United States: Utilities

Virginia has officially rejoined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state cap-and-trade program targeting carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants.

New York's legislature has passed the Responsible Data Center Development Act, which would fundamentally transform how large data centers are regulated, financed, and operated in the state. The bill establishes a one-year moratorium on new permits, mandates that data centers bear full infrastructure costs without shifting expenses to ratepayers, and imposes aggressive renewable energy requirements reaching 90% by 2040.

Power availability and grid constraints have emerged as the defining bottleneck for data center development and AI infrastructure growth.

The previous alert in this series traced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC or the Commission) regulatory trajectory from the Talen Order through the pending Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on large-load interconnection (the DOE Rulemaking Proposal), a progression from rejection to structured accommodation in just 18 months.

The first two alerts in this series traced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC or the Commission) regulatory trajectory and the political economy now shaping data center power. This alert turns to the structuring question that sits at the center of every behind-the-meter generation and co-located load transaction serving data centers (collectively, BTM): how to design an arrangement that achieves the developer’s commercial objectives while managing, or, where the project configuration permits, avoiding FERC jurisdiction.

In the past 18 months, the federal regulatory posture toward data center power has moved from outright rejection to active rulemaking.

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) on March 12, 2026, issued the Speed to Power Through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK)...

On March 4, 2026, the White House released the Ratepayer Protection Pledge (the Pledge), a nonbinding commitment wherein seven leading tech companies agree to "build, bring, or buy"...

Joel Yu, Senior Vice President of Policy & External Affairs at Enchanted Rock, joins Steven Shparber, Co-chair of Mintz's Digital Infrastructure Practice, to discuss how power availability has become the gating factor for data center development.