Power that serves ratepayers

Utility bills & reliability

El-Sayed calls out DTE and Consumers Energy for hiking rates without improving reliability, and would make data centers, not ratepayers, pay for their own energy demand.

You've got DTE, which is the biggest spender in our entire politics. They spend on 93% of the entire elected state legislature… Now, we just lost our power for five days in a row because of a mid-level storm. We need to do a lot better… I still have yet to see a plan from DTE about how they're going to improve our reliability.

WHAT HE HAS SAID

• Calls out utility companies like DTE and Consumers Energy for a long history of hiking rates without improvements in reliability, while pushing to greenlight data-center projects without accountability.
• Says data centers must pay for their own energy demand, so costs are not passed on to ratepayers.
• Says your power should not get less reliable because a data center moved in, and that the data center should pay for the fixes.
• Says utilities should not be able to use data-center projects to weaken or sidestep clean-energy laws.
• Says clean, reliable, affordable power are not competing goals but the same goal.

Primary sources

• Read the Terms of Engagement position — Abdul for U.S. Senate
• Read the Money out of politics position — Abdul for U.S. Senate

Last reviewed 2026-08-19.