An October 2025 report by Monitoring Analytics, the independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection, found that data centers added $7.3 billion in power-supply costs on the PJM grid and accounted for 45% of total power supply costs in the July 2025 auction. The report concluded that “both actual and forecast data center load growth” was the primary driver for high prices and tight supply-and-demand conditions in PJM’s two most recent Capacity Market Auctions.

The rapid expansion of data centers is driving extraordinary demand, both actual and anticipated, on the electric grid. Data center facilities often require major utility infrastructure upgrades that can run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Without legislative safeguards, those costs are spread across all customers, leaving families, seniors, and small businesses to subsidize outsized costs created by the largest energy users.

My legislation seeks to protect residential and small business ratepayers in Pennsylvania from absorbing additional costs created by data centers. This legislation would:

• Establish a separate rate class for large-load data centers to help protect regular ratepayers from bearing the costs created by these high-demand consumers
• Protect ratepayers from cost-shifting by requiring that data centers bear the full cost of any infrastructure upgrades and system impacts they create
• Require utilities to file a tariff for data centers with the Public Utility Commission (PUC), ensuring that the rates, terms, and conditions prevent hidden subsidies or cross-class cost-shifting
• Mandate annual reporting by utilities to the PUC on infrastructure costs, usage, and system impacts attributable to data centers
• Establish safeguards to ensure that data centers—not residential ratepayers—are liable for any stranded costs if a facility reduces load or ceases operations.

This bill follows the principle of cost causation: those who drive demand and require new infrastructure should pay for it. Pennsylvania families should not be left footing the bill for the massive power needs of data centers.

Please join me in co-sponsoring this important legislation to ensure fairness in electric rates and protect our ratepayers from being burdened by costs they did not create.