Washington, DC – Consumer Reports issued the following statement following the unanimous, bipartisan vote by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to advance the Ratepayer Protection Act. The legislation would establish a federal standard requiring data centers to pay the full incremental costs of upgrades required to serve them, rather than shifting those expenses onto American consumers. Each state’s public utility commission would be required to consider adoption of this standard, but adoption itself would be optional.
“The passage of the Ratepayer Protection Act out of committee by a unanimous vote signals strong bipartisan support for holding massive tech companies accountable for the costs associated with AI data centers,” said Chris Harto, manager, sustainability advocacy at Consumer Reports. “With energy bills skyrocketing, American families are rightly skeptical of corporate pledges to pay their own way. While this legislation alone is insufficient to ensure that companies cover the full costs of developing and operating AI data centers, it is a useful step in the right direction.
A recent Consumer Reports nationally representative survey of 2,082 US adults in May 2026 found that a large majority of Americans are skeptical of promises that large data center developers have made to pay the full cost associated with the energy needed to supply their facilities. In March 2026, seven major artificial intelligence companies (Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI) signed a pledge at the White House called the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. The pledge stated that companies would pay the full cost of energy and infrastructure needed to supply their facilities “no matter what.”
Contact: cyrus.rassool@consumer.org