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A prominent Senate Democrat has offered a new approach to making data centers pay for the energy infrastructure they require: one that would reshape federal regulators’ role and introduce a binding enforcement mechanism to a problem that has become a bipartisan priority.
In March, the White House made a show of having some of the biggest hyperscalers in the country commit to paying for their own generation and transmission costs. The so-called “ratepayer protection pledge” was presented as a way to encourage the infrastructure build-out that the artificial intelligence boom requires, without burdening ratepayers.
But even as its signatories have multiplied from seven to 200 utilities, data center companies, and Republican governors, the pledge has no real teeth. As President Trump himself implied at the time, it’s a PR exercise for the data centers that are increasingly becoming scapegoats for riding electricity costs. The energy industry largely greeted it with a shrug. (That said, it has already complicated getting at least one major rate-based transmission line built, as Latitude Media has reported.)
The GRID Savings Act, introduced this week, is quite different. New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich’s legislation would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue rules for very large loads, rules that would require them to pay for certain needed grid upgrades — as well as create a path for quicker interconnection in exchange for funding transmission upgrades.
