Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published January 3, 2026 5:00 AM
Rebecca Gonzales was a groundbreaking mariachi musician in California whose professional career spanned nearly 50 years.
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Rebecca Gonzales collection, courtesy Mary Alfaro Velasco
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Topline:
Rebecca Gonzales was a trailblazer as first woman to play with a high-profile, all-male mariachi in the 70s. Her oral history is now available to the public at UCLA, one year after her death.
Why it matters: Gonzales had a long career as a mariachi in L.A. From the outside it was a tremendous success, but the interviews give an insight into the determination it took to break into what had been an all-male environment.
Why now: The manager of the UCLA oral history project says Gonzales’ story, and that of other people of color, is more important now than ever before.
The backstory: The founder of L.A. mariachi group Los Camperos saw Gonzales perform and invited her to join the all-male band in 1976. The group was the house band at La Fonda on Wilshire. She went on to have a decades-long career and inspired many musicians.
What's next: Gonzales’ wanted to see women in high-profile mariachis in her lifetime but that did not happen.
As the sole woman in the leading mariachi group Los Camperos de Nati Cano, the house band at famed La Fonda restaurant in the 1970s, and one of a handful of women in the scene at all, she was a rarity. Gonzales was not the first woman to play music in the genre, but she was the first to be asked to join such a high profile all-male mariachi in either the U.S. or Mexico.
A third generation American integrates a very Mexican genre
Rebecca Gonzales was born in 1953 in San Jose, California. Her mother was born in Arizona and her father in Texas. Her grandparents immigrated from Mexico.
“I never learned Spanish… I started taking Spanish at a community college,” she said.
She started playing violin at 10 years-old and would practice at home with her younger sister.
Rebecca Gonzales, center, joined Los Abajenos de Isidro Rivera before joining Los Camperos de Nati Cano in L.A.
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Rebecca Gonzales collection, courtesy Mary Alvaro Velasco.
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“I was an average student. I mean, the only thing I was really good at was music,” she said.
And she was painfully shy, she said. But that all changed when she was 16 and had her first boyfriend.
“He was a musician, so we had that in common, and we would go to concerts all the time. And back then, there was fantastic concerts going on at the Fillmore in San Francisco, where he was, an hour drive from my house,” Gonzales said. That's where she saw Carlos Santana, Jethro Tull and other late 60s rock stars.
Those experiences fed her love of many musical genres, but her music studies still focused on classical violin.
Mariachi wasn’t part of her cultural upbringing. Her father liked and played norteño, the accordion-focused music played by small musical groups on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border.
But when she signed up for a mariachi class at San Jose City College after graduating high school, it was a revelation. The joy and smiles on the faces of the students in that class were contagious, a far cry from the serious face she made, she said, when playing classical music.
“I'll never forget coming home to let my father know that night. I said, 'You know what? This music is really great… I think this is going to be a big part of my life,'" Gonzales said.
She began playing and singing in local Mariachi bands. But that wasn't enough to leave classical music just yet. She transferred to Cal State L.A. and Cal State Northridge to continue studying classical music.
Her big break in L.A.
Mariachi’s pull, however, continued in L.A. The leader of a local mariachi ensemble asked her to join and she jumped at the chance. She also visited La Fonda, to hear what was arguably the best mariachi group outside Mexico at that time, Los Camperos de Nati Cano, the house band at the club on Wilshire Blvd.
Rebecca Gonzales, front-left, was the first woman to join an established all-male mariachi in 1976 in either the U.S. or Mexico.
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Rebecca Gonzales collection, courtesy Mary Alfaro Velasco
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“My big break came when I… went there one night to visit,and there was my friend that I worked with in the mariachi in San Jose," who was playing for Los Camperos, she said.
The friend asked Gonzales to come up on stage. A few more impromptu performances followed, until the group's manager asked her to come back again so the founder, Nati Cano, could see her.
“He hired me that night,” she said.
Gonzales was not even 25 years old.
“That took a lot of guts. That's inspiring," said Mary Alfaro Velasco, an L.A. based bolero and mariachi performer who interviewed Gonzales for the archive. “That she went into this all-male, paisa-man environment, as a young Mexican American girl, pochita, that didn't even speak the language."
Gonzales spent eight years playing with Los Camperos, where she became a celebrity of sorts in the U.S. mariachi scene.
“A lot of movie stars used to come to La Fonda,” Gonzales said, noting actors Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Montgomery, and former Beatle George Harrison, who brought his Latina wife, Olivia.
There’s even a photo of her in a mariachi outfit dancing with President Ronald Reagan.
Rebecca Gonzales, left, dances with Ronald Reagan in a photo dated 1982, when Reagan was U.S. President.
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Rebecca Gonzales collection, courtesy Mary Alfaro Velasco
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But it was not always glamorous. Gonzales told Velasco about some of the painful parts of being the first woman in such a famous all-male mariachi band.
“I remember her describing what it was like, playing in restaurants [when she was a young woman] and literally being assaulted, men touching her,” Alfaro Velasco said.
La Fonda’s house mariachi made it a tourist destination, including visitors from Japan. The group’s leaders recognized that and included songs outside the Mexican repertoire, like Sakura, a Japanese folk song that’s become representative of Japan.
“I would sing it… and they loved it because we're connecting with their culture,” Gonzales said.
Eight years of performing at La Fonda ultimately took its toll on her health. Patrons smoked inside La Fonda because it had not been banned yet. She began feeling sick, and asked that ventilation be put in. But, she said, the managers refused.
“That was one of the things that turned me off and made me want to leave the group,” she said.
With her story now in the UCLA archives, it's part of the historical record.
“[Mariachi] is such an important form… everybody who lives in L.A. hears mariachi music and nobody really knows very much about it in terms of the general public,” said Jane Collings, the project manager for the series.
The oral histories of Mexican Americans and other non-white people, she said, are very important in this day and age.
“There's a clear attempt [by the Trump administration] to erase this history and that makes the work of an archive such as this ever more important,” Collings said.
And it's the mission of the UCLA archive, she said, to keep those stories alive for current and future generations.
Why now: A group of local officials and organizations, including Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the livestream, helped organize the “Wings Over Big Bear” weekend with a commemoration ceremony Saturday and Wildlife Education Day Sunday.
Read on ... to go inside the ceremony and hear from fans.
The Big Bear community and fans of the famous bald eagles that call the valley home are coming together this weekend to honor Jackie.
A group of local, state and federal officials and organizations, including the nonprofit behind the livestream, Friends of Big Bear Valley, helped organize the “Wings Over Big Bear” weekend with a commemoration ceremony Saturday and Wildlife Education Day Sunday.
Diane Lech came up from Carlsbad and stopped by to see the overflowing Jackie memorial at Fawnskin Freedom Park. She’s been watching the livestream since 2015, when the cameras were first installed.
“And [Jackie’s] been part of my life ever since,” Lech said, her eyes welling up with tears. “It’s heartwarming to know that she had such an effect on so many people.”
Nearly two months after Jackie's death, fans are still in mourning.
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Makenna Cramer
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A handcrafted wooden statue of Jackie flying with a fish in her talons next to the memorial in Fawnskin Freedom Park.
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Makenna Cramer
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LAist
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A community comes together
Vanessa Bloom, a Huntington Beach resident, and her mom are regular viewers of the eagle livestream. Bloom said the ceremony feels like a coming-together at a time when there’s so much polarization and division in the world.
“Everyone's here for a common cause,” Bloom said. “There's a lot of unity and people just being with each other in a time of tragedy, which you don't really see that often, and I think that's special.”
Artist Wes Abarca spray-painting a memorial piece for Jackie on Saturday, Oct. 3 at Bear Mountain Ski Resort.
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Makenna Cramer
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A plane drew a "J" and a heart in the sky over the crowd watching the ceremony.
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Makenna Cramer
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LAist
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About 2,000 people RSVP'd to the commemoration ceremony Saturday at Bear Mountain Ski Resort, according to organizers.
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Makenna Cramer
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LAist
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Maggie Keen, a Thousand Oaks resident, took her first trip to Big Bear in years to attend the ceremony.
“[Jackie] was just amazing,” Keen said. “Very strong, took charge of everything and was just like an incredible bird to watch her with the fledglings.”
The Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation kicked the ceremony off with several songs.
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Makenna Cramer
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LAist
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Audience members were invited to dance along to celebration of life songs led by the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation.
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Makenna Cramer
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LAist
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Ron Wood, better known as Woody, works at Captain John's Fawn Harbor & Marina by Dana Point Park in Fawnskin, where he points out the nest to fans daily.
“We all thought that she was going to come around and be brought back here, and, you know, it's pretty depressing,” Wood said. “Every single person still that comes is teary-eyed.”
Ron Wood holds up a framed photo of what he said is a young Jackie, along with her parents Ricky and Lucy. He usually has the popular YouTube livestream of the eagle nest playing in the background.
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Makenna Cramer
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LAist
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Jenny Voisard, media manager for Friends of Big Bear Valley, told LAist ahead of the ceremony that the turnout shows just how the love people have for Jackie.
“A lot of people were surprised at how much they were grieving,” Voisard said. “We all still miss Jackie.”
Michael Muhm and Peggy Muhm came from Colleyville, Texas to honor Jackie in their matching eagle shirts.
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Makenna Cramer
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Rachel Mulpas and Randy Mulpas, a father-daughter duo, drove up from Ladera Ranch in Orange County.
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Makenna Cramer
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Carmina Chun and John Chun wearing "Fly High, Jackie" shirts from the Ontario Tower Buzzers' August event honoring the eagle.
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Makenna Cramer
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Joan Eminger was all smiles Saturday at Bear Mountain Ski Resort, sporting a Jackie shirt and pin.
Move over, beach reads. With the fall equinox behind us, we can now curl up with cozy autumn books.
Why now: Here are our recommendations of new titles coming from Barbara Kingsolver, Chad Harbach, Jasmine Guillory and more.
Goodbye and good riddance to the beach read. At least for this year, we can stop pretending that baking on the sand in the hot sun or tilted awkwardly on a damp plastic lounge chair by the pool is the ideal setting for reading. Now, with the fall equinox behind us, we can look forward and embrace the one true ideal season for reading: autumn.
Or we can not be so dramatic about it and just say that there are a lot of books coming out between now and the holidays. A few we've included in our round up are long-awaited follow ups to stunning entrances onto the literary scene. Others are big, ambitious projects. Others yet are versions of older works only now being translated into English. There are obviously some high-profile titles that we missed in the name of brevity but, hopefully, there are a few titles here that weren't on your radar before.
FICTION
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Mariner Books
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The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw (Sept. 29)
Philyaw's 2020 short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies felt like a discovery. Published by a small university press, the book was brave and honest in its handling of sexuality and religion. It became such a sensation in certain corners of the literary world that you really had to wonder — what the heck has Philyaw been up to? Well, we find out soon in her first full-length novel about, well, sex, religion, gossip and marriage.
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Harper
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Partita by Barbara Kingsolver (Oct. 6)
It's Kingsolver's 19th novel. Fresh off her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Demon Copperhead, one of the most prominent voices in Appalachian writing comes out with a book about a pianist on her way to classical music stardom, until that path gets knocked off kilter. Kingsolver herself originally went to college to study classical music but never truly showed her love for it in her fiction — until now.
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Scholastic Press
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It's Only Dancing by Jasmine Guillory (Oc.t 6)
Every now and then I come across a video of a cute couple doing (or attempting to do) the Dirty Dancing lift. It's a bold move with a high-risk factor for completely eating it. Well, now Jasmine Guillory's showing similar boldness. Her upcoming book — her first YA novel — is a take on Dirty Dancing. It follows a young girl and her charming dance instructor, as they try to figure out their dance steps — and each other.
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Little, Brown and Company
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The Brightness by Chad Harbach (Oct. 27)
This is the long-awaited sequel to Harbach's acclaimed 2011 baseball/campus novel The Art of Fielding. We return to Westish College — but we put down the bats and balls and, instead, focus on sexual assault, feminism, campus politics and the high costs of speaking out.
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New Directions
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Behind the Gate & Other Stories by Amparo Dávila, translated by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson (Nov. 3)
With her 2018 short story collection The Houseguest, Mexican author Amparo Dávila became a fixture in the English-speaking cult canon of weird-girl literature. Dávila died at age 92 in 2020 but a new collection of her creepy, unsettling and odd stories are coming in English this fall.
NONFICTION
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Drawn and Quarterly
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I Can't Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex by Lisa Hanawalt (Oct. 20)
A graphic memoir from Tuca & Bertie creator Lisa Hanawalt that tells you exactly what it's about in the title. And the horses bit isn't a metaphor for life or whatever, there's actually a lot in here about riding horses, taking care of horses, and how loving horses is both silly/ridiculous/expensive and, also, one of the best things in the world. OK, maybe it is a bit of a metaphor.
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New Directions
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Celeste, Daughter of the Earth and Other Early Poems by Enrique Lihn, translated byJonathan Cohen and David Unger (Oct. 20)
This book collects translated early works of the celebrated Chilean poet Enrique Lihn. And they have the full-hearted verve and drive of a younger poet. In the poem "Steadfast," the narrator speaks to the subject angrily and bitterly but ends with the lines, "I will live secretly by your side / like the corpse I've been since loving you."
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Simon Six
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Look at Me by Dustin Hoffman with Ariel Levy (Nov. 10)
Dustin Hoffman is 89 years old now. In his lifetime, he's been at the center of some of the most enduring images seared into the minds of American culture. You can picture it, can't you? Him on the bus in The Graduate. Him at the office in All The President's Men. Him and the big crocodile thing in Hook. It's a sure bet his memoir will cover at least two of those movies in depth.
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Weird Era: How Pitchfork Changed Music Forever: A Memoir by Ryan Schreiber (Dec. 1)
As the founder of the music website Pitchfork, Schreiber had a front-row seat to the changing tides of music, music distribution, music criticism, the Internet, snobbery, taste, stardom, obscurity and rating art on a scale of 1-10. The book goes into the origins of Pitchfork and offers insight into its eventual sale to Condé Nast, reminding readers that there is a real person behind that review you hated.
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Penguin Press
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The Co-Creation: How Earth Made Life and Life Made Earth by Olivia Judson (Dec. 13)
You have to give props to the big swings, and explaining the origins of life on Earth is maybe one of the biggest swings you could take. Judson is an evolutionary biologist but has spent most of her career as a science writer, explaining the world and all its inhabitants to the rest of us.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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Long Beach Unified announced Thursday it expects to close Gompers and Edison elementary schools at the end of the school year, saying the campuses are underenrolled.
Why now: It’s the district’s latest effort to consolidate resources as enrollment continues to fall districtwide. LBUSD enrollment dipped below 60,000 students this year, the first time it crossed that thresholdsince the early 1980s.
Why it matters: As enrollment declines, so does school funding, and LBUSD is taking drastic measures as operating costs exceed revenue.
Long Beach Unified announced Thursday it expects to close Gompers and Edison elementary schools at the end of the school year, saying the campuses are underenrolled.
It’s the district’s latest effort to consolidate resources as enrollment continues to fall districtwide. LBUSD enrollment dipped below 60,000 students this year, the first time it crossed that thresholdsince the early 1980s.
Why the district wants to close schools
As enrollment declines, so does school funding, and LBUSD is taking drastic measures as operating costs exceed revenue. In a recent budget report, the district said it expects to draw nearly $45 million from its reserves this school year — the third year of deficit spending. Already, the district has reduced library support, mental health resources, and certificated and classified staff. Hoover Middle School closed last year due to low enrollment, the district said. Both LBUSD and the school board have signaled that more tough cuts are on the horizon; some are already here.
“It feels like a big loss,” said school board member Juan Benitez, whose district includes Edison Elementary. Yet he added that low birth rates will continue pushing enrollment down. The district and board have a fiscal responsibility to take action — not only to balance the budget, but to ensure students receive the best learning environment possible, which is difficult to maintain at schools with low capacity, he said.
Where students and teachers would go
If the school closures are approved by the board of education, the Gompers attendance boundary will be consolidated with three nearby Lakewood elementary schools: Cleveland, Holmes and MacArthur, according to a letter the district sent to families. Edison students would attend Chavez and Oropeza elementary schools, both within a mile of Edison’s downtown campus.
If families wish to send their children to different schools, they will receive priority in the school choice process, the letters added.
The campuses will not remain vacant, Benitez said. Edison may be used as a temporary site while other schools undergo modernization projects, and additional uses will be proposed for Gompers, he said. The Child Development Center currently housed at Edison will remain there for at least the next several years, he said.
Teachers on permanent contracts at Gompers and Edison will keep their jobs in the district, said Peder Larsen, president of the teachers union, and they will get precedence in school reassignments. But they may not learn their new school sites until April, once the school transfer and assignment process is underway, he said.
Families push back
The news has hit hard for families. Ashlee Napalan, an LBUSD teacher and a parent of three children at Gompers Elementary, said the news was “heartbreaking” and surprising, especially because Gompers underwent a significant remodel last year, including the installation of a new HVAC system, as well as fresh paint and new playground equipment, she said.
She described a tight-knit community at Gompers and said her children walk to school and play with other kids at the park across the street. When she told her son, a kindergartener, the news, she said he cried all night. “We’ve been really heavily involved with the school for seven years,” she said. “It’s a huge part of our lives.”
What happens next
Some parents have already begun organizing to oppose the move. A petition to keep Gompers open accrued more than 600 signatures in one day. Some parents said they plan to speak at the school board meeting on Oct. 7 when the issue will be presented to the board as an information item. The board is expected to vote on Oct. 21. Parents at each school have been invited to informational meetings in the coming month, according to the letters sent by the district.
Benitez said he is pushing for “ongoing, constant, clear responsive communication” to the families affected by these proposed changes. “The recommendation is not being taken lightly,” he said, adding that he — and the district — will be listening closely to students’ and families’ concerns.
Congress is scrambling to show that it understands voter concerns about AI data centers and their potential impact on electricity rates. But answering the question of how much of those costs will be shouldered by residential utility customers is surprisingly difficult to answer.
Why now: On Capitol Hill this week, Republicans have been trying to push through the Ratepayer Protection Act, sponsored by Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted. The bill would have state utilities consider holding "large-load" customers responsible for the increased costs. Several other data center and AI-related bills are at various stages in the legislative process.
Ahead of the midterm elections, Congress is scrambling to show that it understands voter concerns about AI data centers and their potential impact on electricity rates. But answering the question of how much of those costs will be shouldered by residential utility customers is surprisingly difficult to answer.
That uncertainty is at the heart of a growing fight on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers advance competing proposals aimed at protecting ratepayers in a debate that often belies the complexity of the underlying economics.
On Capitol Hill this week, Republicans have been trying to push through the Ratepayer Protection Act, sponsored by Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted. The bill would have state utilities consider holding "large-load" customers responsible for the increased costs.
Husted is in a heated reelection campaign against Democrat Sherrod Brown, who lost his Senate seat in 2024. Brown has made Husted's past support of data centers in Ohio a major campaign issue. The bill easily passed the House in September with strong bipartisan support.
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer opposes the measure, saying its protections for ratepayers are voluntary. Instead, Schumer is promoting the GRID Savings Act, a similar bill authored by New Mexico Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich, which he says has more teeth.
The question of how much of the energy and grid costs are being borne by ratepayers is a complicated one and has no universal answer, experts tell NPR. They say it varies by utility and state, but that in the end residential electricity customers will pay for a share of the AI buildout.
By one estimate, Maryland customers, for example, pay somewhere around $168 to $216 more per year on their electricity bills primarily due to the data center boom.
"We're talking tens to hundreds of millions of dollars [of infrastructure] that are being built by these local utilities," says Connor Waldoch, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Grid Status, which focuses on making electricity-market data easier to access and understand. "In many cases, it is just ultimately going to end up in customers' bills."
Tracking the impact of data center growth on residential bills isn't easy, however. How much of the increase is passed on to residential customers and when, depends on utilities' power-purchasing contracts, retail rates and regulatory decisions about who pays, according to Lucy Qiu, a professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.
PJM is a regional transmission organization that coordinates the electricity grid and wholesale power market across 13 states and the District of Columbia. It supplies power to Northern Virginia, home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world. PJM's Independent Market Monitor estimates that data centers have cost their 67 million ratepayers about $29 billion over roughly the past two years.
"Everyone pays those costs," says Ari Peskoe, director of the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative. "They're spread across the region to every business and resident that has an electricity meter."
An Amazon Web Services data center is shown situated near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Va.
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Nathan Howard
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Getty Images
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How to determine who the grid infrastructure benefits?
Data center growth can push up wholesale costs of energy by increasing demand. This determines how much generating capacity utilities and regional grid operators need to secure, Qiu says. There are also costs with building new power lines, substations and other infrastructure to connect data centers to the grid. Determining how much of that exclusively serves data centers — and how much also benefits other customers — is part of the difficulty in determining who gets the bill, she says.
"It really depends on the scale of the upgrade and also how utilities are doing the accounting of that different share, whether it's being used solely by the data centers or also being shared by other customers," Qiu says.
No "single, clean number"
Even so, "a single, clean number" that applies nationwide is just not possible, Harvard's Peskoe says, because "a lot of the data about how much particular data centers are paying is hidden behind non-disclosure agreements."
Those NDAs have become a major sore spot on the local level, as residents opposed to new data centers call out local officials for the secrecy that has surrounded many deals. A study last year by the University of Mary Washington found that NDAs had been signed in 80% of Virginia localities where there were existing, approved or proposed data centers.
In an email to NPR, Jeremy L. Slayton, a spokesman for Dominion Energy, which serves Loudoun County, Va., home to about 250 data centers, said, "We recover costs for distribution and transmission infrastructure from customers."
"These assets are core to the reliable electric service we provide our customers. All costs we recover from customers are reviewed and approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission," he said, referring to the independent state agency that regulates public utilities.
Added costs of building out in a hurry
There is still another factor at play, University of Maryland's Qiu says. The data center industry is in a hurry and waiting for new power-generation technologies doesn't seem to be in the cards. As a result, to meet the demand, utility companies will likely need to opt for less efficient power plants and those costs will be passed onto consumers over time, as well.
One other consideration is optics, Waldoch of Grid Status says. Big customers like AI data centers pay less per kilowatt hour for power than residential customers do. Think of it as a volume discount. In the current environment where 70% of Americans are worried that data centers will increase their electricity bills, Waldoch says, "If you're saying, hey, this data center is actually paying a lot less for electricity than you are, even though it matters much less to them ... it's not like that's palatable for a lot of people at this point."
Benefits of the AI buildout
But not all price increases in recent years are linked to data centers, Qiu says.
"The fuel cost ... is a very important factor," she says and some of those new substations and power lines were going to need to be replaced anyway due to things like extreme weather events.
Qiu also notes that the U.S. power grid needs upgrades to accommodate higher demand for things like electric vehicles. The AI boom "can accelerate the upgrade of the grid infrastructure," she says.
There's also evidence, Qui says, that resiliency — the ability to survive high-impact events such as extreme heat and to recover from outages — is better for people living near data centers due to the robust infrastructure those facilities require. "So if there's a data center, it actually helps … improve the local grid reliability [and] reduce the power outages," says Qui.
