Congresswoman Escobar Statement on Ratepayer Protection Act

Today, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) released the following statement on the Ratepayer Protection Act:

"After months of urging the Republican majority to allow the House to vote on data center regulation legislation, the only bill they are allowing to move forward is the Ratepayer Protection Act, which requires tech companies to pay for the energy generation and consumption of their data centers.

"While I voted in favor of this bill, it represents the absolute bare minimum that Congress should be doing. If this is as far as Republicans will go to protect American communities, it is a pathetic response to what is a top priority for communities like mine. I will continue to push Republicans to allow bills that fully protect our natural resources, air quality and pocketbooks and won't stop until we have the protections the American people deserve."

Congresswoman Escobar supports a number of bills to regulate data centers, establish guardrails, and prioritize consumers:

• The AI Data Center Site Selection Transparency Act
  • This bill would set requirements for new AI data centers, requiring that developers publicly disclose the location 180 days in advance, disclose impacts on energy and water, and restricting NDA agreements with public entities on data centers deals.
• The Power for the People Act
  • This bill ensures data centers are fully paying for their energy costs and associated infrastructure, creates a system to manage data center interconnection to the grid, and provides resources to improve accurate data center load forecasting.
• The Energy Bills Relief Act
  • This bill reinstates 2022 tax credits for home and system-wide energy improvements and ensures that facilities like data centers are paying for their own energy costs.
• Lowering Utility Bills Act
  • This bill would amend the Federal Power Act and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to require investor-owned electric utilities and gas utilities and transmission providers to, when establishing or calculating a return on equity, establish or calculate the return on equity at the lowest return on equity in an established range of reasonableness, and for other purposes.
• Responsible Data Center Siting Act
  • This bill directs the Secretary of Energy to establish best practices for the siting of data centers.
    
• Ratepayer Bill of Rights Act
  • This bill requires public disclosure of electricity and water use, infrastructure costs, rate impacts, public financial assistance, and related commitments associated with large data centers, and for other purposes.
    
• Responsible Data Center Siting Act
  • This bill directs the Secretary of Energy to establish best practices for the siting of data centers.