Cut the bureaucracy, power the AI future

Nov 17, 2025 by AFP

AI is a revolutionary technology that’s changing the world as we know it.

Odds are, you’ve asked an AI platform a question today because it can answer in seconds what it might take you hours or days to find on your own.

And while AI has immense potential to change our economy for years, it needs energy to run.

Lots of it.

To meet the demand, we’ll need to reform the way our energy industry operates and eliminate much of the red tape and bureaucratic traps.

AI: The need for energy

Every time you ask your AI bot to do something, it consumes energy.

Just how much?

Some scientists at MIT ran the numbers and here’s what they got:

  • AI-specific data centers in America used around 70 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, enough to power around 7.2 million homes in America for a year.
  • By 2028, AI-data centers will consume between 165 and 326 terawatt-hours per year, roughly the same amount as it takes to power the whole country of Thailand for a whole year.
  • Between 2024 and 2028, the share of U.S. electricity going to data centers will triple from around 4% to 12%.

As time passes, people will increasingly utilize AI, and if we want to fully harness its power and potential to transform our lives, then we must prepare to expand our energy supply.

America has the resources and human capital needed to do that. But there’s one challenge standing in our way: unnecessary government regulations.

Red tape: The stumbling block

Any energy project that aims to bring much-needed resources and electricity to homes and businesses must clear layers of government regulations. Before breaking ground, developers need to work through a gauntlet of regulations that can stall progress and keep energy costs high

Right now, it takes federal agencies nearly three years on average to complete an Environmental Impact Statement — that’s just one report.

And even after the reports are done, there are still good odds that government red tape will end up destroying a project before the first shovel touches the ground.

That’s exactly what happened with the PennEast pipeline project, a $1.2 billion project that would have created 12,000 jobs in the Keystone State. After years of trying to get the permits approved through the courts, the project was canceled in 2021, six years after it was initially filed.

In the age of the AI revolution, delays and bottlenecks like this will keep our economy stuck in the past and keep us locked away from a prosperous future for all.

Thankfully, we have a way to solve this.

Let’s get to work: Permitting reform.

If we want to be ready for a rapidly changing future, we need to change a bloated, slow permitting system that’s not even working for us presently.

And a good start for this reform would be to get Congress to:

  • Streamline permitting so we don’t have a dozen agencies failing to coordinate so that moving projects forward takes an exorbitant amount of time.
  • Expand LNG and oil exports to strengthen U.S. security and unleash our energy potential.
  • Modernize our grid to power the industries and technologies of the future.

That’s why at AFP, we’ve launched our Prosperity is Possible campaign.

We’re rallying citizens across America to get Congress to get permitting reform done and make sure America is ready for the economy of tomorrow.

If you want America to be ready to power a prosperous economy for all, take a moment to sign our petition telling Congress to get this done.

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