Democrats Campaign On Power Bills After Blocking GOP Data Center Plan

Democratic Senate candidates are campaigning on data center electricity costs mere weeks after Senate Democrats blocked a Republican bill aimed at keeping those costs off households.

Former Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has called his opponent, Republican Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, “the face of data centers” and pledged to “require the data centers pay the full cost of their electricity, not you,” Roll Call reported Monday. Husted is the Senate sponsor of the Ratepayer Protection Act, which fell short on a procedural vote Sept. 30.

The bill received 57 votes to advance, three short of the 60 needed, according to the Senate’s roll call. All 43 votes against it came from Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them, while four Democrats voted yes. Brown, who is seeking a return to the Senate, did not vote on it.

Husted is seeking another way to pass the measure, including through bipartisan permitting legislation, a spokesperson for the senator said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Senate Democrats’ argument against the Ratepayer Protection Act was a cop-out and blatantly ignored what the American people want,” Husted’s spokesperson said in a statement to the DCNF.

Democrats said the measure was too weak because states could reject its cost protections. Democratic New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich objected when Husted sought to pass the bill by unanimous consent Sept. 17 and asked the Senate to pass his own GRID Savings Act instead, according to Heinrich’s office.

Brown’s campaign and Heinrich’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

The House passed the bill 417-3 on Sept. 16. It would require state regulators and utilities that set their own rates to consider standards that make large data centers cover the cost of power-generation and grid upgrades needed to serve them, according to the bill text. The White House backed the bill, saying President Donald Trump’s advisers would recommend that he sign it.

“Senator Husted’s bill outlines a federal standard. It then requires states to consider that standard and determine what would best address their own state’s individual needs,” Husted’s spokesperson said in a statement to the DCNF.