Senate blocks House‑passed data‑centre power bill 57‑43 on party lines
The Ratepayer Protection Act cleared the House 417-3 but fell three votes short of 60 in the Senate. Democrats called it toothless because it only asks regulators to consider standards.
The Senate voted 57-43 on 30 September against advancing the Ratepayer Protection Act, short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, CBS News and KSAT reported. The bill, H.R. 9340, passed the House 417-3 earlier in September. Only four Democrats, Maggie Hassan, Amy Klobuchar, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, voted with Republicans, according to CBS News.
The bill, sponsored by Ohio Republican Jon Husted, would have set a framework that states could adopt. Under it, AI data centres drawing 100 megawatts or more would pay for new power and transmission rather than pass costs to households, according to Straight Arrow News. CBS News says it only required utility regulators to consider such standards, so compliance would be voluntary.
That voluntary design was the Democrats' objection. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called the bill "a fraud" and said "not a single company has to comply with it", according to CBS News and KSAT. Democrats backed an alternative from New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich that they say has real teeth, though that bill has not been put to a vote.
Husted had argued that passing the bill was the only way to show voters whose side senators are on before the midterm elections, KSAT reported. Both chambers are out of session for all of October, KSAT says, so the bill cannot move again before the election. Whether either party revives it afterwards is not confirmed.