The Energy Efficiency Improvement Act of 2014 has hit a roadblock in the US Senate this week, as retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) blocked a motion to expedite passage of the federal energy legislation. Among its provisions, the bill sought to create new metrics for measuring energy use in federal data centers – and enforce new energy efficiency standards.

The House version of the Act consolidated four building energy efficiency bills and was passed in March with overwhelming bipartisan support (375-36). The consolidated bill included a provision from a separate stand-alone bill for federal IT. This new provision required the Federal government to “incorporate energy efficiency goals into IT acquisition; release information on federal data center energy use; and report on the impact of cloud, mobile and other technologies on federal energy consumption,” according to an analysis by FCW.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and the bill’s co-sponsor, Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), sought unanimous consent for the Senate to consider the bill on Dec. 16, before the end of the current congressional term. It appears Coburn’s objection has killed the bill for this year, and it will need to be re-introduced when the new Congress convenes in January.

Sen. Coburn’s office did not reply to requests for comment on why he blocked the motion to expedite the bill.

As previously reported by DatacenterDynamics, the proposed bill would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to formulate a strategy for purchasing, maintenance and use of energy-efficient IT equipment within each federal agency. The OMB would also work with the Department of Energy (DOE) to create performance goals that can measure impact of the efficiency changes.

Data center-specific portions of legislation would require the DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study server and data center efficiency trends, as the EPA’s last report in this area came back in 2007.  Another portion of the bill requires all data centers operated by the federal government to undergo yearly inspection under the DOE’s Data Center Energy Practitioner Program (DCEP). Finally, the proposal would create an Open Data Initiative for federal agencies to share data center energy usage data and would help create a new metric to measure the energy efficiency of data centers.