Trump and McCormick attend a wrestling championship in Philadelphia in March. Photo: Terence Lewis / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
A summit next week in Pittsburgh on energy and AI featuring President Trump and tech giants will likely spotlight fossil fuels as the best way to quench data centers' electricity thirst.
Why it matters: GOP lawmakers and the Trump administration have seized on rising energy demand to keep coal and gas plants open while seeking to fast-track new fossil fuel plants.
Driving the news: Tuesday's Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, organized by Sen. Dave McCormick, will feature a slew of technology and energy heavyweights.
- Invited guests include OpenAI's Sam Altman, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Shell CEO Wael Sawan and Chevron CEO Mike Wirth.
- The venue, Carnegie Mellon University, is a national hub for robotics, AI and power grid research. Pennsylvania is also a favorite backdrop for Trump to promise to "bring back coal."
What he's saying: No agenda is public yet, and McCormick provided few details when leaving a committee hearing Thursday.
- The thrust is to start a national conversation among various sectors about positioning the U.S. as a leader in AI, he told Axios.
- "It's an opportunity to bring together leaders of energy and technology and the investing world to bring the focus on Pennsylvania, which is uniquely positioned at the intersection of energy and artificial intelligence and technology," he said.
Between the lines: Both parties agree that rising energy demand is a national challenge, but energy policy around AI has broken down along starkly political lines.
- Republicans have attacked wind and solar as unreliable, phasing out tax credits and seeking to order FERC, state officials and utilities to scrutinize renewable energy goals and any regulations that harm fossil fuels.
- Democrats respond that wind, solar, and batteries are the cheapest and quickest way to add power supply.
Zoom in: The administration has used national security arguments around AI to impose a more muscular energy policy.
- The Energy Department invoked emergency authority in May to require a Pennsylvania natural gas plant to keep running beyond its expected closure date.
- The DOE warned Monday that the risk of blackouts could significantly rise if planned fossil-fuel power plant closures remain on schedule.
- And a 13-bill House energy package prioritizing fossil fuels and targeting incentives for wind and solar is poised to head to the floor a soon as next week.
What we're watching: Just how deep into the policy weeds the summit gets.
- It positions McCormick, a freshman member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to take a lead role in crafting energy legislation.
