WASHINGTON — Despite widespread support in the House, the Senate failed to advance legislation Wednesday aimed at shielding Americans from electricity costs associated with data centers.
Senate Democrats blocked the Ratepayer Protection Act from moving forward 57-43. But four Democratic senators – Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia – joined Republicans to vote for the bill.
The legislation would establish a framework that state regulators could adopt to ensure consumers don’t pay for data centers’ energy costs as the massive facilities pop up around the country.
“Americans are calling for real solutions, real guardrails, real solutions on AI,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “Republicans’ toothless data center bill completely misses the mark.”
Senate Democrats argue the Ratepayer Protection Act doesn’t go far enough to address ballooning concerns around data centers and their energy use. The lawmakers also argue that the bill lacks enforcement mechanisms.
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., a cosponsor of the bill, said Schumer helped block the bill to ensure Republicans didn’t get a win on affordability before lawmakers leave Washington for the campaign trail ahead of the midterms.
“We’re just trying to make things easier to do what’s right for the power company as well as the people that buy the power, and so we’re just trying to make it easier,” Tuberville told ADN. “And I don’t like government oversight, but this would have been something good.”
The bipartisan legislation stipulates that large load data centers, those producing at least 100 megawatts of energy, should pay the full cost of their transmission lines, power generation and energy infrastructure rather than passing it on to consumers’ bills.
“No family, business, or ratepayer in Alabama should subsidize data centers,” U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., a cosponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “President Trump took a bold first step in announcing a Ratepayer Protection Pledge to not only ensure America continues to beat China in the AI race, but also, importantly, to protect consumers.”
The measure would codify the White House’s pledge, announced in March, that companies could voluntarily agree to pay for the full costs of their energy use.
The House handily passed the bill last month 417-3 as one of the final votes the lower chamber took before the elections. All of Alabama’s House delegation supported it.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are eager to tout legislative action aimed at reining in data centers and artificial intelligence on the campaign trail.
Previously, Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio, who’s locked in a tight reelection fight with former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, sought to pass the Ratepayer Protection Act through unanimous consent. But Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., blocked it over the bill’s voluntary framework and instead offered his own data center bill, which Republicans blocked.
Senate Republicans also attempted to advance a bill on Wednesday to ban stock trading by members of Congress, but it failed because Democrats objected to federal voter ID requirements included in the legislation.