Power for the People Act of 2026

Reduced Energy Costs for Ratepayers: The bill seeks to prevent households and businesses from paying for the energy and infrastructure demands of data centers through rising bills (Section 2).

Protection of Grid Reliability and Affordability: By creating load queues, the bill aims to ensure that data center interconnections do not create reliability risks or increase electricity costs for non-data center users (Section 4(a)(2)).

Job Creation and Higher Wages: The bill encourages data center development that provides good-paying job opportunities and requires construction workers to be paid prevailing wages (Section 4(b)(3)).

Support for Apprenticeships: The bill promotes the use of registered apprenticeship programs in the construction of data centers and energy resources (Section 4(b)(3)(B)).

Environmental Benefits: The bill prioritizes interconnection for data centers that bring low- or no-carbon energy resources to the grid, which helps minimize climate and environmental impacts (Section 4(b)(1)(F) and Section 4(d)).

Financial Assistance for States: The Secretary is directed to establish a program providing grants and technical assistance to help states create appropriate rate classes (Section 7(a)).

Potential Delay in Data Center Interconnection: The creation of load queues may result in delaying or denying interconnection for data centers to protect grid reliability or affordability (Section 4(a)(2)).

Increased Costs for Data Center Operators: Data center owners may face new financial burdens, such as paying for required system upgrades, higher upfront interconnection study costs, and minimum demand charges (Section 2 and Section 6(a)(ii)).

Increased Costs for Transmission Upgrades: The bill directs the allocation of local transmission upgrade costs specifically to interconnecting data centers (Section 5(1)).