Empowered Public–Why Public Power

by Bryce Zacharias

Editor’s Note: In the aftermath of the midterm elections, the Democratic Party has won a trifecta in state government for the first time in over a decade. It is the position of the Milwaukee Leader and of the Democratic Socialists of America that such an opportunity is not to be squandered. To that end, we present the case again for public ownership of WE Energies, and will have more proposals for bold, progressive policy forthcoming.

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

If it isn’t abundantly clear to the average bystander already, prices for common goods and services all across the United States of America are high. Whether it’s the ever-present conversation about gas prices taking an even nastier tone than usual because of our war with Iran, grocery and food prices rising in large part because of higher production costs, or just about any entertainment product being squeezed for as much revenue juice as possible, Americans are struggling.

So, if you were the owner of one of the most basic necessities for American life, with a near monopoly on production, distribution, and service, and knew that across the board your customers were struggling to make ends meet, let alone pay their bill to you, would you have any empathy for the needs of those people that you swear you are here to serve?

No? I’m shocked.

The modus operandi of a business, especially for a corporate monopoly, is not to keep revenues level or even suffer minor reductions in profits if it means doing a good deed. It is to continue to squeeze whatever blood they can squeeze from whatever stones they have in the name of profit and the almighty dollar. Don’t believe me? Consider some examples over the last few years within the state to showcase just how rampant the problem has become.

Case Study #1 – We Energies

Over the last decade, the rise in electricity rates and subsequent bills for customers of the Wisconsin Electric Power Company (WE Energies) has become a significant headache for residents of Southeastern Wisconsin. And, as the numbers from the Citizens Utility Board show, the fun isn’t going to stop in the next few years either. For over two million Wisconsinites, the cost of their energy bill plays a significant factor in household budgeting. This difference is even more stark in the city of Milwaukee, where residents paid a monthly average of nearly $600 in 2024.

I’ll state that again. Nearly six hundred dollars a month. This is more than major American cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago with L.A. residents paying $97/month less than us and Chicagoans even less than them. In fact, Milwaukee only trails New York in terms of expense for a basic utility bill. Once more for effect, on a list of most expensive cities for utility bills Milwaukee tops the list.¹ So ask yourself, what could you do with an extra $1200 this year?

One might ask , “is this just another example of the big city complaining that big city costs are high?”. In a word, no. This is not just a run of the mill complaint that can be whisked away with a short rhetorical question. Consider first the data from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (a division of the national Department of Health and Human Services) on median household incomes in Wisconsin between 2020-2024²:

Compared with the service map of WE Energies as of 2026³:

And what becomes apparent is that the citizens of Milwaukee and Milwaukee county face higher costs, and have median lower average incomes, than any of the surrounding counties that WE Energies also services. Couple this with the fact that 2027 and 2028 will be the fifth and sixth rate hikes of the 2020’s respectively and it becomes clearer and clearer that residents of Cream City are being asked to shoulder a significant economic burden just to keep their lights on and homes heated.

Alas, we could continue to discuss the lunacy that is We Energies, but one city does not a state make.

Case Study #2 – WI Power and Light (Alliant)

The Wisconsin Power and Light Company (WPL), according to their own website, is a subsidiary of energy giant Alliant Energy that serves “approximately 500,000 electric retail customers in Wisconsin” mainly across the south and central areas of the state. While we could spend more time discussing rate hikes for customers of WPL (9.5% over the next two years) like we did with WE Energies, there are other reasons that more and more people are looking to public power as a viable and necessary option for their electricity needs. Aside from costs, one of the more integral arguments for public utilities is the want for more advocacy and autonomy with how electricity is produced and distributed.

For this case study, let’s turn our attention away from Milwaukee and focus on Beaver Dam.

Located near Madison, the 220 MW center under construction until early 2027 has become a model for how data center construction gets done nationwide. One could say that it is the light at the end of the tunnel for those wanting to learn more about how large tech companies do business in small town America, one could also say that the light is also an oncoming train. In order to truly grasp the murkiness of this project however, let’s analyze a few facts:

Fact #1 – In April 2025 Alliant filed an agreed to contract for the construction and management of a data center near Beaver Dam, but, “the application redacts multiple details from Alliant’s proposed rate agreement, including Meta’s energy demand, the contract term length and termination payment calculations”⁴

Fact #2 – Data center construction in Wisconsin, since 2023, has a special tax exempt status different than other large-scale construction projects. In short, multi-billion dollar companies have a property tax status on their land that would not be affected by rising infrastructure costs for the rural towns they so often target for construction. Putting residents on the hook for ballooning costs to resource management for decades.

Fact #3 – Alliant Energy, per the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, has been guaranteed a revenue floor from Meta for the supply of energy to the data center project and reimbursement for any infrastructure upgrade costs to supply the project.⁵

Fact #4 – As of May 2026 at least 12 different data center projects have been confirmed as proposals within Alliant Energy’s territory in Wisconsin. An area that powers sections of 27 different Wisconsin counties.

To recap, a company  with a market cap of over $17 Billion (Oct. 2026) is doing business in the dark with companies that are valued in the trillions, being guaranteed special status to avoid the brunt of property tax burdens for their projects, guaranteed value by the state government, even if the large tech companies back out of their agreed upon construction (which has never, ever, happened in Wisconsin), and has multiple different project proposals of a similar nature across a large tract of the state.

Ya know, I guess I don’t see a problem either. Meta even has a goal to be water positive by 2030! Don’t you just love it when the little guy sets goals and wins? In a state where data centers poll about as well as lighting money on fire, the results of the projects themselves have been just about as bad for residents. The scary part? These are only the consequences that we can see in the present.

Case Study #3 – x(AI), Natural gas, and wisconsin public service

For our third and final major case study we are going to turn our attention away from Beaver Dam and head further downstream, specifically near the mouth of the Mississippi River. What is currently being litigated in the American South can and should serve as a warning for our very near future here and, unfortunately for all of us, ties all of the information previously discussed into a nice little bow on top of the ticking time-bomb of energy independence in our modern context.

On the whole, demands from the public to make large tech companies such as Meta, Oracle, and Anthropic generate their own power to meet their astronomical energy demands can be categorized as a positive. It shows that communities are willing and able to make demands of these giants and force concessions. It also has created a semi-closed loop cut off from the public eye for these companies to operate within. And, in order to cut costs and ensure consistent production to keep data centers online, these companies have turned to the burning of fossil fuels. I mean, did you really expect the mega-polluters of our world to have a conscience and choose renewables?

The most damning example within the past year has been the lawsuit filed by the NAACP citing violations of the Clean Air Act that can cause an increase in pulmonary health risks and other concerns. To this end, Harvard Public Health researcher Michael Cork notes that the xAI pollution has a projection of “an increase in regional air pollution and tens of millions of dollars in estimated annual health damages—in an area that already carries substantial air pollution burden”. Cork also notes that those that will be most affected are those with preexisting conditions or lower median income.⁶ While the information that natural gas production pollutes our air is nothing new, the numbers on how much extra burden this will cause over the rest of the decade and beyond are staggering. To look into this, let’s do the math and extrapolate impact out based on projections of harm in other places.

In Loudon County, Virginia, the Piedmont Environmental Council commissioned an independent analytical study of the impact the Vantage VA2 data center was expected to have on public health specifically focused on air pollution. Per the study, expectations are:

1. $53 million – $99 million per year in health-related damages, potentially up to $265 to $495 million over five years
2. 17-33 additional premature deaths over the next five years across the impacted region
3. Increased instances of non-fatal hospital admissions, asthma-related impacts and lost productivity
4. Increased emissions in communities with existing air quality burdens
5. Emission effects impacting more than 2.5 million people

Map of Loudoun and nearby counties with red and orange shading representing air pollution from the Vantage VA2 data center. Source: EmPower Study.

Now, let’s draw out this data with Vantage VA2 being our control. This data center produces 96m megawatts (MW) of processing capacity. If we assume that this is considered to be normal pollution levels for this type of computing capacity we can then assume that the Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 projects listed in the NAACP’s lawsuit will produce six times the amount of health related damages, premature deaths, and fine particulate matter. Draw this out over the entire outlook of our state and the numbers really are staggering. The sheer amount of damage that these projects can be expected to produce is a plague the likes of which we may have never seen and it is entirely human made.

If this weren’t enough, the monetary costs that this continued natural gas production will incur for Wisconsinites is the added cherry on top.

Planned data centers are significantly larger than those currently in operationImage Credits:BloombergNE Source: TechCrunch

As Tim De Chant reports, continued development is expected to increase the current natural gas production demands of the United States by 2.7 times. The problem (outside of the numerous other horrifying issues already discussed) is that utility companies and energy produces simply cannot build new production fast enough to meet the demand. And, as always it seems, those same companies are not only going to charge tech companies higher rates, but also average Americans to continue profit increases. For example, northeast Wisconsin’s utility Wisconsin Public Service has requested a 14% rate increase over two years, roughly $7 per month for natural gas. Putting all of the pieces together, the burden is quite clear. Not only are the choices made in corporate boardrooms having dire effects on the wallets of average Americans, but they are going to continue to have dire effects on our health as well.

What is to be Done?

To recap, the issues of utility monopoly and data center production are tied together in more ways than one, but all ties have serious implications for residents of Wisconsin as it relates to:

• Rising everyday costs for basic utilities
• Rising property tax burdens
• Increased air and water pollution
• Long term health risks that will not realize themselves until it is far too late

So, what is to be done? The challenges in expelling data center production or fighting corporate monopoly control over a basic need are numerous. But the important part of the equation is that there are real avenues forward for those who seek a cleaner, more cost-effective tomorrow in the Badger State.

For starters, corporate utility monopoly. While private or corporate companies own the large majority of the energy production within our state, there are legal ways to remove these ownership groups and replace them with public owned or municipal utilities. What would this accomplish? A few things. First, it would eliminate the incentive for profit motivated rate increases. Second, all revenues generated can instead go towards producing value for customers in the form of rate caps or even decreases, infrastructure improvements, and wage increases for workers. And third, a public utility would be more beholden to the will of its customer base, meaning options such as greater investments into renewable energy (a proposition the majority of Wisconsin residents would be interested in)⁸ are on the table.

If this all sounds like something that would be preferable to continued rate hikes year after year, you will also be pleased to hear that the method itself is achievable. Chapter 197 of Wisconsin’s state statutes allows a provision for the construction or acquisition of public utilities and power production. This means that if the people of a municipality want to remove themselves from the grips of the corporate utility system all they need is a vote.⁹

Then there is the data center question. While it has certainly proven to be a difficult fight, it also has been shown to be a winnable one. Looking at Dane County, the passing of a county data center moratorium suspended all construction of any related projects while legislation for the regulation of data centers is hashed out. These moratorium fights have been fierce and bring up valid questions about the role of money in politics, but they also have proven that this is possible.

Realistically speaking, victories for each part of this attack strategy will have to be accomplished in fits and starts, but are far more tangible than the powers that be would like to have you believe. Therefore, the real argument instead of “why should we?” should really be “why shouldn’t we?”. Looking at the data above, it is glaringly obvious that the answers to this question are rapidly diminishing and give way to a future of long term energy independence, balance, and health.

1. DOXO, U.S. Utilities Market Size & Household Spend Report 2024. ↩︎
2. HDPulse: An Ecosystem of Health Disparities and Specific Populations Health Resources. National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. Created 9/15/2026. Available from https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov ↩︎
3. WE Energies. Service Area Map. https://www.we-energies.com/company/area. September 15th, 2026 ↩︎
4. https://www.alliantenergy.com/who-we-are/about-alliant-energy#:~:text=Commitment%20to%20compliance 
5. Schulz, Joe. Alliant Energy Proposes Special Electric Rates for Meta’s Data Center. Urban Milwaukee. February 11th, 2026. https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2026/02/11/alliant-energy-proposes-special-electric-rates-for-metas-data-center/ ↩︎
6. https://wisconsinwatch.org/2026/05/psc-approves-alliant-meta-data-center-power-deal-while-criticizing-black-box-approach/ ↩︎
7. https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/analyzing-air-pollution-health-economic-risks-from-ai-data-centers/ ↩︎
8. https://www.pecva.org/work/energy-work/data-centers/new-study-highlights-public-health-impacts-of-gas-turbine-powered-data-centers/ ↩︎
9. Kreitlow, P. Poll: Nearly 2 Out of 3 Wisconsin Voters Support Climate Action in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
   ↩︎
10. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/197.pdf ↩︎