One Line Out. Alaska's One Name on the AI Power Pledge
Cordova sits on Prince William Sound, off the state highway system, with no transmission line to another community.
The deck
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The story
Read on July 26, it is the only Alaska name on the White House pledge that AI load pays for its own power. Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed the governors addendum on July 23. It is non binding.
A binding version got close. SB 250 would have required commission approved contracts so data center costs stayed with the operator. It passed the Alaska Senate on May 16 and died in House Community and Regional Affairs.
4,700 acres at JBER, Eielson and Clear sit offered for data centers. Cordova's own runs on 150 kilowatts of hydro.
No Railbelt utility appears on the list. Inside, all 281 names and every megawatt on one axis.
So which should the next Alaska data center answer to, the pledge the governor signed or the bill the House let die?
What we verified
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Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska is one of 23 Republican governors who signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge addendum announced on July 23, 2026
The pledge preamble states that the American people should not be footing the bill for the benefit of private companies
The pledge sets five commitments for signing companies, build bring or buy new power supply, pay for new power delivery infrastructure, pay whether they use the power or not, invest in local jobs and workforce development, and contribute to grid and community resilience
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the global race for AI is underway and America must win it, but not by asking working families to pay for it
The pledge was first signed on March 4, 2026 by seven AI companies and hyperscalers, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI
Read live on July 26, 2026 the White House signatory page counters showed All 281, Cooperatives 176, Utilities 69 and Data Center Developers 35
Cordova Electric Cooperative is listed as a signatory on the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge page under the Cooperative category
Cordova Electric Cooperative is located in Cordova, Alaska
Cordova Electric Cooperative is the only Alaska entity on the White House signatory list as read on July 26, 2026
Cordova Electric Cooperative serves 1,566 customers
Cordova is not connected by transmission line to other communities
Cordova Electric Cooperative has total generating capacity of 18 megawatts across one diesel plant and two hydroelectric plants
Rep. Nick Begich introduced the House DATA Act of 2026 on April 21, 2026 with Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Burgess Owens as a companion to Senate legislation led by Sen. Tom Cotton
Begich says the DATA Act allows manufacturers to operate on fully self contained grid of one power systems so innovation can scale without forcing households to subsidize massive new energy demands
The Department of the Air Force is offering approximately 4,700 acres across twelve parcels at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Eielson Air Force Base and Clear Space Force Station for potential AI data centers
Robert Moriarty, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, called the land offering a unique opportunity for a true public private partnership supporting the growing demands of the AI industry
The governors addendum commits signers to implement the principles established in the Ratepayer Protection Pledge to the greatest extent possible in their respective positions
The pledge is explicitly non binding
The White House pledge is voluntary and relies on utilities, developers and tech firms to honor nonbinding commitments
As POWER reported the July 23 expansion, the coalition covered 187 organizations across three stakeholder groups plus 23 governors, made up of 55 investor owned utilities, 105 electric cooperatives and public power entities, 27 data center developers and the seven AI companies
Cordova hosts a small data center that its electric cooperative operates in partnership with Greensparc
The Cordova data center uses only 150 kilowatts and as a pilot project could expand to 3 megawatts and become the cooperative's largest customer
SB 250 by Sen. Loki Tobin was titled An Act relating to data centers and relating to utility service for data centers, was introduced February 18, 2026 and was marked dead May 20, 2026
SB 250 would have required utilities to enter commission approved contracts with data centers so their infrastructure and service costs are borne by the data center operators rather than shifted to other customers
SB 250 passed the Alaska Senate on May 16, 2026 and then died in the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee
SB 2 by Sen. Shelley Hughes covered disclosure of election related deepfakes and use of artificial intelligence by state agencies, was introduced January 22, 2025, got one recorded hearing on April 29, 2025 and died
An Alaska provision sponsored by Rep. Sarah Vance prohibiting creation or possession of AI generated child sexual abuse material took effect July 1, 2026
UAF energy historian Philip Wight said power is the one requirement Alaska is shortest on
The Railbelt can absorb about 25 megawatts and the planned Eielson microreactor is 5 megawatts
Alaska's third special session on the gas line was called by executive proclamation effective July 27, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.
Beats
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