The latest capacity auction conducted by PJM Interconnection, the largest electrical grid operator in the United States, has revealed that surging energy demand from data centers will add billions of dollars to electricity bills across 13 states in the coming years.

PJM released the results of its recent auction, which secures electricity capacity for a 13-state region for the period spanning June 2028 through May 2029.

Monitoring Analytics, the independent market monitor for PJM, determined that of the $16.4 billion in total capacity market costs resulting from the auction, approximately $6.3 billion is directly driven by the demand generated by data centers.

According to data from the market monitor, the demand from data centers has added a cumulative $29.4 billion to electricity costs across the last four PJM capacity auctions.

Joseph Bowring, the president of Monitoring Analytics, stated that the market watchdog’s position is that “data center load should be removed from the capacity market and procured through a special auction.”

“This method would allow data centers to access capacity through a market mechanism while ensuring they pay their own capacity costs, thereby preventing these costs from being shifted to other consumers,” Bowring said.

Consumer advocacy groups also expressed deep concern over the impact of data centers on electricity pricing following the release of the auction results.

“Right now, we are facing a wave of extreme and very rapidly growing demand driven by data centers, and the market was not prepared for this,” said Clara Summers, campaign manager for Consumers for a Better Grid.

Summers noted that while prices in this auction remained at levels similar to other recent auctions, consumers can expect their utility bills to remain comparably high for the foreseeable future.

Julia Kortrey, director of strategic initiatives for the state program at Evergreen Action, stated that the high prices have now become “largely locked in.”

“We are unlikely to see any relief until the 2030s from any moves PJM could make to improve the situation,” Kortrey said.

PJM operates the power grid serving 67 million people across the eastern and midwestern United States, covering Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

The grid operator announced that, as was the case in the previous auction for the 2027–2028 delivery year, it was unable to procure a sufficient amount of electricity capacity to meet its reliability targets.

To address this shortfall, PJM is requesting authorization from federal regulators to conduct a special “Backstop Procurement Auction.”

“These auction results demonstrate that electricity demand continues to grow faster than electricity supply,” David Mills, president and chief executive officer of PJM, said in a written statement.

“PJM is aware of the impact this supply and demand imbalance has on system reliability and consumer costs. We are working on multiple fronts with government and industry leaders to restore this balance by bringing new generation online as quickly as possible and managing the growth of new load on the grid,” Mills added.

While the statement did not reference data centers directly, PJM has recently reported that electricity demand from data centers represents the fastest-growing sector of load growth on its system.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a highly controversial body established in the United States during the administration of Donald Trump, was officially shut down on July 8.

Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), welcomed the termination of the department, stating that the structure left behind no savings and caused immense damage to public services.

Erwin noted that while Donald Trump and Elon Musk implemented massive cuts to public programs under the pretext of achieving budget savings, no savings were ultimately realized.

The NFFE president further stated that during this process, trillions of dollars in tax privileges were instead provided to the wealthiest segments of society.

Emphasizing that the failure to publish a final activity report following the closure of DOGE amounted to an admission of defeat, Erwin offered the following assessment:

“We welcome the end of DOGE, the most destructive government reform initiative of the past century. DOGE has left a deep scar on the federal workforce. It has now become far more difficult to recruit and retain personnel with the talent and experience necessary for agencies to carry out their duties. The American people will have to pay the price for these errors and imprudence for decades.”

New York Times analysis refutes claims

An analysis published by The New York Times in late 2025, which examined federal procurement and contracting records during the first nine months of Trump’s second term, refuted the budget claims made by DOGE.

The analysis revealed that the budget cuts claimed by Musk and Trump did not yield any savings, but may have instead generated additional costs for the public.

As a result of the cuts implemented by Musk and Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Russell Vought, who both operated within the framework of DOGE, 317,000 federal employees were terminated.

It was reported that similar cutting and restructuring initiatives are continuing at the Department of Agriculture, while unions continue to resist the process.

In early 2025, Musk and Trump had promised to secure $2 trillion in savings by combating budget irregularities, waste, and abuse. However, by the end of the process, the officially claimed savings amount stood at just $215 billion—only one-tenth of the projected target.

Analysts determined that it remains unclear how much of this amount was actually cut from genuine waste categories, noting that the vast majority of the reductions stemmed from the salary budgets of terminated personnel who had been administering critical public services.

The New York Times team wrote that DOGE failed to reach its target of reducing federal spending by $1 trillion before October 2025, and that federal spending actually increased rather than decreased during this period.

According to the analysis, 28 of the 40 largest cuts claimed by DOGE, including the two highest-budget items, turned out to be completely false.

It was determined that these two contracts, which concerned aircraft maintenance and information technology, had a combined value of $7.9 billion and remained fully in effect.

These two items reportedly accounted for a larger budget than the total of the other 29,000 cuts claimed by DOGE.

Terminated employees establish tent city

Following the layoffs, affected federal employees established a tent city in front of Union Station in Washington.

Gathering under the umbrella of an organization called the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), the former public employees established a support center there for shelter, solidarity, and job search assistance.

A statement published on the organization’s website read: “We are here to unite the federal workforce, protect vital services, and defend the public we serve.”

GAO already combats waste

Randy Erwin pointed out that the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an official and bipartisan agency tasked with combating waste and abuse within the federal government, has already been active for many years.

Consequently, he emphasized that there was never any need for a parallel structure like DOGE.

According to one of the latest reports published by the GAO, a gap of $186 billion emerged in the federal budget due to “improper payments,” irregularities, and waste during the 2025 fiscal year, which ended on September 30.

More than 73% of this amount occurred across five key areas: Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP (food assistance), the earned income tax credit, and pandemic-era small business support programs.

The GAO report indicated that between $132 billion and $251 billion in additional savings could be achieved through measures ranging from streamlining the Navy’s shipbuilding processes to preventing duplicate payments in the social security system, though this would require congressional approval.

It was reported that during its operational period, DOGE dismissed or placed on paid leave thousands of federal employees, but because the services performed by this personnel were of critical importance, they later had to be rehired.

This situation was found to have resulted in a major waste of taxpayer funds rather than savings for the public budget.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on Monday that the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice have established a joint task force as part of efforts to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information to the public.

Hegseth stated that the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) of the Department of Defense will have the authority to request and receive all information, support, and records across the Pentagon related to media leak investigations.

The Defense Secretary noted that all departments and personnel within the ministry will prioritize these requests. He added that a complete and comprehensive response to any instruction issued by the OGC under this authority must be provided within two days of the submission of the request.

“Leaked information risks lives. These new tools and processes will greatly assist us in protecting our collective strength. Our nation’s security cannot be a bargaining chip for those chasing instant headlines,” Hegseth said in an approximately two-and-a-half-minute video message published on the social media platform X.

Hegseth also stated, “Access to classified and confidential information is a sacred trust, and those who betray this trust will face the full force of the law.”

The announcement of the task force came a few days after the Department of Justice issued subpoenas to four New York Times reporters. The journalists, summoned to testify before a federal grand jury, had reported on security concerns regarding President Donald Trump’s flight to Türkiye for a NATO summit on an aircraft donated by Qatar.

The subpoenas drew sharp criticism from The New York Times and press freedom advocates. Opponents argue that the government is attempting to intimidate news organizations.

“Our journalists report the facts and defend the American public’s right to know how their government operates and how taxpayer dollars are spent,” New York Times attorney David McCraw said in a statement. “This brazen action is nothing less than an attempt to deter journalists from doing their jobs, thereby preventing the public from learning what is happening in the country.”

Hegseth has been taking steps to prevent leaks to the press since the beginning of his tenure at the Pentagon. Last year, the department launched investigations into personnel alleged to have leaked classified information to the media and threatened to administer polygraph tests.

Leak allegations were also directed at some of Hegseth’s advisers last year. Former senior adviser Dan Caldwell and former deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick are among those individuals. Caldwell, Selnick, and Colin Carroll, the former chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen A. Feinberg, were first suspended and subsequently dismissed from their positions and removed from the Pentagon as part of the internal leak investigation.

A government official, speaking to The Hill in mid-March, stated there was no evidence that Caldwell, who began working at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) earlier this year, had leaked information from the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Hegseth has previously been the target of criticism himself for allegedly sharing sensitive information. Last year, Hegseth discussed planned US strikes against the Houthis in Yemen in a Signal group chat to which an editor of The Atlantic magazine had been mistakenly added. A report published in December by the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General determined that Hegseth had compromised military security and violated department policy by using the Signal application on his personal mobile phone.

“It is highly ironic that Hegseth himself shared sensitive national defense information with his wife over Signal last year and faced no consequences, yet now speaks of the need to protect this information,” said former Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot. “In 2012, CIA Director David Petraeus resigned from his post for a similar situation involving his girlfriend, and was sentenced in federal court to two years of probation and a $10,000 fine.”

Ullyot, who also served as the spokesperson for the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, told The Hill on Monday: “The President deserves better from his national security leaders. Hegseth should start holding himself accountable before holding others accountable.”

Reporters have been largely blocked from entering the Pentagon after Hegseth revoked access to most of the facility. Pentagon correspondents returned their press credentials in October, refusing to sign a new media policy that required a commitment not to solicit unauthorized materials.

Hegseth and his supporters argue that the policy will protect national security by preventing the leak of classified information. Press freedom groups and critics, conversely, characterize the practice as a violation of the constitutional rights of journalists.

Most recently, the department further restricted press access by declaring the Pentagon building a classified space and banning journalists from entering.

Offering historical references in his statement on Monday, Hegseth said, “Leaking sensitive national defense information and secrets is a betrayal of the men and women who wear the uniform of our country. This is a principle as old as the history of warfare, reaching back to the founding of our republic in the United States. George Washington himself combated leaks, insider threats, and espionage.”