Data centers get ready — the Senate wants to see your power bills

In a significant bipartisan move, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley have formally requested the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to implement mandatory energy reporting for data centers. Their letter calls for the EIA to collect detailed, standardized data on the sector's massive and growing electricity consumption, which is straining the national grid. The senators specifically want the agency to distinguish between energy used for AI computing tasks versus general cloud services, and to gather data on hourly and peak loads, utility rates paid, and the costs of necessary grid upgrades. This request follows a warning from the EIA's own administrator that planned new data centers could nearly triple the sector's energy demand by 2035.

This political pressure is part of a broader regulatory push, coming just a day after Senators Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed legislation to halt new data center construction until AI regulations are established. The EIA, which currently tracks energy use only in four broad categories (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation), must now consider creating a new, focused survey for data centers—a process the agency says can take up to two years. The senators have requested a reply by April 9, signaling an urgent demand for transparency from an industry whose energy footprint has become a critical infrastructure and environmental concern.