The US House of Representatives passed the Ratepayer Protection Act by 417 votes to 3. The bill requires large data centers — those consuming more than 100 megawatts — to bear the electrical infrastructure costs driven by their own demand, rather than passing them on to ordinary consumers through their utility bills. Markets reacted within hours: nuclear stocks posted gains ranging from 9% to 12%.
Oklo rose 11.31% in Thursday’s session. X-Energy led the sector with a 12.08% surge, pushing its share price to $16.33. NuScale Power advanced 8.92%, while NANO Nuclear Energy posted a gain of 8.5%. The common thread is clear: all of these companies develop small modular reactors — SMRs — designed to deliver power directly on-site to large industrial and technology facilities.
The link between the congressional vote and nuclear energy is straightforward. If a data center operator must bear the full cost of grid connection and capacity upgrades, dedicated and independent power generation — the kind that a reactor like Oklo’s Aurora powerhouse can provide — becomes an economically compelling option. Aurora uses a liquid metal fast reactor design capable of producing up to 15 megawatts, running on either fresh or recycled fuel. Oklo has already signed an agreement with Switch Data Centers to supply 12 gigawatts of electrical capacity, along with letters of intent with two other operators totaling 750 megawatts. The demand is real, and the contracts are in place.
Wall Street analysts maintain a buy rating on Oklo, with an average price target of $85.46. The bill’s legislative path is not yet complete, however: it still requires Senate approval, and implementation rules will ultimately be set by individual state regulators. The sweeping bipartisan majority — 417 to 3 — makes a favorable outcome likely, but the timeline remains uncertain. On the NuScale front, meanwhile, ENTRA1 Energy is in talks with the Tennessee Valley Authority over a power purchase agreement that could involve up to 6 gigawatts of NuScale capacity.
What the House vote has made visible is a structural shift already well underway. Major tech companies — Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta — have already moved toward nuclear power to secure stable energy supplies for their artificial intelligence systems. The Ratepayer Protection Act did not create this trend; it accelerates it. If data centers can no longer spread grid costs across the broader public, modular reactors stop being a bet on the future and become a straightforward budget decision for the present. For Oklo, NuScale, and X-Energy, this is the environment in which their order books could finally convert from letters of intent into binding contracts.
