The House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill Wednesday to prevent Americans from shouldering electricity infrastructure costs tied to the growing power demand of AI data centers. House Targets Data Center Power Costs Lawmakers approved the Ratepayer Protection Act 417-3, the Associated Press reported.
Sponsored by Reps. ), the measure would require utilities to consider rates for certain large-load customers that recover the costs of upgrading the electricity system needed to serve them.
CBO says the proposal applies to nonresidential data centers with peak demand of at least 100 megawatts at one facility. The bill does not mandate a nationwide rate structure: state commissions could adopt or reject the federal standards.
"We cannot accelerate this growth on the back of Americans working hard to pay their electric bills at the end of the month," Evans said. " Read Also: Warren and Ocasio-Cortez Want to Ban Private Equity From Owning Doctors' Practices AI Boom Sends Electricity Demand Higher The vote comes as electricity demand accelerates.
S. electricity sales to reach 4,135 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 and 4,211 billion kWh in 2027, with data-center development and manufacturing driving growth.
S. 7% to 12% by 2028.
The fight over who pays has already reached Washington. " Tech Giants Pledge To Cover Costs The administration launched a voluntary Ratepayer Protection Pledge in March.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft Corp.
(NASDAQ:MSFT), Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Oracle Corp.
com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) agreed to build, bring or buy new power and cover grid upgrades tied to their data centers.
The White House said in July that more than 200 additional utilities, developers, cooperatives and states had joined the pledge. An AP-NORC and University of Chicago poll on Wednesday, meanwhile, found nearly two-thirds of Americans were extremely or very concerned about data centers raising energy prices, while 57% expressed the same concern about water use.
