, accessed February 24, 2026,\n[https://planning.org/foresight/trend/9310271/](https://planning.org/foresight/trend/9310271/); Dara Kerr, “AI Brings Soaring Emissions for Google and Microsoft, a Major Contributor to Climate Change,”*NPR*, July 12, 2024,[https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/g-s1-9545/ai-brings-soaring-emissions-for-google-and-microsoft-a-major-contributor-to-climate-change](https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/g-s1-9545/ai-brings-soaring-emissions-for-google-and-microsoft-a-major-contributor-to-climate-change).[↩](#fnref-8) - American Edge Project, “America’s AI Surge: Powering Investment, Jobs, and Growth in Every State,” American Edge Project, 2025,\n[https://americanedgeproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Americas-AI-Surge-Powering-Growth-in-Every-State.pdf](https://americanedgeproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Americas-AI-Surge-Powering-Growth-in-Every-State.pdf); “USA Data Centers,” Data Center Map, accessed April 14, 2026,[https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/](https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/).[↩](#fnref-9) - Josh Saul, “What AI Bubble? BNEF Outlook for Data Center Power Use Rises 36%,”\n*Bloomberg*, December 1, 2025,[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-01/what-ai-bubble-bnef-outlook-for-data-center-power-use-rises-36](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-01/what-ai-bubble-bnef-outlook-for-data-center-power-use-rises-36).[↩](#fnref-10) - Ian Hitchcock and Merritt Cahoon, “Hyperscaler Data Center Buildout: A Sustainability Bane, Boon, or Both?,” Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Duke University, August 2025,\n[https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/hyperscaler-data-center-buildout-sustainability-bane-boon-or-both](https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/hyperscaler-data-center-buildout-sustainability-bane-boon-or-both).[↩](#fnref-11) - Thomas Spencer and Siddharth Singh, “What the Data Centre and AI Boom Could Mean for the Energy Sector,” International Energy Agency, October 18, 2024,\n[https://www.iea.org/commentaries/what-the-data-centre-and-ai-boom-could-mean-for-the-energy-sector](https://www.iea.org/commentaries/what-the-data-centre-and-ai-boom-could-mean-for-the-energy-sector); Ashley J. Lawson, Martin C. Offutt and Ling Zhu, “Data Centers and Their Energy Consumption: Frequently Asked Questions,” Congressional Research Service, January 23, 2026,[https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48646](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48646).[↩](#fnref-12) - According to the US Census American Community Survey Table DP02, 2024 1-Year Estimates, there are 3,543,944 total households in New Jersey. Applying the rate of 1 MW electricity per 800 households used by Lawson, Offutt, and Zhu, 4.5 GW could power 3.6 million households.\n[↩](#fnref-13) Riley Griffin, \"Meta's Giant AI Data Center Is Reshaping Rural Louisiana,\"\n\n*Bloomberg Businessweek*, May 18, 2026,[https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2026-meta-facebook-ai-data-center-louisiana](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2026-meta-facebook-ai-data-center-louisiana).[↩](#fnref-14)- See footnotes 12, 13, and 14.\n[↩](#fnref-15) - Electric Power Research Institute, EPRI: Data Centers Could Consume Up to 17% of U.S. Electricity by 2030, February 26, 2026,\n[https://www.epri.com/about/media-resources/press-release/trb5wwt7oemdbkaamxrccqkq2ktteae8](https://www.epri.com/about/media-resources/press-release/trb5wwt7oemdbkaamxrccqkq2ktteae8); Rebecca Leppert, “What We Know about Energy Use at U.S Data Centers amid the AI Boom,” Pew Research Center, October 24, 2025,[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/24/what-we-know-about-energy-use-at-us-data-centers-amid-the-ai-boom/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/24/what-we-know-about-energy-use-at-us-data-centers-amid-the-ai-boom/); Greg Iacurci, “AI Data Center ‘Frenzy’ is Pushing up your Electric Bill — Here’s Why,”*CNBC*, November 26, 2025,[https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/26/ai-data-center-frenzy-is-pushing-up-your-electric-bill-heres-why.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/26/ai-data-center-frenzy-is-pushing-up-your-electric-bill-heres-why.html).[↩](#fnref-16) - Brian Martucci, “Transformer, Breaker Backlogs Persist, Despite Reshoring Progress,”\n*Utility Dive*, May 29, 2025,[https://www.utilitydive.com/news/reshore-electrical-equipment-backlogs-transformer-breaker-nema/749265/](https://www.utilitydive.com/news/reshore-electrical-equipment-backlogs-transformer-breaker-nema/749265/); Simon Casey, “GE Vernova CEO Sees Order Backlog Stretching Into 2028,”*Bloomberg*, March 11, 2025,[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-11/ge-vernova-ceo-sees-order-backlog-stretching-into-2028](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-11/ge-vernova-ceo-sees-order-backlog-stretching-into-2028).[↩](#fnref-17) - Shanaka Anslem Perera, \"The Last Molecule Standing,\" Substack, March 30, 2026,\n[https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-last-molecule-standing](https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-last-molecule-standing?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6647671&post_id=192518871&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=i0ihq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email).[↩](#fnref-18) - Advait Arun, “Bubble or Nothing: Data Center Project Finance,” Center for Public Enterprise, November 2025,\n[https://publicenterprise.org/wp-content/uploads/Bubble-or-Nothing.pdf](https://publicenterprise.org/wp-content/uploads/Bubble-or-Nothing.pdf).[↩](#fnref-19) - Arun, “Bubble or Nothing: Data Center Project Finance.”\n[↩](#fnref-20) - See “Curing Cancer as the Ends to Justify All Means,” in “Artificial Power: 2025 Landscape Report,” AI Now, June 3, 2025,\n[https://ainowinstitute.org/publications/research/3-consulting-the-record-ai-consistently-fails-the-public](https://ainowinstitute.org/publications/research/3-consulting-the-record-ai-consistently-fails-the-public).[↩](#fnref-21) - Kenny Stancil, “AI Is Making Your Life More Expensive,” Revolving Door Project, January 21, 2026,\n[https://revolvingdoorproject.substack.com/p/ai-is-making-your-life-more-expensive](https://revolvingdoorproject.substack.com/p/ai-is-making-your-life-more-expensive).[↩](#fnref-22) - Molly Taft, “New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations,”\n*Wired,*April 22, 2026,[https://www.wired.com/story/new-gas-powered-data-centers-could-emit-more-greenhouse-gases-than-entire-nations/](https://www.wired.com/story/new-gas-powered-data-centers-could-emit-more-greenhouse-gases-than-entire-nations/); Michael Thomas, “Bypassing the Grid: How Data Centers Are Building Their Own Power Plants,” Cleanview, 2026,[https://cleanview.co/content/power-strategies-report](https://cleanview.co/content/power-strategies-report).[↩](#fnref-23) - “Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks from Incremental AI Development,” arXiv, accessed February 25, 2026,\n[https://arxiv.org/html/2501.16946v2](https://arxiv.org/html/2501.16946v2); Nataliya Kosmyna et al., \"Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt When using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task,\" MIT Media Lab, June 10, 2025,[https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/](https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/).[↩](#fnref-24) - Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye, “AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It,”\n*Harvard Business Review*, February 9, 2026,[https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it](https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it); Kate Niederhoffer et al., ‘AI-Generated “Workshop” Is Destroying Productivity,’*Harvard Business Review*, updated September 25, 2025,[https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity](https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity).[↩](#fnref-25) - Joe Miller, “Donald Trump’s AI push fuels revolt in Maga heartlands,”\n*Financial Times*, February 17, 2026,[https://www.ft.com/content/0c9ec7b1-f9a6-41db-9493-3ff09f6943ef](https://www.ft.com/content/0c9ec7b1-f9a6-41db-9493-3ff09f6943ef).[↩](#fnref-26) - Miller, “Donald Trump’s AI Push”; Brian Kennedy et al., “How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society,” Pew Research Center, September 17, 2025,\n[https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/how-americans-view-ai-and-its-impact-on-people-and-society/](https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/how-americans-view-ai-and-its-impact-on-people-and-society/); Ivana Saric, “Nearly all Americans Use AI, Though Most Dislike it, Poll Shows,”*Axios*, January 15, 2025,[https://www.axios.com/2025/01/15/americans-use-ai-products-poll](https://www.axios.com/2025/01/15/americans-use-ai-products-poll); Dan Gearino, “A New Unifying Issue: Just About Everyone Hates Data Centers,”*Inside Climate News*, November 13, 2025,[https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13112025/inside-clean-energy-just-about-everyone-hates-data-centers/](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13112025/inside-clean-energy-just-about-everyone-hates-data-centers/); Alexander C. Kaufman, “Data Center Support Plummets in Latest Heatmap Pro Poll,”*Heatmap*, February 26, 2026,[https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/spotlight/data-center-support-plummets-poll](https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/spotlight/data-center-support-plummets-poll).[↩](#fnref-27) - Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies, “NBC News March 2026 Poll 03-08-2024 Release FINAL,” March 2026,\n[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/27777984-nbc-news-march-2026-poll-03-08-2024-release-final/](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/27777984-nbc-news-march-2026-poll-03-08-2024-release-final/).[↩](#fnref-28) - “ILWU Statement of Policy Opposing Anti-Worker Artificial Intelligence and Automation Technologies,” The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, accessed February 25, 2026,\n[https://www.ilwu.org/ilwu-statement-of-policy-opposing-anti-worker-artificial-intelligence-and-automation-technologies](https://www.ilwu.org/ilwu-statement-of-policy-opposing-anti-worker-artificial-intelligence-and-automation-technologies/).[↩](#fnref-29) - “Advancing National Security Through Fundamental Research,” DARPA, January 2025,\n[https://www.darpa.mil/sites/default/files/attachment/2025-01/darpa-vignette-arpanet.pdf](https://www.darpa.mil/sites/default/files/attachment/2025-01/darpa-vignette-arpanet.pdf); Malcolm Harris,*Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World*(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2023).[↩](#fnref-30) - Mariana Mazzucato,\n*The Entrepreneurial State*, (London: Anthem Press, 2013).[↩](#fnref-31) - Sinéad O’Sullivan, “Honey, We Need To Talk About Venture Socialism,”\n*But This Time It’s Different*, Substack, December 12, 2025,[https://www.butthistime.com/p/honey-we-need-to-talk-about-venture-5cb](https://www.butthistime.com/p/honey-we-need-to-talk-about-venture-5cb).[↩](#fnref-32) - “War Department Launches AI Acceleration Strategy to Secure American Military AI Dominance,” U.S. Department of War, January 12, 2026,\n[https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4376420/war-department-launches-ai-acceleration-strategy-to-secure-american-military-ai](https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4376420/war-department-launches-ai-acceleration-strategy-to-secure-american-military-ai); “The War Department Unleashes AI on New GenAI.mil Platform,” U.S. Department of War, December 9, 2025,[https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4354916/the-war-department-unleashes-ai-on-new-genaimil-platform](https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4354916/the-war-department-unleashes-ai-on-new-genaimil-platform); “GSA, Meta Collaborate to Accelerate AI Adoption Across the Government,” General Services Administration, September 22, 2025,[https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-meta-collaborate-on-ai-adoption-09222025](https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-meta-collaborate-on-ai-adoption-09222025).[↩](#fnref-33) - Christopher Lehane, “OSTP/NSF RFI: Notice Request for Information on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan,” OpenAI, March 2025,\n[https://cdn.openai.com/global-affairs/ostp-rfi/ec680b75-d539-4653-b297-8bcf6e5f7686/openai-response-ostp-nsf-rfi-notice-request-for-information-on-the-development-of-an-artificial-intelligence-ai-action-plan.pdf](https://cdn.openai.com/global-affairs/ostp-rfi/ec680b75-d539-4653-b297-8bcf6e5f7686/openai-response-ostp-nsf-rfi-notice-request-for-information-on-the-development-of-an-artificial-intelligence-ai-action-plan.pdf); Christopher Lehane, “OpenAI_OSTP RFI Oct 27 2025.” OpenAI, October 2025,[https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/21b88bb5-10a3-4566-919d-f9a6b9c3e632/openai-ostp-rfi-oct-27-2025.pdf](https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/21b88bb5-10a3-4566-919d-f9a6b9c3e632/openai-ostp-rfi-oct-27-2025.pdf).[↩](#fnref-34) - Lehane, “OpenAI_OSTP RFI Oct 27 2025.”\n[↩](#fnref-35) - Lehane, “OSTP/NSF RFI: Notice Request for Information on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan.”\n[↩](#fnref-36) - Brendan Bordelon, Gabby Miller, and Yasmin Khorram, “Trump AI Czar David Sacks Starts to Worry the Industry,”\n*Politico*, December 20, 2025,[https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/20/big-tech-gets-worried-about-trumps-ai-czar-00701112](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/20/big-tech-gets-worried-about-trumps-ai-czar-00701112?nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nname=playbook&nrid=a3d2f00d-bf93-4023-a39d-6b042b5172c3); Dan Primack, “What to Know about Sriram Krishnan, Whose AI Appointment Sparked MAGA Outrage,”*Axios*, December 27, 2024,[https://www.axios.com/2024/12/27/sriram-krishnan-maga-civil-war-backlash](https://www.axios.com/2024/12/27/sriram-krishnan-maga-civil-war-backlash); Emily Birnbaum and Oma Seddiq, “Andreessen Horowitz’s Rising Influence Over Trump-Era AI Policy,”*Bloomberg*, February 10, 2026,[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-10/trump-s-ai-policy-shaped-by-vc-tech-giant-andreessen-horowitz](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-10/trump-s-ai-policy-shaped-by-vc-tech-giant-andreessen-horowitz).[↩](#fnref-37) - Alnoor Ebrahim, “OpenAI has Deleted the Word ‘Safely’ from its Mission – and its New Structure is a Test for Whether AI Serves Society or Shareholders,”\n*The Conversation*, February 13, 2026,[https://theconversation.com/openai-has-deleted-the-word-safely-from-its-mission-and-its-new-structure-is-a-test-for-whether-ai-serves-society-or-shareholders-274467](https://theconversation.com/openai-has-deleted-the-word-safely-from-its-mission-and-its-new-structure-is-a-test-for-whether-ai-serves-society-or-shareholders-274467); Akshat Rathi, “Google Is No Longer Claiming to Be Carbon Neutral,”*Bloomberg*, July 8, 2024,[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-08/google-is-no-longer-claiming-to-be-carbon-neutral?embedded-checkout=true](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-08/google-is-no-longer-claiming-to-be-carbon-neutral?embedded-checkout=true); Ketan Joshi, “The AI Climate Hoax: Behind the Curtain of How Big Tech Greenwashes Impacts,” Beyond Fossil Fuels, Stand.earth, Climate Action Against Disinformation, Green Web Foundation, Green Screen Coalition and Friends of the Earth, February 2026,[https://beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AI-for-climate-claims-Report_FEB-2026_FINAL-2-16.pdf](https://beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AI-for-climate-claims-Report_FEB-2026_FINAL-2-16.pdf); Nick Srnicek, “How AI Companies Got Caught Up in US Military Efforts,”*Wired*, January 14, 2026,[https://www.wired.com/story/book-excerpt-silicon-empires-nick-srnicek/](https://www.wired.com/story/book-excerpt-silicon-empires-nick-srnicek/#:~:text=Two%20years%20ago%2C%20companies%20like,technologies%20that%20might%20harm%20people).[↩](#fnref-38) - Brian J. Chen, “The Big AI State: How the Trump Administration is Shaping US Industrial Policy Toward “Global Technological Dominance,” Data & Society, January 2026,\n[https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/TheBigAIState.pdf](https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/TheBigAIState.pdf).[↩](#fnref-39) - A. Douglas Melamed, “Congress Hears Challenges To The Consumer Welfare Standard,”\n*JD Supra*, March 15, 2019,[https://law.stanford.edu/press/congress-hears-challenges-to-the-consumer-welfare-standard/](https://law.stanford.edu/press/congress-hears-challenges-to-the-consumer-welfare-standard/).[↩](#fnref-40) - American Economic Liberties Project, “Competition at a Crossroads: A Comparative Guide to Recent White House Records on Antimonopoly Policy,” American Economic Liberties Project, October 2024,\n[https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/20241024-aelp-biden-trump-report.pdf](https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/20241024-aelp-biden-trump-report.pdf).[↩](#fnref-41) - American Economic Liberties Project, “Competition at a Crossroads.”\n[↩](#fnref-42) - “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” The Executive Office of the President, January 2025,\n[https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/31/2025-02172/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/31/2025-02172/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence); “A National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence,” The White House, March 2026,[https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/03.20.26-National-Policy-Framework-for-Artificial-Intelligence-Legislative-Recommendations.pdf](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/03.20.26-National-Policy-Framework-for-Artificial-Intelligence-Legislative-Recommendations.pdf).[↩](#fnref-43) - Michelle Tanney, Madison Gaudreau, Kayley Sullivan, “Navigating the Emerging Federal-State AI Showdown: DOJ Establishes AI Litigation Task Force,” BakerHostetler, January 20, 2026,\n[https://www.bakerlaw.com/insights/navigating-the-emerging-federal-state-ai-showdown-doj-establishes-ai-litigation-task-force/](https://www.bakerlaw.com/insights/navigating-the-emerging-federal-state-ai-showdown-doj-establishes-ai-litigation-task-force/); Sarah Lynch and Lauren Fichten, “DOJ Creates Task Force to Challenge State AI Regulations,”*CBS News*, January 9, 2026,[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doj-creates-task-force-to-challenge-state-ai-regulations/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doj-creates-task-force-to-challenge-state-ai-regulations/).[↩](#fnref-44) - Seung Min Kim and Matt O'Brien, “White House Urges Congress To Take a Light Touch on AI Regulations in New Legislative Blueprint,”\n*PBS*, March 20, 2026,[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/white-house-urges-congress-to-take-a-light-touch-on-ai-regulations-in-new-legislative-blueprint](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/white-house-urges-congress-to-take-a-light-touch-on-ai-regulations-in-new-legislative-blueprint).[↩](#fnref-45) - “Min, Warren, Lawmakers Question Giant Corporations On Trump Ballroom Donations, Influence-Peddling with Trump Administration For Favors,” Congressman Dave Min and Senator Elizabeth Warren, December 4, 2025,\n[https://min.house.gov/media/press-releases/min-warren-lawmakers-question-giant-corporations-trump-ballroom-donations](https://min.house.gov/media/press-releases/min-warren-lawmakers-question-giant-corporations-trump-ballroom-donations).[↩](#fnref-46) - Nassos Stylianou, Sam Learner, Tim Bradshaw, Rafe Uddin, Ian Bott, Caroline Nevitt, Dan Clark and Sam Joiner, “Inside the Relentless Race for AI Capacity,”\n*Financial Times*, July 31, 2025,[https://ig.ft.com/ai-data-centres/](https://ig.ft.com/ai-data-centres/); Rick Claypool, “Big Tech Embraces Trump,” Public Citizen, April 23, 2026,[https://www.citizen.org/article/big-tech-embraces-trump-report/.](https://www.citizen.org/article/big-tech-embraces-trump-report/)[↩](#fnref-47) - Shara Tibken, “DOJ: Antitrust Ruling Against Qualcomm Could ‘Put Our Nation’s Security at Risk’,”\n*CNET*, July 16, 2019,[https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/doj-says-antitrust-ruling-against-qualcomm-could-put-our-nations-security-at-risk/](https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/doj-says-antitrust-ruling-against-qualcomm-could-put-our-nations-security-at-risk/).[↩](#fnref-48) - Lee-Anne Mulholland, “DOJ’s Sweeping Remedies Would Harm America’s Economy and Technological Leadership,”\n*Google Blog*, Apr 20, 2025,[https://blog.google/company-news/outreach-and-initiatives/public-policy/doj-search-remedies-apr-2025/](https://blog.google/company-news/outreach-and-initiatives/public-policy/doj-search-remedies-apr-2025/).[↩](#fnref-49) - Laurie Chen, “China’s Open-Source Dominance Threatens US AI Lead, US Advisory Body Warns,” Reuters, March 23, 2026,\n[https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas-open-source-dominance-threatens-us-ai-lead-us-advisory-body-warns-2026-03-23](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas-open-source-dominance-threatens-us-ai-lead-us-advisory-body-warns-2026-03-23).[↩](#fnref-50) - O’Sullivan, “Honey, We Need To Talk About Venture Socialism.”\n[↩](#fnref-51) - Stavroula Pabst, “How the Pentagon Built Silicon Valley,”\n*Responsible Statecraft*, August 20, 2024,[https://responsiblestatecraft.org/silicon-valley](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/silicon-valley); Brian J. Chen, Tina M. Park, Alex Pasternack, “Booming Military Spending on AI is a Windfall for Tech—and a Blow to Democracy,”*Tech Policy Press*, June 9, 2025,[https://www.techpolicy.press/booming-military-spending-on-ai-is-a-windfall-for-tech-and-a-blow-to-democracy](https://www.techpolicy.press/booming-military-spending-on-ai-is-a-windfall-for-tech-and-a-blow-to-democracy).[↩](#fnref-52) - Tara Copp and Matt O’Brien, “Pentagon Splits $9 Billion Cloud Contract among 4 Companies,” AP News, December 7, 2022,\n[https://apnews.com/article/technology-politics-amazoncom-inc-cloud-computing-us-department-of-defense-bfaeb3549b4d42328f35e579d7cb40b0](https://apnews.com/article/technology-politics-amazoncom-inc-cloud-computing-us-department-of-defense-bfaeb3549b4d42328f35e579d7cb40b0); Caroline Haskins, “All the Ways Big Tech Fuels ICE and CBP,”*Wired*, March 3, 2026,[https://www.wired.com/story/how-big-tech-is-powering-trumps-immigration-crackdown](https://www.wired.com/story/how-big-tech-is-powering-trumps-immigration-crackdown).[↩](#fnref-53) - Srnicek, “How AI Companies Got Caught Up in US Military Efforts.”\n[↩](#fnref-54) - Srnicek, “How AI Companies Got Caught Up in US Military Efforts”; Tom Simonite, “3 Years After the Project Maven Uproar, Google Cozies to the Pentagon,”\n*Wired*, November 18, 2021,[https://www.wired.com/story/3-years-maven-uproar-google-warms-pentagon](https://www.wired.com/story/3-years-maven-uproar-google-warms-pentagon).[↩](#fnref-55) - Srnicek, “How AI Companies Got Caught Up in US Military Efforts.”\n[↩](#fnref-56) - Michael Garland, “Vendor-lock and Lack of Competition in the Government’s Software Estate,” Garland, January 2023,\n[https://netchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/NetChoice_Garland_The-Pernicious-Consequences-of-Vendor-Lock.pdf](https://netchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/NetChoice_Garland_The-Pernicious-Consequences-of-Vendor-Lock.pdf).[↩](#fnref-57) - Legally, it is still the Department of Defense, but the Trump administration’s chosen rebrand is more clear about its purpose.\n[↩](#fnref-58) - J. Ryan Frazee, Adam S. Hickey and John Prairie, “Anthropic Supply Chain Risk Designation Takes Effect — Latest Developments and Next Steps for Government Contractors,” Mayer Brown, March 10, 2026,\n[https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/insights/publications/2026/03/anthropic-supply-chain-risk-designation-takes-effect--latest-developments-and-next-steps-for-government-contractors](https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/insights/publications/2026/03/anthropic-supply-chain-risk-designation-takes-effect--latest-developments-and-next-steps-for-government-contractors).[↩](#fnref-59) - Dario Amodei, “Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War,” Anthropic, February 26, 2026,\n[https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war](https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war); Marcus Weisgerber, Amrith Ramkumar and Shelby Holliday, “U.S. Strikes in Middle East Use Anthropic, Hours After Trump Ban,”*Wall Street Journal*, February 28, 2026.[https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-strikes-2026/card/u-s-strikes-in-middle-east-use-anthropic-hours-after-trump-ban-ozNO0iClZpfpL7K7ElJ2](https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-strikes-2026/card/u-s-strikes-in-middle-east-use-anthropic-hours-after-trump-ban-ozNO0iClZpfpL7K7ElJ2).[↩](#fnref-60) - Paresh Dave, “Anthropic Supply-Chain-Risk Designation Halted by Judge,”\n*Wired*, March 26, 2026.[https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-supply-chain-risk-designation-injunction](https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-supply-chain-risk-designation-injunction).[↩](#fnref-61) - Madison Mills, “Claude dethrones ChatGPT as top U.S. app after Pentagon saga,”\n*Axios*, March 1, 2026,[https://www.axios.com/2026/03/01/anthropic-claude-chatgpt-app-downloads-pentagon](https://www.axios.com/2026/03/01/anthropic-claude-chatgpt-app-downloads-pentagon).[↩](#fnref-62) - Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin, “Trump Proposes Massive Increase in 2027 Defense Spending to $1.5t, Citing ‘Dangerous Times,’” AP News, January 7, 2026,\n[https://apnews.com/article/trump-defense-spending-3bbea1ccc679ee8a388386d60e651fd7](https://apnews.com/article/trump-defense-spending-3bbea1ccc679ee8a388386d60e651fd7).[↩](#fnref-63) - Alexis Taylor, “United We Stand: Lessons from the 2024 ILA Strike,”\n*Afro News*, February 17, 2025,[https://afro.com/longshoremen-strike-baltimore-port](https://afro.com/longshoremen-strike-baltimore-port); Sarah Knuth, Johanna Bozuwa, Bridget Moynihan and isaac sevier, “A Federal Offshore Wind Authority: A Public Moon Shot for Offshore Wind,” Climate and Community Institute, October 2025,[https://climateandcommunity.org/research/offshore-wind](https://climateandcommunity.org/research/offshore-wind).[↩](#fnref-64) - Nichola Groom, “Wind and solar power frozen out of Trump permitting push,” Reuters, December 10, 2025,\n[https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/wind-solar-power-frozen-out-trump-permitting-push-2025-12-10](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/wind-solar-power-frozen-out-trump-permitting-push-2025-12-10); Sylvia Chi, “Adding Fuel to the Fire: How the Republican Spending Bill Guts Climate and Environmental Justice Programs and Compounds Harm to Communities Across the US,” Just Solutions Collective, August 2025,[https://justsolutionscollective.org/solution/adding-fuel-to-the-fire-spending-bill-environmetal-justice](https://justsolutionscollective.org/solution/adding-fuel-to-the-fire-spending-bill-environmetal-justice).[↩](#fnref-65) - Dan Swinhoe, “Aligned Acquires Third Site In Ohio For Data Center Development,” Data Center Dynamics, June 17, 2025,\n[https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/aligned-acquires-third-site-in-ohio-for-data-center-development-report](https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/aligned-acquires-third-site-in-ohio-for-data-center-development-report).[↩](#fnref-66) - Michael Cork and Francesca Dominici, “Air Quality, Health, and Economic Impacts of the Vantage Data Center Facility,” independent report prepared for Piedmont Environmental Council, February 27, 2026,\n[https://www.pecva.org/wp-content/uploads/Health-Impacts-Vantage-Data-Center-Report-2.pdf](https://www.pecva.org/wp-content/uploads/Health-Impacts-Vantage-Data-Center-Report-2.pdf).[↩](#fnref-67) - Yuelin Han et al., “The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health Impact of AI,” last revised October 23, 2025, preprint, arXiv,\n[https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.0628](https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.0628).[↩](#fnref-68) - Molly Taft, “New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations,”\n*Wired*, April 22, 2026,[https://www.wired.com/story/new-gas-powered-data-centers-could-emit-more-greenhouse-gases-than-entire-nations](https://www.wired.com/story/new-gas-powered-data-centers-could-emit-more-greenhouse-gases-than-entire-nations); Xiao, T. et al, “Environmental impact and net-zero pathways for sustainable artificial intelligence servers in the USA,”*Nature Sustainability*, 2025,[https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01681-y](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01681-y).[↩](#fnref-69) - Brian Callaci, Vasudha Desikan, Hannah Story Brown, Kenny Stancil and Henry Burke, “Debunking the Abundance Agenda,” Revolving Door Project and Open Markets Institute, August 2025,\n[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e449c8c3ef68d752f3e70dc/t/68ac6ae99a64022e4755fae9/1756130025855/2025-08-05+Debunking+the+Abundance+Agenda-FAST.pdf](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e449c8c3ef68d752f3e70dc/t/68ac6ae99a64022e4755fae9/1756130025855/2025-08-05+Debunking+the+Abundance+Agenda-FAST.pdf).[↩](#fnref-70) - Hannah Story Brown, “Reclaiming an Abundant and Democratic Future in the Age of AI,” Revolving Door Project, December 3, 2025,\n[https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/reclaiming-an-abundant-and-democratic-future-in-the-age-of-ai](https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/reclaiming-an-abundant-and-democratic-future-in-the-age-of-ai).[↩](#fnref-71) - Chen, “The Big AI State.”\n[↩](#fnref-72) - Exec. Order 14141, 90 FR 5469 (2025),\n[https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/17/2025-01395/advancing-united-states-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence-infrastructure](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/17/2025-01395/advancing-united-states-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence-infrastructure); Exec. Order 14318.[↩](#fnref-73) - Johanna Bozuwa and Dustin Mulvaney, “A Progressive Take on Permitting Reform: Principles and Policies to Unleash a Faster, More Equitable Green Transition,” Climate and Community Project and Roosevelt Institute, August 2023,\n[https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/RI_Progressive_Permitting_Report_202308.pdf](https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/RI_Progressive_Permitting_Report_202308.pdf).[↩](#fnref-74) - Danielle Woodring, “What's New in the Race to Streamline and Fast-Track Infrastructure Permitting,” Burns & McDonnell, September 16, 2025,\n[https://blog.burnsmcd.com/whats-new-in-the-race-to-streamline-and-fasttrack-infrastructure-permitting](https://blog.burnsmcd.com/whats-new-in-the-race-to-streamline-and-fasttrack-infrastructure-permitting).[↩](#fnref-75) - Exec. Order 14318.\n[↩](#fnref-76) - Kiley Price and Marianne Lavelle, “Under Trump, EPA’s Enforcement of Environmental Laws Collapses, Report Finds,”\n*Inside Climate News*, February 5, 2026,[https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05022026/trump-epa-polluter-enforcement-collapses](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05022026/trump-epa-polluter-enforcement-collapses).[↩](#fnref-77) - Joseph Politano, “The Tariff Exemption Behind the AI Boom,” Apricitas Economics, October 05, 2025,\n[https://www.apricitas.io/p/the-tariff-exemption-behind-the-ai](https://www.apricitas.io/p/the-tariff-exemption-behind-the-ai); Marcel Akhame, Daniel Elizalde and Xan Fishman, “What’s in the SPEED Act?,” Bipartisan Policy Center, December 2025,[https://bipartisanpolicy.org/issue-brief/whats-in-the-speed-act](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/issue-brief/whats-in-the-speed-act).[↩](#fnref-78) - Semiconductor firms also lose significant market shares in China, and the amount of time maintaining such a lead is difficult to quantify.\n[↩](#fnref-79) - “DOE Announces Site Selection for AI Data Center and Energy Infrastructure Development on Federal Lands,” U.S. Department of Energy, July 24, 2025,\n[https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-site-selection-ai-data-center-and-energy-infrastructure-development-federal](https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces-site-selection-ai-data-center-and-energy-infrastructure-development-federal); “Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Idaho National Laboratory,” U.S. Department of Energy, September 8, 2025,[https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-idaho-national](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-idaho-national); “Request for Information on Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure on DOE Lands,” U.S. Department of Energy, April 7, 2025,[https://www.energy.gov/documents/rfi-inform-public-bids-construct-ai-infrastructure](https://www.energy.gov/documents/rfi-inform-public-bids-construct-ai-infrastructure); “Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Idaho National Laboratory,” U.S. Department of Energy, September 8, 2025,[https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-idaho-national](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-idaho-national); “NNSA Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Savannah River Site,” U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, September 30, 2025,[https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/nnsa-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-savannah-river-site-0](https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/nnsa-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-savannah-river-site-0); “U.S. Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Oak Ridge,” U.S. Department of Energy, September 30, 2025,[https://www.energy.gov/em/articles/us-energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-oak-ridge](https://www.energy.gov/em/articles/us-energy-department-seeks-proposals-ai-data-centers-energy-projects-oak-ridge); Brian Ungles, John McWilliams, Ethan Tribble, Adrian Conforti and Jason D'Orlando, “Data Center Development Cost Guide,” Cushman & Wakefield, 2025,[https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/data-center-development-cost-guide](https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/data-center-development-cost-guide).[↩](#fnref-80) - Taylor Pullins and Laura Mulry, “Trump administration issues executive order to streamline data center development,” White & Case, August 1, 2025,\n[https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/trump-administration-issues-executive-order-streamline-data-center-development](https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/trump-administration-issues-executive-order-streamline-data-center-development).[↩](#fnref-81) - Joe Beeton, “EPA Begins ‘Expeditious Reviews’ Of Chemicals For Data Center Projects,”\n*Chemical & Engineering News*, October 2, 2025,[https://cen.acs.org/policy/chemical-regulation/EPA-begins-expeditious-reviews-chemicals/103/web/2025/10](https://cen.acs.org/policy/chemical-regulation/EPA-begins-expeditious-reviews-chemicals/103/web/2025/10).[↩](#fnref-82) - Pullins and Mulry, “Trump administration issues executive order to streamline data center development.”\n[↩](#fnref-83) - “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid,” Executive Office of the President, April 8, 2025,\n[https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/strengthening-the-reliability-and-security-of-the-united-states-electric-grid](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/strengthening-the-reliability-and-security-of-the-united-states-electric-grid); Jeff St. John, “Trump Admin’s Must-run Orders Put Broken-down Coal Plants in a Bind,” Canary Media, January 9, 2026,[https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/trump-order-broken-coal-plant-run](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/trump-order-broken-coal-plant-run).[↩](#fnref-84) Exec. Order 14241, 90 FR 15517 (2025),\n\n[https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/14/2025-06380/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/14/2025-06380/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241); Ella Nilsen, “Trump is Using Emergency Powers to Keep Aging Coal Plants Open. It Could Increase your Bill,” CNN, February 5, 2026,[https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/05/climate/trump-aging-coal-plants-electricity-bills](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/05/climate/trump-aging-coal-plants-electricity-bills); Michael Goggin, “The Cost of Federal Mandates to Retain Fossil-Burning Power Plants,” Grid Strategies, August 2025,[https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/grid-strategies_cost-of-federal-mandates-to-retain-fossil-burning-power-plants.pdf](https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/grid-strategies_cost-of-federal-mandates-to-retain-fossil-burning-power-plants.pdf); Daniel R. Bressler, “The Mortality Cost of Carbon,” Nature Communications 12, no. 1 (2021): 4467,[https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24487-w;](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24487-w)“Emissions by plant and by region,” U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), November 12, 2025,[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/emissions/](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/emissions/); “Sector-based PM2.5 and Ozone Benefit Per Ton Estimates,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, last updated March 26, 2025,[https://www.epa.gov/benmap/sector-based-pm25-and-ozone-benefit-ton-estimates](https://www.epa.gov/benmap/sector-based-pm25-and-ozone-benefit-ton-estimates). According to Bressler, 4,434 metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted in 2020 causes one excess death between 2020 and 2100. According to EIA, the 54 plants slated for closure emitted 132.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2024. Therefore, we estimate that for each year these plants remain open, the associated emissions would cause approximately 30,000 excess deaths cumulatively over a subsequent 80-year period.[↩](#fnref-85)- “Sector-based PM2.5 and Ozone Benefit Per Ton Estimates,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, last updated March 26, 2025,\n[https://www.epa.gov/benmap/sector-based-pm25-and-ozone-benefit-ton-estimates](https://www.epa.gov/benmap/sector-based-pm25-and-ozone-benefit-ton-estimates).[↩](#fnref-86) - Michael Thomas, “Bypassing the Grid: How Data Centers Are Building Their Own Power Plants,”\n*Cleanview Newsletter*, Substack, February 3, 2026,[https://newsletter.cleanview.co/p/bypassing-the-grid-how-data-centers](https://newsletter.cleanview.co/p/bypassing-the-grid-how-data-centers).[↩](#fnref-87) - Matthew Daly, “Trump To Open More Federal Land For Coal Mining, Provide Industry $625m To Boost Coal Plants,”\n*PBS News*, September 29, 2025,[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-to-open-more-federal-land-for-coal-mining-provide-industry-625m-to-boost-coal-plants](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-to-open-more-federal-land-for-coal-mining-provide-industry-625m-to-boost-coal-plants).[↩](#fnref-88) - Geoff Brumfiel, “The Trump Administration has Secretly Rewritten Nuclear Safety Rules,”\n*NPR*, January 28, 2026,[https://www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-s1-5677187/nuclear-safety-rules-rewritten-trump](https://www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-s1-5677187/nuclear-safety-rules-rewritten-trump); “Trump DOE Slashes Nuclear Safety Rules for Startup Reactors,”*The Tech Buzz*, January 28, 2026,[https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/trump-doe-slashes-nuclear-safety-rules-for-startup-reactors](https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/trump-doe-slashes-nuclear-safety-rules-for-startup-reactors); Dr. Sofia Guerra, and Dr. Heidy Khlaaf, “The Undermining of Nuclear Regulation in Service of AI,” AI NOW, November 2025,[https://ainowinstitute.org/publications/fission-for-algorithms](https://ainowinstitute.org/publications/fission-for-algorithms).[↩](#fnref-89) - Anna M. Brockway, Jennifer Conde, and Duncan Callaway, \"Inequitable access to distributed energy resources due to grid infrastructure limits in California,\" Nature Energy 6, no. 9 (2021): 892–903.\n[↩](#fnref-90) - Josh Saul, “US Data Center Boom Slows Due to Power Grid Limits, WoodMac Says,”\n*Bloomberg News*, March 16, 2026,[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-16/us-data-center-boom-slows-due-to-power-grid-limits-wood-mackenzie-says](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-16/us-data-center-boom-slows-due-to-power-grid-limits-wood-mackenzie-says).[↩](#fnref-91) - Detailed further in the subsequent table; “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” The White House, March 4, 2026,\n[https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/03/ratepayer-protection-pledge](https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/03/ratepayer-protection-pledge).[↩](#fnref-92) - Eliza Martin and Ari Peskoe, “Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power,” Harvard Law School, March 2025,\n[https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Harvard-ELI-Extracting-Profits-from-the-Public.pdf](https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Harvard-ELI-Extracting-Profits-from-the-Public.pdf).[↩](#fnref-93) - Nick Zenkin, “The Grid Can’t Build Fast Enough,”\n*Latitude Media*, January 27, 2026,[https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/the-grid-cant-build-fast-enough](https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/the-grid-cant-build-fast-enough).[↩](#fnref-94) - Kaitlyn Salazar, “Private Equity is Coming for American Energy,”\n*The Progressive Magazine*, January 21, 2026,[https://progressive.org/latest/private-equity-is-coming-for-american-energy-salazar-20260121](https://progressive.org/latest/private-equity-is-coming-for-american-energy-salazar-20260121).[↩](#fnref-95) - United States Of America Before The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Request For Rehearing By Center For Biological Diversity, Docket No. EC25-140-000,\n[https://biologicaldiversity.org/programs/energy-justice/pdfs/26.3.23_EC25140000_CBD-Request-For-Rehearing.pdf](https://biologicaldiversity.org/programs/energy-justice/pdfs/26.3.23_EC25140000_CBD-Request-For-Rehearing.pdf).[↩](#fnref-96) - Derek Seidman, “Behind BlackRock’s Deal to Buy Allete, Major Landholder in Palm Coast’s Town Center,” FlaglerLive.com, November 16, 2025,\n[https://flaglerlive.com/allete-blackrock](https://flaglerlive.com/allete-blackrock).[↩](#fnref-97) - Alex Blasdel, “Slash and Burn: Is Private Equity out of Control?,”\n*The Guardian*, October 10, 2024,[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control).[↩](#fnref-98) - Amanda Mendoza, “From Power Plants to Processors: Private Equity's Big Bet on the Data Center Pipeline,” Private Equity Stakeholder Project, October 31, 2025,\n[https://pestakeholder.org/reports/from-power-plants-to-processors](https://pestakeholder.org/reports/from-power-plants-to-processors).[↩](#fnref-99) - Michael Thomas, “Google Signs Interconnection Agreement for Project Loon in Minnesota,” Cleanview, March 27, 2026,\n[https://cleanview.co/news/data-centers/google-signs-interconnection-agreement-for-project-loon-in-minnesota-20260327](https://cleanview.co/news/data-centers/google-signs-interconnection-agreement-for-project-loon-in-minnesota-20260327).[↩](#fnref-100) - Nathan Reiff, “Top Alphabet (Google) Shareholders,” Investopedia, January 06, 2026,\n[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/011516/top-5-google-shareholders-goog.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/011516/top-5-google-shareholders-goog.asp).[↩](#fnref-101) - Speeds up connection to the grid, which can open up $10-12 billion in revenue/GW.\n[↩](#fnref-102) - Jeff St. John, “Trump Admin’s Must-run Orders Put Broken-down Coal Plants in a Bind,” Canary Media, January 9, 2026,\n[https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/trump-order-broken-coal-plant-run](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/trump-order-broken-coal-plant-run).[↩](#fnref-103) - Daly, “Trump To Open More Federal Land For Coal Mining.”\n[↩](#fnref-104) - “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production,” The White House, March 20, 2025,\n[https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/immediate-measures-to-increase-american-mineral-production](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/immediate-measures-to-increase-american-mineral-production).[↩](#fnref-105) - Maria Shagina, “US Critical-Minerals Diplomacy: from America-First Deals to Pax Silica,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies, January 29, 2026,\n[https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2026/01/us-critical-minerals-diplomacy-from-america-first-deals-to-pax-silica](https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2026/01/us-critical-minerals-diplomacy-from-america-first-deals-to-pax-silica); Zach Whitlock, Ambarish Kota, Nafisa Lohawala and Beia Spiller, “Why One-Off Federal Investments Won’t Make or Break US Critical Mineral Supply,” Resources fo the Future, January 6, 2026,[https://www.resources.org/common-resources/why-one-off-federal-investments-wont-make-or-break-us-critical-mineral-supply](https://www.resources.org/common-resources/why-one-off-federal-investments-wont-make-or-break-us-critical-mineral-supply).[↩](#fnref-106) - “America’s Chip Resurgence: Over $640 Billion in Semiconductor Supply Chain Investments,” Semiconductor Industry Association, last updated January 30, 2026,\n[https://www.semiconductors.org/chip-supply-chain-investments](https://www.semiconductors.org/chip-supply-chain-investments).[↩](#fnref-107) - “TSMC Arizona,” The National Institute of Standards & Technology, accessed February 25, 2026,\n[https://www.nist.gov/chips/tsmc-arizona-phoenix](https://www.nist.gov/chips/tsmc-arizona-phoenix); “TSMC Phoenix Plant Begins Mass Production of AI Chips in Partnership with Nvidia,”*AZ Family News*, October 18, 2025,[https://www.azfamily.com/2025/10/18/tsmc-phoenix-plant-begins-mass-production-ai-chips-partnership-with-nvidia](https://www.azfamily.com/2025/10/18/tsmc-phoenix-plant-begins-mass-production-ai-chips-partnership-with-nvidia); Nathan Owens, “US government to Take 10% Stake in Intel with CHIPS Funding,” Manufacturing Dive, August 25, 2025,[https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/us-government-10-percent-stake-intel-chips-funding-8-9-billion/758518](https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/us-government-10-percent-stake-intel-chips-funding-8-9-billion/758518).[↩](#fnref-108) - Anthony F. Pipa and Elise Pietro, “What’s in it for rural? Analyzing the opportunities for rural America in IIJA, CHIPS, and IRA,” Brookings Institute, December 18, 2023,\n[https://www.brookings.edu/articles/whats-in-it-for-rural-analyzing-the-opportunities-for-rural-america-in-iija-chips-and-ira-2](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/whats-in-it-for-rural-analyzing-the-opportunities-for-rural-america-in-iija-chips-and-ira-2).[↩](#fnref-109) - Melinda Cooper,\n*Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance*, Zone Books, 2026.[↩](#fnref-110) - “SOI Tax Stats - Historical Table 24,” Internal Revenue Service, accessed May 17, 2026,\n[https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-historical-table-24](https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-historical-table-24).[↩](#fnref-111) - Michael Cembalest, “Smothering Heights,” J.P. Morgan Private Bank, January 2026,\n[https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-pb-aem/global/cwm/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/smothering-heights-jpmwm.pdf](https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-pb-aem/global/cwm/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/smothering-heights-jpmwm.pdf).[↩](#fnref-112) - Matthew Gardner, Lorena Roque and Steve Wamhoff, “Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump Tax Law,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, December 16, 2019.\n[https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-in-the-first-year-of-the-trump-tax-law/](https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-in-the-first-year-of-the-trump-tax-law/).[↩](#fnref-113) - Thomas L. Hungerford, “Corporate Tax Rates and Economic Growth Since 1947,” Economic Policy Institute, June 4, 2013.\n[https://www.epi.org/publication/ib364-corporate-tax-rates-and-economic-growth/](https://www.epi.org/publication/ib364-corporate-tax-rates-and-economic-growth/).[↩](#fnref-114) - “10 Graphs That Prove the United States Is a Low Tax Country,” Center for American Progress, June, 2011.\n[https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/06/pdf/low_tax_graphs.pdf](https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/06/pdf/low_tax_graphs.pdf); Gardner, Roque and Wamhoff, “Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump Tax Law.”[↩](#fnref-115) - “One, Big, Beautiful Bill provisions,” Internal Revenue Services, March 2026,\n[https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/one-big-beautiful-bill-provisions#businesses](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/one-big-beautiful-bill-provisions#businesses).[↩](#fnref-116) - Gardner, “Four Big Tech Companies Avoid $51 Billion in Taxes in Wake of One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”\n[↩](#fnref-117) - Matthew Gardner, “Four Big Tech Companies Avoid $51 Billion in Taxes in Wake of One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”\n[↩](#fnref-118) - “Trade-Offs: Your Money, Your Choices,” National Priorities Project, accessed May 16, 2026,\n[https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/trade-offs/](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/trade-offs/).[↩](#fnref-119) - Kiel, Paul, Ash Ngu, Jesse Eisinger, and Jeff Ernsthausen. “America’s Highest Earners and Their Taxes Revealed,”\n*ProPublica*, April 13, 2022,[https://projects.propublica.org/americas-highest-incomes-and-taxes-revealed/](https://projects.propublica.org/americas-highest-incomes-and-taxes-revealed/); Balkir, Akcan S., Emmanuel Saez, Danny Yagan, and Gabriel Zucman. “How Much Tax Do US Billionaires Pay? Evidence from Administrative Data,” National Bureau of Economic Research, August 25, 2025,[https://www.nber.org/papers/w34170](https://www.nber.org/papers/w34170).[↩](#fnref-120) - Akcan S. Balkir, Emmanuel Saez, Danny Yagan, and Gabriel Zucman, \"How Much Tax Do US Billionaires Pay? Evidence from Administrative Data,\" NBER Working Paper 34170, 2025,\n[https://doi.org/10.3386/w34170](https://doi.org/10.3386/w34170).[↩](#fnref-121) - Balkir, Saez, Yagan and Zucman, \"How Much Tax Do US Billionaires Pay? Evidence from Administrative Data.\"\n[↩](#fnref-122) [Robert McClelland and](https://taxpolicycenter.org/author/robert-mcclelland)[Nikhita Airi](https://taxpolicycenter.org/author/nikhita-airi), “Effective Income Tax Rates Have Fallen for The Top One Percent Since World War II,” Tax Policy Center, September 15, 2021,[https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/effective-income-tax-rates-have-fallen-top-one-percent-world-war-ii-0](https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/effective-income-tax-rates-have-fallen-top-one-percent-world-war-ii-0).[↩](#fnref-123)- Raphael Hernandes, Lauren Aratani and Will Craft, “Revealed: the Tech Bosses who Poured $394.1m into US Election - and How they Compared to Elon Musk,”\n*The Guardian*, December 7, 2024,[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/07/campaign-spending-crypto-tech-influence](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/07/campaign-spending-crypto-tech-influence).[↩](#fnref-124) - Theodore Schleifer and Matt Zdun, “Meta Begins $65 Million Election Push to Advance A.I. Agenda,”\n*New York Times,*February 18, 2026,[https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/technology/meta-65-million-election-ai.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/technology/meta-65-million-election-ai.html).[↩](#fnref-125) - David Wright, “How Allies of AI are Ramping Up their Political Donations for the Midterms,”\n*CNN*, February 11, 2026,[https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/politics/palantir-midterms-artificial-intelligence-ai](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/politics/palantir-midterms-artificial-intelligence-ai).[↩](#fnref-126) - Ashley Gold, “How AI swallowed tech lobbying in 2025,”\n*Axios*, January 23, 2026,[https://www.axios.com/2026/01/23/ai-tech-lobbying-2025](https://www.axios.com/2026/01/23/ai-tech-lobbying-2025).[↩](#fnref-127) - “The $1 Trillion GPU Question: How Fast Do AI Chips Lose Value?,”\n*The Tech Buzz*, February 25, 2026.[https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/the-1-trillion-gpu-question-how-fast-do-ai-chips-lose-value](https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/the-1-trillion-gpu-question-how-fast-do-ai-chips-lose-value).[↩](#fnref-128) - Thomas, “Bypassing the Grid.”\n[↩](#fnref-129) - Elise Bean, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff, “How Congress Can Stop Corporations from Using Stock Options to Dodge Taxes,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, December 10, 2019,\n[https://itep.org/how-congress-can-stop-corporations-from-using-stock-options-to-dodge-taxes/](https://itep.org/how-congress-can-stop-corporations-from-using-stock-options-to-dodge-taxes/).[↩](#fnref-130) - Hughes, Joe, and Spandan Marasini. “Fifteen Companies Each Avoided More than $1 Billion in Taxes from a Single Trump Tax Cut,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, May 23, 2025,\n[https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-trump-tax-cut-fdii/](https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-trump-tax-cut-fdii/).[↩](#fnref-131) - “Planetary Boundaries,” Stockholm Resilience Centre, accessed May 17, 2026,\n[https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html](https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html).[↩](#fnref-132) - Lydia DePillis, “Local Opposition Is Slowing A.I. Data Centers. 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