Sponsors (24)
The bill shifts much of the direct cost and regulatory responsibility for large data‑center interconnections onto data centers (reducing cross‑subsidies and improving reliability and planning) at the expense of higher upfront costs, greater compliance burdens, and potential investment or confidentiality impacts for developers and downstream customers.
Households, taxpayers, and utilities will be less likely to bear local grid upgrade costs because data centers must pay for the upgrades they trigger, reducing cross‑subsidies from residential and small commercial customers.
Grid reliability and operational safety are strengthened by clearer interconnection roles, federal oversight enabling delays/denials of risky projects, and phased service starts that allow controlled capacity growth.
State regulators and utilities receive technical assistance, standardized data, and better forecasting and transparency, improving planning, speeding interconnection decisions, and reducing costly guesswork.
Data center operators will face substantially higher upfront and ongoing charges (deposits, contributions in aid, lifetime-backed low‑carbon supply, demand charges), costs likely passed through to customers and raising prices for digital services.
Higher costs and stricter procurement/interconnection requirements may deter or delay data center investment, reducing local tax and job benefits and slowing adoption of large computing projects.
New regulatory, compliance, and administrative burdens (state rulemakings, tariff revisions, transparency obligations, federal program implementation) will strain state and local regulators and utilities and raise implementation costs.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Requires FERC to create data‑center load queues, shifts local interconnection upgrade costs to data centers, encourages state data‑center rate classes, and funds DOE technical assistance.
Official title: To promote the creation of data center load queues and data center-specific rate classes to mitigate the impact of data centers on other electricity consumers, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 9, 2026 by Paul Tonko · Last progress April 9, 2026
Requires FERC to make grid operators create “data center load queues” that prioritize interconnection for data centers that bring low- or no‑carbon generation, meet prevailing-wage and registered-apprenticeship labor standards, and accept interruptible load agreements; allows delaying or denying interconnection when reliability or affordability for other customers would be harmed. Directs utilities to allocate local transmission upgrade costs caused solely by data center interconnections to those data centers, encourages states to create data-center-specific rate classes and charge minimum demand or upfront costs, and directs the Department of Energy to fund technical assistance and grant programs to help states, utilities, and grid planners implement the new standards. Also adds a new PUHPA ratemaking standard requiring states with data centers to consider tailored rate classes and cost-recovery tools, requires FERC to adopt transparency rules about data center interconnection requests, and authorizes DOE programs to support forecasting, planning, and state regulatory actions. Deadlines for FERC and DOE actions are mostly 120–180 days after enactment; some state compliance timelines are 1–2 years.