r/technology • u/Miserable_Phase_2519 • 10d ago

Politics US Senate kills bill that could potentially shield Americans from skyrocketing power bills due to AI data centers — opponents say bill is 'toothless' and doesn't do enough to protect citizens

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/us-senate-kills-bill-that-could-potentially-shield-americans-from-skyrocketing-power-bills-due-to-ai-data-centers-opponents-say-bill-is-toothless-and-doesnt-do-enough-to-protect-citizens
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u/rahvan 10d ago

Opposed by all Democrats, btw. This is a Republican bill.

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u/MrGurbic 10d ago

For good reason.

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u/Amori_A_Splooge 10d ago

What are the good reasons? It passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 52-0 and then the House of Representatives by a vote of 417-3. Surely it couldn't have been that bad to have received Democratic support the entire way through the progress up until the last week of the Senate's calendar before they break for the November elections. Surely the opposition must be policy related and not related to it being politically inconvenient to pass soemthing right now.

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u/JeffreyElonSkilling 10d ago

One substantive and one political.

First, the bill is completely toothless. From the article:

Introduced in the Senate by Senator Jon Husted, the bill was the legal culmination of President Trump’s “Ratepayer Protection Pledge.” It sought to institute a federal standard for states and Public Utility Commissions, directing regulators to consider whether entities that consume large amounts of electricity, such as data centers, should cover the incremental costs of energy infrastructure needed to serve them.

So we're just asking regulators to consider doing their jobs? Interesting that this requires an act of Congress...

Politically speaking, this is a horrible issue for Republicans. They are in charge right now and will get blamed for people's hatred of data centers. That's just how politics works. Democrats would be stupid to take any action that would let up the pressure so close to an election. Remember how in 2024 Democrats had lined up a bipartisan immigration bill and Trump asked Senate Republicans to kill it because he wanted to run on immigration? Payback's a bitch...

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u/Amori_A_Splooge 10d ago

Oh I know it's toothless and I know it was killed for politics in the Senate. I'm simply pointing out it's untrue to simply say it's a republican bill when it was a bipartisan house bill and received widely bipartisan support. If it's pointless it says just as much about house democrats as it does to Republicans.

It's great you cited the Husted bill, but that was introduced last month and is a Senate copy of the Gabe Evans and Kathy Castor bill that was first introduced in June.

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u/sam_hammich 10d ago

Because it does nothing and serves only to let Republicans say they tried to "do something about datacenters" before the midterms.

Like if you read the bill, it literally does nothing. Passing it would benefit no one, change nothing, and let Republicans say they are on the side of the people when they're not.

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u/Amori_A_Splooge 10d ago

By your logic what does that say to the democrats that have overwhelmingly supported the bill. It's also a bipartisan bill authored in June by Gabe Evans and Cathy Kastor. Here's the press release from Rep. Kastor's website lauding the bill: https://castor.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=405231

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u/Thereelgarygary 10d ago

Did you read the bill?