Whitehouse to Meta: Pivot to Embrace Fossil Fuel Expansion Threatens Economy, Undermines Climate Safety Commitments

Meta’s reliance on fossil fuel to power data centers flies in the face of the company’s net-zero pledges and risks higher costs for families

Washington, D.C.—Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, launched an inquiry into Meta and is demanding answers from CEO Mark Zuckerberg about his company’s investments in fossil fuel expansion and apparent abandonment of climate safety commitments.    

When Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced plans in 2024 to build a massive data center in northeastern Louisiana, the company pledged to offset its polluting emissions with carbon capture and investments in solar and storage capacity.  However, the company has since announced plans to build three new fossil fuel-powered plants to support its new data center and its offset plans remain dubious, raising serious doubts about Meta’s claims of having already achieved net zero in its global operations and suggesting the company has opted to put its own profits over climate safety.

“I am concerned by reports that Meta plans to power a data center in northeastern Louisiana with new and unabated natural gas generation.  This flies in the face of Meta’s climate commitments and its claims that it has achieved net zero emissions in its global operations.  Meta’s promises to offset this new fossil generation by funding carbon capture and a solar project are vague and offer little reassurance.  I worry that this quest for profits over climate safety is misleading the public on Meta’s progress toward achieving net zero emissions,” wrote Ranking Member Whitehouse.

“Meta has not shown that the planned generation from its solar plant will match its data center electricity load and displace equivalent fossil fuel generation.  Neither Entergy nor Meta have disclosed details about the carbon capture project or the amount of Meta’s financial contribution …. These gaps and omissions raise concerns that Meta’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions is not genuine,” continued the Senator.

Meta has attempted to brand itself as a sustainability leader and pledged to reach net zero emissions across its value chain by 2030. Speaking at Harvard’s 2017 commencement, Zuckerberg urged graduates to fight for climate action before “we destroy the planet.”

But more recently, Meta and Zuckerberg appear to have changed their tune.  In its haste to cash in on the AI boom, Meta announced three new natural gas plants, which seems at odds with its climate commitments.  And despite Trump’s oft-repeated lies that climate change is a hoax and his campaign promises to roll back money-saving clean energy and energy efficiency policies in exchange for $1 billion in campaign cash from Big Oil executives, Meta donated  $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and Zuckerburg hosted an inauguration party.  The company also recently announced it would end its fact checking policies, enabling fossil fuel-funded climate disinformation to run rampant.

Economy-wide costs from climate change are mounting, meaning that Meta’s energy and climate policies have an effect on American families.  Across the country, families are already facing an insurance affordability crisis.  Last Congress, the Senate Budget Committee—led by then-Chairman Whitehouse—collected national and county-level non-renewal data from more than 40 insurance companies and found that counties with the greatest climate risk also had the highest non-renewal rates, an early warning sign of market destabilization. Such instability in insurance markets can make it impossible to get a mortgage, which can trigger a widespread crash in property values that cascades into a full-scale financial crisis.  Recently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee that in “10 or 15 years there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage,” and research from The Economist estimated that losses to the global asset management industry from the direct and indirect physical risks of climate change will be between $4.2 trillion and $13.8 trillion by 2100.

In order to reduce with emissions from data centers, such as those operated by Meta, Ranking Member Whitehouse recently introduced legislation that would set an emissions performance standard for the electricity used by data centers and cryptomining facilities and would utilize the revenues generated to help consumers save on utility bills and invest in long-term storage and clean firm generation.  Surging power demand from cryptominers and data centers is outpacing the growth of carbon-free electricity, and utilities are raising consumer electricity rates and increasingly relying on gas and coal generation to meet this growth. 

Ranking Member Whitehouse is requesting answers by May 28, 2025.

The full letter (with footnotes) is available HERE.