Attorney General J.B. McCuskey joins 15 others in investigating 4 major tech companies

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) — Are major tech companies as “environmentally friendly” as they claim? 16 states’ Attorneys General, including West Virginia’s J.B. McCuskey, are launching an investigation into Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft to find out.

The Attorneys General sent a letter to the tech giants outlining their concerns. The letter claims that these companies are purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) that allow them to claim they’re meeting environmental sustainability goals, even if they aren’t using renewable energy sources.

The Attorneys General say these companies are presenting as environmentally friendly to have a better chance at being approved to build data centers.

Each of the four companies claims to be 100% reliant on renewable energy sources for its facilities. However, according to the letter, Microsoft relies on fossil fuel-generated power for more than half of its energy usage, 99% of Meta’s power comes from the same source and Google’s emissions have tripled since 2019.

“These companies can’t have it both ways. They can’t use our reliable, affordable, abundant energy — but virtue signal that they’re “green”. They’re not green, because it’s not practical or possible. It’s deceptive and I’m proud to stand with this coalition to push back against the hypocrisy from these woke companies,” Attorney General McCuskey said.

The AGs’ letter said that the four companies are in talks with roughly a third of the United States nuclear power plant owners, with plans to use the plants to power data centers.

They say that if this happens, it would put a massive strain on power grids across the country, leading to blackouts and outages becoming a much more common occurrence.

Attorneys General from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming also joined the letter, led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. 

Attached to the letter are 21 questions for Meta, Facebook, Google and Microsoft to answer. They’ve been given a deadline of Oct. 27 to respond.