Heather Sutton

The federal energy regulator, led by a Trump appointee, is reviewing an application for an underwater AI data center in Alaska's Cook Inlet. Among the first of its kind in American waters. 350 turbines. 66 server "hives." Sunk into the seafloor. Only about 330 endangered belugas are left in Cook Inlet, down from roughly 1,300 in 1979. The Center for Biological Diversity says the site would sit inside their critical habitat. They can't see through the glacial silt, so they talk, and they click to find food. Mothers and calves use a special call to stay in touch, and scientists say ship noise can drown it out. The Center for Biological Diversity warns that noise from building and running those turbines could disrupt how belugas feed and communicate, and push them out of habitat they need. It's not just the whales. A commercial fishing group says DeepGreen never studied the impact on the 1,300+ active fishing permits in Upper Cook Inlet. DeepGreen's parent company was formed in January 2026. It has no public website, and its Delaware filings don't say who owns it. The Alaska Energy Authority says DeepGreen never even contacted them, despite the company claiming ties to the state's own power grid project, and called facts in DeepGreen's filing "dead wrong." Regulators also found DeepGreen never notified the city of Kenai or identified the tribes and Alaska Native corporations affected. DeepGreen fixed it a week later, only after regulators flagged it. At this point, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is only deciding whether to let DeepGreen study the site. And even past surveys in Cook Inlet needed federal permission to disturb them. As far as the reporting shows, DeepGreen doesn't have it. The belugas can't speak up in this review. You can. Tell the commission to deny this application. Link is in the first reply. 🐋 #DemsUnited 🧵