A group of United States senators is demanding transparency from some of the nation’s largest electric utility companies over secretive contracts with technology giants — agreements that local communities say are being shielded behind nondisclosure agreements even as residents face rising electricity bills and strained power grids. The bipartisan inquiry, led by Senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, has placed a spotlight on the opaque arrangements between utilities and hyperscale data center operators such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. The senators sent letters to more than a dozen utility companies in late June 2025, requesting detailed information about how these deals are structured, who bears the cost of new infrastructure, and why affected communities are being forced to sign NDAs as a condition of participation in the planning process.…