The House approved the Ratepayer Protection Act 417, 3 on Tuesday, a bipartisan rebuke of the unchecked power demands from data centers that have helped push U.S. electricity prices up 27% since 2019.
The bill, H.R. 9340, would require states to consider adopting a federal standard ensuring data centers pay for the grid upgrades and rising electricity costs their operations impose on surrounding communities. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Colorado Republican, and Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, led the effort, which drew 35 Republican and 7 Democratic co-sponsors.
Only three members voted no, all Democrats: Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Delia Ramirez of Illinois, and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania. The lopsided tally reflected a rare consensus: ordinary ratepayers should not subsidize the electricity appetite of trillion-dollar tech companies.
Overall U.S. electricity prices have risen roughly 27% since 2019, outpacing standard consumer inflation. The national average electricity bill jumped 6%. But states with heavy data center concentrations are absorbing far steeper hits.
Virginia saw electricity prices climb 13% over a one-year period. Illinois residents absorbed a 16% increase. Ohio ratepayers faced a 12% spike. In some high-concentration areas, power capacity demands surged more than 1,000%, the Daily Caller reported, citing Reuters data.
Data center construction itself rose 57% from July 2025 to July of this year. And the trajectory keeps steepening: natural gas consumption for U.S. data center electricity generation is projected to increase by 15 billion cubic feet per day through 2035, a pace that would put American data centers on track to consume more natural gas than nearly every other country on Earth.
Those are staggering numbers. And the people paying the price are not Silicon Valley executives. They are families in Virginia, Ohio, and Illinois watching their utility bills climb while tech giants build server farms next door.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise framed the bill as protecting ratepayers without demonizing the industry. He pointed to Meta's $50 billion data center in Louisiana, arguing that the increased tax revenue from the facility led every teacher in Richland Parish to receive a $50,000 bonus, a claim he made to Politico.
Scalise told reporters:
"There are tremendous benefits for communities who embrace data centers... They're good customers, they're good neighbors and studies prove that they don't add to the cost of the grid."
He added simply: "They're paying their own way." The Ratepayer Protection Act, in Scalise's framing, codifies that principle, making sure data centers continue to cover their share rather than shifting costs onto households.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the legislation "an appropriate step forward" at a Monday press conference, giving the bill the bipartisan stamp it needed to clear the chamber with near-unanimity.
The legislation cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously in July, but the path to a floor vote required sustained pressure from its sponsors. In August, Evans told Politico:
"I'm encouraged by the momentum behind the Ratepayer Protection Act, and I'm hopeful we'll see it come to the floor when Congress returns in September."
That hope materialized Tuesday. Evans, a freshman Republican, now has one of the most bipartisan legislative wins of the current Congress, 417 votes in a chamber that can barely agree on naming a post office.
Days before the vote, a data center in New Jersey spilled an estimated 5,000 gallons of No. 2 diesel fuel into a nearby creek. The Friday incident added a visceral, environmental dimension to a debate that had been largely about electricity bills and grid strain. The facility's name and the specific creek were not immediately identified in public reporting.
The spill offered a concrete reminder that data centers impose costs beyond the electric grid, costs that communities absorb whether they asked for a server farm in their backyard or not.
Sen. Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican, has sponsored a companion version in the Senate, but the upper chamber has not yet acted on it. Whether the bill can replicate its House momentum in the Senate, where legislation routinely stalls, remains an open question. Cost of living ranks as the top issue for voters heading into the 2026 midterms, which gives senators a strong political incentive to move.
Several questions also remain about the bill's mechanics. The legislation requires states to "consider" implementing the federal standard, language that leaves ambiguity about whether compliance is mandatory or voluntary. If states can simply consider the standard and decline it, the law's practical force could be limited.
A 417, 3 vote sends a clear message: Congress knows who should pay when Big Tech's power demands reshape the grid. Whether the Senate acts on that message, or lets ratepayers keep picking up the tab, will tell voters everything they need to know before November.
