Sponsors (10)
The bill increases transparency and gives governments and communities the data needed to plan energy/water infrastructure and enforce environmental protections, but it raises administrative costs, potential price impacts, and proprietary/security concerns from detailed facility-level reporting.
Local and state governments plus utilities gain regular, facility-level data on data centers' water and energy use so they can plan water allocation, grid capacity, and resilience.
Regulators and policymakers receive frequent, detailed emissions and pollutant reporting from data centers, improving the ability to target mitigation, enforcement, and air/water quality interventions.
Households (renters and homeowners) get clearer, standardized information about how data centers affect energy consumption and average household energy costs, improving transparency and consumer awareness.
Taxpayers and federal agencies will face higher compliance and administrative costs to collect, process, and publish frequent reports.
Data center operators may pass compliance costs to customers, causing higher prices or reduced services for households and small businesses.
Detailed, public facility-level reporting could expose proprietary information or raise security concerns for operators if data are not adequately anonymized or protected.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires EPA and EIA to publish recurring public reports on data centers' water use, pollutants, greenhouse gases, and energy consumption with state and household impact detail.
Introduced January 8, 2026 by Robert Menendez · Last progress January 8, 2026
Requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to begin producing public reports about U.S. data centers' environmental and energy impacts. EPA must report on water use, water reuse, effects on local water systems, pollutant discharges, and greenhouse gas impacts on overburdened communities; EIA must collect and report energy use by data center, with state-level totals, changes over time, counts of new data centers, and household energy bill and usage impacts. Both agencies must start reporting within six months of enactment and then follow recurring schedules (EPA: at least quarterly; EIA: at least semiannually).