That is definitely a political problem, and one that probably should be elevated to a very high level within the company.   IT departments sometimes become so protective of “their” resources that they forget (or simply, don’t know ...) what is the business impact of those resources.   If they are “throttling down” your resources such that they are impacting the mission of your particular department, well, what is the business impact of your particular department?   (And, if you can’t say for sure, maybe you’re working for the wrong department!   There are executioners of many kinds within any large company, including those with the power to eliminate a department altogether... and they often do not really know the impact of what they are doing.)

This is not a battle that you can, or should fight, but your boss(es) can.   Rack-mounted computers are very cheap and getting cheaper by the day ... yes, even though they cost thousands of dollars apiece.   They pay for themselves, many times over, by what they do, such that misguided attempts to “economize” on their direct cost can have precisely the opposite effect on the company as a whole.   That’s not to say that you should be intentionally wasteful of those resources, but anyone who is merely looking at a meter in his hands and closing a valve, without being accountable for the total impact of closing that valve, probably should be dismissed.