The House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill Wednesday to prevent Americans from shouldering electricity infrastructure costs tied to the growing power demand of AI data centers.

House Targets Data Center Power Costs

Lawmakers approved the Ratepayer Protection Act 417-3, the Associated Press reported. Sponsored by Reps. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), the measure would require utilities to consider rates for certain large-load customers that recover the costs of upgrading the electricity system needed to serve them.

CBO says the proposal applies to nonresidential data centers with peak demand of at least 100 megawatts at one facility. The bill does not mandate a nationwide rate structure: state commissions could adopt or reject the federal standards.

"We cannot accelerate this growth on the back of Americans working hard to pay their electric bills at the end of the month," Evans said. Speaker Mike Johnson said the bill "strikes the right balance of protecting local communities while keeping America on the cutting edge of AI development."

AI Boom Sends Electricity Demand Higher

The vote comes as electricity demand accelerates. The Energy Information Administration expects U.S. electricity sales to reach 4,135 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 and 4,211 billion kWh in 2027, with data-center development and manufacturing driving growth. Department of Energy research estimated data centers consumed 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and could reach 6.7% to 12% by 2028.

The fight over who pays has already reached Washington. House Republicans in January pushed to shield households from AI infrastructure costs, while Trump has said Big Tech should "pay their own way."

Tech Giants Pledge To Cover Costs

The administration launched a voluntary Ratepayer Protection Pledge in March. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL), OpenAI, xAI and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) agreed to build, bring or buy new power and cover grid upgrades tied to their data centers. The White House said in July that more than 200 additional utilities, developers, cooperatives and states had joined the pledge.

An AP-NORC and University of Chicago poll on Wednesday, meanwhile, found nearly two-thirds of Americans were extremely or very concerned about data centers raising energy prices, while 57% expressed the same concern about water use.