Sponsor
Andrea Salinas
Representative · D-OR
Representative · D-OR
The bill secures dedicated revenue from a data-center electricity excise to stabilize funding for conservation, housing, clean-energy loan guarantees, Superfund, and highways, at the cost of higher electricity/digital-service prices, potential data-center investment impacts, allocation uncertainty, and equity concerns about shifting the tax burden.
Owners/operators of data centers will fund a Land and Water Conservation and a Housing Trust through a dedicated revenue stream, providing more stable, predictable funding for conservation and affordable housing programs.
Creates an Energy Technology Trust Fund to back DOE Title XVII loan guarantees, increasing stability and predictability of financing support for clean energy technology deployment.
Adds receipts for Superfund and the Highway Trust Fund from the new revenue stream, providing sustained funding for hazardous substance cleanup and surface transportation programs.
Data center operators (and likely their customers) will face higher costs from a new excise tax on electricity consumption, which could raise prices for digital services and electricity-reliant businesses.
The excise may discourage data center investment or prompt operators to relocate or pass costs to customers, risking local job losses and reduced economic activity near existing data centers.
The bill does not specify numeric shares for each allocation, creating budgeting uncertainty for state and local agencies, nonprofits, and other entities that would rely on these receipts.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Imposes a new federal excise tax on data center electricity and directs receipts to LWCF, Housing Trust Fund, Superfund, Highway Trust Fund, and a new Energy Technology Trust Fund.
Official title: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish the data center electricity excise tax.
Introduced August 13, 2026 by Andrea Salinas · Last progress August 13, 2026
Creates a new federal excise tax on electricity consumed by data centers and directs the tax receipts to several existing and new trust funds. The law adds the receipts to the Superfund and Highway Trust Fund lists, appropriates unspecified "amounts equivalent" of receipts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Housing Trust Fund, and establishes an Energy Technology Trust Fund to receive equivalent amounts for Department of Energy loan guarantee costs. The changes are implemented by adding a new Internal Revenue Code section for the excise tax (new 26 U.S.C. §4286), inserting a new subchapter and table entries, and making the allocations effective for electricity used and taxes received after enactment. The text ties funding to amounts actually received but does not specify numeric shares or percentages for each recipient fund in the provided text.