Mandy Steele, Bill McKibben and Joe Morinville: AI, crypto and Pa.'s war on the little guy

This Sunday is SUN DAY, a day of action celebrating clean energy. This is an opportune time to discuss a big problem in Pennsylvania.

Artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency may be the shiny new frontier of technology, but behind the hype lies a brutal truth: They are devouring electricity, straining Pennsylvania’s grid and driving up costs for everyone else.

And, thanks to PJM’s policies, it’s the smallest consumers — the homeowners, the corner bakeries, the family-run machine shops — who are paying the price, while the biggest corporate power users get a sweetheart deal.

Here’s the injustice in plain sight: The same wire that carries electricity to a sprawling AI data center or a crypto-mining farm also serves thousands of small businesses and homes. Homeowners could see their bills rise up to 70% because of surging energy demand from AI operations. How is that remotely fair? For five years straight, small consumers in Pennsylvania have endured 15% annual rate hikes, while massive power users are shielded from the true cost of their enormous demand.

And just when the little guy needed a lifeline, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) yanked it away. Before this bill, a homeowner or small business could fight back by installing solar panels, offsetting nearly 100% of their usage and shielding themselves from these corporate-driven rate hikes. OBBBA gutted incentives for grid scale solar projects. OBBBA eliminated the only real defense ordinary people had.

OBBBA claimed to cut solar incentives to “reduce government spending,” but, in the same breath, it increased subsidies for oil, gas and coal by $35 billion per year. Subsidies that have been flowing since 1926. Why does an industry that’s been around for over a century still need government handouts? In America, it seems if you have enough money to buy some politicians, you can also buy subsidies and policy.

Solar is cheap, fast and clean.

Solar can power a home, a bakery, a church, a factory, a school, a community. If we cut unnecessary red tape, we can build grid scale solar projects that will power some data centers with clean, pollution-free energy. Solar can completely protect ordinary people from being forced to subsidize the power-­hungry profits of hedge funds and tech giants.

If Pennsylvania doesn’t fix broken subsidies, restore small-scale solar incentives and build grid scale solar fast, we’re condemning everyday consumers to carry the water for big business again.

This is a fight between David and Goliath, and right now, the laws are written so Goliath always wins.

It’s time to demand a fair system that protects the people who keep our communities alive, not the corporations driving our rates through the roof.

Rep. Mandy Steele, a Democrat, represents Pennslyvania’s 33rd District. Bill McKibben is author of “Here Comes the Sun.” Joe Morinville is president of EIS Solar.