War Room’s Steve Bannon and energy consultant Dave Walsh discussed electricity shortages in States including Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia.
AI has been one of the biggest concerns in regards to rapidly increasing energy bills, which has become a strain on the average American’s budget.
“The pressure, particularly coming from AI. These electric bills. I mean, give me a couple of minutes on this cause this is getting to be, this is going to be such an important topic,” Bannon said.
“This whole affordability thing. The whole issue of energy. How we get industrial energy, and how we get energy to consumers at a reasonable price, and to pay for the sins of the people who screwed this up in the past. Your thoughts, sir?” Bannon asked.
Walsh explained that one of the main reasons there has been electricity shortages is because coal plants were shut down and replaced with inadequate alternatives like solar and wind.
“The electricity shortages in Maryland and New Jersey, specifically Northern Virginia, now Pennsylvania, were caused by the teardown, and shutdown of coal plants,” Walsh said.
“The attempt to replace them with wind and solar power and battery storage has not worked,” Walsh continued.
“That’s been step one of electricity costs going through the roof,” Walsh said.
“Industrials already benefit from massive discounting across the country,” Walsh explained.
“They have some key advantages over residential rate payers to begin with,” Walsh continued.
“To let AI and data center clients build their own capacity, build their own capacity, take advantage of the makers depreciation, remove restrictions that cause local builders and power plants to not be able to sell power into regulated grids,” Walsh explained.
“What we really don’t want as much of is them just plugging into the grid, taking advantage of the fact, and then rate payers wind up paying the two and a half billion-dollar cost,” Walsh explained.
“It’s gonna be a huge issue in the midterms,” Bannon said.
“Particularly about AI, and the data centers and what’s gonna happen is gonna be central to the ’26 midterm,” Bannon said.
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