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{"id":27178,"date":"2026-09-17T16:05:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T16:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/husted-will-try-to-clear-house-passed-data-center-ratepayer-bill\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:05:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T16:05:02","slug":"husted-will-try-to-clear-house-passed-data-center-ratepayer-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/husted-will-try-to-clear-house-passed-data-center-ratepayer-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Husted will try to clear House-passed data center ratepayer bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/307927\" data-person-id=\"307927\">Jon Husted<\/a> will try to send the first major legislative action to address the costs of the artificial intelligence boom to President Donald Trump&#8217;s desk Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The Ohio Republican, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/09\/16\/jon-husted-data-centers-senate-01078885\" target=\"_blank\">facing a tough reelection bid<\/a>, will try to pass the <a href=\"https:\/\/legislation.politicopro.com\/bill\/US_119_S_5028?q=Ratepayer+Protection+Act\" target=\"_blank\">Ratepayer Protection Act<\/a> by requesting unanimous consent from his colleagues, a process by which senators can swiftly clear legislation. It would take only one senator to object, however, to sink the effort.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSenator Husted will go to the floor this afternoon and request a live UC on the Ratepayer Protection Act,\u201d said Olivia Tripodi, a spokesperson for his office.<\/p>\n<p>If passed, the Ratepayer Protection Act could become Congress\u2019s answer to address the costs of the data center build-out ahead of the midterm election. It comes after weeks of internal debate among lawmakers in both parties over how to best respond to growing backlash against data centers and could set the stage for further congressional action on AI in the months ahead.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear, however, if all Democrats will line up behind the bill, which passed in a broad bipartisan House vote of 417-3 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats haven\u2019t said if they will block Husted&#8217;s bill, but they could make a counteroffer to try to pass their own legislation instead, according to two people granted anonymity to speak candidly. Some Democrats have said the bill doesn\u2019t go far enough to protect ratepayers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Data centers is a key issue and Jon Husted is in a very tough race, &#8230; so this is a frequent approach: last-minute legislation on a subject that&#8217;s controversial in the senatorial contest,\u201d said Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51180\" data-person-id=\"51180\">Dick Durbin<\/a> (D-Ill.).<\/p>\n<p>The bill would require states to consider \u2014 but not mandate they adopt \u2014 a federal standard ensuring large data center operators cover 100% of the costs of new generation and transmission upgrades.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/151827\" data-person-id=\"151827\">Mike Lee<\/a> (R-Utah) also said he would need to review the bill more closely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;ve got to review that more closely if it&#8217;s going to be UC,\u201d Lee said Tuesday. \u201cThere are several other procedural mechanisms by which this could receive a vote in some fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Husted is leading the Senate version of the bill, while Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/443065\" data-person-id=\"443065\">Gabe Evans<\/a> (R-Colo.) and Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51854\" data-person-id=\"51854\">Kathy Castor<\/a> (D-Fla.) sponsored the House bill.<\/p>\n<p><i>Anthony Cruz contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Jon Husted will try to send the first major legislative action to address the costs of the artificial intelligence boom to President Donald Trump&#8217;s desk Thursday. The Ohio Republican, facing a tough reelection bid, will try to pass the Ratepayer Protection Act by requesting unanimous consent from his colleagues, a process by which senators [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}