H.R. 10809: Make Data Centers Pay Act

This bill would change federal electricity law so that large data centers and other high-density computing facilities pay the full electricity-related costs they cause, rather than having those costs spread across other utility customers.

What counts as a covered facility

The bill applies to electric loads tied to data centers or high-density computing facilities that are:

• at a single site, or multiple sites under common ownership or control; and
• 20 megawatts or more, or expected to reach that size when fully built out.

The definition includes facilities used for:

• artificial intelligence training or inference,
• cloud computing or data hosting, and
• cryptocurrency mining or other digital asset or distributed ledger computing.

It does not cover computing equipment that is only a minor part of a different kind of commercial or industrial facility.

How electricity costs would be handled

The bill says the costs of serving these large loads must be assigned to the data center or high-density computing facility itself. In practical terms, a utility could not make other customers pay any part of the incremental cost of serving that load. That term generally means the added cost the utility would avoid if the data center were not there, including costs for generation, storage, transmission, and distribution needed to serve it.

The bill also allows regulators to require these customers to pay more than the incremental cost in some cases, and any extra amounts could be used to reduce costs for other customers.

Additional payment protections for utilities

Before building or upgrading facilities needed to serve a covered load, a utility would have to require the customer to provide financial assurances or contributions sufficient to cover the cost of the needed facility or upgrade. If the customer already provided money or guarantees to another utility entity for the same project, that amount would be credited toward this requirement.

If a data center stops buying power or ends its contract before the utility has fully recovered the required costs, the utility could still keep recovering those costs from the covered load.

Existing arrangements

The bill would apply only to covered loads that connect to the grid on or after the date the law takes effect. Any service arrangement that was already approved by FERC or a state regulator before that date would remain in place.

Regulatory scope

The bill says it does not otherwise change the existing authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or state regulators over retail electric service, rate design, or resource planning, except where the bill specifically requires costs to be assigned to covered loads.

Relevant Companies

• AMZN - Amazon operates large cloud and data center infrastructure through AWS, which could be affected by utility cost allocation rules for major new data center loads.
• MSFT - Microsoft operates extensive cloud and AI data center infrastructure that could face higher direct electricity-related costs for new large facilities.
• GOOGL - Alphabet’s cloud and AI computing operations rely on large data centers that could be subject to these cost rules for future expansions.
• META - Meta operates large-scale computing infrastructure and could be directly affected by rules governing utility costs for new data center loads.
• ORCL - Oracle’s cloud and data hosting operations may be impacted by requirements that large data centers pay more of their own electricity-related costs.
• IREN - IREN operates digital asset and high-performance computing infrastructure that could be affected by the bill’s treatment of cryptocurrency-related computing loads.
• CIFR - Cipher Mining operates large cryptocurrency mining facilities that may face direct effects from the bill’s cost-allocation rules.
• MARA - MARA Holdings operates bitcoin mining infrastructure and could be directly affected by requirements that large computing loads bear their own power-related costs.
• CLSK - CleanSpark operates cryptocurrency mining facilities and could be impacted by the bill’s rules for digital-asset computation loads.
• RIOT - Riot Platforms operates large-scale bitcoin mining operations that could be affected by the bill’s treatment of high-density computing loads.