Sponsors (7)
Introduced September 9, 2025 by Jim Costa · Last progress September 9, 2025
The bill delivers a rapid, federal analysis to help rural areas and utilities plan for AI/data-center-driven energy demand and possible clean-energy investments, but that guidance could raise costs for consumers, concentrate benefits with larger utilities, and pressure environmental review and sensitive lands if permitting is expedited.
Rural communities will get a prioritized federal analysis of how AI and data center growth affects local energy supply and reliability, identifying specific grid upgrades needed to prevent outages and ensure service.
Utilities, energy companies, and nearby communities will receive an evaluation of clean energy and storage options (solar, wind, storage, geothermal, nuclear) to inform investments that can reduce emissions and diversify local supply.
Utilities, project developers, and tech-sector projects could benefit from identified ways to expedite NEPA and permitting, potentially shortening timelines and lowering development delay costs for new generation, transmission, and data centers.
Consumers in affected areas (especially utility customers in rural areas) may face higher utility rates or taxes to pay for recommended grid upgrades and new generation, increasing household costs.
Efforts to expedite NEPA and permitting risk weakening environmental review or reducing public participation, which could lead to local harms and less community input on projects.
Study-driven siting of large generation or transmission projects could target remote or environmentally sensitive lands, increasing local land- and water-use pressures and ecological impacts.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires DOE to designate a National Laboratory to study how AI growth and data center siting affect energy resources—prioritizing remote areas—and report within 180 days.
Directs the Secretary of Energy to pick a Department of Energy National Laboratory to study how growth in artificial intelligence and new data center sites affect U.S. energy resources, with special focus on remote areas. The lab must examine infrastructure co-location on utility-owned land, alternative generation and storage options, impacts on energy cost/supply/reliability, land and water use, consumer costs, gaps in energy resources, and ways to speed environmental review and permitting. The lab must report results to two congressional committees within 180 days of enactment. The text sets definitions for AI, National Laboratory, co-location, and remote area but does not provide funding or create regulatory requirements.