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House bill would let states block AI data center energy costs from reaching consumers

9/16/2026

When utilities expand grid capacity to serve AI data centers, the infrastructure costs typically flow through the rate base and land on every customer's bill.

Bipartisan legislation now moving toward a House vote would give states a framework to prevent that cost transfer.

Under most state utility commission frameworks, capital costs for new transmission and distribution infrastructure enter the rate base, where they are recovered across the entire customer pool through tariffs.

A residential ratepayer whose electricity use has nothing to do with a data center still absorbs a fraction of the cost to build out the grid capacity that serves it. AI data centers have sharpened that dynamic.