Sponsors (2)
The bill forces large data centers to adopt on-site clean energy and storage—cutting emissions and spurring clean-energy jobs—but does so with large upfront costs, strict penalties, and siting/practicality risks that could raise prices, delay or shift investment, and create regulatory uncertainty.
Large data center operators will deploy on-site clean generation and storage, reducing their carbon emissions and helping meet national emissions targets while also improving local grid resilience.
Manufacturers and installers of solar, wind, batteries, and green hydrogen will see increased demand, creating construction and clean-energy manufacturing jobs.
Requiring on-site generation at high-demand facilities will reduce reliance on centralized generation for those sites, potentially strengthening local energy infrastructure reliability.
Data center owners/operators (including small businesses relying on cloud services) will face high upfront capital costs to build on-site generation, storage, and green-hydrogen systems, raising operating costs and possibly increasing service prices.
Operators face a $100,000-per-day civil penalty for noncompliance, exposing them to severe financial risk that could force service reductions or closures if compliance proves infeasible.
On-site generation requirements may be impractical in some locations due to land, siting, or permitting constraints, delaying projects or pushing data center investment—and associated jobs and taxes—overseas.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 8, 2026 by Robert Menendez · Last progress January 8, 2026
Requires every U.S. data center that consumes at least 50 megawatts per day to generate all of the electricity it uses. Data centers must produce at least 75% of that electricity from specified "clean energy" sources from January 1, 2035 through December 31, 2039, and 100% clean generation beginning January 1, 2040. Violations can be fined up to $100,000 per day until compliance; the Department of Energy must set an administrative penalty process within 30 days of enactment. "Clean energy" is defined to include solar, wind, battery, green hydrogen, hydropower, and geothermal.