Whitehouse speaks last week. Photo: Bryan Dozier/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is introducing a bill on Friday aimed at addressing rising greenhouse gas emissions from AI data centers and crypto operations.
Why it matters: The bill — shared with Axios — represents a serious effort to address the climate impacts of the data center demand influx and is a stage-setter for the larger conversation on AI and power use.
Driving the news: The Clean Cloud Act, with Sen. John Fetterman as a cosponsor, would assess a carbon emissions fee on power consumption by data centers and crypto miners.
- "It's a marker for where this industry needs to be," Whitehouse said during a discussion in his office. "And I think if you're the AI [or] crypto industry coming in, you've got to think long and hard about what you want your public reputation to be if you intend to stick around for a while."
- Tech companies, he said, "have more money than God, so they can readily pay for clean energy or offsets to make up for what they're doing by dropping their massive load onto these grid systems."
How it works: The bill would direct EPA and the Energy Information Administration to survey electricity consumption from data centers and crypto mining operations annually.
- The government would collect a fee, starting at $20 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent and rising at least $10 annually, based on how facilities' emissions profiles compare to their regional power grid.
- Data centers operating behind the meter would be assessed the fee directly. For facilities drawing from the grid, it would be assessed on utilities, which could then pass that cost on to those responsible.
- The resulting revenue would go towards easing residential electricity rates and to fund "clean firm" generation -- like battery storage and nuclear.
Between the lines: This bill has near-zero chance of moving in the current Congress. But it has ideas that are likely to bubble up as lawmakers discuss this issue and political dynamics shift.
- Republicans, by contrast, have largely focused on adding "dispatchable" power to the grid — namely natural gas and nuclear. And President Trump wants to see coal help shape the AI future.
- Whitehouse's proposal seeks to address several discreet issues: Climate-warming emissions, rate increases from load growth, and the need for 24/7 sources of power generation.
