Trump, crypto, energy: Glued at the hip
The Trump family's fortune and the nation's energy future became more deeply entangled this week when the president's sons announced they plan to take their cryptocurrency company public.
American Bitcoin's move marks the family's latest foray into the same energy-guzzling digital mining sector that Donald Trump has worked to boost, writes Jason Plautz. The move not only raises conflict-of-interest concerns — a near-daily feature of the Trump administration — but also expands the family's stake in the U.S. electricity business.
The success of data centers that mine crypto and power artificial intelligence is wholly dependent on their operators' ability to secure a gargantuan amount of electricity to run them. Whether that power comes from clean sources or fossil fuels could significantly shape the nation's output of planet-warming pollution.
Trump has pursued policies to burn more fossil fuels. But keeping ancient coal-fired power plants online is not enough to meet the expected boom in energy demand. For months, electric grid operators have frantically planned for a future where too little power exists to run these data centers while keeping the lights on in homes, hospitals and office buildings.
'Energy and technology are only growing to be more hand in glove and whoever has the access to energy is going to be the leader in technology,' Tom Mapes with the Digital Energy Council told Jason.
American Bitcoin — backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — will operate out of sites already outfitted with ample electricity. They are run by Hut 8, a bitcoin mining company that specializes in energy infrastructure. That's a major coup when you're competing with tech giants whose operations can consume as much power as a medium-sized city.
Also helping is the Trump administration. While the Biden administration took a hesitant approach to crypto mining, Trump has done 'a complete 180,' Erran Carmel, a technology professor at American University, told Jason.
The president has pushed to speed permitting and bypass environmental rules to build data centers and fossil fuel power plants to run them. The Energy Department has a plan to help private companies build such centers on public lands.
'If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,' Trump said at an industry conference in July.
American Bitcoin isn't the Trump family's only investment in crypto. Trump and his sons launched a crypto firm called World Liberty Financial, which offers its own digital coin and poses huge conflict of interest risks. The family also has a $TRUMP meme coin.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the notion that Trump's family stake in crypto could pose a conflict of interest, saying Trump 'acts in the best interests of the American public.'
It's Tuesday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net.
Today in POLITICO Energy's podcast: Thomas Frank breaks down the leadership shake-up at the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its acting chief was fired and replaced by an official with no disaster response experience.
Power Centers
'Shock and awe': Trump's mining blitzTrump is driving a 21st-century gold rush that's supercharging conservation battles on public lands across the West, write Hannah Northey and Michael Doyle.
While individual conflicts grab day-to-day attention, it's the rapidly growing cumulative total that's astonishing even longtime environmental activists concerned about the effect of mining coal and critical minerals on wildlife and federal land.
Republicans' gambit to kill climate programsHouse Republicans want to use their sprawling budget reconciliation bill not only to zero out climate programs, but also to make it harder for subsequent Congresses to restore them, writes Jean Chemnick.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee's budget bill claws back Biden-era clean energy funding — and seeks to repeal the authorizing language for the 17 programs that it targets.
'I have never seen in my career any reconciliation language that would strike authorization language for a discretionary program,' said Bill Hoagland, who served as director of budget and appropriations for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
Macron to Russia: Expect more sanctionsFrench President Emmanuel Macron said that the European Commission is readying a new package of sanctions against Russia 'in the coming days' in cooperation with the United States, writes Clea Caulcutt.
Macron said if Russia does not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, the next package of sanctions would target 'financial services, and oil, on secondary sellers.'
In Other News
Hurricane fallout: Insurance adjusters will testify before Congress that they were pressured to cut payouts after hurricanes.
Un-deleted: Facing a lawsuit, the U.S. Agriculture Department says it will restore climate-change-related webpages.
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Trump has unveiled a plan for Saudi Arabia to invest $600 billion in U.S. industries — including critical minerals, artificial intelligence and energy — after touching down in Riyadh as part of a broader Middle Eastern tour.
Natural disasters and human conflict forced a record 66 million people to flee within their own countries last year, and the United States led all nations with 11 million of these internal displacements.
The Interior Department will shorten the time it takes to review land parcels for potential oil and gas leases to six months.
That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.
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