Senate Bill Targets Crypto Miners with Emissions Limits and Penalties

A new U.S. Senate proposal, the Clean Cloud Act, aims to curb rising power demand from data-heavy industries and prevent surging energy costs for American households by imposing emissions limits and financial penalties on data centers.

The bill, introduced by Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and John Fetterman, would require the EPA to set regionally based emissions performance standards for facilities with over 100 kilowatts of installed IT capacity. These standards would mandate an 11% annual emissions reduction.

Facilities exceeding these limits would face penalties starting at $20 per metric ton of CO2e, with annual increases based on inflation plus an additional $10 per ton.

The proposal targets data centers that power blockchain and artificial intelligence models, including those used by major mining firms like Galaxy, CoreScientific, and Terawulf. These companies are increasingly pivoting toward AI infrastructure to offset declining crypto revenues.