Sponsors (8)
The bill shifts the financial and planning burden of new, large data‑center loads onto data centers and creates clearer federal/state rules to protect grid reliability and non‑data‑center ratepayers — but it raises costs for data centers (with potential pass‑through to customers), can delay or deter projects and jobs, and increases regulatory complexity and implementation risks.
Non–data-center electricity customers (households, small businesses, and taxpayers) are less likely to pay for local grid upgrades because data centers will be required to cover the incremental costs of their interconnections, reducing cross-subsidies.
Grid reliability and emergency resilience improve because operators can manage or limit rapid data-center growth (through interconnection limits, load‑flexibility agreements, batteries, and better forecasting), lowering overload and outage risk for the broader grid.
Utilities, state regulators, and developers get clearer definitions, timelines, and federal support (including technical assistance and grants) that create regulatory certainty and speed decision-making on interconnection and cost-allocation.
Data center owners/operators will face substantially higher upfront and ongoing costs (deposits, CIACs, prevailing wages, apprenticeship and labor‑peace requirements, demand charges), which are likely to be passed on to customers or deter investment.
Some data center projects may be delayed, denied, or slowed by stricter interconnection rules, queue requirements, or prioritization—reducing local job creation and investment in communities planning to host facilities.
The bill increases regulatory complexity and administrative burden for utilities, state regulators, and smaller jurisdictions (including tight deadlines like FERC's 120 days and state timeframes), risking rushed rulemaking, implementation errors, and litigation.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Requires FERC and states to force large data centers to pay local grid upgrade costs, meet labor and clean-energy priorities to get priority interconnection, and boosts forecasting/transparency.
Introduced January 15, 2026 by Christopher Van Hollen · Last progress January 15, 2026
Requires federal and state utility authorities to manage how large data centers connect to the power grid so that ordinary ratepayers do not pay for data-center-driven grid upgrades. Directs FERC to establish a data-center load queue, allow delay/denial of interconnection for reliability or affordability reasons, and order utilities to allocate local upgrade costs to the data centers that cause them. Sets labor and clean-energy priorities for queue priority, pushes states to consider data-center-specific retail rate classes, and creates federal technical-assistance and grant programs to help states and grid operators implement forecasting, transparency, and new rate rules.