According to a Bloomberg report on April 11, the draft US Senate bill threatens to hit data centers that offer artificial intelligence models at a fee with blockchain networks and artificial intelligence models if they exceed federal emissions targets.
The bill, led by Senate Democrats Sheldon White House and John Fetterman, aims to address the environmental impact of rising energy demand and protect households from a higher energy bill, Bloomberg said.
The law, called the Clean Cloud Act, requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set emission performance standards for data centers and cryptographic mining facilities and set IT Nameplate Power above 100 kW.
This standard is based on regional grid emission strengths with an annual reduction target of 11%. The law also includes penalties for emissions beyond the SET standard starting at $20 per tonne of CO2E, which increases inflation and an additional $10 penalty.
“The surge in electricity demand from encryption and data centers outweighs the growth of carbon-free electricity,” said a minority blog post from the US Senate Committee on environmental and public works websites, with data center power usage expected to account for up to 12% of total US electricity demand by 2028.
A study by Morgan Stanley shows that the rapid growth of data centers is projected to generate around 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions worldwide by the end of the decade.
In the case of Vaneck’s research director Matthew Siegel, the proposed law effectively calls for the same operations as Bitcoin (BTC) miners to single out operations similar to Bitcoin (BTC) miners due to the “losing” energy consumption of “passing the server rack strategy.”
Additionally, the law could clash with US policies under President Donald Trump, who set AI safety standards and repealed the 2023 executive order. Trump had previously declared his intention to make the United States a “capital of the world” of AI and cryptocurrency.
The new US draft bill punishes cryptographic data center AI for power consumption. Source: Matthew Sigel
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Bitcoin and AI converge
The bill, which has not yet been passed in the Senate, comes as a Bitcoin miner, including Galaxy, Corescientific and Terawulf, and is increasingly important to the supply of high-performance computing (HPC) power to AI models, Vaneck said.
Bitcoin Miners are struggling in 2025 as the focus is on a decline in cryptocurrency prices, focusing on business models affected by Bitcoin Network’s latest Harving.
Miners are “diversifying into AI data center hosting as a way to expand revenue and reuse existing infrastructure for high-performance computing,” Coin Metrics said.
Comparison of Miners’ AI-related contracts. Source: Vaneck
Miners’ income began to stabilize in the first quarter of 2025, according to Coin Metrics. However, recovery could be shortened if an ongoing trade war disrupts miners’ business models.
“Aggressive tariffs and retaliation trade policies can create obstacles for node operators, validators and other core participants in blockchain networks,” said Nicholas Roberts-Huntley, CEO of Concrete & Glow Finance.
“In a moment of global uncertainty, not only the assets themselves, but also the infrastructure that supports crypto, can be collateral damage.”
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