A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the Ratepayer Protection Pledge announced on March 4, 2026, reflects sound national policy to protect ratepayers in the United States, promote electricity affordability, and ensure that all people of the United States, including households, small businesses, schools, hospitals, and farms, have access to reliable and affordable energy as artificial intelligence and data center infrastructure expands across the United States.

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Con. Res. 30 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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119th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. CON. RES. 30

 Expressing the sense of Congress that the Ratepayer Protection Pledge 
 announced on March 4, 2026, reflects sound national policy to protect 
ratepayers in the United States, promote electricity affordability, and 
  ensure that all people of the United States, including households, 
    small businesses, schools, hospitals, and farms, have access to 
  reliable and affordable energy as artificial intelligence and data 
        center infrastructure expands across the United States.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 25, 2026

   Mr. Scott of Florida (for himself and Mr. Marshall) submitted the 
following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
                      Energy and Natural Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

 
 Expressing the sense of Congress that the Ratepayer Protection Pledge 
 announced on March 4, 2026, reflects sound national policy to protect 
ratepayers in the United States, promote electricity affordability, and 
  ensure that all people of the United States, including households, 
    small businesses, schools, hospitals, and farms, have access to 
  reliable and affordable energy as artificial intelligence and data 
        center infrastructure expands across the United States.

Whereas data centers consumed approximately 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 
        the United States in 2024, which is more than 4 percent of total 
        national electricity consumption in the United States;
Whereas the Department of Energy projects that the share of total national 
        electricity consumption in the United States that is consumed by data 
        centers could reach up to 12 percent by 2028 as artificial intelligence 
        workloads require continuously operating, high power density computing 
        infrastructure at unprecedented scale;
Whereas, under the traditional utility regulatory model, the costs of building, 
        upgrading, and maintaining the transmission and distribution 
        infrastructure required to service new large industrial loads are 
        socialized across all ratepayers through rate proceedings, meaning that 
        households and small businesses in the United States effectively 
        subsidize the electricity infrastructure of some of the most highly 
        capitalized companies in history;
Whereas, because data centers cluster geographically rather than diffuse evenly 
        across the electric grid, the impact of data centers on local 
        electricity rates is acute and uneven; and
Whereas, on March 4, 2026, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and 
        xAI signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge at the White House, 
        committing to negotiate separate rate structures with utilities and 
        State governments wherever those signatories build data centers and to 
        pay those rates for generation and delivery infrastructure whether or 
        not the signatories consume the electricity, establishing a pay-whether-
        used obligation that, alongside protecting ratepayers from 
        infrastructure cost-shifting, creates an incentive for the signatories 
        to make their backup generation resources available to grid operators 
        during scarcity events, thereby enhancing reliability for all people of 
        the United States: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 
That--
            (1) it is the Sense of Congress that--
                    (A) the Ratepayer Protection Pledge announced on 
                March 4, 2026, reflects sound national policy founded 
                on the principle that the people of the United States 
                should not be required to foot the bill for private 
                data center energy and infrastructure costs;
                    (B) the artificial intelligence data center boom in 
                the United States should be leveraged to address 
                electricity affordability and benefit all households 
                and businesses in the United States; and
                    (C) relevant Federal agencies, including the 
                Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory 
                Commission, should support and facilitate the 
                implementation of the commitments made in the Ratepayer 
                Protection Pledge, including by working with private 
                companies to expedite the permitting and 
                interconnection of new energy generation resources; and
            (2) Congress encourages additional artificial intelligence 
        companies, hyperscalers, data center operators, and technology 
        firms that have not yet signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge 
        to voluntarily adopt equivalent commitments without delay.
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