WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives on Sept. 15 overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation to push state regulators to shield consumers' electricity bills from spiking because of nearby AI data

With a vote of 417-3, lawmakers sent the Ratepayer Protection Act over to the Senate.

The measure's approval was arguably the most significant action Congress has taken to address the growing angst among Americans about the impacts of artificial intelligence models – and the energy-guzzling infrastructure that supports them – on their communities and society more broadly.

"It's common sense," said Colorado Rep. Gabe Evans, the bill's Republican sponsor. Florida Rep. Kathy Castor, the Democratic sponsor, said her neighbors in the Tampa Bay area routinely show her their own electricity bills, which she said are "exorbitant" and made worse by the "energy hogs" of hyperscale data centers.

As AI has increasingly dominated policy discussions on Capitol Hill and across the midterm campaign trail, lawmakers have struggled to come to consensus about exactly what guardrails are needed for the emerging technology, or who should implement them.

"This bill strikes the right balance of providing a modest but important level of accountability as we continue to support this vital industry," Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Kentucky, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said.

But even Democrats who backed the legislation criticized it as imperfect. It only requires utility regulators at the state level to consider rules to ensure that data centers "recover the full, incremental cost" of the power they need.

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the bill was only a "small step in the right direction." He urged Republican leadership to consider taking up a different Democratic measure, the Protecting Families from AI Data Center Energy Costs Act, which would convene the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to study how to protect families from rising power bills. That legislation passed unanimously out of committee two months ago.