Sens. Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday introduced the first bipartisan bill in Congress aimed at preventing data center power usage from spiking consumers\u2019 electric bills.<\/p>\n
The legislation, dubbed the \u201cGuaranteeing Rate Insulation\u201d or \u201cGRID\u201d Act, seeks to guarantee two things: no data-center related price increases for consumers\u2019 utility bills, as well as ensuring first priority for grid access to everyday electric users. The bill also seeks to make new data center operators power their structures via off-grid sources, with a 10-year off-ramp for existing data centers.<\/p>\n
The legislation would also mandate that data center operators publicly disclose current and future power usage.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican families should not have to shoulder the burden of the rising electricity costs produced by data centers in Missouri and across the country,\u201d Hawley, R-Mo., said in a statement. \u201cThis is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a separate statement, Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the legislation would stop big tech companies\u2019 \u201cAI-driven drain on family\u2019s pocketbooks.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies should not be forced to bankroll Big Tech\u2019s electricity and infrastructure costs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The senators\u2019 bipartisan effort follows a couple of Democratic-led initiatives aimed at curbing the impact data centers have on everyday Americans\u2019 utility bills. Last month, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., introduced his \u201cPower for the People<\/a>\u201d Act, while Reps. Mike Levin, D-Calif., and Kathy Castor, D-Fla., introduced<\/a> the \u201cSHIELD Act\u201d and Rep. Rob Menendez, D-N.J., introduced the \u201cPRICE Act.\u201d In December, Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, introduced another piece of legislation, titled the \u201cProtecting Families from AI Data Center Energy Costs Act.\u201d<\/p>\n Hawley and Blumenthal, who have worked together<\/a> on a number of bipartisan initiatives, are wading into the policy fight weeks after President Donald Trump \u2014 who has made the rapid development of artificial intelligence and the data center buildout a core piece of his economic agenda \u2014 said his administration was working to ensure consumers would not face utility bill increases in conjunction.<\/p>\n \u201cI never want Americans to pay higher Electricity bills because of Data Centers,\u201d Trump posted to Truth Social<\/a> last month, adding, \u201cWe are the \u2018HOTTEST\u2019 Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must \u2018pay their own way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n State leaders are pushing on the issue, as well. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a potential 2028 presidential contender, announced a set of state data center guidelines<\/a> this month and called on his legislature to pass them into law.<\/p>\n The tech industry is split over such efforts to compel the companies to pay more for power usage. Some data center operators, including Microsoft, have expressed willingness to spend more on electricity and are working to open their own independent power sources. Other companies have opposed the efforts, believing they already pay their fair share.<\/p>\n Rapid advancements in AI and data center development have leaders in both parties scrambling<\/a> to navigate the political impacts<\/a> ahead of the midterms and the next presidential election. At the grassroots level, some residents<\/a> have pushed back<\/a> against the data center buildout<\/a>, which is needed to power AI, worried about such utility bill hikes and other issues tied to the electricity-hungry operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sens. Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday introduced the first bipartisan bill in Congress aimed at preventing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-464131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}