YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyCorporate BenefitsTransparency & AccountabilityBig data centers would pay the full cost of the grid upgrades they need — if your state signs on.
Your Money
Utilities often build new lines or plants to serve a giant data center. Under this standard that data center pays the full added cost, instead of it landing on other customers' bills — but only if your state adopts the rule.
The standard also covers the case where a data center ends its contract or stops buying power. It would still owe the cost of the upgrades built for it, so other customers are not left holding that bill.
Corporate Benefits
Rates for these customers would have to cover the full added cost of any new power plant, transmission line, or local wiring built to serve them. No federal standard says who picks up that cost today.
Before starting the work, the utility would have to collect money or a financial guarantee from the data center. That moves the risk of an abandoned project away from everyone else on the system.
Transparency & Accountability
Each state's utility regulators would have to open the question within a year and decide within two, after public notice and a hearing. The written decision must be public, and a state that misses the deadline has to take it up in its next rate case.
A state can skip the review if it already adopted a similar rule, already held a proceeding on one, or its legislature voted on one. There is no cutoff date on how long ago that vote happened.
More about this bill
Big data centers can use as much power as a small city. Serving one often means new power lines, plants, or local wiring. Today, some of that cost can land on other customers' electric bills. The bill would push states to charge the data center the full cost instead. No state is ordered to do it. State utility regulators would hold a public hearing and decide within two years. The rule would cover only data centers that need 100 megawatts or more at one site. It would apply to new contracts, not ones already signed. And a data center that later walked away would still owe the cost of upgrades built for it.
Congressional Summary
Ratepayer Protection Act The bill requires state utility regulators and nonregulated utilities to consider implementing a standard to hold certain large-load customers responsible for the costs associated with any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade of electric service necessary to serve such customers. A large-load customer means a non-residential electric consumer that enters, or requests to enter, an agreement concerning the sale of electric energy primarily to operate information technology infrastructure and related systems pertaining to data storage and computational applications and services (e.g., data centers) that have a peak electric demand of 100 megawatts or more at a single site or campus. Specifically, the bill requires states to consider implementing a federal standard for large-load customers. The standard must require rates charged by electric utilities for providing electric service to a large-load customer to be designed to recover from the large-load customer the full, incremental cost of any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade necessary to serve such customer. This rate must include the costs that would be incurred if the large-load customer terminates an agreement with the electric utility pertaining to the sale of electric energy or otherwise ceases the purchase of energy from the electric utility. Under the standard, an electric utility must require the large-load customer to provide to the utility financial assurances or contributions to cover the cost of any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade that is necessary to serve the load of a large-load customer before the utility makes any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Passed House
- Action Date
- 2026-09-16
- Date Added
- 2026-09-11
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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