Washington, D.C. – New analysis from Food & Water Watch finds that federal lobbying spending from AI industry giants Anthropic and Open AI ballooned in the five quarters since Donald Trump took office compared to the previous five quarters under the Biden administration. Spending by Anthropic increased by a whopping 494 percent, while the figure for Open AI nearly doubled, increasing by 98.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has encouraged aggressive, unfettered expansion of the AI industry. Last summer the White House released an “AI Action Plan,” which outlines its priorities related to the advancement of so-called “artificial intelligence” and the industries supporting it – including massive energy- and water-intensive data centers. Among other things, Trump’s plan seeks to dismantle existing environmental and land use rules that it views as a hindrance to the unfettered growth of these industries.

“Our analysis has found that the breathtaking surge in lobby spending by a few of the largest AI industry players corresponds directly with incredibly industry-friendly proclamations and initiatives from the Trump White House. This is clearly no coincidence,” said Amanda Starbuck, research director at Food & Water Watch. “We are shocked but not surprised by the level of influence the AI industry is purchasing from Trump and his cronies in Congress.”

Last month Food & Water Watch released a comprehensive, deeply researched report that makes a compelling, urgent case for a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new AI-driven data centers. The highly detailed report lays out the wide range of harms and hazards associated with the sudden explosion of the data center industry in America, including:

• Enormous and unsustainable consumption of power and water resources, already resulting in skyrocketing utility bills for families and small businesses.
• Dangerous new demand for fossil fuels, posing heightened risks of air and water pollution for impacted communities and a grave threat to our global climate.
• A host of other societal threats, from national economic catastrophe, to loss of critical farmland, to unrelenting noise pollution, to threats to children and democracy.

In a letter sent to Congress in December, more than 230 national, state and local organizations from across the country called for a full nationwide moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers.