Data center fury hits the Senate as bipartisan energy bill lands

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act — BAAJA — comes before the Senate for debate on Monday. It would fast-track approvals for new power plants and transmission lines, and make big data center operators cover a bigger share of the grid upgrades their facilities require. TD Cowen now puts the odds of passage at 25%, down from 40% before last week's election.

Backers call it Congress' best near-term shot at containing the costs of the AI buildout. “Democrats ran and won on affordability and data center accountability, and BAAJA will allow us to start delivering immediately on both of those election promises,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate environment committee and a bill author, told Reuters. “We'd be silly not to take this win.” President Donald Trump, who has endorsed the measure, urged the Senate to pass it in a Sunday post, writing that “China will take any Data Center that we don't want, and pay lots of money for it.”

Opposition is loud. Environmental and tribal groups say the bill weakens environmental oversight and compromises tribal sovereignty. “It would be highly ironic if the first action Congress took after an election largely defined by opposition to data centers would be to make it easier to build them,” said author and environmentalist Bill McKibben. Sponsors released proposed amendments Saturday aimed at those concerns, but the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations said the changes don't resolve their objections. The Data Center Coalition, the industry trade group, has not endorsed the bill and didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrats in Congress aren't unified either. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become speaker next year, told Politico on Friday that the bill falls short on environmental protections and needs input from House Democrats. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden pushed his party to use its post-election leverage to negotiate a different approach, saying Democrats can cut red tape for all new energy projects and bring down costs “without substantial risk of political interference.”

Research points to a climate payoff. Rhodium Group estimates BAAJA's transmission and permitting updates would let more data center power demand come from an increasingly clean grid instead of dedicated gas-fired facilities, trimming related greenhouse-gas emissions by 31% to 90% depending on the power mix. ING says broad federal limits on data center construction remain unlikely while Trump is in office, since he and his administration see the facilities as vital to US competition with China. “The provisions on data center costs might save the bill,” said Joseph Majkut, who directs the energy security and climate program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.