PJM is the regional transmission organization (a large wholesale electricity market and grid operator) that coordinates the movement of power for utilities and customers across 13 states and D.C. As of 2026, PJM’s footprint covers all or parts of: Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
The National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) is a White House–level coordinating body created by executive order in February 2025 to align federal energy policy across agencies. It is chaired by the Secretary of the Interior, with the Energy Secretary as vice chair, and includes senior officials from agencies such as DOE, EPA, FERC, and others. It does not replace existing regulators; instead it sets administration-wide priorities and directs departments—under existing statutes like the Federal Power Act, Mineral Leasing Act, etc.—to accelerate approvals, revisit regulations, and coordinate on issues such as grid reliability, permitting, and fuel supply. In this structure, FERC and state utility regulators still make most formal grid and rate decisions, but the NEDC can strongly shape what projects and policies federal agencies pursue and how quickly they act.
The DOI/NEDC press release emphasizes “baseload” and “all-of-the-above” power but does not give a precise fuel-by-fuel breakdown for the $15 billion in new PJM projects. Based on: (1) the NEDC’s founding order, which directs support for fossil fuels and nuclear alongside renewables, and (2) PJM’s current and queued resource mix—where new firm capacity is dominated by natural-gas combined-cycle plants and some nuclear, with coal largely retiring—most of the new baseload capacity is likely to be natural-gas–fired generation, with a smaller share of nuclear (including potential uprates or life extensions) and possibly some hydropower or other dispatchable resources. Coal is unlikely to be a major share of new builds because PJM’s recent additions and interconnection queue are overwhelmingly gas, battery storage, and renewables, with almost no new coal projects.
The press release says only that a coalition of major technology companies will “fund the new generation capacity so that data-center-related costs fall on tech firms rather than taxpayers”; it does not spell out the exact financial structures. In practice, similar data-center deals today typically rely on: (1) long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) or direct contracts between tech firms and generators, sometimes including equity investment in plants; and (2) new FERC-approved arrangements that allow data centers to connect more directly to specific power plants and pay for dedicated capacity. If structured this way, the cost of new plants is mainly recovered from the contracted data-center load, so non–data-center customers’ base rates are affected indirectly—through broader market price effects in PJM—rather than via an explicit surcharge on their bills.
President Trump’s January 2025 executive order declaring a national energy emergency mainly activates tools under existing laws; it does not give the White House unlimited control over grid planning. Key authorities include:
Electricity prices in the PJM region have risen notably in recent years, but increases vary by state and are driven by multiple factors beyond federal policy. EIA data show that from 2018 to 2024 the average total retail electricity price (all sectors) rose to about 12.5¢/kWh in Pennsylvania, 11.3¢/kWh in Ohio, and 10.6¢/kWh in Virginia, with each state seeing meaningful percentage increases over that period. EIA also reports that retail electricity prices nationally have increased faster than inflation since 2022. Besides federal policy changes, key contributors include: higher natural gas and other fuel costs after 2021; rising distribution and transmission investment costs; supply-chain and labor inflation; state and local policies (such as clean-energy standards and utility-specific rate decisions); and strong growth in large loads like data centers, which increase demand and capacity needs in parts of PJM such as Virginia.