US — The Ratepayer Protection Act, a bipartisan bill, advanced through a House subcommittee in mid-June 2025. A scheduled vote on the bill in the full committee on July 1, 2025, was delayed.

The legislation includes provisions designed to speed up datacenter construction and prioritize their connection to the electric grid. Microsoft supports the Ratepayer Protection Act, which also contains measures that would allow companies to claim responsibility for paying for their own power. However, these measures for state utility commissions included in the bill are largely voluntary.

Jim Walsh, Policy Director for Food and Water Watch, stated, "They're taking care of utilities and taking care of datacenters and the bill is posing as a consumer protection measure when in reality it will increase costs on consumers across the board." He added that the sponsors are "misleading the public and making it sound like they're doing more than they are."

Regions with higher numbers of datacenters have experienced a 267% increase in electricity costs over the past five years. U.S. Representative Kathy Castor reported, "My neighbors across Florida are grappling with skyrocketing electric bills." Castor also commented, "Ratepayers should not have to subsidize wealthy corporations' growing energy demands, especially from AI datacenters." The Federal Reserve found an average increase of up to 6% in wholesale prices related to datacenters, with some areas seeing increases as high as 50%.

The Ratepayer Protection Act does not consider the cumulative costs associated with datacenter operations, such as water use, pollution, and strain on local infrastructure. One provision in the bill would reduce National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) evaluations for transmission lines and other infrastructure. NEPA evaluations are conducted to review local ecological and wildlife impacts. Camden Weber, Energy Policy Specialist for the Center for Biological Diversity, stated, "Congress is treating datacenter buildout like it's inevitable, when lawmakers actually have the power to slow it down and prioritize protecting our communities, air, water and wallets." Weber also said, "These bills make datacenter investments less risky for utilities, which only accelerates buildout at a time when communities across the country are calling for more scrutiny." The Center for Biological Diversity and Food and Water Watch have advocated for a moratorium on new AI datacenter projects.

Approximately 200 new datacenters have been built in the U.S. over the last three years, and dozens more have been proposed in the last year. Datacenters can consume as much power as large U.S. cities, use natural gas pipelines and massive quantities of fuel, and most new facilities utilize PFAS chemicals for cooling. No emission standards currently exist for datacenters. Connecting to the nation's energy grid can delay datacenter projects by up to 12 years, leading some tech companies to build their own gas plants or clean energy infrastructure.