CHARLESTON W.Va. (WVDN) — West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey joined a coalition of 16 attorneys general in launching an investigation into major tech companies regarding their misleading and deceptive claims they are solely powered by renewable energy.
In a letter sent this week to Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon executives, the coalition outlined their concerns with false claims the companies have made about their energy use and the impact it could have on the nation’s electric grid. The companies rely on purchased certificates to offset emissions, which threatens the integrity of the electrical grid as utility companies are shutting down necessary coal and natural gas plants.
“These companies can’t have it both ways. They can’t use our reliable, affordable, abundant energy — but virtue signal that they’re “green”. They’re not green, because it’s not practical or possible. It’s deceptive and I’m proud to stand with this coalition to push back against the hypocrisy from these woke companies,” Attorney General McCuskey said.
These companies are purchasing unbundled “renewable energy certificates” (RECs), which are tradable credits showing renewable energy was produced and added to the grid. It allows the companies to claim they use renewable energy, even though they are consuming fossil fuels, especially at their data centers, which threatens the reliability of the electrical grid.
The letter states that the energy usage claims appear to be deceptive as purchasing unbundled RECs does not reduce their own or any emissions. Major tech companies provide misleading information about their renewable energy consumption if they rely on some fossil-fuel-generated baseload power, which produced emissions in the first place.
“When big tech companies claim to use 100% renewable energy, they pressure utilities to move away from fossil-fuel-generated baseload power to attract or retain big tech data center development,” the letter states.
Attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming also joined the letter led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.
Read the letter here.
