The “Clean Cloud Act,” introduced by Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and John Fetterman, aims to regulate the rapidly growing energy consumption of data centers serving blockchain networks and artificial intelligence models. The proposed legislation would require the Environmental Protection Agency to establish emissions performance standards for facilities with over 100 KW of installed IT nameplate power, with penalties starting at $20 per ton of CO2 for those exceeding regional grid emissions intensities.
This legislative push comes amid projections that data center electricity usage could reach up to 12% of total US power demand by 2028, with global CO2 emissions from these facilities potentially hitting 2.5 billion metric tons by decade’s end. Critics like VanEck’s head of research Matthew Sigel argue the bill unfairly targets itcoin">Bitcoin miners in what he called a “Losing ‘Blame the Server Racks’ Strategy” on social media.
The timing is particularly significant as itcoin">Bitcoin miners increasingly diversify into providing high-performance computing power for AI models to offset challenges from declining cryptocurrency prices and the recent itcoin">Bitcoin halving. Companies including Galaxy, CoreScientific, and Terawulf have begun pivoting toward AI applications, a trend that could be threatened by the proposed regulations. The bill may also clash with President Trump’s stated ambitions to make the US the “world capital” of both AI and cryptocurrency after he repealed Biden-era AI safety standards.
