Trump Says Data Centers Are 'Mandated by Me' to Make Their Own Electricity. Two Months Ago He Said Towns That Fight Them Would End Up 'Backwards and Poor', and His Own FERC Just Ruled Only States Can Order It
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In a Truth Social post early Wednesday, October 21, President Trump wrote that new large data centers are 'mandated by me to make their own electricity' and sell any excess to the local grid, and urged developers to pay communities a 'dividend'. It reverses his August line that towns opposing data centers would end up 'backwards and poor'. Twelve days earlier, on October 9, FERC, run by his appointees, rejected PJM's bring-your-own-new-capacity rule because it intruded on state authority over retail customers, so no federal mechanism exists to carry out the mandate; experts say only states can impose it, and the midterm electric-bill backlash is already showing in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
