Edge of the Story
True stories of overlooked witnesses at pivotal moments in history and the events they quietly observed.
Edge of the Story
Observation 11 - The Forgotten Moment - The Word
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A Settlement Called “Closure”
SPEAKER_00In February 2021, Attorneys General from 47 states, the District of Columbia, and five United States territories stood at podiums across this country and announced a settlement. Half a billion dollars, no admission of wrongdoing. The settlement document, the actual legal filing, entered in court, described the institution's behavior in reaching the agreement as good faith and responsible corporate citizenship. Those words are in the document, not in a press release, in the settlement. The institution itself issued a statement. It said the settlement represented something. The word it used was closure. Closure, it said, to this chapter. As part of the agreement, the institution promised to do one thing differently going forward, not to stop the conduct, to disclose it, to tell future clients in writing when it had a conflict of interest. The attorneys general called it a new standard for accountability. No one went to prison. One person faced up to 20 years. He received probation. The half a billion dollars went to communities, the institution went back to work. 47 Attorneys General, 47 separate rooms. The words sound like good faith, responsible, and they help us move on to the next news cycle. They give us permission to forget what we just learned. Today's episode is about a word. Not one word, several. Spread across years and industries and rooms where decisions are made before anyone outside the room is informed. The words are not lies. They are more useful than lies. Lies can be exposed. These words are defensible, they are in legal documents, they are in press releases, they are spoken by cabinet secretaries at White House podiums and by regulatory filings before state commissions. The words do the same work in every room. They make the thing being described sound like something no reasonable person would oppose. And by the time anyone notices the distance between the word and the thing, the moment has already been forgotten. And in that moment, everything changes. Whether you're in your car, out on a run, somewhere in the middle of your day, or in the shop bending wire, there are moments that don't announce themselves. They don't raise their voice, they don't stop the room, but they change everything. This is Edge of the Story. We're not investigating headlines. We're investigating moments people noticed. This is the episode about the moment nobody did.
Shiny Objects And Public Forgetting
SPEAKER_00So, Julia, what headlines do you have for us this week that helps us forget what we have just learned?
SPEAKER_01Well, Daryl, we have three headlines with the first headline that's out of this world. Our first headline has been reported everywhere. Pentagon releases long-awaited UAP files. The Pentagon this week released a new tranche of UAP unidentified aerial phenomena files, the former director of the US government's own UAP investigation office, the person whose job it was from inside the building to investigate these phenomena. Describe the timing of this week's release in three words a shiny object to distract Americans from the war with Iran. Those are his words on the record. About something the government itself released. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a named official describing the mechanism of distraction. And the mechanism is working because across every platform right now, people are talking about UAP files. Not about the five-year clock on a settlement agreement that has now run out. Not about a woman in Virginia who received a phone call and was told a 165-foot tower may go in her backyard that we are going to talk about a bit later. Not about the word being used to make both of those things sound like something no reasonable person would oppose. We are talking about UFOs. Our second headline comes out of Texas as reported in the Dallas Morning News back in December. ERCOT contracts with consulting firm to manage data center power Q. ERCOT? The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator for most of the state, contracted with McKinsey and Company to assist with improvement of the large load interconnection process. That process manages how companies requesting large amounts of power get connected to the Texas grid. The large load queue now contains more than 225 gigawatts of requested capacity. According to Earcut's own CEO, approximately 87% of that demand is data centers. McKinse publishes research projecting $6.7 trillion in global data center capital expenditure by 2030. McKinsey advises the technology companies Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, that are the largest applicants in that queue. McKinsey is now advising ERCOT on how to manage access to the grid. Both sides. Same issues. In December 294, McKinsey settled a federal criminal investigation for $670 million. That settlement restricted McKinsey from marketing controlled substances. It said nothing about energy. The word was closure. The energy sector was outside the perimeter. Our third headline is reported from the Washington Times. National Energy Dominance Council Chairman Bergum build baby build data centers to win AI race. Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergum, Chairman of President Trump's National Energy Dominance Council, established by executive order on February 14th, 2025. Told the Daily Wire that the nation's plan for energy dominance means more than drill, baby, drill. He said, We're going to map, baby, map to figure out where all these resources are, and then we're going to mine. Baby, mine so we can build, baby, build because we got to build AI data centers. The council's first major announcement was a landmark agreement to support the rapid expansion
Texas Grid Demand And Consulting Conflicts
SPEAKER_01of data center development. The word used to describe the transmission lines required to power those data centers. In regulatory filings before state commissions, in press statements from utility companies, in the language of the NEDC itself, is critical infrastructure. The chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council was, before his public service, a technology executive. He provided seed capital to Great Plains software and led it through a successful IPO before its acquisition by Microsoft in Tweezing One. He remained at Microsoft as senior vice president for six years. The council he chairs has made expanding AI data center development an explicit objective. Microsoft is one of the largest data center operators in Virginia and one of the largest applicants in the AirCOD queue. The word is energy dominance. All three sources are in our show notes.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for those, Julia. They are perfect examples of what we are going to talk about today, the words that make us forget what we just learned. All season we have been investigating a mechanism, not a conspiracy. A mechanism, something that does not require coordination or bad intent or even awareness that it is operating. This mechanism has three parts a structure with a gap, a regulatory system, a reimbursement framework, a grid interconnection queue, where decisions are made by institutions that do not fully control the market they are managing, an advisory ecosystem that positions itself on both sides of that gap, advising the institutions with authority, advising the client seeking favorable outcomes from those institutions, taking fees from both. And a word, a word that makes the whole arrangement sound like something no reasonable person would oppose. Here are the words pseudoaddiction, the word that turned the documented signs of opioid dependency into undertreated pain. The word that let doctors keep prescribing. The word that appeared in two and twenty four journal articles without a single study confirming it was real. The word that gave everyone in the system permission to move on to the next case. Critical infrastructure. The word that turned Amazon's server farms into a national security asset. That turned a one hundred and sixty five foot transmission tower in a residential backyard into a civic obligation. That no regulator, no community meeting, no rate hearing can oppose without sounding like they are opposing a reliable grid. Energy dominance, the word on the executive order, the word at the White House podium, the word that positions the rapid expansion of data center power demand as a geopolitical necessity, so that anyone who asks who pays for the infrastructure and who absorbs the rate increase sounds like they are opposing American strength. Three words, three industries, one mechanism. And the moment the word takes hold, the moment the room accepts it, is the moment it gets forgotten. Not erased, not corrected, just no longer questioned.
SPEAKER_01In February 21, the settlement was five hundred seventy-three million dollars. In December 2024, the federal criminal settlement was six hundred and fifty million dollars. Total paid across all opioid-related settlements, approximately one point point two five billion dollars. Estimated 2024 annual revenue, 16.5 billion dollars. The fine was approximately 7.5% of one year's earnings, not five years. One year.
Energy Dominance Becomes A Justification
SPEAKER_00And interestingly enough, its clients are the data center company standing in queue awaiting that allocation. Same company. Both sides, same issues. The deferred prosecution agreement covered opioids. The energy sector was outside the perimeter. The closure was real. It covered one room, the other rooms were already open. And we forgot what we just learned. Ashburn, Virginia, thirty miles northwest of Washington, DC, Loudoun County currently has one hundred ninety nine data centers. Another one hundred seventeen are in development. Data center electricity use in Virginia has surged two hundred and thirty one percent in eight years. One data center uses as much power as twenty five thousand homes. The residents of Loudoun Valley Estates did not know that when they bought their homes. On june thirteenth, twenty twenty five, a woman named Vicki Hugh received a phone call. Vicki Hu is a real estate agent she helped develop and sell homes in Loudoun Valley Estates in the mid 2000s. She has lived there for twenty years, one point three acres at the end of a cul-de-sac, backing up to a wooded area along Broad Run, a Potomac River tributary. She raised her daughter there. The call was from Dominion Energy. The company was considering running a five hundred kilovolt transmission line through her backyard, a tower one hundred sixty five feet tall between her house and her garage. The house is going to be worthless if they put a power line there. The whole reason we bought the house in Ashburn is because of the view, the nature, the wildlife. She was not asked, she was not consulted, she received a phone call. We never visualize what was really going on until it hit our home. When you drive around Ashburn, you don't see overhead power lines. All the community power lines are underground. So why do we pay the premium real estate and now we have to see an overhead high voltage power line? It's not supplying power to the community, it's to the data centers. And what's the benefit to the residents now? We are the victim of their multimillion dollar project. She helped build that neighborhood. She sold the houses, she raised her daughter there for 20 years. She received a phone call.
SPEAKER_01In every regulatory filing before the Virginia State Corporation Commission, Dominion Energy described the transmission line as critical infrastructure, necessary for grid reliability. In 1996, President Clinton signed an executive order creating the concept of critical infrastructure. He was thinking about water systems, emergency services, the things a country cannot function without. By 2025, the National Energy Dominance Council, established by executive order, chaired by a former Microsoft executive, announced a landmark agreement to support the rapid expansion of data center development. The word energy dominance provided the justification. The word critical infrastructure provided the regulatory clearance. The word impacts to the community. Used by Dominion in its statement after the SCC ruled in April 2020
A 165-Foot Tower In Ashburn
SPEAKER_01Spanix and approved the transmission line, described what happened to Vicky Hugh. Impacts to the community. Not we are placing a 165-foot tower near your children's school or in your backyard. Impacts to the community.
SPEAKER_00They did not require it to be buried. Dominion has proposed a 14% residential rate increase for 2026, citing data center demand. The residents of Loudoun Valley estates will pay more on their electric bill every month to power the data centers that put the tower in their neighborhood. Jinder Chandock, a resident, said, My power needs are being met. These are being built for the rapidly expanding data centers, so let the data center industry pay for this solution, not the families and ratepayers living under the power lines. At a town hall in december twenty twenty five, more than a thousand written statements were submitted. Five hundred people registered to speak. U.S. Representative Suha Subramanyam, a sitting congressman in his own district, stood at the podium and said, They're building these data centers, they're building the power infrastructure through our homes, and they don't seem to care. Then the news moved on.
SPEAKER_01The National Energy Dominance Council was established within the executive office of the president on February 14, 2025. It is composed of at least 19 members. Effectively, the entire cabinet reoriented around a single policy objective. Its first major announcement was a landmark agreement with a bipartisan group of governors to expand the nation's energy supply and support the rapid expansion of data center development. Its chairman is Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergum. Before his public service, Bergum provided seed capital to Great Plains Software in 1988, led it through a successful IPO, and sold it to Microsoft in 2001. He remained at Microsoft as senior vice president of business solutions for six years.
SPEAKER_00Microsoft is one of the largest data center operators in Loudoun County, Virginia. Microsoft is one of the largest applicants in the ERCOT Large Load queue in Texas. Microsoft is among the technology companies whose energy strategy is advised by the same consulting firm that was fined $1.25 billion for its role in the opioid crisis, and then ranked number one in energy consulting for 2026. No one in this chain is doing anything illegal. The NEDC is a legal executive body. The ERCOT contract is a legal consulting engagement. The consulting firm's advisory work for technology companies is a legal service. The rate increase is a legal regulatory proposal. The transmission line is a legal infrastructure project. Every step is a is legal. Every step is is defensible. Every step has a word. Energy dominance, critical infrastructure, impacts to the community. Closure.
SPEAKER_01Only in America can an institution be fined $1.25 billion for its role in a crisis that killed 800,000 people. Admit no wrongdoing. Use the word closure. And five years later be ranked the number one consulting firm in the fastest growing energy sector in the country, generating 16.5 billion in annual revenue. The fine was 7.5% of one year's earnings. The return was everything outside the perimeter. And the perimeter was drawn with a word. Controlled substances. That is what the deferred prosecution agreement covered. Not consulting, not advising both sides of regulated transactions, not conflicts of interest as a category of professional conduct. Controlled substances. The energy sector was not a controlled substance. The data center queue was not a controlled substance. The White House Council was not a controlled substance. The word closure covered one room. Every other room was open. And the word energy dominance opened all of them at once.
SPEAKER_00We said at the beginning of this season that we are not investigating the story, the headline, or in this case, the company, McKinsey. We investigate the moments noticed, the architecture used, the model, the system. When we investigated OxyContin, we discovered the method that Arthur
Everything Is Legal, Every Step Labeled
SPEAKER_00Sackler perfected. He couldn't market to the end user, so he marketed to the trusted advisor. His company commissioned studies that were underwritten and marketed by his company, creating the permission for doctors to prescribe. That same technique is used today. You have to look no further than Ozempic to see the same techniques that were used with Valium or Oxycontin. And it's not just McKinsey that is on both sides of many transactions. Arthur Sackler's playbook is well worn. McKinsey is just the visible label, the name defendant, the institution that signed the agreement and used the word closure. What McKinsey represents is something larger than one firm. It is a model, a way of operating that has been replicated across industries across decades by firms whose names change, but whose function is identical. Position yourself on both sides of a regulated transaction. Advise the institution with authority. Advise the client seeking favorable outcomes from that institution. Take fees from both. Disclose the conflict when required. Continue. Rinse. Repeat.
SPEAKER_01The playbook does not require bad intent. It only requires three things. A structure with a gap between authority and capacity. A grid operator that cannot fully manage 12 gigawatts of data center requests. An FDA that cannot simultaneously regulate pharmaceutical policy and oversee the companies being regulated. The gap is where the consulting ecosystem lives. An advisory ecosystem willing to sit on both sides of that gap, taking fees from the regulator and the regulated, advising the grid operator and the companies waiting in the queue, doing nothing. Illegal, disclosing the conflict in a sentence buried in a statement. Moving on. And a word. A word that makes the entire arrangement sound like something no reasonable person would ever oppose.
SPEAKER_00The question this episode asks is not who should we hold accountable? The question is when did we stop noticing? When did the word closure become sufficient to close a chapter that was still being written? When did the word energy dominance become sufficient to build 165 foot towers through residential neighborhoods without the residents being consulted? When did the word critical infrastructure travel far enough from its origin, from water systems and emergency services to land in Vicky Hughes' backyard? The moment is not when the word was first used, the moment is when no one noticed it had stopped describing what it was designed to describe. That is the moment it gets forgotten. Not with a press release, not with a court filing, just with a word, accepted by the room, and then the room moves on. Vicki Who lived in Loudoun Valley Estates for twenty years. She helped build the neighborhood, she knew the view from her back door. On june thirteenth, twenty twenty five, the phone rang. It was Dominion Energy. A decision had already been made. She was being informed. We want to hear your version of that phone call. Not necessarily a literal phone call, but the moment you discovered that a decision had already been made about your neighborhood, your property, your community, your children's school,
The Playbook Of Advising Both Sides
SPEAKER_00your medical care, your retirement savings, and you were being informed rather than consulted. The moment you understood that the word being used for what was happening was covering something that, from where you stood, looked completely different. Critical infrastructure, energy dominance, standard of care, responsible corporate citizenship, impacts to the community. The words that let the room move on. And the moment you notice the distance between the word and the thing. We are not looking for stories of wrongdoing. We are not looking for villains. We are looking for the moment you were in a room where a word was doing work it was not designed to do. When the word arrived before you could ask what it meant, and what you did or didn't do, when you noticed. Find us at edge of the story dot com slash heard, and the best responses become part of this conversation. Not from what we investigate, from what you remember. In closing today, the former director of the UAP investigation office called this week's Pentagon release a shiny object. He was describing distraction. But what he named was also something else. He named the ecosystem, the ecosystem that the forgetting lives in, the UFO files, the Epstein documents, the price of gasoline, the war, the next shiny object, the one after that. In that ecosystem, while each shiny object is doing its work, the settlement document accumulates dust. The ERCOT contract is announced in a press release nobody reads. The executive order establishing the National Energy Dominance Council is published in the Federal Register. The transmission line proposal is filed with the State Corporation Commission. Vicky Who receives a phone call. None of these things happen in secret. They happen in the open, in public documents, in regulatory filings, in press releases, in White House fact sheets. They happen in the language of institutions, in the words those institutions use to describe themselves. And the words are the forgetting, not because they are false, because they are accepted. Because the room moves on before anyone asks what the word is covering. The settlement said closure, the council says energy dominance, the regulatory filing says critical infrastructure, the utility says impacts to the community. And somewhere underneath all those words, in a cul de sac in Ashburn, in a grid operator's office in Texas, in the $16.5 billion annual revenue of the number one energy consulting firm in the country. A consulting firm who just five years ago paid approximately $125 billion across all opioid settlements. Their estimated
Tell Us About Your “Phone Call” Moment
SPEAKER_00annual revenue is $16.5 billion, a fine that represented less than eight cents on every dollar they earned in a single year. How soon we forget again? Next week, we look at where the architecture went next, not energy, not data centers, somewhere you will not see coming. When the word arrives, next week on Edge of the Story, the moment it happens again. Not because no one knew, but because what was known was never fully carried forward. Edge of the story is produced type Atop Chalk Mountain. If the gate is open, come on in and we will visit for a while. If today's episode changed how you hear the words being used to describe decisions that affect you, please share it. Every source is in our show notes, every name, every document, every filing. We don't hide our work. We're not investigating stories, we're investigating moments people noticed. See you next week.