Sponsor
Tom Barrett
Representative · R-MI
Representative · R-MI
The bill strengthens transparency and accountability by restricting Members' use of secrecy agreements and requiring enforceable ethics rules, but may reduce private parties' willingness to share sensitive information with lawmakers and impose modest administrative costs on Congress.
Members of Congress and their constituents: The bill bars Members from entering NDAs that could hide material information and requires congressional ethics committees to adopt enforceable rules, increasing transparency and accountability in data center planning and oversight.
Taxpayers: The bill prohibits use of federal funds to enforce secrecy agreements, reducing government spending that would otherwise be used to keep information from public view.
State and local governments, private developers, and congressional staff: Private parties may be less willing to share proprietary or sensitive operational/commercial information with Members, hindering congressional oversight, slowing evaluation of infrastructure proposals, and reducing constituent assistance.
Congress (ethics committees and staff): Implementing and enforcing the NDA ban will require committees to dedicate staff time and resources, creating modest administrative costs for Congress.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits Members of Congress from signing NDAs as a condition for receiving data center planning or operations information and bars federal funds from enforcing those NDAs.
Official title: To prohibit Members of Congress from signing certain nondisclosure agreements related to data centers, and for other purposes.
Introduced August 20, 2026 by Tom Barrett · Last progress August 20, 2026
Prohibits Members of Congress from signing nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) with state or local governments or private entities as a condition for receiving information about planning, investment, location, design, or resource use of data centers. Bars using federal funds to implement or enforce such NDAs and directs each chamber's ethics committee to write rules to enforce the prohibition. Defines who counts as a "Member of Congress" for this rule and uses the statutory definition of "data center." The law focuses on transparency when congressional offices obtain information about data center projects and prevents NDAs from limiting the disclosure of that information to Members.