US House advances first bill addressing economic impact of data centre boom

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill aimed at protecting households from electricity cost increases tied to the expansion of data centres, the first time the chamber has advanced legislation directly addressing economic concerns linked to the industry’s growth.

The Republican-majority House voted 417 to three in favour of the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would require state utility regulators to consider whether large electricity users, including data centres, should bear the incremental costs of power infrastructure built to serve them.

The vote underscores the complicated politics surrounding the US data centre boom.

US president Donald Trump strongly backs data centre development as critical to leadership in artificial intelligence. Earlier this week he said data centers make people and states wealthy, calling them the “oil of the next 20, 25 years.”

At the same time, lawmakers from both parties have faced growing constituent concerns over rising electricity costs associated with the industry’s surging power demand.

House Republican leaders moved the bill before lawmakers leave Washington ahead of the Nov 3 midterm elections.

US Representative Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, said in advance of the vote the measure does not go far enough but would garner significant support from members who are hopeful more reforms will follow.

“Clearly, they’re trying to get in front of the data centre issue, but the reality is they’ve done nothing, really, on that,” he said of House Republicans. “I think a lot of their base voters are really angry. There has to be actual real protections put in place for people, and this is not it.”

Just 11% of Americans would support construction of an AI data center in their community, according to a poll by the University of Massachusetts Amherst published this week.