Infrastructure: Who pays?

"The nation’s century-old regulatory regime is based on the idea that the public benefits from new infrastructure like power plants and transmission lines.

"State regulators therefore almost always approve utilities’ requests for new infrastructure, the cost of which can be passed on to customers —whether that infrastructure is being built to accommodate the needs of a growing urban population or a single new corporate client. 

"Martin and Peskoe argue that this approach risks lumping ordinary consumers together with institutional consumers of power, including data centers: 'The very same rate structures that have socialized the costs of reliable power delivery are now forcing the public to pay for infrastructure designed to supply a handful of exceedingly wealthy corporations,' Martin and Peskoe write. 

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