PJM, the country’s largest power grid operator, is in a tight spot. Thanks to the data center boom, there’s never been more demand for electricity, but years of delay in the interconnection queue has choked off new supply, and PJM’s laissez-faire approach to transmission planning has left us with a grid that needs expensive and time-consuming upgrades. This all adds up to soaring prices and declining reliability, with no end in sight.

Against this backdrop, the White House and governors of all 13 PJM states have pushed PJM to hold a so-called Reliably Backstop Procurement (RBP) to support new resources. The basic idea makes sense: Hold a one-time auction to fund new supply, mostly for data centers. Pay for that new supply at a generous guaranteed price but bill it to the companies that need power without raising prices for everyone else.

PJM stakeholders are in the middle of debating how this should work, and PJM’s board will make a decision at the end of June. Tens of billions of dollars and the region’s energy future are at stake. Fossil fuel cheerleaders in the Trump administration clearly see this as an opportunity to lock in fossil power at public expense through the 2040s. Anyone who cares about clean air or their power bill should be making sure they don’t succeed. That’s why NRDC presented an alternative proposal that protects consumers, gives clean energy a fair chance to compete, and simply has a better chance of getting the new supply that the system needs built.