After months of backlash against data centers around Utah, Sen. Mike Lee has co-authored a federal bill that would make data center developers pay for the power and grid upgrades they need instead of passing those costs on to households and local businesses, the Deseret News reported.
The developer behind one of the biggest projects in the state, Creekstone Energy's Delta Gigasite in Millard County, says it supports the bill even though it would add regulation to its work.
"It gives builders the certainty to invest, and it makes sure data centers pay their own way for the infrastructure they require instead of shifting those costs to Utah families and businesses," Creekstone CEO and founder Ray Conley said, according to the Deseret News.
What the bill would do
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 is a 417-page bill introduced Sept. 16. The Deseret News reports it is waiting on Senate committee votes before it can move to the House.
At its center is a "Pay Your Own Way" rule. Public utilities such as Rocky Mountain Power would have to charge data centers the full cost of both their electricity use and the grid expansions built for them, including new power lines and power plants. Data centers would be barred from shifting those expansion costs onto residential ratepayers or local businesses.
The bill would also let states require data centers to build, or contract to build, their own new power plants, such as wind, solar, geothermal or battery projects. Or states could require data centers to cut their power use during peak hours.
Before a utility builds or upgrades grid infrastructure for a data center, the data center would have to put up financial guarantees or cash up front. If a data center shuts down, moves or cancels its contract early, it would still have to keep paying until that infrastructure is paid off.
"We need to make it easier to build, grow, power, and fuel our country," Lee, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said on X. "Permitting reform is moving forward."
Do data centers raise power prices?
The Deseret News points to testimony from Shon Hiatt, an associate professor at the University of Southern California, before a Utah legislative interim committee on Aug. 19. Hiatt said he found that investor-owned utilities like Rocky Mountain Power saw no effect on power prices from data centers coming in between 2020 and 2025. But he said utilities that aren't investor-owned often don't know how to handle such big new customers "so they just raise the prices." He added that he would expect the larger data centers coming in now to have an impact on wholesale power prices.
The Delta Gigasite
Creekstone calls its $17 billion Millard County project "the largest data center campus in the world." Spokesperson Marty Carpenter told the Deseret News the company is developing both the data center site and its power infrastructure, bringing customers into an integrated campus rather than selling power to a separate data center developer.
Creekstone's energy plan combines natural gas generation, solar and storage, and the company is evaluating whether to add nuclear, Carpenter said. In Creekstone's case, the company says the bill wouldn't change operations but would create "greater certainty."
"Federal permitting reform could make it easier to plan and finance the energy infrastructure needed as development proceeds," Carpenter said.
Why it matters for contractors
Most of the work on a data center isn't the building itself. It's the substations, transmission lines, generation and storage that feed it. A rule that makes data centers pay up front for their own grid upgrades, or build their own power plants, could change who hires contractors for that work, how projects are financed and how fast they move.
For Utah's electrical, utility, civil and heavy-industrial contractors, the bill points toward more developer-owned power projects like Creekstone's, with gas, solar, storage and maybe nuclear built alongside the campus. Up-front guarantees could also weed out speculative projects before ground is broken, which is good news for subs who've watched announced projects stall.
The bill is still in committee, and nothing changes until it passes. But contractors bidding on Utah's data center and energy pipeline should follow it, because it addresses the biggest question communities keep asking: who pays for the power.