Rep. John McGuire Celebrates Passage of Bill to Shield Residents from Data Center Costs

September 16, 2026 Press Release WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday, Representative John McGuire (VA-05) celebrated the passage of the Ratepayer Protection Act, which will protect Americans from carrying the financial burden of data centers in their communities. “Data centers are necessary, but each individual community should have the right to decide where they are located," said Rep. John McGuire (VA-05). "They should not negatively affect water tables or pass their energy costs on to ratepayers. The Ratepayer Protection Act ensures we can remain strong in the AI race against China while protecting hard-working Americans from financial burdens. We will continue to find ways to invest in American infrastructure while keeping costs low for the people who make our nation strong.” Background: The bill requires state utility regulators and nonregulated utilities to consider implementing a standard to hold certain large-load customers responsible for the costs associated with any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade of electric service necessary to serve such customers. A large-load customer means a non-residential electric consumer that enters, or requests to enter, an agreement concerning the sale of electric energy primarily to operate information technology infrastructure and related systems pertaining to data storage and computational applications and services (e.g., data centers) that have a peak electric demand of 100 megawatts or more at a single site or campus. This rate must include the costs that would be incurred if the large-load customer terminates an agreement with the electric utility pertaining to the sale of electric energy or otherwise ceases the purchase of energy from the electric utility.