Congresswoman Scholten Introduces Two Data Center Accountability Bills

WASHINGTON, DC - This week, Congresswoman Hillary Scholten (D-MI-03) announced she introduced two bills to bring greater transparency and accountability to data centers' water and energy usage. Data centers nationwide consumed about 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023, and that figure is projected to climb as high as 12% by 2028 as AI-driven demand accelerates. As more of these facilities come online in Michigan and across the country, these bills would give federal regulators and the public visibility into how they are affecting local water and power resources.

The Data Center Resource Disclosure Act would direct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to establish an annual survey for data center operators to report their energy and water consumption. NTIA would then be required to solicit public comments on any submissions, publish the results on a dashboard, and compile a list of which operators failed to respond.

TheDefending Our Energy and Water Act would direct the Department of Defense (DoD) to update its data center efficiency requirements and ensure new facilities adopt cooling technologies that reduce their impact on water resources. The bill also reauthorizes DoD's authority, first granted in the FY15 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and set to expire this year, to establish water efficiency standards for data centers.

"Accountability starts with transparency. As data centers continue to come online across Michigan and the country, people deserve to know how these facilities are affecting the water and power they rely on, so we can best advocate for our communities to prevent exploitation," said Congresswoman Scholten. "My bills will strengthen transparency around how data centers affect our resources and their costs to consumers, and require the federal government to meet the highest efficiency standards for its own data centers. As our data demands grow, we must ensure we have domestic capacity to store it and process it in a way that doesn't harm our local communities."

This reflects Congresswoman Scholten's ongoing work on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to strengthen water resources and modernize infrastructure oversight in Michigan and across the country. The Congresswoman recently introduced the Water Reservoir Transparency Act,which would require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to assess how new commercial and industrial users are impacting water reservoirs.

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