Data center grid bill faces lame-duck Senate floor fight

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(The Center Square) – Bipartisan legislation supporters say will shield households from data center grid upgrade costs is dividing lawmakers of both parties after advancing in the U.S. Senate during this week's lame-duck session.

U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said in a news briefing Tuesday he wants changes to the bill’s grid reliability rules – provisions intended to prevent blackouts and keep power plants running.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., who both voted to advance the measure, are demanding floor amendments preserving tribal reviews of historic and sacred sites before final passage.

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, known as BAAJA, is moving later this week to Senate floor debate. The bill, authored by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, advanced late Monday in a 73-25 vote.

"BAAJA is a major win for the American people and central to lowering costs and getting our country back to building," Capito, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement after the vote.

According to a November 2026 study by Grid Strategies, a Bethesda, Maryland-based power sector consulting firm, the proposed changes to transmission pricing would result in data center operators paying roughly $55 billion to local utilities over the next decade – about $35 billion more than they would pay under current federal policy. The bill's supporters say those extra collections would prevent utilities from passing billions of dollars in grid upgrade costs onto residential and business customers.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who voted against advancing the measure on Monday, said in a statement that cleaner, cheaper renewable energy will reduce energy costs for ordinary Americans and enhance the nation’s competitive status globally.

“Robust consideration of the bill should be a priority in the new Congress,” wrote Merkley, who noted he has many concerns. “The bill restricts states’ ability to raise and address clean water concerns on gas pipelines as well as transmission lines. It shortens timelines that make it hard-to-impossible for grassroots and community groups to raise concerns about projects,” wrote Merkley.

Democratic Sens. Whitehouse and Heinrich, two of the bill’s lead authors, pushed back on Merkley’s criticism, arguing the bill's transmission permitting reforms will unlock stalled wind, solar and battery storage projects across the country. Whitehouse has criticized the Trump administration over the last year for forcing clean energy projects to “sit on the sidelines.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. – expected to become House speaker in January after Democrats won congressional majorities in last week's midterm elections – signaled resistance to the bill in its current form.

Jeffries said in a statement last week that the legislation "falls short in several areas," including environmental review changes and tribal sovereignty protections. Jeffries will not "rubber-stamp legislation that emerges from the Senate without more constructive involvement with our caucus," according to the statement.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. – the lone GOP senator to vote against advancing the bill Monday – objected to provisions in the text allowing federal regulators to take over approval of contested transmission lines if states do not act within 12 months.

"South Dakota landowners deserve to negotiate with stakeholders at the state and local level before federal intervention is required," Rounds said in a statement after the vote.