CHARLESTON, W.Va . (WSAZ) – West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey joins 16 attorney generals in launching an investigation into major tech companies.

In a press release from the Attorney General’s office, they say the investigation is centered around misleading and deceptive claims that the tech companies are only powered by renewable energy.

The companies in question include Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon.

These companies can’t have it both ways. They can’t use our reliable, affordable, abundant energy — but virtue signal that they’re “green,” said Attorney General JB McCuskey. “It’s deceptive and I’m proud to stand with this coalition to push back against the hypocrisy from these woke companies.”

The coalition sent letters this week to those companies, sharing their concerns with the false claims the companies have made as well as the impact it could have on the nation’s electric grid.

The release shares the companies purchased “renewable energy certificates” which are tradable credits that show renewable energy was produced and added to the grid.

The release also says that allows companies to “claim they use renewable energy, even though they are consuming fossil fuels, especially at their data centers, which threatens the reliability of the electrical grid.”

“When big tech companies claim to use 100% renewable energy, they pressure utilities to move away from fossil-fuel-generated baseload power to attract or retain big tech data center development,” the letter written to the companies states.

Attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming also joined the letter led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

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