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Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked legislation to protect ratepayers from the massive increase in electricity costs being caused by the data center boom. Democrats termed the bill “toothless” in a effort to address a major concern of voters in the approach to the November elections.
The Ratepayer Protection Act did not receive the 60 votes needed to move forward as it was defeated in a 57-43 vote. Four Democrats, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, crossed party lines to vote with Republicans in favor of the legislation.
"Americans are calling for real solutions, real guardrails, real solutions on AI. Republicans’ toothless datacenter bill completely misses the mark," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. He also went after President Trump for a meeting with top tech executives on Tuesday during which the president said he got the companies to agree to limits on the development of AI that could pose dangers to humans. “Relying on ‘self-regulation’ is how we got into this mess,” Schumer said.
The House already passed this bill, with only a few “nay” votes.
Construction of large data centers and associated power consumption have become issues of growing voter concern as AI and other technologies have experienced explosive growth over the past several years. The bill seeks to require electric utilities to consider whether data centers should bear the costs of necessary upgrades to transmission, generation and distribution infrastructure and have those costs paid by the data center rather than shifted to households and businesses as utility costs increase.
The legislation, which was sponsored by House Member Gabe Evans (R-CO) – a top Democratic target in November’s elections – in the House and by Ohio Sen. Jon Husted in the Senate, was proposed ahead of the November 3 midterm elections as part of a larger effort by Republican Senate leaders to frame the current session of Congress as a way to lower the cost of living for working Americans.
"Big tech needs to pay their own way and not pass the cost of their growth to local communities and states," said Husted. The bill, supported by Trump to sign into law, is one that Husted said "does that".
A recent poll has found that Republican Senator Jon Husted of Ohio is trailing his Democratic opponent, former Senator Sherrod Brown, who has accused Husted of compromising with the data center industry and other corporate interests in order to receive their support.
And while this was a bill supported by the Republican leadership in the Senate to try to help Husted, it presented a bit of a problem for the Democrats. Wouldn’t they want to vote to lower the electricity bills of working people?
However, the Senate Democrats’ decision to oppose the legislation is another matter entirely. Instead, they argue that the bill would not have been effective in preventing datacenters from consuming excessive amounts of power. Today’s vote was among the last for the Senate before it recesses for the midterms. The Senate will return to work on Friday and then recess for the campaign trail.
