There's no data center mandate. Your bill depends on your grid

We found no federal order, rule or law that does this. The March pledge says companies "will voluntarily negotiate" rates, and its terms let them buy power rather than make it.

The closest thing is the Ratepayer Protection Pledge of March 4. It has companies "build, bring, or buy" power, so buying new-plant power counts¹. Trump's best evidence is that day's proclamation. It says companies "must pay" their full costs and calls the pledge national policy. Seven companies accepted, and in July the White House said more than 200 more joined^2,3. The proclamation names no penalty or enforcer. "Compliance is not being monitored or enforced by anyone," Harvard's Ari Peskoe told FactCheck.org, which reached the same ruling on Oct. 29⁴.

The White House's list of presidential actions, read Nov. 2, shows no data center order since Oct. 21, and a Federal Register search of executive orders since Oct. 1 finds none^5,6. Bisnow called it "unclear" whether executive action would come⁷.

Twelve days before the post, FERC rejected most of PJM's plan to have new large loads bring capacity or face curtailment, calling key parts outside its authority or unjustified⁸. The GRID Act would require off-grid power for new data centers. It hasn't left committee^9,4.

The promise leans on a mandate that doesn't exist, and PJM customers already pay billions more because of data centers, by the monitor's estimate. Bring-your-own power and cost-covering deals can help, and real prices have fallen in places.

As posted, the sentence says "there is electric price increase." The next sentence only makes sense if "no" was intended, and Bisnow marked it "(sic)"^10,7. We rule on that reading.

PJM, serving more than 65 million people, is the counterexample⁴. Its market monitor calls data center growth "the primary reason" for high capacity prices and attributes to it $7.27 billion in 2026/27 and $6.50 billion in 2027/28¹¹. Those are market-wide wholesale charges, not household bills. Capacity is about 10% to 20% of a bill⁴.

Elsewhere the record is mixed. LBNL and Brattle found high-growth states usually saw real prices fall from 2019 to 2025, though the link is weaker for households¹². Energy Secretary Chris Wright said data centers "almost always" come with "a multiyear freeze," as FactCheck.org quoted him⁴. By the same standard, that's misleading too. Some deals promise freezes, by the White House's account, and PJM shows the opposite³.

Ohio is on PJM, and the higher-bills part holds up. But data centers are one cause among several, and capacity costs spread across the region. We did not test the ad's claim that nobody gets anything else.

The ad's line comes from Sherrod Brown's Senate campaign¹³. Ohio home electricity averaged 12.38 cents per kWh in 2019 and 16.90 in 2025. That's up 36.5%, or 8.4% after inflation, by our calculation^14,15. Through August 2026 it ran 13.0% above a year earlier, against 6.8% nationally and 3.3% inflation, by our calculation^16,15. Sanya Carley told FactCheck.org capacity costs added about $16 a month in Ohio, with an estimated 63% due to data centers⁴.

That's roughly $10 a month, by our arithmetic. The monitor's own deck says "not all" of the capacity increase came from data centers, and LBNL calls capacity prices "one but not the only" contributor^17,12. Gas and grid upkeep matter too⁴.

PJM's capacity costs fall on customers across the market, so a bill doesn't trace to one nearby center¹¹. AEP Ohio's tariff makes new data centers above 25 MW pay for at least 85% of subscribed capacity, which guards against underused wires, not PJM capacity charges¹⁸. We did not test the ad's tax claims or Ohio's jobs and revenue.

Texas home electricity prices rose about as fast as the nation's, and ERCOT has no PJM-style capacity market¹⁹. We found no estimate of a data center share of Texas bills. Transmission costs could change that.

Talarico's ad targets Ken Paxton²⁰. Texas home power went from 11.76 cents in 2019 to 15.40 in 2025: up 31.0%, or 4.0% after inflation. The U.S. rose 32.4%, or 5.2%^14,15. Through August 2026, Texas ran 5.6% above a year earlier, below the nation's 6.8% but above 3.3% inflation^16,15. These are electricity prices per kWh, not total utility bills.

A preliminary Dallas Fed working paper modeled data centers adding under $1 per MWh to ERCOT wholesale prices ($1.24 in its high case), despite the region's second-most data centers²¹. That excludes wires. FactCheck.org's experts said it's "not entirely clear" but that large increases "would not be expected" in the same way⁴.

The ad's case is in those wires. ERCOT's market monitor says transmission costs fall on existing ratepayers, and that large flexible customers can avoid their "fair share" of a Permian plan costing "more than $13 billion" that also serves oil and gas¹⁹. Texas's SB 6 makes loads above 75 MW contribute to interconnection costs¹⁸. We did not test the ad's tax-break or donation claims.