Summary
On September 16, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act, by a vote of 417 to 3 under suspension of the rules. The bill amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) to add a federal standard under which data center customers with a peak demand of 100 megawatts or more would pay the full incremental cost of the generation, transmission and distribution upgrades built to serve them. State utility regulators and nonregulated utilities would be required to consider the standard and decide whether to adopt it; the bill does not require adoption. NBC News reported it was the only AI-related legislation scheduled for a House vote that week and that the votes were the chamber's last before the November 3 midterm elections.
What Happened
Representative Gabe Evans, Republican of Colorado, introduced H.R. 9340 on June 18, 2026 with Representative Kathy Castor, Democrat of Florida. Both sit on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which approved the bill 52-0 in July according to Evans's office. House Republican leaders brought it to the floor on Wednesday, September 16 under suspension of the rules, a procedure that requires two thirds of members voting. It passed 417-3. The three votes against came from Democratic Representatives Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
The engrossed text adds a paragraph (22), "Standards for large-load customers," to PURPA section 111(d) (16 U.S.C. 2621(d)). Under the standard, a rate charged by an electric utility to a large-load customer "shall be designed to recover from the large-load customer the full, incremental cost of any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade necessary to serve the load," including when the customer terminates its contract or stops buying power. Before making such an upgrade, the utility "shall require the large-load customer provide to the electric utility financial assurances or contributions to cover the cost of such upgrade." A large-load customer is defined as a non-residential consumer whose facilities "require electric energy primarily to operate information technology infrastructure and related systems pertaining to data storage and computational applications and services" and have, in aggregate, "a peak electric demand of 100 megawatts or more at a single site or campus."
Section 111(d) standards are standards that state regulatory authorities and nonregulated electric utilities must consider, and the conforming amendments to PURPA section 112 set the schedule: each must begin consideration or set a hearing date within one year of enactment and complete its determination within two years. A state is exempt if, before enactment, it has already implemented the standard or a comparable one, its regulator has held a proceeding to consider one, or its legislature has voted on one. The Energy and Commerce Committee's release described the design as a "light touch approach" that "provides a federal recommendation while preserving state power to regulate electricity markets, drawing on what 24 states are already doing." Evans's office said the bill "builds on the principles of the Ratepayer Protection Pledge," under which technology companies, utilities and governors committed to having data center developers pay the energy and infrastructure costs of new facilities.
Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie and Energy Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta issued statements supporting the bill, and Latta urged the Senate "to swiftly consider this legislation." Evans's office said Senator Jon Husted of Ohio is leading a Senate companion. NBC News reported that the Senate has its own data center bills and has not moved any of them, and that little further action on AI was expected before the post-election session.
The members who voted no said the bill was too weak. Tlaib wrote on X before the vote that it "fails to meaningfully protect our communities" and called for a national moratorium on data centers. Lee said in a statement that the bill does not guarantee lower rates and does not address water, noise and health concerns. Ramirez told NBC News: "My district is demanding more than a bill that suggests states take action." Several Democrats who voted yes made similar criticisms. Representative Veronica Escobar of Texas told NBC News the bill "is truly the bare minimum," and Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan said: "It's not enough in any way, shape or form." NBC News also reported that Evans is in a race the Cook Political Report rates a toss-up, that he and other vulnerable members had pressed leadership for a data center vote, and that an NBC News Decision Desk poll found nearly 70% of respondents opposed to AI data centers being built in their neighborhoods.
Why It Matters
The Senate had not moved any of its own data center bills when the House acted, so H.R. 9340 is the furthest any federal bill on the electricity costs of AI data centers had advanced by September 2026. The vote count shows how far the politics of data center siting moved during 2026: a cost-allocation rule for hyperscale customers drew 417 votes seven weeks before a midterm election, and the only opposition came from members who wanted a moratorium or binding limits. The statements around the vote, in which supporters and opponents both called the bill a minimum, are evidence of where congressional opinion on AI infrastructure stood in September 2026.
The legal mechanism is modest. PURPA section 111(d) standards bind states to a process, a proceeding and a written determination, and leave the outcome to each regulator. By the committee's own count 24 states already have comparable large-load rules, and the prior-state-action clause exempts them. The practical effect, if the bill is enacted, would fall on the remaining states and on nonregulated utilities such as municipal systems and cooperatives, which would have to open a proceeding within a year. Whether those proceedings would produce tariffs like the ones the standard describes cannot be known from the text.
The bill has not passed the Senate, and it was not known at the time of writing whether the Senate would take it up before or during the post-election session. The 100-megawatt threshold applies per site or campus, so its reach depends on how developers structure facilities. The text also covers only cost recovery and financial assurances; it does not address siting, water use, or the pace of interconnection, which were the subjects of most of the objections members raised in their statements.
§ How to read the metadata
- Landmark
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