Senate vote to advance data center utility cost bill fails 57-43

The U.S. Senate failed to advance a bill Wednesday, Sept. 30, that would have required large data centers and similar tech facilities to pay the full cost of grid upgrades their power demands trigger. A cloture motion to end debate and move the measure forward got 57 votes, three short of the 60 needed. All 53 Republicans voted yes, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both of Alaska, joined by four Democrats. The other 41 Democrats and two independents voted no.

The bill, H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act, passed the House 417-3 on Sept. 16. Under it, rates for customers drawing at least 100 megawatts at a single site would have to recover the full, incremental cost of any generation, transmission or distribution upgrades needed to serve them. Utilities would first need financial assurances or contributions from those customers before building the upgrades.

In Alaska, at a May 18 legislative hearing on SB 250, state Rep. Donna Mears, D-Anchorage, said Railbelt electricity demand runs about three-quarters of a gigawatt. "There's news just this week that there's a 1-gigawatt facility being contemplated for the North Slope, which is more than the entire load that we've got now," she said.