Trade adviser tells Fox News data center builders may have to absorb their own electricity costs.

Hon. Sunday morning. Peter Navarro, the trade adviser to the President of the United States, not a member of any state public utility commission, not an employee of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not a person who has, in the public record, ever been responsible for setting an electricity rate, went on Fox News and suggested that the White House may force data center builders to absorb their own costs.

Now. Hon. Stay with me. Data centers are the warehouses full of computers that power AI. They use enormous amounts of electricity. That electricity comes from the grid. The grid is paid for by ratepayers. Ratepayers are you. When a new big data center goes online in your county, your electric bill goes up, because the utility now has to build out the grid to serve the data center.

This is, on any reasonable reading, a real problem. Twelve states have already had public arguments about it. The bills are visible in people’s mailboxes.

The President’s trade adviser, on a Sunday show, said the White House may force the builders to absorb the costs. The quote sounded like the start of a policy.

Buddy. The White House does not have the authority to force a data center operator to pay a utility a higher rate. That is a state public utility commission job. There are fifty of those. They are independent boards with appointed members who hold hearings. The President of the United States can recommend. The President of the United States can jawbone. The trade adviser, three rungs down, can appear on a Sunday show. None of those moves is the rate.

What the trade adviser actually said, when you read the transcript, is the White House may force builders to absorb costs. The verb may is doing all of the work. The verb may is doing the job of forty-eight states and FERC. It is, in this White House, the standard Sunday show pitch. You float a thing. The wires write a thing. The next Sunday show you say the thing again. By Tuesday it is on a graphic. By Friday it is administration policy that nobody can find.

I am not arguing with the idea. The idea, on the merits, is defensible. Make the data center pay. Sure. Fine. Vote for it.

I am arguing with the vehicle. The vehicle is a Sunday-morning television appearance by a trade adviser who cannot, by law, set the rate he is talking about. The vehicle is theater.

Funny how that works.