United States of America: Senator released draft of TRUMP AMERICA AI Act including infrastructure compensation regulation

On 18 March 2026, a United States Senator released a discussion draft of The Republic Unifying Meritocratic Performance Advancing Machine intelligence by Eliminating Regulatory Interstate Chaos Across American Industry Act. The Consumer Protections for Data Center Infrastructure Costs title (Section 1101) would direct the Secretary of Energy to enter into agreements with covered entities, defined as private companies or other private entities that own, operate, or maintain a data centre with a power demand of 20 megawatts or more, or have plans to do so within 5 years. Under such agreements, covered entities would commit to building, bringing, or buying new generation resources and electricity to satisfy their new energy demands and paying the full costs of all new power delivery infrastructure upgrades required to service their data centres. Covered entities would further commit to voluntarily negotiating new separate rate structures with utilities and relevant state governments, investing in local communities through hiring and skills development programmes, and making backup generation resources available to grid operators at times of scarcity to prevent blackouts. Where the Secretary determines that an agreement is necessary to protect ratepayers and a covered entity refuses to enter into such an agreement, the covered entity would be ineligible for federal incentives and assistance, including loans, loan guarantees, grants, tax incentives, land incentives, and other assistance identified by the Secretary in a notice published in the Federal Register.