Corporate Power

Fund Public-Interest Intervenors in Public-Utility Ratepayer Cases

States have the ability to fund individuals and groups to participate in regulatory utility cases. This process is essential to ensure that the public’s interest is represented in cases. Currently, 20 states have authorized intervenor compensation programs designed to provide funding for people to participate in utility proceedings.¹ States should build and/or strengthen these programs.

Remove Barriers to Public Intervention

States can pass laws reforming the public-intervention process, including removing laws that allow private entities to challenge and throw out intervenors before proceedings and removing requirements that intervenors need a lawyer to intervene. States can also institute strong standing principles that allow any organization to participate in the intervention process.

1. Deanna Nussberger, “Intervenor Compensation: Supporting Public Participation in Utility Decisions,” Environmental Defense Fund, May 20, 2025, https://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2025/05/20/intervenor-compensation-supporting-public-participation-in-utility-decisions. ↩︎

Key players in the data center development process are trying to influence key elections. In just one example, Virginia’s state-regulated utility monopoly Dominion Energy spent $650,000 backing a candidate in the attorney general race, a role designed to hold utility companies like Dominion accountable for harm to ratepayers.¹ The looming threat that individuals, corporations, or political action committees (PACs) may retaliate against legislators who regulate data centers by spending money in elections significantly influences how and when legislators choose to impose regulations. In 11 states (including Indiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia), there are no contribution limits on individual donors. In five states (including Virginia) corporations can give unlimited amounts of money to candidates that meet certain conditions. Seven states allow PACs to contribute unlimited funds to candidates.²

Establish Commonsense Limits for Individual and PAC Contributions

States can pass laws restricting the amount of money that individuals and political action committees can contribute to elections.

Prohibit Corporate Contributions to Political Campaigns

States can pass laws restricting the amount of money that corporations can contribute to elections.

1. Amy Waters, “Why Is Dominion Energy Trying to Buy the Attorney General’s Office?,” Clean Virginia, June 10, 2025, https://www.cleanvirginia.org/2025/06/10/blog-why-is-dominion-trying-to-buy-the-attorney-generals-office. ↩︎
2. “Campaign Contribution Limits: Overview,” NCSL, updated July 09, 2025, https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/campaign-contribution-limits-overview. ↩︎

Federal policymakers canpromote a robust competition toolkit, with a particular focus on abuse of dominance in the AI supply chain and energy sector.

Structural Separation

Structural separation is a tool to break up big companies so they cannot own multiple stages of a supply chain. In the AI market, structural separation may look like preventing cloud companies from participating in the market for AI foundation models, requiring that Big Tech firms divest their cloud computing businesses from the rest of their corporate structure, preventing AI foundation model companies from participating in other markets related to AI, or preventing chip designers from investing in AI development companies. It also may look like preventing private-equity firms from owning energy utility companies and power companies, or Big Tech companies from owning energy companies and data centers.

Heightened Scrutiny of Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships

Require heightened scrutiny of mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships involving Big Tech hyperscalers and/or private-equity firms and their subsidiaries.

Bright-Line Rules

Rather than rely exclusively on enforcement of antitrust laws after a harm has already occurred, ex ante rules proactively prevent harm before it can occur. Enforcers can use these proactive regulations to prevent Big Tech hyperscalers from self-preferencing their own products or engaging in discriminatory treatment.

Quick measures to put market players on notice could include warning letters or use of subpoena power to scrutinize financial transactions within the sector, particularly those involving circular spending deals or those that use special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) to obscure information from investors. 

Private, for-profit monopolies currently provide 70 percent of electricity in the United States. The other 30 percent is provided by publicly or mutually owned utilities. Over the past three years, investor-owned utility (IOU) residential electricity rates have increased 49 percent more than inflation, whereas the rates from publicly owned utilities have increased 44 percent less than inflation.¹ Public power campaigns in Milwaukee,² New York,³ Tucson, and other cities are demanding shifts to democratically controlled power systems to protect against rapidly rising electricity prices.⁴ Legislators can and should support local and national public power campaigns, using federal power to intervene where appropriate.

1. Mark Ellis, Rate of Return Equals Cost of Capital: A Simple, Fair Formula to Stop Investor-Owned Utilities From Overcharging the Public, American Economic Liberties Project, page 2, January 2025, https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250102-aelp-ror-v5.pdf. ↩︎
2. Power to the People Milwaukee, https://www.powertothepeoplemke.org. ↩︎
3. Public Power NY, https://publicpowerny.org. ↩︎
4. Derek Seidman, “As Electricity Bills Rise, Activists Are Demanding Public Control of Utilities,” Truthout, January 2, 2026, https://truthout.org/articles/as-electricity-bills-rise-activists-are-demanding-public-control-of-utilities. ↩︎

Our energy sector is facing increased consolidation and private takeover, with Big Tech and private-equity companies moving to acquire energy companies, and private equity taking over investor-owned utility companies across the country. Blackstone, one of the world’s largest private-equity firms, recently filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas to acquire Texas‑New Mexico Power’s parent company.¹ In Minnesota, the state’s Public Utilities Commission (MN PUC) approved the $6.2 billion sale of Allete, parent company of Minnesota Power, to a subsidiary of BlackRock and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.²  

Note: The water sector is also facing increased consolidation and threats of private-equity takeover. While this section specifically deals with the energy stack, it is critical for federal policymakers to address private takeover within the utility sector writ large.

Promote a Robust Antitrust Toolkit

Enforce antitrust laws that limit acquisitions and investments in key energy infrastructure that lead to undue corporate influence over public goods. Heightened scrutiny of mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships involving Big Tech hyperscalers and private-equity firms that have an interest in data center development and associated infrastructure.

Prevent Private-Equity Takeover of Investor-Owned Utilities

The federal government can leverage authorities from FERC, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prohibit the private-equity takeover of investor-owned utilities. Where that is not legally feasible, require strict scrutiny of any proposed acquisition where a private-equity firm seeks to acquire at least 10 percent or more of the voting securities of a regulated entity and apply a robust public interest standard to adjudicate the change of control request. 

Note: The 10 percent threshold stems from two 2022 FERC decisions establishing a rebuttable presumption that ownership of more than 10 percent of the voting securities of a regulated entity constitutes a change of control, but that ownership of less than 10 percent may still constitute a change of control if the investor’s own officers or directors are appointed to the board of the regulated entity.³This suggests that 10 percent should be the ceiling.

1. Texas‑New Mexico Power, “Texas‑New Mexico Power Files Acquisition Application with the Public Utility Commission of Texas,” August 25, 2025, https://tnmp.com/about-us/news-media/texas-new-mexico-power-files-acquisition-application-public-utility-commission; Claire Hao, “Who Benefits If Wall Street Buys Your Utility? Texas-New Mexico Power Customers Could Soon Find Out,” MSN, January 30, 2026, https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/who-benefits-if-wall-street-buys-your-utility-texas-new-mexico-power-customers-could-soon-find-out/ar-AA1Vk1rR. ↩︎
2. Marc Levy, “Private Equity Sees Profits in Power Utilities as Electric Bills Rise and Big Tech Seeks More Energy,” Associated Press, September  27,  2025, https://apnews.com/article/big-tech-private-equity-electricity-utilities-power-energy-7c5d119142380bb7a83bbe722f69f2a5. ↩︎
3. TransAlta Energy Marketing (U.S.) Inc., 181 FERC ¶ 61,055 (2022); Evergy Kan. Central, Inc., 181 FERC ¶ 61,044 (2022). ↩︎

Data center deals are becoming increasingly convoluted and opaque, with Big Tech firms using distinct legal entities known as special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) to fund and execute data center deals. These deals are “off-balance sheet,” meaning that the deal—and any debt the SPV has raised—is not listed on Big Tech firms’ balance sheets, thus masking a clear picture of a company’s financial health.¹ Federal policymakers should prohibit public firms from using SPVs and other financial vehicles to hide data center investments on balance sheets, or should fully investigate the terms of these deals. 

1. Advait Arun, Bubble or Nothing: Data Center Project Finance, Center for Public Enterprise, November 2025, https://publicenterprise.org/wp-content/uploads/Bubble-or-Nothing.pdf. ↩︎

Data centers are increasingly financed through complex, opaque, and highly leveraged deals. Banks, insurance companies, private credit funds, real estate investment trusts (REITs), pensions, mutual funds, and retail investors are increasingly exposed to risk and could suffer significant losses in the event of a market downturn.¹ Federal policymakers should establish financial safeguards to prevent pension funds and other important institutional investors from acquiring or retaining exposure to speculative securities linked to data center infrastructure. Such safeguards might include mandated divestment (i.e., requiring pension funds to divest from securities whose underlying collateral depends on data centers), heightened fiduciary duties for the administrators of pension plans or the managers of other investment portfolios, or more stringent transparency and exposure reporting requirements.

1. Warren et al., Letter to Secretary Scott Bessent Re AI Debt, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. ↩︎

AI companies comprised over 80 percent of US stock market gains in 2025, and stock market ownership represents nearly 30 percent of the net worth of American households.¹ We cannot build a successful and sustainable economy around one concentrated industry. The stock market gains attributed to AI mask a bleak economic picture: Across the US job growth is slowing,² daily life is becoming more unaffordable,³ and many of the vital institutions that support our civic and social lives are facing budget cuts and austerity demands. We need to invest in industries that equip people with good jobs, pass strong regulations to check concentrated corporate power, and ensure the long-term sustainability of our economy.

1. Arun, Bubble or Nothing. ↩︎
2. Justin Lahart and Danny Dougherty, “America’s Job Market Has Entered the Slow Lane,” Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2026, https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/jobs-employment-2025-df2fa311. ↩︎
3. Madeleine Ngo, “Food Prices Were Stubbornly High Last Year,” New York Times, January 13, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/business/economy/inflation-cpi-report-food-prices.html. ↩︎