[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AMERICA'S AI MOONSHOT: THE ECONOMICS OF
AI, DATA CENTERS,
AND POWER CONSUMPTION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, ENERGY POLICY, AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S.HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 1, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-15
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-025 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia,
Mike Turner, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
Kim Waskowsky, Senior Professional Staff Member
Duncan Wright, Senior Professional Staff Member
Kyle Martin, Counsel
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee On Economic Growth, Energy Policy, And Regulatory Affairs
Eric Burlison, Missouri, Chairman
Gary Palmer, Alabama Maxwell Frost, Florida, Ranking
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Minority Member
Byron Donalds, Florida Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Dave Min, California
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Ro Khanna, California
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 1, 2025.................................... 1
Witnesses
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Mr. Neil Chilson, Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Mr. Josh Levi, President, Data Center Coalition
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Mr. Mark P. Mills, Executive Director, National Center for Energy
Analytics
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Mr. Tyson Slocum (Minority Witness), Energy Program Director,
Public
Citizen
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Article, Washington Post, ``A New Front in the Water Wars,
Your Internet Use''; submitted by Rep. Ansari.
* Article, Univ. of Tulsa, ``Data centers draining resources in
water-stressed communities''; submitted by Rep. Ansari.
* Article, Business Insider, ``Google's Water Use Is Soaring,
AI Is Only Going to Make It Worse''; submitted by Rep. Ansari.
* Report, Competitive Enterprise Institute ``Powering
Intelligence: Meeting AI's Energy Needs in a Changing
Electricity Landscape''; submitted by Rep. Burlison.
The documents listed above are available at: docs.house.gov.
AMERICA'S AI MOONSHOT: THE ECONOMICS
OF AI, DATA CENTERS,
AND POWER CONSUMPTION
----------
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy
Policy, and Regulatory Affairs
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:59 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eric Burlison
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Burlison, Palmer, Higgins, Perry,
Boebert, Frost, Ansari, and Min.
Also present: Representatives Fedorchak and Subramanyam.
Mr. Burlison. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Economic
Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs will come to
order.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement. And I am going to need my glasses for that.
We are here today to discuss America's AI ``moonshot.''
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is likely to become one of the
most consequential technology transformations of the century.
America is seeking to redefine the possibilities of this
emerging technology around the globe.
AI has the potential to transform countless economic
sectors.
In health care, AI is already allowing providers to create
cancer screening and pretreatment plans for patients diagnosed
with cancer. This could transform how our healthcare providers
provide the best possible care.
In manufacturing, AI is being used to predict machine
failure, allowing proactive maintenance that saves money, time,
and even lives.
In defense, AI is being used to improve decision-making
processes to protect our men and women in uniform.
Many more examples exist, from education to finance to
government services. Even industry will benefit from AI.
Our country has the skills, the expertise, and the capital
necessary to bring this vision to life, but what we needed most
was a President who sees the importance of this innovation for
future economic prosperity.
In his first news conference following his inauguration,
President Trump announced the plan of Stargate, a joint venture
between OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and MGX to invest in AI
infrastructure to propel new developments in this field. This
$500 billion investment will allow both the U.S. and our
strategic partners around the globe to unlock the next
generation of AI.
Later, President Trump signed Executive Order 14179 to
``sustain and enhance America's global AI dominance in order to
promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and
national security.''
But planning for the future of machine learning is complex,
as there are numerous factors that must be considered by
Congress and the Administration to ensure that America's
private sector will be leading the charge on AI.
Data center power demand is reshaping how power generators
and utilities plan for future demand growth and the
infrastructure needed to support this demand.
According to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy,
data centers consumed roughly 4.4 percent of all U.S.
electricity in 2023, a percentage that is expected to rise to
between 6.7 and 12 percent by 2028. This rapid growth is
astounding and has concerning implications for both current and
future power generation.
Additionally, companies are in search of qualified and
skilled workers to fill the estimated 100,000 jobs that are
needed to support this moonshot.
Northern Virginia, which is just across the river, is a
crossroads for an estimated 70 percent of the world's internet
traffic.
A report published in December by the Joint Legislative
Audit and Review Commission found that ``the data center
industry is estimated to contribute 74,000 jobs, $5.5 billion
in labor income, and $9.1 billion in GDP to Virginia's
economy'' each year.
President Trump has made his intentions very clear. America
can and will become a global leader in the field of artificial
intelligence.
The nation that unlocks the future generations of AI first
will experience transformational economic value and unleash a
new wave of human potential.
I commend the Trump Administration's bold ambition on this
issue, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about
how we, in Congress, can make this vision a reality.
And, with that, I yield to Ranking Member Frost for his
opening statement.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you so much to our witnesses for being here this
morning.
Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of
Americans' everyday life, and a lot of us are growing to love
the entertainment and efficiency it brings. AI has exciting
benefits for healthcare, education, and is reshaping our
economy, national security, and social life.
Continuing progress in AI will require an enormous amount
of technology and infrastructure, including the hardware,
software, computer networks, data, and facilities required to
operate AI algorithms.
Data center capacity plays a key role in the future of
innovation and the future of our people.
In January, the President announced Stargate, an AI
infrastructure project with $500 billion in commitments over 4
years that would expand on progress made during the Biden
Administration.
It is a positive thing that the President is continuing the
focus on developing the capacity and uses for AI, but we
believe parts of his approach are wrong.
We can support innovation without removing the safeguards
that have prioritized personal civil rights and liberties, but
instead, we have seen that we are only pushing forward with
policies that benefit a lot of companies and corporations.
The tech companies that are promoting and investing in AI
are some of the most powerful in the world, and we just want to
ensure that there is not a large power imbalance between those
companies and the communities that they are looking to do
business with and do business in.
County commissioners in Oregon were confronted with an army
of top-shelf lawyers when working out a data center deal with
Amazon. The deal resulted in a billion-dollar tax break for the
company.
A Microsoft data center in New Albany, Ohio, received a 15-
year property tax exemption while expecting to create just 30
jobs with an average salary of $50,000 a year.
We need AI policy that will help put people first. The
Trump Administration has reversed some of the progress that we
have seen made to establish reasonable safeguards on AI, such
as regular testing requirements to demonstrate that it does not
violate civil rights or civil liberties, and in an apparent
attempt to clear the way for any perceived barriers to
America's dominance in AI.
But the health, safety, and privacy of our people are not
barriers; they are our rights, and part of our job as Congress.
At the same time, we have seen benefits from AI
development. We have also started to see examples of the risks
of AI, from deepfakes to the use of limitations of copyrighted
material.
In just the past few weeks, we have seen AI used to
replicate Studio Ghibli's style through the unauthorized
training of AI on Miyazaki's copyrighted material. H&M
announced that they are going to start using, quote-unquote,
``AI twins'' in place of real models. And more than 420 actors,
directors, and other creatives sent an open letter urging the
government to uphold copyright laws to protect the arts, which
is important to me as an artist.
The GAO found that poorly designed AI systems used in the
healthcare field can harm patients through misdiagnosis or
bias, leading to questions of accuracy, security, privacy, and
liability.
We should also be concerned about AI's use when it comes
down to national security, including the possible use of
deepfakes on the battlefield, AI-controlled nuclear weapons, or
autonomous weapons authorized to make decisions about lethal
force.
Relevant to our work on this Subcommittee is the promotion
of reasonable AI safeguards to address environmental concerns.
AI is powered by data centers that use an astonishing
amount of electricity. The carbon footprint of data centers is
already greater than the entire commercial airline industry,
and their power usage will more than double over the next 5
years.
A single data center's campus can consume a gigawatt of
electricity, an amount of electricity that could power two
Pittsburghs.
This electricity demand can overwhelm a city's grid and
raise utility bills.
Data centers have massive diesel backup generators that are
regularly test-run, expelling black fumes of toxic smoke over
entire neighborhoods, and increasing output from nearby fossil
fuel power plants.
In the 4 years between 2019 and 2023, researchers from
Caltech estimate AI data centers cost people tens of billions
of dollars in healthcare costs and resulted in more than 1,000
premature deaths.
Each data center also consumes millions of gallons of water
every day for their cooling systems because humidity can be
harmful to data centers' hardware, and they are often sited in
states where water is already scarce.
At the same time, it is a matter of national security that
we maintain our global AI edge and that that edge has already
led to innovations in fields like medicine, energy, and transit
that are improving people's lives and the lives of Americans.
Many will put this false dichotomy up that you have to
choose an either/or approach. I reject that. But as we
enthusiastically pursue AI innovation, Congress must look out
for working families and pass and strengthen responsible
safeguards.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
Without objection, Representative Fedorchak of North Dakota
and Representative Subramanyam of Virginia are waived on to the
Subcommittee for the purpose of questioning the witnesses at
today's hearing.
I am pleased to welcome an expert panel of witnesses who
each bring experience and expertise that will be valuable to
today's discussion.
I would first like to welcome Neil Chilson, the head of AI
policy at the Abundance Institute. Neil previously served as
Acting Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission and
brings a breadth of expertise in the field of artificial
intelligence policy.
Thank you, Neil. Welcome.
Next, we have Josh Levi, the President of the Data Center
Coalition, an association representing the owners and operators
of the digital infrastructure used to support the modern
economy, including cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Levi.
Next, we have Mark Mills, the Executive Director of the
National Center for Energy Analytics, a national energy think
tank. Mark has a robust background in energy policy and
experience as an experimental physicist and development
engineer in microprocessors and fiber optics.
Welcome, Mr. Mills.
And, last, we have Tyson Slocum, who is the Energy Program
Director at Public Citizen. Tyson is also a faculty member at
the University of Maryland Honors College where he teaches
energy and climate policy.
Welcome, Mr. Slocum.
I thank each of you for being here today, and I look
forward to your testimony.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), we request that you please
stand and raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear and affirm that the testimony that
you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
Thank you. You may be seated.
I appreciate you being here today, and I look forward to
your testimony.
Let me remind you that we have read your written testimony,
and it will appear in full in the record.
Please limit your oral statements to 5 minutes. And, as a
reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of
you so that we can actually hear you. And after 4 minutes, the
light will turn yellow, and then after 5 minutes, the light
turns red, at which time your time is up.
I now recognize Mr. Chilson for his 5-minute opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF NEIL CHILSON
HEAD OF AI POLICY
ABUNDANCE INSTITUTE
Mr. Chilson. Thank you, Chairman Burlison, Ranking Member
Frost, and the distinguished Members of the Subcommittee.
I am Neil Chilson. I am the head of AI policy at the
Abundance Institute. We are a nonprofit dedicated to fostering
the cultural and policy conditions for innovative technologies,
such as artificial intelligence, to thrive and drive widespread
human prosperity.
Imagine a future where AI tools routinely help doctors
identify existing drugs to treat patients with rare, under
researched diseases, where cancer is identified earlier with a
99 percent accuracy, where administrative costs in healthcare
drop by hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and where
traffic accidents decline by up to 90 percent, saving nearly
40,000 American lives and $190 billion each year.
This is not a science fiction future. It is here. Research
in my written statement details each of these situations.
These credible transformations are already beginning. They
are powered by AI technologies that research shows are
enhancing worker productivity by up to 43 percent in certain
tasks, improving team performance, leveling up low-skilled
workers faster, and even boosting worker morale.
AI is also transforming jobs and powering the creation of
new products, services, and entire industries, creating a more
dynamic, competitive economy. It is helping small businesses
and entrepreneurs scale faster. And the jobs that it is
creating include high-value jobs in the skilled trades.
The race for AI dominance is underway, and America's
economic future depends on winning it. And the stakes are high.
Analysts project AI will drive a $19.9 trillion global economic
impact through 2030. But realizing this potential requires
Congress to build the right launchpad for our AI moonshot.
Today, I want to focus on two critical regulatory
environments that determine America's AI future.
First, the software regulatory environment.
America's leadership in AI has flourished under our light-
touch, sector-specific approach. This open system has allowed
tremendous innovation in software while still ensuring
accountability through existing laws on consumer protection,
civil rights, and safety.
But a patchwork of state regulations threatens this
environment. Over 900 state AI bills have been introduced
across the country since January.
Some states, however, are offering promising models. Utah's
AI Act exemplifies a thoughtful approach. It extends
traditional consumer protections to AI applications while
creating a regulatory sandbox that encourages innovation.
Their first agreement was with a company named ElizaChat,
which is an AI mental wellness app for teenagers, demonstrating
how to bring innovation to difficult challenges but with
appropriate safeguards.
To strengthen our software regulatory environment, Congress
should build on Utah's success by defending AI innovators from
conflicting state regulations while creating Federal regulatory
sandboxes for cooperative experimentation.
Second--and other panelists on here are much more expert on
some of this, but I want to dig into it a little bit here--we
must reform our energy regulatory environment. While our
software rules allow rapid innovation, our energy regulations
create crippling bottlenecks that threaten American AI
dominance.
Two out of three Federal environmental impact statements
take longer than the legally required 2-year timeline, stalling
critical energy projects unnecessarily. And when we do manage
to build new energy sources, connecting them to the grid takes
far too long.
The contrast with Texas is revealing. From 2021 to 2023,
Texas added 25 gigawatts of new generation, almost double what
other U.S. grids added. This is possible because Texas uses a
more flexible connect-and-manage approach.
To boost our energy infrastructure, Congress should
streamline permitting processes and constrain counterproductive
litigation, and it should direct Federal agencies to accelerate
grid interconnection.
America's AI moonshot depends on getting both regulatory
environments right. We must safeguard open software innovation
while dramatically reforming our energy infrastructure
regulations.
By addressing these dual challenges decisively, Congress
can ensure that the United States maintains and enhances its AI
leadership, driving economic prosperity, improving public
welfare, and securing America's competitive advantage for
generations.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your
questions.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Levi for his 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOSH LEVI
PRESIDENT
DATA CENTER COALITION
Mr. Levi. Thank you, Subcommittee Chairman Burlison,
Subcommittee Ranking Member Frost, distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee. We really do appreciate the opportunity to be
here today with you to provide testimony on a topic that is
critical to the future of America's economy and national
security.
My name is Josh Levi. I am President of the Data Center
Coalition, or DCC, which is the membership association for the
U.S. data center industry. Our members provide the digital
infrastructure that enables cutting-edge technologies that
drive the 21st century economy, including AI.
Data centers also ensure the essential services our homes,
businesses, schools, hospitals, manufacturing facilities, and
governments rely on and are always available.
Today, everything--from the way we work and learn to how we
buy groceries, bank, and even access medical care--occurs
online.
The average American household now has 21 connected
devices, including phones, watches, thermostats, appliances,
and others, and consumers and businesses are expected to
generate twice as much data over the next 5 years as they did
over the past 10.
This growth is driven by the widespread adoption of cloud
services and connected devices and the rapid scaling of
advanced technologies like generative AI, which alone could
create up to $4.4 trillion in economic value globally by 2030,
according to McKinsey.
These digital cloud-based services we all rely on actually
take place in physical locations: America's data centers.
To meet growing demand for these digital services, our
member companies are making multibillion-dollar investments in
data center infrastructure in this country. These investments
support hundreds of thousands of quality jobs across the Nation
and contribute billions of dollars in local, state, and Federal
tax revenue.
Data centers are now under development in at least 23
states nationwide, from mature markets like Virginia, Georgia,
California, Texas, and Arizona, to emerging markets like
Indiana, Missouri, Louisiana. In fact, the U.S. is expected to
be the fastest-growing market for data centers globally, with
capacity more than tripling between 2024 and 2030.
Beyond their critical role in the modern digital landscape,
data centers are vital economic engines nationally and in local
communities across the country. Between 2017 and 2023, the data
center industry's total contributions to U.S. GDP was $3.5
trillion, according to PwC.
In 2023, the data center industry directly employed more
than 600,000 workers in the United States and, in total,
supported 4.7 million jobs. The sector contributed $163 billion
in Federal, state, and local taxes in 2023, which provides
consistent funding for important community priorities like
public safety, transportation, education.
And reports indicate the industry is planning investments
in the U.S. of many hundreds of billions of dollars based on
2025 announcements alone.
The exponential growth of the data center industry has been
a catalyst for broader economic development, supporting
ecosystems of suppliers, manufacturers, service providers. At
the national level, each direct job in the data center industry
supports more than six jobs elsewhere in the U.S. economy.
From construction companies, fabricators of steel, to HVAC
and equipment manufacturing, the data center industry is
fueling economic growth in countless companies across a variety
of industries.
However, the continued growth of this critical industry
faces challenges. The first is ensuring timely access to
reliable energy, which has become the pacing issue for this
industry. We believe Congress should look at ways to speed up
the permitting process for electric transmission and generation
to ensure the Nation has sufficient energy capacity to power
America's growing economy.
Additionally, major sectors of the U.S. economy are
experiencing shortages and delays with the delivery of capital
equipment, especially electrical equipment. The data center
industry is leaning in, working with manufacturers to shore up
supply chains and shorten construction timelines.
However, we do support congressional and administrative
actions to expand domestic capacity of critical electric and
data center equipment. This will help ensure timely
availability of these materials to allow the data center
industry to meet growing demand.
Finally, the industry is facing work force shortages. As
data centers expand from mature markets to emerging markets
across the country, the rapid pace of development and the need
to meet specialized skill requirements have contributed to
labor shortage, both in operations of data centers but also in
constructing data centers.
We support the creation of national technology hubs,
expanding and strengthening data center education programs,
including community college programs, and training veterans for
jobs in the data center industry.
Data centers are vital to enabling critical and emerging
technologies like AI that are essential to U.S. national
security, our global competitiveness, and economic prosperity.
By proactively removing barriers to deployment, the Federal
Government can play a pivotal role in supporting this critical
sector, fostering economic growth, and maintaining our
competitive edge against foreign adversaries.
We thank the subcommittee for its leadership in promoting a
strong data center and AI ecosystem here in the U.S. and look
forward to continued collaboration and dialog.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Mills for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF MARK P. MILLS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
NATIONAL CENTER FOR ENERGY ANALYTICS
Mr. Mills. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Frost
and Members of the Committee, for the opportunity to testify.
Of course, the words ``revolution'' and ``pivot in
history'' are frequently overused and misused. But by now, as
we see from opening remarks from you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Frost, it is very clear these words are appropriate to
describing the emergence of AI as a practical tool deployed in
the infrastructure of the cloud.
Certainly, debates about risks and benefits over what is
hype and what is real, that will continue, but the fact of an
unfolding revolution is evident across nearly every domain.
Invoking the moonshot is appropriate in terms of echoing
the great power competition of the 20th century and because of
AI's strategic implications.
But the central promise of usable AI at scale, of course,
is an economic one, and specifically at how AI will boost U.S.
productivity overall. And while we are currently preoccupied
with the politics of cutting government waste and the deficit,
the Holy Grail remains in finding a productivity boom.
Consider if the current Congressional Budget Office
forecast for anemic annual productivity growth, if AI raises
that growth merely back to the long-run 20th century average,
that would, by 2030, add a cumulative extra $10 trillion to the
U.S. economy, and it could be more.
It is that promise that underlies the private sector's
drive to spend hundreds of billions of dollars--likely a
collective trillion dollars in total by 2030--to build out more
data centers at the epicenter of the cloud where AI is
democratized. The next 1 year's spending on data centers will
exceed alone the entire decade of government spending on the
moonshot.
This unprecedented digital construction that is underway
has led to the rediscovery of a basic truth: all software
exists inside hardware that, in turn, uses energy, and a lot of
it. Each digital byte uses an infinitesimal amount of energy,
but this is where we find salience for the euphemism that
quantity has a quality all of its own.
Again, in moonshot terms, the amount of energy used to
launch a rocket is consumed every day by just one AI-infused
data center. Or, in monetary terms, $10 billion worth of data
centers will consume some $10 to $20 billion of electricity
over a decade of operation. And, for context, the $10 billion
worth of EVs will consume one-tenth as much electricity.
Such realities invariably invoke a response that we should
focus on, even mandate more energy efficiency. This is a rabbit
hole subject but suffice to say that efficiency is precisely
why data center demands have risen.
Consider if a smartphone today operated at the 1984
computer efficiency, that one phone would use more electricity
than this entire Rayburn House Building. Instead, efficiency
gains have led to billions of phones and thousands of data
centers.
This is, of course, the oft-noted so-called Jevons Paradox,
which I note for the record Jevons knew in the 19th century it
was not a paradox but a reality.
Credible forecasts see within a half-decade or so new data
centers needing somewhere between 70 gigawatts and 130
gigawatts more power capacity built than planners originally
thought only a couple years ago. This is the equivalent of
adding the generating capacity equal to the entire state of
California in a half-dozen years.
Thus, the key question is, will there be enough power to
fuel the velocity of the cloud's expansion to stay at the
forefront of this revolution?
Reality and arithmetic show that the needed power will not
come from squeezing more out of existing assets or even
stopping coal plant retirements or utility-scale wind and
solar, nor from building nuclear plants. All that will help,
but it will not be enough and soon enough.
Most of the new power will come from natural gas combustion
turbines and engines. Those can be and, in fact, are being
built rapidly. That implies the need, of course, for a lot more
natural gas.
One might be tempted here to invoke the politically charged
``drill, baby, drill.'' But politics aside, history does show
that the wells and the pipelines can be deployed fast enough at
the scales needed.
This is where the moonshot metaphor fails. The Apollo
program had the government spending taxpayers' money to put a
dozen men on the moon, but ensuring we achieve lift-off for AI
productivity will come from private capital rapidly deployed to
build the needed power systems for those digital
infrastructures.
The government's role here--you will not be surprised to
hear me say--to ensure that U.S. industries can win this great
powers race should start with asking the private sector players
to identify their regulatory and policy-centric impediments to
rapid deployment at the scales needed and then, of course,
removing or resolving the impediments. Not eliminating rules
and regulations, but accelerating and rationalizing.
This will be a great motivation to restore that
longstanding effort, and this could, in fact, be the real
moonshot challenge in all this.
Thank you.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Slocum for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF TYSON SLOCUM
ENERGY PROGRAM DIRECTOR
PUBLIC CITIZEN
Mr. Slocum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member,
Members of the Committee. I am Tyson Slocum. I direct the
Energy Program with Public Citizen here in Washington, DC.
America today has more data center capacity than any other
nation. While some are issuing panicked projections about
massive new infrastructure needs to power future data centers,
I urge the Committee to exercise restraint.
While America's power needs are indeed growing, driven by
building and transportation electrification and data center
development, allowing hype and hysteria to drive long-term
capital-intensive infrastructure investments will lead to
stranded assets that may threaten taxpayers and ratepayers with
unnecessary costs.
Forecasters consistently overestimate electricity demand in
part because they emphasize static load growth over efficiency
gains.
We all remember in the early 2000s, in the wake of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 and other initiatives, analysts
projected surging electricity demand with the internet and
everyone having computers.
It never materialized. Instead, for the next two decades,
America experienced flat energy demand.
Although data center energy use is increasing, energy use
per computation has decreased by 20 percent every year since
2010.
There are ample opportunities to require or encourage data
centers developing gen AI to pursue demand management programs
to limit the need for expensive new energy-generation
infrastructure.
I am concerned that President Trump's impending use of
emergency powers to usurp state and local laws, forcing
taxpayers and ratepayers to cover the costs of hastily
implemented energy infrastructure, use of Federal Power Act
Section 202(c) authority to force ratepayers to subsidize
inefficient power plants, or taxpayers footing the bill for
Defense Production Act giveaways to do the same is unwarranted
and requires congressional oversight.
Federal energy regulators also appear to currently lack
adequate authorities to ensure data center loads do not disrupt
power markets.
In my recent challenge to data center giant Blackstone's
efforts to buy a billion-dollar gas plant right near Dulles
Airport here in Virginia, I noted that Blackstone failed to
disclose to FERC that it also controls most of the data center
load in that region.
Blackstone's lawyers then argued to FERC that FERC has no
current authority to assess an applicant's control over data
centers. And then last summer, FERC was caught off guard when
30 percent of Virginia's data centers suddenly went offline
with a resulting surge in electricity nearly causing a
blackout.
It is clear that regulators need additional authorities,
and this is where congressional oversight could help.
I am concerned that President Trump's prioritization of
exporting American natural gas to Berlin and Beijing
disadvantages domestic needs for the fuel.
America is already the world's largest LNG exporter, but
Trump seeks to authorize additional exports that will result in
America exporting up to 40 percent of our domestically produced
gas.
LNG exports are already exposing American families to
higher energy burdens as gas prices at Henry Hub have doubled
since November 2024. The Department of Energy warned of a
triple cost increase to consumers from increasing LNG exports,
including a 30 percent increase in domestic gas prices.
We have heard from some of the witnesses that natural gas
needs to play a role to power data centers. We cannot be
increasing LNG exports at the same time that we need additional
domestic natural gas.
In addition, President Trump's chaotic use of tariffs is
not only inviting an economic recession, his haphazard trade
policies are hindering access to supply chains needed to build
out AI infrastructure.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas did a very important
quarterly survey on March 26 where most of the 200 oil and gas
executives surveyed expressed deep concern about the negative
impacts to supply chains from the President's expanded use of
tariffs.
We need smarter trade policy that targets tariffs coupled
with domestic investment. We have already heard from members of
the panel that there are some bottlenecks in supply chains,
that tariffs are complicating those supply chain bottlenecks.
I appreciate your time and look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Slocum.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Chilson, America has what some have described as a
golden opportunity to lead in the next generation of AI, but
many barriers still exist, as has been mentioned.
What is really holding us back from reaching our full
potential, such as securing investment in private capital?
Mr. Chilson. So, there are many challenges for this
moonshot. And I want to endorse Mr. Mills' idea that it is
private industry that is going to drive this ahead, and it is
Congress' job to build the right launchpad for this moonshot.
And so, clearing the launchpad is the first thing. And I
think especially in the energy space, permitting processes that
slow down the ability to deploy and build new energy, not in a
way that actually achieves, in many cases, the economic or the
environmental benefits that we are seeking, but in a way that
just drags things out unnecessarily slow and gives veto points
to people who are not--who do not necessarily have
environmental concerns in hand.
But the other big challenge I think in this space is a
transformation that we are seeing--largely at the state level--
about how we consider software and how we regulate software.
Software traditionally has been regulated not directly but
indirectly in the uses in which it is put. So, for example, we
have regulation on medical devices which often incorporate
software. We have regulation on transportation. Cars are
rolling computers at this point.
And so, when we regulate at the use rather than at the
general computation level or the general software development
level, we get closer to the harm, we get closer to the goals of
regulation, and we avoid really unintended consequences.
And so, states are rolling out these big picture regulatory
schemes for software. I think that is a real challenge, and I
think it is something that Congress needs to step in on.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
My other question has to do with the fact that there has
been a lot of fear, a lot of concern or worry about what the
potential outcomes might be. But to me, I see the potential for
how our economy is going to pivot and grow and the tremendous
opportunities that we will receive.
Why do you think Americans should be more excited about the
prospects and the job opportunities that AI might bring than be
fearful?
Mr. Chilson. Well, I think the--why is artificial
intelligence important? It is because intelligence is important
and the ability to deploy new, powerful computation to some of
the most challenging problems that we have as humans.
The healthcare space is an amazing example of this. I just
saw this morning there is a new paper in Nature that is giving
a woman who has not been able to speak for years--she is fully
paralyzed--it can scan her brain, and she can speak by thinking
the words in her head. And she can speak at 90 words per
minute, which is slightly slower than I am speaking but not
that much. And that is really impressive. That is the type of
medical benefit that is direct.
Outside of that, the economic benefits from efficiency--my
written testimony goes into them much more--trillions of
dollars of potential benefit in this space.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
Mr. Levi, how do we begin to implement--actually, let me
ask this question.
You described that we have different--that once we unlock
this technology, that we have some real-life examples of
services that are stopping us from doing so.
How do data centers support--or what kind of real-world
examples of regulations and things that are hindering you
from--your data centers from moving forward?
Mr. Levi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the question.
And I would tell you that we are seeing a lot of barriers
that are holding us back from moving forward as quickly as we
can to meet these demand signals.
Clearly, energy permitting is one, and the asynchronous
timelines around which data centers can be constructed and
potentially operated but then be energized is very much a
challenge.
We could put a data center facility from groundbreaking to
commissioning 18 months to 2 years. In order to get energy
projects online, we are looking at 5 years of permitting on
average, up to 7 years for permitting alone for transmission
infrastructure.
We are also seeing some challenges, regulatory barriers
when it comes to equipment, particularly electrical equipment.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
My time has expired.
And, with that, I recognize Mr. Frost for his 5 minutes of
questions.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Artificial intelligence requires massive data centers.
Meta's planned Louisiana data center will cover over 4 million
square feet.
When you realize how large these centers are, it is a
little less surprising that a single center can consume as much
electricity as an entire city's population.
Mr. Slocum, can you talk to us about why data centers
consume so much energy?
Mr. Slocum. Yes. Data centers consume so much energy
because they are filled with, sometimes, millions of
microprocessors that are doing computations, and that takes
enormous amounts of energy.
Increasingly, those microprocessors are computing those
calculations more efficiently. But as you add more and more
capacity, you are increasing energy demand.
And so, there are, I believe, requirements that data
centers should have to improve the efficiency of these
facilities, and a lot of that can be through things like demand
response.
Very often, very large data center operators, whether it is
Meta, or Blackstone, or Google, or Microsoft, they have data
centers in multiple locations.
And you can coordinate operations of these facilities and
reduce consumption in one, increase consumption in another,
based upon peak loads of available generation depending upon
the hour of the day. There are all sorts of smart ways to use
large energy loads.
The concept of demand response has been around for more
than a generation. We are not seeing it as widely adopted in
the data center field as it should be.
And so, before we start committing to building a lot of new
power-generation assets and associated infrastructure, we
should instead be asking one of the most profitable industries
on Earth: are you doing all you can to manage that energy load
responsibly in concert with local communities that are asked to
host these facilities?
Mr. Frost. And, just briefly, what are the impacts on
working families in these communities?
Mr. Slocum. They could be significant. First, as you
mentioned in your opening statement, sometimes these facilities
are not significant job creators. They often negotiate deals
with disadvantaged local governments that are out-lawyered and
outgunned to give away lots of tax breaks that compromise local
districts' ability to fund basic government operations like
infrastructure and schools and so forth.
But you also have discrete environmental issues. As you
noted in your opening statement, these facilities come with
massive arrays of onsite diesel generators. And so those
generators kick on sometimes during regular testing, sometimes
because of issues with the regional power market.
Those diesel generators are not clean-burning facilities.
It is like parking rows of 18-wheeler trucks in front of your
house and turning them on all at once.
There is also noise pollution associated with these
facilities. They are not always the best neighbor.
Mr. Frost. Yes, yes. Thank you. I appreciate it.
But at the same time, obviously it is here. And I think
part of our job in Congress is to ask all the questions. We
want to know how we can spur innovation. We also want to know
how we can protect working families.
And I think in terms of technology, this institution
traditionally has not been the best at asking all the questions
and then legislating having all the answers in mind.
Look no further than social media and where we currently
are where we drag our feet on passing good, commonsense
legislation, and then we freak out when it completely gets out
of hand and try to pass lazy legislation, like we have tried to
do over the past few years on this.
And so, I think it is really important. And I know the
chair brought up this pivot, which I think AI is going to be
very helpful in a lot of different places, even in terms of
figuring out how we are going to deal with the climate crisis.
I think there is a lot here.
However, when we use that--when we talk about the pivot,
there are a lot of people worried about it, including people
like my aunt who spent a long time as a customer service
representative.
When we talk about manufacturing line workers, when we talk
about the American worker, our job is not to ask the questions
of just one set of people but of all people, especially the
working American. And I would love to see us think a little bit
more about this holistically as well.
Just really quick. I have, like, no time left. But I am
just curious. There are ways--and you talked about it--that we
can work at curtailing a lot of these environmental impacts. Do
you have any other ones top of mind?
Mr. Slocum. Yes. I think trying to make sure that you have
zero-emission, clean energy resources. Wind, solar, coupled
with onsite battery storage would be a very sustainable way
that is not going to be disrupting the local community, not
adding to climate destruction, and providing reliable,
affordable energy for these centers.
Mr. Frost. Yes. And I think this is a place where we can
talk more about it. We have had meetings on this, too, talking
about permitting reform, especially as it relates to moving
forward with clean energy.
So, thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, for
5 minutes.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Mills, good to see you this morning.
What are your estimates for power-generation demands over
the next decade? Any idea of what those demands will be?
Mr. Mills. The total generation demand increases from
growth?
Mr. Palmer. Right.
Mr. Mills. Well, there probably----
Mr. Palmer. Well, let me restate it.
Mr. Mills. Yes, sir.
Mr. Palmer. We are in an arms race with China for
artificial intelligence and quantum computing. What amount of
power generation, in addition to what we have now, will we
need?
Mr. Mills. Well, the FERC is reporting an increase between
60 and 130 gigawatts more demand by 2030 than they thought
was----
Mr. Palmer. That is in 5 years.
Mr. Mills. Yes. That they thought 2 years ago. And that is
not just from data centers. It is also from bringing
manufacturing back and electrification of other parts of the
industry.
Mr. Palmer. What do you consider a greater threat to our
future national security, losing the AI arms race to China or
climate change?
Mr. Mills. Well, I, as you probably know, I am on the
record of putting the economy and strategic concerns as No. 1,
not only from my perspective, but as we see from public opinion
polls, that most people would put the economy and national
security first.
Mr. Palmer. If we lose the arms race in artificial
intelligence and quantum computing to China, they will be the
superpower, not a superpower.
One of the things that I think we need to be taking a look
at in addition to the power generation is our dependence on
China for critical minerals and rare earth elements. I pointed
out multiple times in these hearings that there is not a single
major refinery for rare earth elements in the Western
Hemisphere. There are only nine in the world. Eight are in
China and the other one is in Malaysia.
I think that has got to be a top priority. I mean, we are
talking about AI here. We are not going to do anything in that
specter if China cuts us off from rare earth elements and
critical minerals.
But we have also got to meet these demands for increased
power. And one of the things that I suggested this morning in
another meeting is there are over 100 coal-fired power plants
and natural gas plants that have been shuttered in the United
States.
If we started today trying to build new power-generation
facilities, we do not have the manufacturing capacity to
produce the turbines that we need to generate--to meet that new
demand, but we have got existing turbines in many of these
facilities and transmission lines already in place.
So, I would like your thoughts on us utilizing small
modular reactors at these facilities. They are not as site-
sensitive as others. For instance, you could get 600 megawatts
from two small modular reactors in an existing facility where
it would take 77,000 acres to get it from a turbine farm, and
that turbine farm--basically, turbines would have to be
replaced in 25 to 30 years. You would get 40 to 60 years
generation from an SMR.
What do you think about that?
Mr. Mills. Well, Congressman, I am delighted that the tech
community in the United States and Congress are enthusiastic
about nuclear power again. But the reality is that you cannot
buy a small modular reactor. They do not exist yet. We have to
build them at scale, and that will take years. Similarly----
Mr. Palmer. Actually, that GE Hitachi model we think can be
built in 2 to 3 years.
Mr. Mills. Oh, you can construct that scale of a reactor.
This is the 300-megawatt-class reactor. It is a little bit of a
euphemism to think of 300 megawatts as, quote, ``small.''
These are very big power plants. We can certainly build
them quickly. They are possible. The regulatory barriers here
are still significant. But you are talking a decade before we
have the infrastructure to build them.
Similarly, we could build the infrastructure to make the
critical minerals and rare earth mineral refineries here, but
that will also take a decade. And, meanwhile, as you know, 90
percent of the refined critical minerals to build windmills and
solar panels are in China on coal-fired grids.
So, it is a problematic trade to buy technology made in
China.
Mr. Palmer. My point is that I think, having worked for two
international engineering companies and having a little bit of
understanding about what it takes--and I have told people
this--you can open a mine here, but it will be 3 to 5 years
before you start getting aggregate out. It would take 3 years
minimum to be able to build a processor or refining facility.
Notwithstanding how long it takes to get the permitting, if you
permit it on day one, it would still take that long.
But if we can build small modular reactors at scale, you
are going to have some lower costs because you can basically
build standardized designs. You can build advanced reactors
that can use spent fuel. We could fuel a fleet of nuclear
reactors for over a hundred years.
If you use them at these shuttered hydrocarbon plants,
natural gas and coal, would it not be interesting that China is
building coal-fired plants to power their AI expansion that we
could then use nuclear on shuttered hydrocarbon plants with no
emissions to power out?
And I honestly believe that this is something that ought to
be a top priority for this Administration, a top priority for
this Congress to get these SMRs in place and get them in these
places where we already have the turbines and already have the
transmission lines.
Mr. Mills. Count my vote enthusiastically on that strategy,
Congressman.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Mills.
I thank the Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize Mr. Subramanyam from Virginia for 5 minutes
of questions.
Mr. Subramanyam. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate some of the discussion today, and I think I
understand that data storage is more important than ever as we
have AI and the blockchain becoming more prevalent and
accessible. But I want to tell you a cautionary tale about my
community.
My district is home to more data centers than any other
district in the country. In fact, if my district were a
country, it would have more data centers than almost every
other country in the world. And, if you look at this, 10 data
centers usually use more power than all of D.C., and we have
more than 200 and with another 100 planned.
Many years ago, when these data centers were approved, they
seemed like a great idea at the time. Talk about lower property
taxes and revenue for the counties. But our community is paying
the price now. And we are a cautionary tale for the rest of the
country.
The power needed for these data centers is creating a huge
problem for our community. We have power lines right now in
Ashburn and Leesburg and all over Loudoun County. Leesburg,
Lovettsville, Fauquier, Rappahannock Counties are facing
similar proposals of building transmission lines for data
centers that are, quite frankly, invasive and not great for the
communities.
We are paying the price now for many of these data centers.
In the next 5 years alone, data centers could increase
customers' bills by up to $276 a year, and people's utility
bills may double in the next 7 to 10 years just to power data
centers.
And the environmental impact is real as well. These green
spaces are disappearing, pollution is rising, and water
supplies are being stretched thin. It is making reaching our
clean energy goals in Virginia nearly impossible. We set those
in place. And even historic places like Manassas Battlefield
are under threat as well.
And it is also a security risk. Putting all the Nation's
data centers in one place is a huge problem. Just look at the
Ukraine war. When Russia failed to hack Ukraine's telecom
networks, what did they target? They targeted the data centers.
And so northern Virginia is becoming more of a target than
Washington, DC. itself.
And that is why we have a lot of people in our community
standing up and fighting back. The Digital Gateway in Prince
William County, for instance, was blocked from moving forward
by passionate citizens standing up for the health of their
communities, and equally passionate citizens are fighting
proposals in Fauquier County, Rappahannock County, and other
parts of Loudoun.
And there is one local high school student who started a
petition about a power line going through Ashburn. She said our
county is meant to be a place where families can thrive, where
kids can be happy and healthy, and where our communities can
grow, not an industrial zone filled with data centers and high-
voltage power lines.
So, what I am asking today is let us be smart about how we
are deploying data storage as AI and blockchain becomes the
norm. And I am calling for a national strategic plan on how we
deploy more data storage that takes into account the impact on
communities.
It needs to be thoughtful. We need to be thoughtful about
how we handle the unintended consequences on communities, like
how it will affect costs and people's utility bills, how it
will impact our environment, and how do we ensure that the
security of these data centers is sufficient. We need to be
thoughtful about data centers and data storage and their long-
term impacts. And one can support an innovation, but it does
not have to come at the cost of our communities.
So, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Frost. Would you yield to me, Mr. Subramanyam?
Mr. Subramanyam. Yes.
Mr. Frost. I am just curious, Mr. Slocum, on what he was
just talking about in terms of the rising costs for families at
home. Are there any solutions that folks have been talking
about in terms of those?
Mr. Slocum. Absolutely. In my written testimony I cite to
some excellent research by the Harvard Law Electricity Policy
Institute which documents all of these problematic deals
between electric utilities and the data centers where the
utilities and the data centers sort of have a shared objective
here in terms of the utilities want to build more rate base
that they can charge to consumers, and the data centers want to
get access to the utilities' infrastructure that is paid for by
ratepayers and not the shareholders of the big tech companies.
And so, when you are asking working families to pay higher
electric rates so that more infrastructure can be built to
serve billionaire-controlled tech companies, that is a problem,
and that is an equity issue.
In my written testimony, I acknowledge that AI plays a
central role in our economy for a number of different important
deployments, but the reality is that the infrastructure has to
be done in concert with ratepayers and with local residents.
And, right now, we are seeing big tech companies with their
expensive lawyers strong-arming communities. And it is not just
in liberal Democratic areas. It is in red states. It is in
conservative areas.
And so, what we need to see is a balance. And I am always
concerned when, in Washington, DC, everyone says we need
permitting reform. What permitting reform means is trampling
over the rights--the constitutional rights--of our communities.
We have to have a balance that respects the Constitution
and respects communities' ability to live the way that they
want to and not have big tech data centers dominate the
discussion.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Arizona, Ms. Ansari,
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Ansari. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
My district in Arizona and the surrounding Phoenix metro
area is one of the fastest-growing data center hubs in the
country. By 2028, it is expected to be the Nation's second-
largest concentration of data centers behind only northern
Virginia in Mr. Subramanyam's district.
For our national security and economic prosperity, we
absolutely need to be global leaders on the artificial
intelligence front.
To do that, we will need to keep building more data centers
and the infrastructure to support them, but we also need to do
that in a way that is smart, ensuring lasting resiliency in
these systems and our energy and water future.
Arizona Public Service, which is the largest power provider
in my state, has projected that data centers will account for
55 percent of its power needs by 2031.
So, my first question, Mr. Levi, what are companies doing
to lower their power usage going forward?
Mr. Levi. Thank you, Representative Ansari. I very much
appreciate the question. And we are certainly seeing a great
deal of growth in Arizona, and it has been a great destination
for data center employment.
This is an industry that continues to innovate both on
energy and water utilization. I think one of the main things to
recognize is that data centers centralize what would otherwise
be disparate competing resources, bring them together under a
facility.
In doing so, you see already--according to Lawrence
Berkeley National Lab--about a 600 percent gain in energy
efficiency over a disaggregated compute. That was based on
research they did between 2010 and 2018.
That continues. You are seeing a tremendous lean-in on
energy efficiency for a variety of reasons but one of which is
energy is a cost-driver, and our members can pay anywhere from
40 to 60 percent for energy. Every electron is precious and is
managed as such.
At the same time, one of the primary functions of a data
center is to remove heat from servers that generate heat and
ensure that those servers can continue to perform.
When I went into my first data center facility in 2001, I
had to wear a windbreaker because it was a cool environment and
notably so.
Going into a data center now, you will find some ambient
temperatures in the 80's, maybe even higher, because the
hardware has been able to withstand, based on innovations and
design, increasingly high temperatures.
I do want to just indicate there is a fundamental tradeoff
right now in cooling technology between energy efficiency and
water efficiency, and the data center industry does take a lot
of thought as they are deploying infrastructure in locations to
make sure that they are aware of the water availability, the
energy availability, the tradeoffs in terms of how they are
going to cool those servers.
Ms. Ansari. Thank you so much.
Actually, in our last Subcommittee hearing here we
discussed how to strengthen America's energy reliability. I do
strongly believe that the greatest energy source is the energy
that we do not use, and the best way to ensure energy
reliability is to innovate. So, that is good to hear that you
feel it is moving in that direction.
Mr. Slocum, question for you. Would you agree that the AI
industry and data centers would be more cost-effective if they
used less electricity and therefore spent less on their power
bills?
Mr. Slocum. Of course. The question is: do they have the
necessary incentives? When they are cutting sweetheart deals
with a local utility, their focus is not on efficiency. It is
on obtaining access to that transmission or generation
infrastructure.
And so, I think it would be helpful to have guide rules
from Congress about energy efficiency and demand response
initiatives for the data center industry to ensure that we
prioritize more efficient operations going forward.
Ms. Ansari. So, in Arizona and much of the West, as I know
that you know, the most critical resource that we have is
water, and a recent study showed that a single data center can
consume up to 5 million gallons of drinking water per day. That
means they are not only straining already limited resources in
our state, but the result also means that water rates are going
up for families.
This question is also for you. What can the AI and data
center industries do to use less water while also reducing
their strain on the power grid?
Mr. Slocum. Right. Well, as we just heard Mr. Levi say,
that one of the big considerations for data center location is
the availability of water. And out West water resources are
incredibly scarce and becoming more scarce, and it is a huge
challenge.
So, what we need to do is to ensure that they are recycling
or reusing water resources, that they are treating those water
resources, that we are not dipping into aquifers or other
drinking water resources just to keep large computer networks
from overheating.
Ms. Ansari. Thank you.
And I just want to--I will wrap by saying I am not anti-AI
or anti-data center, but if we really do want to dominate this
industry as a country, we need it to be future-proofed.
We need to be innovating. And the goal is to make less
energy-and water-intensive if we really want it to be
sustainable. And I do not just mean sustainable in the climate
sense but sustainable as profitable and a continuously
advancing industry.
So, thank you so much.
I did want to ask for unanimous consent to enter the
following articles into the record if that is OK, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Burlison. What are the names of the articles?
Ms. Ansari. First, a 2024 article from Business Insider
titled ``Google's water use is soaring. AI is only going to
make it worse.''
A 2023 article----
Mr. Burlison. Without objection.
Mr. Burlison. Go ahead.
Ms. Ansari. Thank you.
A 2023 article from The Washington Post titled ``A new
front in the water wars: Your internet use.''
Mr. Burlison. Without objection.
Ms. Ansari. And the third piece and a 2024 piece from the
University of Tulsa titled ``Data centers draining resources in
water-stressed communities.''
Mr. Burlison. Without objection.
Ms. Ansari. Thank you.
Mr. Burlison. I now recognize the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chilson, in your testimony you mentioned Microsoft's
recent announcement to reopen Three Mile Island to power one of
its data centers in Pennsylvania. It is at the heart of the
district that I am honored to represent.
Constellation Energy, by reopening it, will create
approximately 3,400 new jobs, create over $3 billion in state
and Federal taxes, adding $16 billion to Pennsylvania's GDP.
Can you--I mean, well, Constellation obviously owns Three
Mile Island, but Microsoft could have said, ``Well, we want the
most efficient.'' I know we were just talking about efficiency
for data centers and that data center operators do not want--or
maybe do not care, that is the inference, they do not care
about the efficiency of the power they get.
So why did Microsoft not come to Pennsylvania, to PJM, and
say, ``Well, we need this much power, we want you to build this
much solar; or we want you to add this much wind or this much
renewable''? Why did they pick Three Mile Island?
Mr. Chilson. I think they are looking at the tradeoffs and
the cost of energy there and getting more energy from a
facility that has a proven ability to generate it, and I think
the ability to mobilize it quickly.
This is a race, not just a highly competitive race among
companies in the U.S., but obviously internationally. And so,
getting this done quickly I think is really important, and I
think they saw the opportunity to jump on this particular
supply.
Mr. Perry. Do you know the efficiency rating of nuclear
power, particularly Three Mile Island? Is it 95 percent
efficient, 97, when it was operating previously? Do you----
Mr. Chilson. I do not know offhand. I suspect there are
some other people on this panel who might be able to tell you
that.
Mr. Perry. It is in the high 90's, right? And it is
baseload power, right? And it is not dependent on the sun
shining or the wind blowing.
Do data centers--should they be concerned about baseload
power that is reliable and consistent 24 hours a day, 365 days
a year?
Mr. Chilson. Absolutely. They run some of the most
important services. They support some of the most important
services that we all use all the time. And so, they need to be
up and running all the time.
Mr. Perry. Mr. Mills, you seem interested in answering, and
you can go where you want to with this. We have got a little
bit of time left.
But we are looking at, as Mr. Chilson said, at a race, at a
race often with our adversary, and, as they describe us, the
enemy, which is China.
What can we learn, as the United States, from an energy
perspective from China in winning this race?
Mr. Mills. Well, speed matters, I guess would be the short
answer, that the Chinese are very good at building nuclear
plants in 4 years, new ones.
Mr. Perry. Hold on a second. China also provides 85,
somewhere in that percentage, of solar panels and solar panel-
related batteries.
Mr. Mills. Correct. Yes, sir.
Mr. Perry. Why are they not, if they provide that and they
are so good at that, why are they not using those things to
meet their Paris climate accord requirements and to show the
world that this works for winning this race? Why are they not
doing that?
Mr. Mills. Well, I think, not to be a cynic, they are doing
that, of course. They are building everything. But they are
also building coal plants at a furious pace as well.
Mr. Perry. Right.
Mr. Mills. And they produce over 95 percent of the silicon
needed for photovoltaic cells in the world on coal-fired grids.
Well, two-thirds of their grid is coal-fired, as you know. And
the location of the energy-intensive manufacturing of
polysilicon to make photovoltaic cells is the coal-intense part
of the grid.
So, China recognizes that power is fundamental, that
getting it quickly and inexpensively matters.
I am not endorsing China's environmental policies, however,
because----
Mr. Perry. And neither am I.
Mr. Mills [continuing]. I think we can thread the needle in
between the two.
I was pleased to hear that you are from the district that I
visited on March 28, 1979, not to date myself.
Mr. Perry. I lived there at that time.
Mr. Mills. We may have bumped into each other.
Mr. Perry. Still do.
Mr. Mills. I spent the week of the accident at the site and
spent the next half dozen years of my life defending the
virtues of nuclear energy--unsuccessfully, obviously, since we
abandoned it largely, but----
Mr. Perry. I think it is coming back----
Mr. Mills. It is.
Mr. Perry [continuing]. Which is awesome news.
Mr. Mills. I think the refurbishment of TMI is a very good
sign, because it is possible to bring that back online. There
are only maybe a half dozen reactors like that.
If I may answer the question: why did Microsoft choose
that? It chose that because you can quickly get an enormous
amount of highly reliable power. And, of course, Microsoft
likes the fact that it is non-combustion power.
Mr. Perry. Highly reliable, highly efficient, highly
affordable, right?
Mr. Mills. Yes, sir, all of the above.
Mr. Perry. But they did not ask for--you can put up a lot
of solar panels quickly too, right?
Mr. Mills. Yes. I think you are going to, to be fair, I
think you are going to see both.
So, if you look at what is going on in Louisiana with the
large new Meta facility, it is 3 gigawatts, like three or four
Three Mile Islands' worth of power requirements. And they are
going to build windmills, solar arrays, and almost 3 gigawatts
of that.
Mr. Perry. Would they be doing that without Federal and
state subsidies for the non-traditional power sources?
Mr. Mills. I am skeptical that they would, but I think----
Mr. Perry. Me too.
Mr. Mills [continuing]. I think, given the amount of money
these companies have--I share Mr. Slocum's view that these are
very deep-pocketed organizations--I think they would still--
this is my suspicion.
I am all for getting rid of all the subsidies. I am on
record frequently before Congress on this. I think that they
would still build a lot of solar and wind but a lot less of it
than they are now doing.
Mr. Perry. I yield.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mills, can you clarify for America what is the
consumption of energy that we are talking about here as
Americans try to grasp? What is the difference between a data
center requirement? And what kind of energy does AI draw? Why
is that different from a business or a home?
Will you explain what we are talking about regarding the
needs for the consumption of energy from our--clearly, it has
to come from our existing grid or the grid that we envision
modernizing in the near future if we were to participate in
this global competition to lead the emergence of AI and data
technology.
So, could you clarify for America about how much energy is
required for this?
Mr. Mills. Well, it has surprised a lot of people, Mr.
Congressman, as you know. The computer age began--I was part of
the beginning of the computer age as a young man designing and
manufacturing microprocessors. And very few people thought
about computers in city-size power consumption terms at that
time. There were a handful of forecasters who expected that to
happen.
I will say again it happened because we made computing so
efficient. The goal of making computers faster is you have to
make them more efficient. This is sort of the central
requirement.
But what it means in simple terms is--well, everything we
do, if you--we are broadcasting this hearing live to the
internet and, of course, that consumes energy. It is just
hidden energy. And it consumes roughly as much as the people
that are watching it, each person. Their energy share of
watching this hearing online is roughly equal to if they took a
bus ride 10 or 20 miles.
Mr. Higgins. But may I ask, if I could interject while the
gentleman is explaining, Americans are watching something else
if they are not watching this.
Mr. Mills. That is true.
Mr. Higgins. And the lights are on in this place----
Mr. Mills. Correct.
Mr. Higgins [continuing]. Whether anyone is in this room or
not.
Mr. Mills. All using energy.
Mr. Higgins. And the cameras are plugged in.
Mr. Mills. Yes.
Mr. Higgins. So, regarding data centers, there is a failure
to grasp. It took me a while to grasp. And I am asking you to
clarify for America, why do the envisioned data centers and the
AI technology, why is the consumption of energy so massive?
Mr. Mills. Because the quantity of information processed is
even more massive. So, a single data center now typically uses
more power than a steel mill. We are building them by the
hundreds. We are not building hundreds of steel mills, although
it would be nice if we built a few dozen.
So, the magnitude of information processing that goes on--
and we measure this in bytes, which has no meaning. It is a
term that is exotic. But we used to be amazed at a gigabyte and
megabytes.
These are measured in numbers that are literally
astronomical. The quantity of data being processed and will be
processed to do everything that we have heard from our
witnesses, my colleagues, it will keep expanding, whether it is
medical care or entertainment.
Mr. Higgins. OK. So, our existing grid cannot--if we were
to win the race, we do not have the grid to carry to victory,
do we?
Mr. Mills. That is correct. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Higgins. That is right. So, modernization of the grid
across the country, would you say that is of paramount
consideration?
Mr. Mills. Modernization of the grid and the opportunity
for private players to produce power. It does not have to be on
grid. Yes, sir, both.
Mr. Higgins. Roger that. OK.
It was brought up earlier regarding the need for fresh
water for cooling. Can you comment on that from an energy
perspective?
Mr. Mills. Cooling is a challenge. These are very hot
processes. The surface of each chip is hotter than the surface
of the sun. It is a crazy number. It is hard to cool them. It
takes a lot of water.
I think what you will see increasingly is data centers
sited where there are not water challenges and there are not
transmission challenges.
Mr. Higgins. Because commonly some of the least expensive
energy sources are where you also have some of the least water.
Mr. Mills. That is a challenge, that is correct.
Mr. Higgins. Is that correct?
Mr. Mills. That is correct.
Mr. Higgins. So, these are serious challenges.
In my remaining half a minute, Mr. Levi, would you please
address the supply chains? We have concerns regarding materials
and components necessary for us to engage in this competition
that we intend to win.
Mr. Levi. Thank you, Representative Higgins. I very much
appreciate the question.
And, yes, we have some very significant supply chain
constraints, much of which is really electrical components. And
it is a matter of finding transformers, switch gears.
Mr. Higgins. Should we be building those components in
America, sir?
Mr. Levi. We should. And as an industry, we are leaning
into supply chain to try and source as much here as we can.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Roger that. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I yield.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentlelady from North Dakota, Mrs.
Fedorchak.
Mrs. Fedorchak. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
the opportunity to sit in on your Committee today.
I am a Member from North Dakota, a new Member, and I am on
the Energy and Commerce Committee, but am very interested in
this issue, particularly the powering of America's AI industry.
I spent 12 years as a utility regulator; most recently was
president of the National Association of Utility Regulators.
So, I am very familiar with a lot of the issues regarding our
energy markets, the signals we are sending to our energy
markets, the massive increase in demand that we are talking
about here.
When I look back on the 12 years as a regulator in my
state--and we served during a time of energy boom, so we saw
demand increase--it was still like 3 percent.
So, when you look--I was in a meeting this morning with
PJM, and they said that their peak demand today is 150
gigawatts and they are looking in 5 years to be at 185
gigawatts. That is mind-blowing. That is astounding.
And to meet that demand I appreciate requires a level of
development that we have never before done. There is no time in
history that we have grown that much power and connected it to
the grid that quickly.
So, with that, I have just a couple questions for you
experts, and I invite you to participate. We have got a working
group my office has led on AI and energy. We want to try to get
some solutions and a policy framework for solutions to bring to
the table on this very issue.
But what types of efficiency upgrades can we count on--I
hope--to mitigate that power demand increase? Because AI is
getting more and more efficient, and hopefully some of these
projections will come down because of efficiency increases and
improvements.
So, for any of you, I invite you all to comment on that.
Maybe with you, Mr. Mills, do you want to start?
Mr. Mills. The efficiency--the rate of improvement in
energy efficiency of compute and GPUs is faster than the
vaunted Moore's Law efficiency gains. And the rate of
efficiency gains in the cloud are even faster yet, because
efficiency gains and the transmission of information and the
memory systems, all the associated, are going extremely fast.
What is happening is that the demand for the product,
software, is growing even faster, because what efficiency gains
do in computing is it makes the computing cheaper, easier,
faster, which for quite a long time is going to overtake all of
the ostensible efficiency gains.
I think the principal solution will come from--and I will
say I endorse a blend of what Mr. Slocum has said and what a
lot of other people are saying, to your point, that we cannot
build that much capacity that quickly. It looks like we cannot
for a whole set of supply chain reasons.
So, we are going to have to figure out how to meet the
demand for the services while moderating the incredible demand
for power.
I think one of the solutions will be increased use of where
the utility industry was a hundred years ago, which is loads
this big, which are industrial-class loads, they are purely in
the sort of refinery, steel mill, we will increasingly see
onsite generation, independent generation, and even co-
generation, ``co'' in the sense of not heat and power but peak
shaving for the grid without costing consumers money.
Every utility I talk to, every utility CEO does not want to
raise the cost of their electricity for their consumers to
serve industrial load. This has been a difficult challenge.
Mrs. Fedorchak. For sure. Thank you.
Mr. Levi. Thank you, Representative.
Mr. Burlison. Were you finished?
Mrs. Fedorchak. Do I have another minute?
Mr. Burlison. Yes. I am sorry.
Mrs. Fedorchak. Thank you.
Mr. Levi.
Mr. Levi. I appreciate the question, Representative
Fedorchak.
Mrs. Fedorchak. Yes, if you can.
Mr. Levi. I would just add that data centers are highly
efficient facilities, but they also enable energy savings and
efficiencies economy-wide.
I talked earlier about just the changes in the last 15
years walking into a data center, the ambient temperature
inside. Servers generate heat. You know, early days you had to
wear a windbreaker going into a data center because it was that
cool.
Mrs. Fedorchak. Right.
Mr. Levi. Now ambient temperatures have increased
substantially. You can go into data centers that are 80 degrees
or higher. And that is part of the energy efficiency gains that
we have got within the data centers if we are looking at
cooling.
But I also think it is important to recognize the role of
data centers in enabling energy efficiency for others. Whether
you think about smart thermostats, whether you think about GETs
in dynamic line monitoring, or any number of technologies that
are utilized by consumers, that are utilized by businesses,
utilized by government, all of those rely on the digital
infrastructure the data centers are providing.
Mrs. Fedorchak. Good point.
Mr. Levi. And there is not only substantial recognition
within the data centers but certainly economy-wide of the
efficiencies gained.
Mrs. Fedorchak. Thank you.
I am out of time, but I will say North Dakota has cool air
and we are flaring gas. So, come there and use that gas and
generate power.
Thank you. Appreciate it. I yield back.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Colorado, Ms. Boebert,
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chilson, AI's rise, it really offers a dual lifeline:
coal as a power bridge and AI as a transition engine.
Do you believe that they are both crucial to keeping rural
communities from collapsing?
Mr. Chilson. I do. I am more of an expert on the AI side,
so I will address that.
I do think that we are seeing that intelligence in the form
of connected from here but to big data centers is a benefit
across the economic spectrum and that everybody can benefit
from this.
We have seen some good research that shows that, in fact,
AI tools help benefit actually people who are newer or less
capable in certain types of jobs to really level up their
skills quickly, and there are sort of diminishing returns at
the top end. And so there has been some good research on this.
So, I do think that across the economy we will see huge
benefits to this technology, including in rural areas that
maybe have not historically received the benefits of high
technology.
Ms. Boebert. Awesome. Thank you.
And, Mr. Mills, you stated that AI data centers will
require the equivalent of adding an entire state's worth of
power generation just in the next few years alone.
I believe that that is true. And, if so, how can anyone
seriously argue that wind and solar are going to be enough for
all of this?
Mr. Mills. Well, people do seriously argue that,
Congresswoman, of course. And it is not that it is technically
impossible to build enough wind and solar batteries. It is
these things--the engineers can do a lot of things if you give
them enough money. The issues are really how much----
Ms. Boebert. We have given them a lot already. I have not
seen it----
Mr. Mills. That is true.
Ms. Boebert. Yes. I have not seen it produce anything.
Mr. Mills. It is really a velocity question and location
question. I think what you will find--and we are already seeing
this. You are seeing some plans for blended. I mentioned
Louisiana, where you are blending solar and gas turbines.
And what you will find is you can reduce the number of gas
turbines you have and the amount of gas you are consuming by
using enough of them plus wind and solar.
That is going to keep happening, because the absolute
quantity demand is so great that I think the industry is going
to chase everything they possibly can.
It is not that they are totally price-insensitive but they
are--and this is my opinion, is they do not--but they are close
to price-insensitive in the sense the product is so important
and the velocity is so important that they will pay a premium,
including, I suspect, that the utilities have much more
negotiating power than they realize. And some of the utilities
they can recognize that they can negotiate construction
arrangements and business arrangements that do not impact
consumers, increase rates.
Ms. Boebert. Right. And I would think that we see such a
blended form of energy right now because there are so many
subsidies. And without the subsidies, it may not be as much of
a blend.
We are all fine with all-of-the-above energy, but when we
are shutting down coal plants in rural communities, like in
Colorado, and putting that energy aside, and then saying we are
going to replace it with 6,000 square acres of solar panels,
but we do not have the transmission lines and we do not have
the funding for that yet.
And when this is so crucial with AI's rise, I think it is
imperative that we have that reliable source and stop
demonizing fossil fuels. We have some coal plants that are
being converted into LNG facilities. And then I would love to
see SMRs come to the surface too, have these small modular
reactors in places.
And so, do you believe that the energy policies that we
have seen have actually kind of slowed down the progress
potentially in AI's development?
Mr. Mills. To a significant extent, yes, because when you
do asymmetric subsidies--the solar and wind industry are no
longer nascent small industries that need a boost with
subsidies. They are massive industries globally, huge supply
chains. They no longer need massive subsidies. So, it has
distorted how the market would respond.
And you probably know that both in Georgia and Illinois
there have been delays or cancellations of coal plant shutdowns
precisely because of the need for adequate and dispatchable
power.
I hope that that spreads to other states and we slow down
as well. And, in fact, I will make a prediction. It will make
some of my green friends' heads explode, to use that
expression, but I do think you are going to see a coal plant
built to fund data centers. That is happening in Asia----
Ms. Boebert. Yes.
Mr. Mills [continuing]. And in Vietnam and in----
Ms. Boebert. China is building some 200 coal-fired energy
plants and selling us solar panels. Yes.
Mr. Mills. Exactly.
Ms. Boebert. But to your point, we have coal plants in
Colorado that are reduced down from three stacks to one.
And in 5 seconds, could you just explain simply how much
energy we need to supply this? What does that look like to the
average person?
And I yield.
Mr. Mills. There is a single refrigerator-size computer
rack in a data center, and there are thousands of racks. A
single one uses more electricity than 50 Teslas or any other
electric car.
So, it gives you a sense, when you build millions of those,
you are adding the equivalent of hundreds of million new EVs to
the road in a couple years.
Ms. Boebert. Yes. And just for the record, EVs do not have
gas pedals. They have coal pedals.
Thank you.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
And, with that, I now yield to Ranking Member Frost for
closing remarks.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you so much to the witnesses for being here today.
There is no doubt we can credit AI for exciting
advancements, including in the field of healthcare, education,
and much more. Congress' job must be to support those
advancements but also couple them with responsible safeguard
policies.
Being on the Science and Technology Committee, I know the
importance of maintaining a competitive technological edge
against our adversaries in AI and other technologies, like
quantum computing, chip manufacturing, and space exploration.
At the same time, we cannot let our fear of our foreign
adversaries turn into a scorched earth AI policy that can do
real harm to the health and pocketbook and autonomy of people
here at home, and we heard a little bit about that from a few
of the members here today.
I am not anti-AI, anti-innovation, but the balance is so
important, especially as we look decades into the future. And I
agree it is exciting, you know, to work on legislation that
helps create the innovation sandbox that was brought up, but we
have to ensure that the communities do not get buried in the
sand. And that is part of our job as legislators.
So, I appreciate everyone being here today.
And I yield to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, everyone, for coming today.
As we have heard, AI has a promising future for
transforming the ways that various sectors of our economy
operate. But for this future to be realized there are very real
challenges that Congress and the Administration should
consider.
Workforce challenges highlight the need for improved
training and education in the fields that are necessary to
support this transition. I can think not too far--I was
graduating college during the dot-com boom. And when people
thought of programmers, they thought of people that use punch
cards, the machine learning language. It completely changed the
industry and ushered in an entire new generation of software
engineers like myself.
The processes for increasing energy infrastructure required
for the operation of power-intensive AI uses are greatly in
need of reform, particularly as it relates to permitting and
regulatory barriers. A recent report by the Competitive
Enterprise Institute titled ``Powering Intelligence: Meeting
AI's Energy Needs in a Changing Electricity Landscape''
highlighted many of these reforms.
And I am asking unanimous consent to enter this into the
record.
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Burlison. Finally, any consideration of regulation of
the development and use of AI must account for the needs of
innovation and competitive markets. One can only imagine the
many unlimited number of potential business ideas and ventures
that might spring forward from very nuanced or niche or
sometimes very impactful large-scale companies from this
transformation.
AI is creating more efficiency by greatly reducing the time
needed to complete tasks that would take far longer to complete
without this important tool. And while we are in a global race
for leadership in this rapidly evolving field, American
innovation has a very proven track record of leading the way
when it comes to being innovative. And the Trump Administration
recognizes this incredible potential and the prosperity that it
will create both within our borders and in the economies around
the world.
Achieving this moonshot will require action by both
Congress and the Administration to create an environment in
which the tech innovators and the sectors supporting this
industry can grow.
I hope this conversation today has highlighted some of the
many ways that Congress and the Administration can take action
to ensure that America can and will lead the world in AI for
many generations to come.
And, without objection, all Members have 5 legislative days
within which to submit materials and to submit additional
written questions for the witnesses, which will be forwarded to
the witnesses for their responses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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