PA House lawmakers approve data center regulation bill
Lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House approved a bill Tuesday seeking to address concerns surrounding data center electricity usage. Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Lawmakers passed House Bill 1834 with a 104-95 vote.
Lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 104-95 to approve legislation that would task the state Public Utility Commission with developing statewide regulations for data centers as local concerns grow over their effects on communities – and electricity bills.
The legislation, House Bill 1834, would direct the PUC to develop temporary and permanent regulations for commercial data centers to curb the effects that power-hungry data centers could have on electricity rates.
Among other provisions, the bill would require data center regulations developed by the PUC to bar electric companies from passing on costs of infrastructure updates and energy demands from data centers onto customers. HB 1834 would also require the PUC’s data center regulation to ensure data centers are responsible for costs associated with regional transmission, network upgrades, grid reliability and PJM emergency capacity procurement caused by commercial data centers.
The bill would also require commercial data centers to obtain a portion of their energy from clean energy sources. The portion required under the bill would start at 10% in 2027, then rise to 14.5% in 2030, and to 32% in 2035.
Democratic state Rep. Robert Matzie, the prime sponsor of the bill, said on the House floor on Tuesday that HB 1834 is “a data center ratepayer protection bill at its core.”
“It makes sure that the PUC controls costs attributable to the connection of data centers in our commonwealth and that those costs are not passed on to ratepayers – the burden of those costs falls entirely on the companies,” Matzie said.
States across the country are grappling with a data center boom prompted by recent advances in artificial intelligence. Estimates of the number of data centers in Pennsylvania vary, though one map cited in a January 2026 report by the Joint State Government Commission identified 101 active data centers.
A separate project dedicated to tracking data center proposals estimates that another 54 data centers are proposed for sites across Pennsylvania.
Republican lawmakers expressed a litany of concerns related to the bill.
State Rep. Craig Williams, a Republican representing parts of Chester and Delaware counties, said lawmakers should be looking to codify the data center development guidelines outlined in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget address, and said the bill does little to promote the buildout of more power generation in the commonwealth.
“It accomplishes nothing of the governor's four principles in the Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development” standards, Williams said. “Not talking about generation to be built in Pennsylvania by the hyperscale data center companies themselves is the failing of this bill.”
State Rep. David Rowe, who represents Juniata, Mifflin, Snyder and Union counties, echoed Williams’s call for increasing power generation within the commonwealth’s borders.
“The solution to higher energy costs is more generation,” Rowe said. “If we are serious about lowering the cost of living for all Pennsylvanians, the solution is quite simple. The solution is more reliable energy generation, more jobs and more economic growth, not more mandates, more fees and more regulations.”
Other Republican lawmakers expressed reservations about the clean energy requirements included in HB 1834, though Matzie sought to downplay those concerns.
“There are easily met clean energy provisions, a 10% requirement to start from a variety of sources, including nuclear energy, near and dear to my heart, which already makes up 40% of our energy mix in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Put another way, under House Bill 1834, a data center could connect to our distribution system and get 90% of their electricity from fossil fuels – 90%.”
A 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that data center energy use across the U.S. reached 176 TWh by 2023, or 4.4% of the country’s total electricity consumption. That figure is expected to grow to between 6.7% to 12.0% of total U.S. electricity consumption by 2028, according to the report.
Matzie said that, with new data centers proposed in communities across the commonwealth, HB 1834 was drafted to prevent negative consequences for consumers.
“This legislation started with a simple premise that nobody's electric bill should go up 1 cent if a data center comes to Pennsylvania and connects to our distribution system,” he said. “House Bill 1834 does just that.”