Congress Weighs Competing Plans to Shield Homes From Data Center Power Costs
Congress is advancing competing proposals to protect home electricity customers from higher power costs linked to AI data centers ahead of the midterm elections. NPR
The lead House measure is the Ratepayer Protection Act, sponsored by Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted. It would have state utilities consider making "large-load" customers, or very large power users such as data centers, pay for the added costs they bring to the system. It passed the House in September 2026 with strong bipartisan support.
Senate action is unsettled. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer opposes the Ratepayer Protection Act, saying its protections for ratepayers are voluntary. Schumer supports the GRID Savings Act written by New Mexico Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich, saying it has more teeth, or stronger enforcement.
Competing Senate approaches
The bills differ on enforcement and on federalism, or how power is shared between Washington and the states. Husted's bill uses "consider" language aimed at state utilities and state regulators. That structure leaves rate design, the process for setting who pays what, with the states. Schumer said it does not require large users to cover their added costs.
The Heinrich alternative, as described by Schumer, would set firmer requirements. Its text has not moved as far as the House-passed bill.
The legislative backdrop here is familiar to committee staff: lawmakers can move the bipartisan House vehicle, or they can press the Senate Democratic alternative, which would need 60 votes to advance in the Senate and could start a preemption fight over whether federal rules override state rules.
The election backdrop here is direct. Husted is running for reelection against Democrat Sherrod Brown, who lost his Senate seat in 2024. Brown has made Husted's past support for data centers in Ohio a major campaign issue. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found 77% of Americans are concerned about data centers raising electricity costs. NPR
What the grid data show
PJM runs the electricity grid and the wholesale power market, where utilities buy power in bulk, across 13 states and the District of Columbia. Northern Virginia, which gets its power through PJM, is home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world.
PJM's Independent Market Monitor, an outside watchdog for that market, estimates data centers have cost its 67 million ratepayers about $29 billion over roughly the past two years. Electricity customers in Maryland pay an estimated $168 to $216 more per year on their bills primarily due to the data center boom. NPR
Industrial rates show the same pressure. Average industrial electricity prices in Pennsylvania were up 31% in December 2025 from 12 months earlier. Average industrial electricity prices in Ohio were up 26% in December 2025 from 12 months earlier. Reuters
Cost allocation, or the rules for dividing grid costs, explains why home bills can rise even when a data center signs a large-load contract. Ari Peskoe, director of the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative, said "PJM data center costs are spread across the region to every business and resident that has an electricity meter."
Lucy Qiu, professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, said "how much of the cost increase is passed to residential customers and when depends on utilities' power-purchasing contracts, retail rates and regulatory decisions about who pays." Connor Waldoch, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Grid Status, said "tens to hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure are being built by local utilities and in many cases will end up in customers' bills."
U.S. policymakers are increasingly letting utilities charge customers for power plants and transmission lines, the high-voltage wires that move power long distances, long before they have been built. Reuters One residential example cited in March was John Steinbach, who received a $281 electricity bill in January 2026, up from roughly $100 he had previously paid.
Federal labs project continued growth. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory forecasts that U.S. data centers could use as much as 12% of the nation's electricity by 2028. A U.S. Department of Energy report found data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and projects data centers will consume approximately 6.7% to 12% of U.S. electricity. A 2026 study by the Electric Power Research Institute projected data center electricity use to rise to 9% to 17% of the U.S. total. U.S. electricity load will increase by 1.9% in 2026, according to the Energy Information Administration. Across all cases, data center servers alone accounted for an estimated 7% of commercial-sector electricity consumption in 2025.
Parallel proposals and executive action
Congress has other proposals. S.3682 in the 119th Congress is titled the Power for the People Act of 2026. It would promote data center load queues, or waiting lines to connect to the grid, and data center-specific rate classes, or separate billing groups. Rep. Landsman sponsored the Protecting Families from AI Data Center Energy Costs Act. Rep. Mike Levin introduced a bill to stop data centers from driving up electricity prices for consumers. The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing titled "AI and the Grid: Meeting Growing Power Demand While Protecting Ratepayers."
The White House is engaged. Utilities and data center companies agreed to help pay for new power generation, grid upgrades and other costs tied to their data centers. In 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Speed to Power investments across 26 states to lower electricity costs and improve grid reliability. Trump said he "has a plan to make tech companies building data centers cover the cost of that power."
The broader context here is cost causation versus speed to connect. Voluntary "consider" language preserves state control over rates and is easier to pass. Mandatory rules for large users, separate rate groups and waiting lines address cost-shifting more directly but raise practical questions for state commissions, PJM capacity payments and existing power-purchasing contracts. With rate cases, capacity prices and midterm messaging coming together, members want a recorded vote before November even if talks leave the mandate question unresolved.
