The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Wednesday on new electricity regulations: requiring data centers to bear incremental power costs, targeting tech giants' shifting of electricity expenses.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote as early as Wednesday local time on bipartisan legislation aimed at curbing electricity bill increases tied to the expansion of AI-supporting data centers. The vote comes as government officials across the country face an increasingly urgent question: how to prevent the soaring power demand costs of data centers from being passed on to ordinary households. The legislation, named the Ratepayer Protection Act (H.R. 9340), was jointly introduced in June by Florida Democratic Representative Kathy Castor and Colorado Republican Representative Gabe Evans, and has garnered 42 co-sponsors (35 Republicans and 7 Democrats). It requires state utility regulators to consider whether large electricity users, including data centers, should bear the incremental costs of new power infrastructure built to meet their electricity demand. On July 21 this year, the bill passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a unanimous vote of 52 to 0, and was placed on the full chamber's schedule on September 10. A Federal Bill That "Requires States to Consider" Judging from its text, this is not a bill that directly sets prices. It amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978adding a new standard to the federal electricity rate system: non-residential users with peak electricity demand of 100 megawatts or more at a single site or campus (mainly data centers) must have rate designs that cover the full incremental costs of generation, transmission, and distribution upgrades serving them; it also requires large users to provide financial assurances before utilities make infrastructure investments, to prevent costs from falling on existing customers if projects shrink or are abandoned. According to records on the congressional website and a compilation by industry outlet Environment+Energy Leader, state regulators must initiate reviews within one year of the bill taking effect and complete them within two years; states that have already adopted or substantially considered similar cost-allocation rules may be exempted. The vote will use a "suspension of the rules" procedurea fast track for non-controversial bills that requires a two-thirds majority to pass, and markets and congressional aides currently widely expect it to clear the House smoothly. The real hurdle is the Senate. The companion bill S.5028, introduced by Ohio Republican Senator Jon Husted, has not yet been scheduled for any committee hearing, and the Senate has only about three weeks left before adjourning ahead of the November 3 election. In other words, this bill will most likely enter the campaign season in the form of a "House statement" rather than becoming law. But the symbolic significance is already substantial: it codifies part of the White House's Ratepayer Protection Pledge issued in March. The pledge was first signed by seven companiesAmazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAIand reportedly more than 200 institutions have now joined, covering 80% of U.S. power supply and involving 263 million Americans. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed the bill at a press conference this week, calling it an "appropriate step forward," but adding that "clearly more needs to be done." Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Allison Clements offered a more measured assessment: "This ratepayer protection bill is really just a relatively modest step in the right direction. Its value lies in sending a signalif passed in a bipartisan manner, it shows that Congress remains aligned with the priority of protecting customers in the face of all this new investment and demand growth." The environmental group Food & Water Watch, which advocates a national moratorium on new data center construction, criticized the legislation for focusing narrowly on electricity costs while not addressing broader concerns about data centers' impact on water resources, pollution, and communities. Beyond Legislation: The Real Pricing Happens at State Commissions It should be noted that even if this bill passes, its binding force is limitedit only requires states to "consider" this standard, not to adopt it. Sara Chieffo, senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said before the vote that "with only a weak directive requiring states to voluntarily consider adopting cost protections, state regulators could ultimately ignore this bill." The industry is also pushing back against the "cost-shifting" narrative itself. The Data Center Coalition, an industry group representing data center operators, released research saying there is no evidence that data centers have driven up residential bills under existing rate structures; EPRI research even found that durable new demand spreads the grid's fixed costs across more electricity sales, which could actually lower residential rates. Patti Poppe, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), told investors in July: "Every gigawatt of new load, if priced properly, could bring a 1% rate decrease for all customers." After Portland General Electric's Schedule 96 large-load rate took effect in June, data center rates were raised 29% within the same quarter, while residential rates fell 1.3%. In other words, this is not a bill that determines the final outcome of AI electricity costs. The federal-level "obligation to consider" merely sets out the direction; the real pricing happens in the more than 23 states that have already established large-load rates, across 104 approved or proposed rate plans, and in hearing rooms in Virginia, Georgia, and Ohio. Clements's phrase "relatively modest but in the right direction" may be exactly how the market should read it: the bipartisan political signal is already worth the price of admission, while the final allocation of electricity bills will still have to be adjudicated state by state.