House Energy and Commerce chairman backs U.S. AI infrastructure buildout

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U.S. AI infrastructure backed

Highlights

Guthrie advocates for AI infrastructure expansion via legislation like the Ratepayer Protection Act, ensuring technology companies—not consumers—bear increased electricity costs from data centers.
He warns delaying or restricting AI infrastructure could undermine U.S. competitiveness and shift investment to China, which plans $295 billion in new data centers over five years.
Guthrie urges a regulatory compact where tech firms expand U.S. data centers, hire locally, address community concerns, and fund local costs in exchange for stable regulations and reliable power.

Policy push ties AI growth to power costs

As reported by House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Guthrie argues in an op-ed published this week in the Washington Examiner that Congress needs to position the U.S. as the global leader in artificial intelligence while shielding families from the electricity costs tied to new data center demand.

He points to legislation such as the Ratepayer Protection Act as a way to create a path for AI-related infrastructure growth without shifting added power costs onto households. Guthrie says technology companies building data centers and driving electricity demand should bear those costs, rather than consumers.

Guthrie also says communities across the country are weighing the economic benefits of data centers against concerns over water use, electricity demand and whether large technology companies are acting responsibly at the local level. He argues developers need to show how projects expand the tax base, create jobs and address community concerns when entering new markets.

National competitiveness and local impacts

Guthrie frames data center construction as both a local and national issue, saying new large electricity buyers often require additional power generation, transmission lines and grid upgrades. At the same time, he says the computing capacity those facilities provide supports the broader U.S. economy and is critical to AI deployment.

He warns that slowing or banning AI infrastructure development would weaken U.S. competitiveness and could push investment to China or other markets with fewer privacy and environmental protections. Guthrie says China has spent heavily on digital infrastructure abroad over the past decade and plans to invest about $295 billion over the next five years in a nationwide network of data centers to power AI.

Guthrie says U.S. companies must be able to demonstrate consumer benefits from AI, including medical diagnostics, cybersecurity, grid protection and wildfire detection. He closes by calling for a compact with industry, build in the U.S., hire in the U.S. and cover local costs, in exchange for predictable regulation, reliable power and access to skilled workers.

Our earlier coverage looked at the growing pushback against AI data center construction across the U.S., driven by concerns over electricity demand, water use, land requirements, and local disruption. We noted that tighter permitting and moratoriums could slow new supply and raise execution risks, while potentially strengthening pricing power and near-term performance for established data center REITs that already control permitted sites and secured power.

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