For Immediate Release:
September 25, 2025
For press inquiries only, contact:
Amanda Priest (334) 322-5694
William Califf (334) 604-3230
(Montgomery, Ala) – Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined a coalition of 16 attorneys general in demanding information from major tech companies about their claims that they are powered solely by renewable energy.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon executives, the coalition outlined their concerns with claims the companies have made about their energy use and the impact it could have on the nation’s electric grid. The companies rely heavily on purchases of so-called “renewable energy certificates” (RECs) to offset emissions, which does little to add renewable energy to the power grid, but may threaten the integrity of the grid as utility companies are shutting down necessary coal and natural gas plants.
The tech companies purchase unbundled RECs, which are tradeable credits meant to reflect that renewable energy was produced and added to the grid. Buying RECs allows the companies to claim they use renewable energy, even though they are major consumers of traditional fossil fuels, especially at their data centers. Purchasing RECs may have little to no effect on the tech companies’ actual impacts on grid stability and reliability. The letter states that the energy-usage claims appear to be deceptive because purchasing unbundled RECs does not reduce emissions by the tech companies.
“When big tech companies claim to use 100% renewable energy, they pressure utilities to move away from fossil-fuel-generated baseload power to attract or retain big tech data center development,” the letter states.
Attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming also joined the letter led by Montana.
You can read the full letter here.
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