FDCEA expires September 30 with no replacement guidance from OMB
Expiration of the sole federal statute mandating efficiency and security reviews for data centers occurs precisely as load growth accelerates. No replacement mechanism exists. Agencies lose standardized assessment requirements.
The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act embedded the FDCEA, requiring OMB to enforce pre-construction reviews by certified efficiency specialists and explicit consideration of power and water consumption. Agencies complied through 2024. No draft replacement has circulated in the Federal Register or GSA channels as of August 2025.
EIA data show data-center electricity demand rising from 4% of U.S. total in 2023 to a projected 8-12% by 2030 under current build rates. Removal of FDCEA assessments coincides with this inflection. Prior reviews had rejected or modified designs that exceeded 1.4 PUE or lacked water-recycling plans.
Operationally, agencies and contractors now default to voluntary NIST and ASHRAE guidelines. CISA has recorded a 37% increase in reported incidents at federal facilities since 2023, many tied to rushed interconnections. Without statutory triggers, new builds face no centralized energy or hardening gate.
Long-term grid and security exposure therefore shifts to state-level permitting and individual agency risk tolerance.
OMB: No successor data-center directive published in the Federal Register by December 31 2025
Sources (3)
- [1]National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, Section 5101(https://www.congress.gov/118/plaws/publ31/PLAW-118publ31.pdf)
- [2]OMB Memorandum M-24-03: Data Center Optimization Initiative Guidance(https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/M-24-03-Data-Center-Optimization.pdf)
- [3]EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2025, Electricity Demand Module(https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/)