(NewsNation) — The federal government and a bipartisan group of governors announced Friday they are signing a statement of principles focused on getting new power generation onto the grid and working to bring down energy costs.
Among the governors attending the Friday morning announcement on the White House campus were 2028 prospective Democratic presidential contenders, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Maryland’s Wes Moore.
The announcement centers on the states covered by PJM, the largest power grid operator in the United States. It serves 67 million customers from Chicago to New Jersey.
“It shouldn’t be lost on anybody that we are standing here in a bipartisan fashion, reaching across the aisle to make sure they were having a recognition of something of true and shared importance, because energy prices are some of the main concerns that I know I hear everywhere I go in the state of Maryland,” Moore said at the White House on Friday.
The Trump administration and the states are pushing this grid operator to do an emergency auction in which technology companies would be required to pay for the building of a group of new power plants, the sources said.
These plants would help provide power for new tech data centers, which experts had warned could drive up energy costs.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the administration is leading a unprecedented bi-partisan effort urging PJM to fix the energy subtraction failures of the past, prevent price increases, and reduce the risk of blackouts. Ensuring the American people have reliable and affordable electricity is one of President Trump’s top priorities, and this would deliver much-needed, long-term relief to the Mid-Atlantic region,” White House Spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement.
This is described as a one-time emergency interceding into PJM operations, the White House official says, citing rising power costs in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Other governors in attendance were Ohio’s Mike DeWine and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, both Republicans.
The board of grid operator PJM announced Friday afternoon new efforts to increase capacity, but not an auction to open new parts of the electrical grid as the White House and governors pushed for.
There are about 13 states that this grid operator covers, but only the four governors are slated to attend the announcement event in person, one of the sources said.