Colorado congressman's bill would require AI companies to pay for electric infrastructure expansion near data centers

A bill pushed by Rep. Gabe Evans that aims to keep communities from absorbing the costs of electric grid upgrades needed for new data centers is headed to a vote in the U.S. House after clearing a key congressional committee.

Evans, a Republican who represents Colorado's 8th Congressional District, said the bipartisan "Ratepayer Protection Act" passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously and is expected to receive a House vote this week.

"We were working really, really hard to get the bill to the floor," Evans said.

The bill would establish federal standards for state utility regulators to consider when large-load customers, including data centers, connect to the electric grid. It would apply to new customers with electricity demands of 100 megawatts or more and calls for financial assurances to help ensure the companies cover the costs associated with the generation, transmission and other infrastructure needed to serve their demand.

The legislation also would seek to prevent communities and existing ratepayers from being left with costs if a data center scales back operations or leaves the grid, Evans told CBS Colorado's Dillon Thomas. 

"So as you know, Dillon, the Ratepayer Protection Act, my bill, bipartisan, passed unanimously out of the Energy and Commerce Committee that I sit on," Evans said.

The committee approved the bill 52-0 in July. The legislation has 41 House cosponsors, according to Evans' office.

"This one is a little bit of a unicorn. There's a lot of things that passed with bipartisan support. I can't remember the last time that something passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee with unanimous support," Evans said.

The legislation comes as data center development and the amount of electricity needed to operate those facilities have become increasingly prominent issues. In Northern Colorado, Weld County recently approved a new data center east of Windsor. The facility will be operated by OpenAI. 

Evans said his bill is intended to establish protections for residents before those projects place additional demands on the electric grid.

"This is putting those commonsense federal guardrails in place so that people know that they're not going to have a higher electric bill as a result of a data center moving in," Evans said.

The bill also calls for large-load customers to provide financial assurances that they can cover the infrastructure needed to support their electricity demand, with the goal of preventing utilities and existing ratepayers from being left responsible for those costs.

Evans said the growth of data centers is likely to continue, making it important to address both the infrastructure needed to support them and the security of the data they hold.

"They're going to get built, just in places like China (if Americans don't accept them). So, something that's important to me, that's important to a lot of the folks that I talk to, is they want to make sure their data is secure," Evans said.

Evans said he expects the bill to receive overwhelming bipartisan support when it comes before the House later this week.

If approved by the House, the legislation would move to the Senate, where Evans said a backlog of bills is awaiting consideration.