America's growing digital economy requires power grid updates. Who will foot the bill?

Congress must decide how the U.S. can build the infrastructure its booming digital economy requires while protecting the communities that host it.

The Ratepayer Protection Act recently failed a procedural vote in the U.S. Senate. With 57 senators voting to advance the measure and 43 opposed, it fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward. This isn't the end of the story for this policy idea. It is the beginning of a trend that will characterize the end of this year and the next Congress: the push to regulate every layer of the digital infrastructure and AI stack.

Championed by Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) and Reps. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), the Ratepayer Protection Act aims to protect households and small businesses from paying for infrastructure needed by large data centers. It would require state utility regulators and certain utilities to consider standards under which computing facilities with peak electricity demand of at least 100 megawatts would cover the full incremental costs of power generation and grid upgrades needed to serve them. States would retain authority to decide whether to adopt those standards.

Rashan Colbert is the Director of U.S. Policy and Digital Energy Council Policy Lead at the Crypto Council for Innovation

AI and digital asset networks run on facilities that need electricity, equipment, land, and grid connections. As those facilities grow, public decisions about their costs and impacts will help determine where and how quickly they can be built. A company's plans for computing capacity depend on whether a utility can deliver power and whether the surrounding community has confidence in the project. At the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI), we see these questions becoming central to the policy environment for digital assets and the broader digital economy.

Congress is responding to a growing public question about whether households and small businesses will pay for grid upgrades needed by large data centers. The House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act 417–3. Senate debate has centered on whether asking states to consider a cost recovery standard goes far enough. That question will persist, alongside growing pressure to explain how the country can build the infrastructure its digital economy requires while protecting the communities that host it.

Responsible development starts with a fair expectation: large new loads should account for the infrastructure required to serve them, with costs and risks made clear before projects move forward. If a utility builds for a customer's anticipated demand, its agreements should address what happens if that customer reduces operations or leaves. Families need to know how their bills could be affected. Developers also need clear expectations before committing capital.

Earlier this year the president and leaders of many of the biggest technology companies agreed upon that principle through the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI committed to covering the costs of new power generation required for their data centers. In July, the White House announced an expansion bringing over 200 additional utilities, data center developers, cooperatives, and states into the effort. Congress must now work through the details of how public policy should give those commitments effect.

The United States must build enough power and infrastructure to meet its increasing needs. Faster development of generation, transmission, storage, and equipment can ease constraints that cost allocation alone cannot solve. Assigning responsibility for a grid upgrade still leaves the work of permitting it, obtaining equipment, and getting it built. Public policy should make that process more predictable while maintaining protections for communities and the environment.

Workable rules must be grounded in operational reality. A proposed campus faces decisions about utility service and local approvals long before its first server begins operating. Policymakers need to understand those dependencies. Utilities, regulators, developers, and computing companies each hold part of that knowledge, and their experience should inform the rules governing new projects. Communities should have opportunities to ask questions while choices about location and infrastructure can still change.

The ratepayer debate is an early example of the choices Congress and states will face across the digital infrastructure stack, from core inputs like energy to critical infrastructure, including data centers, chips, and servers, up to the frontier models they power. Each layer raises distinct questions. A rule about model safety serves a different purpose from a utility tariff, while limits on the infrastructure beneath those models affect the entire stack and many adjacent issues.

We should expect these debates to intensify as lawmakers respond to constituents and leadership begins to develop an agenda for the next Congress. The challenge will be to understand how individual decisions fit together. Energy policy shapes the availability of compute. Decisions about data center development influence where investment flows. The consequences extend to digital assets, AI and other products and services that depend on the same physical foundation.

CCI's Digital Energy Council brings companies across these connected sectors into policy discussions, drawing on their direct experience building and operating the systems that power the digital economy. Our work will focus on expanding U.S. energy capacity and strengthening grid reliability, with attention to the practical path from a proposed facility to one that is operating.

It is a national imperative that the United States builds the capacity the digital economy needs in a responsible manner, making costs transparent and giving communities confidence that growth will serve them too. As a CCI coalition, the Digital Energy Council reflects what CCI has always done: bring together industry leaders, in this case, across digital assets, AI, and energy, to develop and advocate for sensible, substantive, data-driven policies that spur economic growth, protect consumers, and keep national security strong.

Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.

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