Capito, Lee, Whitehouse and Heinrich Propose Making Data Centers Pay Their Own Transmission Costs

Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Lee, Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich introduced the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act on Sept. 30, a 417-page permitting bill that would require data centers to pay for all of their associated transmission costs ¹⁴. Capito and Lee chair the Senate's environment and energy committees. Whitehouse and Heinrich serve as the ranking Democrats on those same two panels ¹. Their bill also eases the siting of interstate power lines and limits court challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act ². The vote waits until after the November midterm elections ².

On that same Wednesday, the Senate blocked a narrower data-center cost bill, the Ratepayer Protection Act, on a 57-43 procedural vote, three short of the 60 it needed ⁵. The House had passed it 417 to 3 on Sept. 16 ⁹. So the chamber turned down an optional cost rule on the day four of its senior members filed a mandatory one. Who pays for the wires that feed an AI campus? Congress now holds two written answers, and the answer in force today still comes from state utility commissions ⁹.

This ledger reads the bill under governance, the component that asks whether the rules allow deployment at the definition's scale of ten gigawatts, energized and interconnected. A filed bill is a proposal. Governance holds flat today, at inferred confidence, until a chamber votes.

The Senate permitting bill leaves governance flat

The move

The data5 rows · sources

Measure	Value
Reading before this day	2.5
This piece's move	0.0 (Governance, inferred)
Band for inferred evidence	0.1 to 0.5
Reading after the day (with 6 other pieces that day)	2.5
Distance to 100	97.5

What would the bill charge a data center?

Section 2107 of the bill carries the data-center language under the heading Ratepayer Protection, and it works through two channels ⁴. First comes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Within 270 days of enactment, FERC would revise its 1994 transmission pricing policy statement so that utilities charge data-center customers both the embedded cost and the incremental cost of transmission service ⁴. Embedded cost is a customer's share of the grid already standing. Incremental cost is the price of new lines and substations built because that customer arrived. A data center that accepts interruptible service would pay a lower rate ⁴.

A second channel adds Section 228 to the Federal Power Act. It covers any data center or high-density computing site at 20 megawatts or more, counted at full buildout for a phased campus ⁴. Its definition of incremental cost reaches past transmission to generation, storage and distribution, and the text assigns all of that cost to the covered load. A campus that ends its contract early keeps paying until the utility recovers its outlay, and it posts financial assurance before the utility builds ⁴. States may charge such loads more than incremental cost, credit the surplus to other customers, and treat data centers as a separate, less favored class ⁴.

Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, put the principle into the release. "And as data centers drive demand for more power, it will ensure they pay their fair share of the grid upgrades they require – not leave that bill to American families. Our bill puts teeth behind that principle," Heinrich said ¹. The word teeth points at a rival bill, and the next section names it.

Deseret News reporter Cami Mondeaux recorded his account of the mechanics. "It takes the incremental additions to the grid that would be necessary to serve those things, and it ascribes those costs to the developers, not to ratepayers in a given utility or geographic area," Heinrich said ³. Ascribes is an accountant's verb. It settles who carries the cost and leaves the size of that cost to FERC and the states.

The Senate blocked the optional version the same day

Ohio Republican Jon Husted championed the Ratepayer Protection Act in the Senate ⁵. His bill asks state regulators to consider standards for loads larger than 100 megawatts, gives them two years to decide, and leaves adoption to each state ⁹. Heinrich opposed it on exactly that point. "When I open my electricity bill, and read to see how much I owe for the month, it doesn't say I 'may' pay that amount," he said ⁵. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the measure "toothless" on the floor ⁵. Four Democrats crossed over to vote yes, including both Georgia senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock ⁵.

This journal's essay on democratized superintelligence logged the House vote of Sept. 16 and noted that most states had already begun the same work. Utility Dive found utility tariffs for data centers and other large loads in every state except 13 as of July ⁹. ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm, judged the House bill "somewhat behind the regulatory curve" ⁹. Two weeks later, the Senate text set its threshold at 20 megawatts, one fifth of the House figure, and turned consider into must. The same question, who pays for the power data centers drive, sat under this journal's Sept. 29 analysis of FERC's order on PJM's backstop auction.

Congress answers who pays for data-center wires twice in two weeks

Timeline

The data4 rows · sources

Date	Event	Source
Oct. 26, 1994	FERC issues the transmission pricing policy statement the bill rewrites	[4]
Sept. 16, 2026	House passes the Ratepayer Protection Act 417 to 3	[9]
Sept. 30, 2026	Four senators file the 417-page Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act	[1] [4]
Sept. 30, 2026	Senate blocks the House bill 57 to 43, three votes short	[5]

The case for counting it

Why would a cost bill belong on a ledger of superintelligence infrastructure? The definition's physical clause asks for ten gigawatts energized and interconnected, and interconnection is where large projects wait. This bill widens FERC's backstop authority to permit major interstate lines when state regulators stall or reject them, and lets FERC review those lines alongside the states ⁶. Lawsuits under the environmental review law would have to be filed within 150 days of approval, by parties who commented during review ⁷.

The pairing suggests a trade: data centers pay their own way, and the lines that serve them move faster through federal review. Capito framed the goal in the release: "I look forward to working with our colleagues in the Senate and the House, and President Trump to get this essential legislation signed into law so we can build the infrastructure America needs to grow and thrive" ¹.

Utilities reserved judgment. "We are reviewing the transmission provisions and how they may affect efforts to deliver reliable, affordable electricity for our 250 million customers and their communities," said Drew Maloney, president and chief executive of the Edison Electric Institute ⁶. Reviewing is a holding verb. EEI stayed neutral on the 2024 deal struck by Joe Manchin and John Barrasso, and the rural cooperatives opposed it ⁶.

The cost rule also works against speed. Section 228 lets a state condition service on a data center procuring new generation sufficient to serve its own demand ⁴. ClearView Energy Partners flagged that same idea in the House bill. "In addition to the significant incremental development costs, requiring data centers to [Bring Your Own New Capacity] could extend the construction process of data centers by years, as it typically takes far longer to construct a power plant than develop a data center," the firm said ⁹. So the bill could speed the wires and slow the campuses at once. That pairing alone argues for a flat reading, before the calendar enters.

What the Senate text writes down, and what waits on a vote

The record

The data9 rows · sources

Column	Item	Source
In the bill text	Covered loads start at 20 megawatts, counted at full buildout	[4]
In the bill text	All incremental cost assigned to the covered load	[4]
In the bill text	Exit payments continue until the utility recovers its cost	[4]
In the bill text	FERC backstop siting widened for major interstate lines	[6]
In the bill text	Court challenges filed within 150 days of approval	[7]
Open or claimed	Senate vote set for after the November midterms	[2]
Open or claimed	Edison Electric Institute still reviewing the transmission provisions	[6]
Open or claimed	Wind and solar permitting terms called unresolved by Whitehouse	[2]
Open or claimed	House passage and a presidential signature	[7]

Why the reading holds flat

Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, attacked the schedule as much as the substance. "Striking this deal in the waning days of this Congress, in a pact and on a schedule that preclude public input or amendment, before midterm elections that can only improve the prospects for a more balanced approach, is indefensible," Campbell said in a statement ². Read the clause about the midterms closely. Campbell expects the election to favor a more balanced bill, and he says so in writing.

Lee reads the same calendar as harmless. "I believe that in this case it should not make a difference. We have negotiated this thing in a way that really is good for both sides," Lee said ³. Capito called the lame duck a wager. "Sometimes big things can happen in lame duck," she said, adding, "We're banking on it" ⁷.

History favors Campbell's timing argument. Manchin and Barrasso struck a bipartisan permitting deal in 2024, and their bill stalled in committee and expired with that Congress ⁶⁷. The Washington Sun counted only a few legislative weeks before January, when committee leadership changes ⁷.

Enactment would start a long clock. FERC gets 270 days to revise the policy statement, then 270 more to propose a rule, then one year to finish it ⁴. That adds up to 905 days, about two and a half years, before utilities file new transmission rates under the federal channel. Section 228 applies to loads that interconnect after enactment, and arrangements a state or FERC approved earlier stay in effect ⁴. Every campus energized before then keeps its current terms.

Opposition from the left targets the buildout itself. Mar Zepeda Salazar, legislative director at the Climate Justice Alliance, said in a coalition statement WE ACT for Environmental Justice published Sept. 30 that "rather than listening to their own constituents, politicians are trying to force through legislation that will allow data centers to explode at an even faster pace, even as families across the political spectrum are saying enough is enough" ⁸. Her statement treats the bill as a spur to data-center construction, and Heinrich treats it as the way to charge that construction for its grid. Both arguments end at the family paying the power bill.

FERC's three deadlines under Section 2107 add up to 905 days

Compared

The data3 rows · sources

Unit: days

Item	Value	Source
Revise 1994 policy from enactment	270	[4]
Propose a rule after the revision	270	[4]
Final rule one year after the proposal	365	[4]

Heinrich says the bill has teeth; Campbell says the schedule is indefensible

Both sides

The data2 rows · sources

Side	Who	Claim	Source
For	Martin Heinrich	The bill ensures data centers pay their fair share of the grid upgrades they require, and puts teeth behind that principle.	[1]
Against	Brad Campbell	Striking the deal in the waning days of this Congress, on a schedule that precludes public input or amendment, is indefensible.	[2]

By the numbers

• Pages in the released bill text: 417 ⁴.
• Covered loads begin at 20 megawatts under the new Section 228 ⁴.
• House threshold in the Ratepayer Protection Act: 100 megawatts, passed 417 to 3 on Sept. 16 ⁹.
• Senators voted 57 to 43 on Sept. 30 to advance the House bill, three short of 60 ⁵.
• FERC's combined deadlines in Section 2107 run 905 days from enactment to a final rule ⁴.
• Challengers would get 150 days after approval to sue ⁷.
• Thirteen states remained holdouts on large-load utility tariffs as of July ⁹.
• EEI's members serve 250 million customers ⁶.

What to watch

A cloture vote in the November lame-duck session is the first marker; passage by both chambers and a signature would move governance up inside the reported band. FERC's revised pricing statement, due 270 days after enactment, would be the first confirmed evidence that data centers carry their own transmission cost. January arriving with the bill still unvoted, a rewrite that strips Section 228, or EEI and the rural cooperatives coming out against the transmission title would point the reading down.