AI Data Centers Not Paying Their Costs, Will Keep Using NDAs and Seek Tax Breaks

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Blumenthal released a 27‑page investigation, Power and Profits, after a nearly yearlong inquiry into how AI data center development shifts costs onto households and local governments. The senators sent detailed information requests to Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty, and Equinix and supplemented responses with interviews. The central argument is that Big Tech firms claim to pay their “full” energy or infrastructure costs only for assets that solely benefit them, while resisting standards that would require them to cover upgrades that exist “but for” a data center’s presence, effectively leaving shared costs to be absorbed by residential ratepayers.

The investigation documents three concrete practices: developers routinely seek nondisclosure agreements that limit public notice and local scrutiny of project siting and impacts; companies actively pursue generous state and local tax incentives - especially sales tax exemptions on chips and equipment - that can total billions in foregone revenue; and none of the respondents provided comprehensive, verifiable data showing sustained full‑time job creation or local economic benefits. The senators conclude that these behaviors allow the industry to extract subsidies and favorable terms, play jurisdictions against one another, and impose utility and fiscal burdens on communities.