Clean Cloud Act of 2025

Lowering Residential Energy Costs: A portion of the fees collected will be used to award grants to States, Indian Tribes, municipalities, and electric utilities to support programs that lower residential electricity consumer energy costs through energy savings or direct rebates (Section 3(c)(4)(B)).

Development of Clean Energy: Funds will be used to provide grants, rebates, advanced market commitments, or low-interest loans for the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of zero-carbon electricity generation assets and long-duration energy storage assets (Section 3(c)(4)(C)(i)).

Increased Transparency: The Administrator is required to make various pieces of information publicly available, including the location of covered facilities, their annual electricity consumption, and the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of their power usage (Section 3(b)(7)).

Protection of Consumers from Rate Hikes: The bill includes a pass-through limitation that prevents electric utilities from raising rates or assessing fees on customers who are not covered facilities to recoup the cost of the emissions fees (Section 3(c)(3)(A)(vi)(I)).

Financial Burden on Utilities and Facility Owners: Electric utilities and owners of covered facilities (such as data centers or cryptomining facilities) will be required to pay fees if their electricity consumption exceeds established regional greenhouse gas emissions intensity baselines (Section 3(c)(3)(A) and Section 3(c)(3)(B)).

Penalties for Non-Compliance: Electric utilities that attempt to pass the cost of these fees onto non-covered customers through rate increases may face a fine equal to two times the amount recouped (Section 3(c)(3)(A)(vi)(III)).