Sponsors (2)
The bill protects residential and small‑business customers from shouldering costs of very large data centers and increases transparency, but shifts the tradeoff onto other ratepayers, utilities, and state regulators—raising risks to grid investment, reliability, and regulatory flexibility.
Homeowners, renters, and small-business owners are protected from having their electric bills raised to pay for very large data centers (peak demand >75 MW).
State regulatory proceedings on cost-recovery for large data centers must move on accelerated timelines (commence within 6 months and decide within a year), producing faster resolution for affected rate cases.
Congress, state regulators, utilities, and the public gain more transparency via required annual FERC reporting on how large data center demand affects rates and grid reliability.
Industrial and other non-residential customers (and potentially utility shareholders) may see higher rates because utilities can shift unrecovered data-center costs to other rate classes or investors.
Utilities may defer or avoid needed grid generation and transmission upgrades if cost recovery is constrained, increasing the risk of reliability problems or outages for all electric consumers.
The federal requirements and tight deadlines reduce State regulatory flexibility, create administrative strain (and potential legal challenges), and states that refuse or cannot certify may lose DOE technical/administrative assistance, weakening state energy planning.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Bars investor‑owned utilities from passing costs of serving very large data centers (>75 MW) to residential or small‑business customers, conditions DOE funds on state certification, and requires FERC reporting.
Official title: To amend the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to add a standard prohibiting the recovery of costs associated with data centers by certain electric utilities, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 13, 2026 by Josh Riley · Last progress July 13, 2026
Prohibits investor‑owned, state‑regulated electric utilities from recovering from residential or small‑business customers any costs tied to very large data centers (single‑site or aggregated facilities with peak demand over 75 MW), including generation, transmission, or distribution upgrades to serve that demand. Conditions Department of Energy assistance on state certification that those costs will not be shifted to those customers, requires data center reporting in some cases, and directs FERC to report annually on impacts to rates and grid reliability. Also adds expedited state procedural deadlines for regulatory review of the new rule, narrows the general PURPA "Each State" provision to allow the new exceptions, and inserts conforming edits to the prior‑proceedings provisions of PURPA. States that already addressed a comparable standard recently are exempt from the new expedited deadlines.