Bill > HR10579

This bill, titled the Energy Cost Fairness and Reliability Act of 2026, amends the Federal Power Act to direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)—the independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity—to establish standard interconnection procedures and a formal queue system for "large load facilities," defined as single sites or aggregations of facilities with a peak electrical demand exceeding 50 megawatts, such as energy-intensive data centers used for artificial intelligence. To protect the reliability of the interstate electrical grid and prevent everyday residential consumers from bearing the financial burden of surging electricity prices, the legislation mandates that large load customers pay 100 percent of the nonrefundable costs for required network upgrades and interconnection studies. Furthermore, the bill requires these large customers to demonstrate grid flexibility—meaning they must be capable of reducing or shifting their electrical demand when requested by utilities—and secure new generating resources, such as dedicated power plants or virtual power plants, to temporally match their capacity needs. The legislation also provides queue priority to large load facilities that utilize battery backup systems, meet specific labor standards including prevailing wages and registered apprenticeship programs, or enter into labor peace agreements regarding their energy supply resources. Additionally, the bill authorizes the Department of Energy to collect non-public energy and water performance data from data center owners, shields this sensitive business information from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and requires the establishment of a data-center-scale artificial intelligence testbed at a National Laboratory to research energy-efficient computing, grid integration, and load flexibility technologies.