The structural problem with the industry's self-funding commitments is not their sincerity — it is that ratepayer protection requires a mechanism, not a statement. California's Little Hoover Commission made this explicit: without legislative action, the cost trajectory from data center load lands on household bills by default, regardless of what any company has pledged at a White House event. The pledge framework was designed to absorb political pressure; it was not designed to function as a rate-setting instrument. The commissions and consumer advocates who now have to decide whether to…