Business Manager: Sean W. Daly
Per a new EIA report, wind and utility scale solar generated a record 17 percent of US electricity in 2025, up from less than 1 percent in 2005. Utility scale solar rose 34 percent year over year, while combined wind and solar reach 19 percent when residential installations are included.
Virginia lawmakers are divided over whether to eliminate a data center sales tax exemption that cost the state an estimated $1.9 billion last fiscal year, with teachers and fiscal advocates calling for repeal while IBEW Local 26 and other trades unions rallied to preserve the incentive they say drives well paying union construction jobs in the Commonwealth.
Hundreds of Franklin County, Missouri residents filled a high school gymnasium to oppose rezoning agricultural land for two proposed data center campuses, with local trades union representatives countering that the projects would bring thousands of union jobs paying over $100,000 a year while a planning commission recommendation still awaits final county commission approval.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced a formal partnership with North America Building Trades Unions at a BlackRock infrastructure summit, committing $1.5 million over five years to support NABTU training and recruitment as the company projects it will need 20 percent more skilled tradespeople than currently exist to hit its 10 gigawatt compute target by 2030.
IBEW Local 271 Business Manager Jeimeson Saudino pushed back against claims circulating at a packed Sedgwick County town hall, saying modern data centers use closed loop cooling systems rather than millions of gallons of water daily and pointing to projects in Oklahoma and Kansas where data center development reduced local property taxes.
Lowell City Council voted 10 to 0 for a one-year data center moratorium after IBEW members and neighbors clashed over a Markley expansion, illustrating the broader political squeeze facing Gov. Healey as consumer anger over high energy costs collides with her AI driven economic agenda and a stalled data center tax exemption that remains unfinalized 16 months after she signed it into law.
More than 90 retired members and spouses turned out for the first meeting of a revived IBEW Local 48 retirees group in Portland, a decade after the program went dormant, generating nearly 50 ideas for activities ranging from volunteer work and tool donations to new apprentices to regular social meetups across the metro area.
The 704 MW Revolution Wind offshore wind project has begun delivering power to Connecticut and Rhode Island after surviving two Trump administration stop-work orders reversed in federal court. Built by more than 1,000 local union workers, the 65-turbine project is expected to power over 350,000 homes and save New England ratepayers up to $500 million per year in wholesale energy costs once fully operational.
A proposed $272 million expansion of the Iroquois Gas Transmission System in Brookfield has drawn rare bipartisan opposition, with both Republican and Democratic local officials citing concerns over air quality, noise, and proximity to Whisconier Middle School. State Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding and other local Republicans have broken with national party energy priorities to oppose the project, which awaits final air quality permit approval from DEEP.
German consumer goods manufacturer Henkel has broken ground on a new 45,000 square foot Center for Research and Development at 9 Trefoil Drive in Trumbull, its largest non-manufacturing capital investment in North America in a decade. The $70 million project will consolidate the company's North America Consumer Brands R&D teams from three separate Connecticut locations into a single campus expected to open at the end of 2027.
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