Schiff Bill Forces Data Centers to Fund Own Power

Sen. Adam Schiff has introduced legislation that would require data centers to directly finance their own power infrastructure, ending the current arrangement where AI companies effectively subsidize their electricity costs through utility rate structures that spread expenses across residential customers. The bill targets a structural problem that has grown alongside the AI buildout: as hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have signed massive power agreements, utilities in data-center-heavy states have passed grid upgrade and capacity costs onto household ratepayers. Schiff's proposal would require operators to bear those infrastructure costs themselves, which would materially increase the cost basis for running large-scale AI and cloud workloads. Essentially: (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) have been offloading power infrastructure costs onto the public, and Schiff wants to end that. - Data center electricity demand has driven household energy price increases in Virginia, Texas, and other high-concentration states. - The bill would apply to hyperscalers and AI infrastructure operators, not just traditional enterprise data centers. - If passed, the cost shift would increase operating expenses for companies currently planning or expanding large GPU clusters. This is the first federal legislative attempt to directly restructure how AI infrastructure operators pay for the power capacity they consume.