A new House bill would impose a federal excise tax on electricity consumed by data centers, targeting facilities with more than 1 MW of power capacity and directing the resulting revenue toward five federal funds.. Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., has introduced the Data Center Community Reinvestment Act of 2026, which would amend the Internal Revenue Code to establish a 1-cent-per-kilowatt-hour federal excise tax on electricity used by qualifying data centers.
The measure was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, with additional referrals to the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.. The proposal comes as rapidly expanding AI and cloud computing workloads are driving large increases in electricity demand and intensifying debates over who should pay for the infrastructure and community impacts associated with data center growth..
Salinas said that the bill is intended to ensure communities are not left bearing the costs of rising data center demand and share in the benefits generated by that growth. “Every community deserves to drive a hard bargain with data center developers, and at the end of the day, every community deserves to share in the benefits from data center growth,” she said in a press statement..
Related:Nebraska Reins in Data Center Perks Amid Resource Scrutiny. The proposal would build on a state-level approach that Virginia adopted earlier this year. Virginia became the first state to impose a tax directly on data center electricity consumption, setting the rate at 1.1 cents per kilowatt-hour beginning July 1 and applying it to electricity supplied by utilities and retail providers as well as self-generated power, including behind-the-meter generation.
State budget documents projected about $600 million in annual revenue for the general fund.. The federal bill would set a slightly lower rate but apply it nationwide. Unlike Virginia’s tax, however, Salinas’ proposal would allocate the revenue among five federal funds rather than sending it to a general fund..
What Operators Would Pay at Scale. Neil Osnato, founder of Persistence Analytics Group, said the tax could be significant for large data center operators, but its broader implications depend on whether electricity consumption is an appropriate proxy for the costs individual facilities impose on the grid..
At continuous full load, a 100 MW data center would incur about $8.76 million annually under the tax; at 500 MW, about $43.8 million; and at 1 GW, about $87.6 million. At a 90% annual load factor (actual average usage as a percentage of maximum), those figures would be approximately $7.9 million, $39.4 million, and $78.8 million, respectively..
Related:Data Centers’ Next Hurdle: Winning Public Trust and Social License. The tax could affect data center siting and power procurement at the margin, particularly when operators compare jurisdictions with otherwise similar power economics, Osnato said. For the largest AI and hyperscale projects, however, access to executable megawatts, transmission availability, interconnection timing, generation supply, and development certainty may matter more than the tax alone..
If a facility’s underlying electricity price were 5¢/kWh, the proposed tax would add 20% to the energy component. At 10¢/kWh, it would add 10%, Osnato said.. The bill defines a data center as a facility that primarily contains electronic equipment used to process, store, or transmit digital information and has a maximum rated power capacity or total peak power load exceeding 1 MW..
Flat Tax vs. Grid Cost Causation. Osnato said the proposal should not be confused with a mechanism for assigning electricity system costs to the customers that cause them..
“The bigger issue is cost causation,” Osnato said.. Two 500 MW data centers could consume the same amount of electricity while imposing very different costs on the grid, depending on where they locate, how their demand coincides with system peaks, what transmission and substation upgrades they require, whether new generation must be procured, and how flexible their operations are, he said..
Related:Texas’ 765 kV Decision: Build the Wires, the AI Will Follow. “A flat federal consumption tax does not distinguish among any of those conditions,” Osnato said.. Data centers already pay through multiple layers of the electricity system, including energy, transmission, distribution, and capacity costs, as well as customer-specific interconnection or construction charges in some cases.
The policy question, Osnato said, is whether existing mechanisms fully capture the electrical consequences of new large loads.. “A federal tax does not substitute for that analysis,” he added.. Revenue Split: Five Federal Funds.
The legislation would distribute amounts equivalent to one-fifth of annual receipts to each of five destinations:. The Land and Water Conservation Fund. The Housing Trust Fund.
The Hazardous Substance Superfund. The Highway Trust Fund. A new Energy Technology Trust Fund established by the bill.
Salinas’ office projects about $1.76 billion in annual revenue based on current nationwide data center electricity use, allocating roughly $352 million per year for each of the five funds. The release says the Energy Technology Trust Fund would support federal loan guarantees for clean energy, advanced nuclear, and grid infrastructure projects..
People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said the proposed tax could increase federal revenue for programs that benefit the public but does little to address the way data center growth is affecting electricity costs for existing customers.. “Those risks arise largely from existing PJM rules for the administration of its capacity market and transmission planning that, without necessary reforms, will force residential customers to subsidize massive data center growth,” Lapp told Data Center Knowledge..
Lapp said ratepayer protections need to address capacity and energy costs, transmission costs and distribution costs. He said those measures should include requiring data center customers to bring their own generation or accept curtailment, reforming PJM’s rules for assigning data center-driven transmission costs, and implementing large-load tariffs with stronger protections..
Tax Would Apply Broadly. The bill does not specify a separate rate for AI data centers. Instead, the tax would apply based on electricity consumption by facilities meeting the bill’s 1 MW threshold..
That threshold means the proposal reaches well beyond the largest hyperscale AI campuses. It could also apply to smaller colocation, enterprise, and institutional data centers with more than 1 MW of maximum rated capacity or peak load.. The legislation also covers electricity generated onsite, according to Salinas’ office..
Osnato said policymakers should distinguish between electricity consumption and its consequences for the grid.. “The questions that matter are: Is the projected load real? When will it actually materialize?
How durable will it be? What generation, transmission, and local infrastructure does it cause?” Osnato said.. He also said policymakers should determine which costs are customer-specific versus genuinely regional and whether a facility’s operating characteristics increase or reduce system burden..
“Megawatts are not interchangeable,” Osnato said.. Tax Revenue Doesn’t Assign Actual Grid Costs. Osnato said customer-specific costs should follow the customer that causes them, while genuinely shared system costs should be shared to the extent that the benefits are systemwide.
The bill instead uses electricity consumption as a proxy for the costs and impacts associated with data center growth, while directing the revenue to five federal programs that are not specifically tied to the electricity infrastructure serving the facilities.. Only the proposed Energy Technology Trust Fund has a direct energy connection, and its proceeds would support federal loan guarantees rather than specifically funding the local or regional grid infrastructure created by the taxed facility..
“Policymakers could collect money from the right industry while still allocating the underlying grid costs incorrectly,” Osnato said.. If enacted, the bill’s amendments would apply to electricity used and taxes received after the date of enactment.. The proposal remains at the introduced stage after its Aug.
13 referral to the three House committees.
