06/18/2026
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A Republican senator will introduce legislation that, if it is adopted, would set federal rules around how data centers can plug into the electric grid as AI energy consumption has become a front-line political issue for state and federal lawmakers.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming is introducing the POWER Up Act, which would create a federal category of electricity-consuming facilities and give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission explicit jurisdiction over their ability to connect to interstate power grids. Currently, such policy is addressed state by state.
The bill would delegate the authority to the FERC to approve or reject data centers’ requests to connect to interstate power grids, and the FERC would be tasked with establishing the criteria to govern that process. If it blocked a facility from connecting, the operator would have to find another path — co-locating with a dedicated power source or connecting with a third-party grid.
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