The bill has yet to pass in the US Senate but comes as Bitcoin miners are increasingly foraying into servicing AI models.
Draft legislation in the US Senate threatens to hit data centers serving blockchain networks and artificial intelligence models with fees if they exceed federal emissions targets, according to an April 11 Bloomberg report.
Led by Senate Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse and John Fetterman, the draft bill purportedly aims to address environmental impacts from rising energy demand and protect households from higher energy bills, Bloomberg said.
Dubbed the Clean Cloud Act, the legislation mandates that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set an emissions performance standard for data centers and crypto mining facilities with over 100 KW of installed IT nameplate power.
