Speaker Jon Burns Applauds House Passage of Utility Ratepayer Protections

ATLANTA- Today, Speaker of the House Jon Burns (R-Newington) applauded the House's passage of House Bill 1063, sponsored by State Representative Brad Thomas (R-Holly Springs). HB 1063 aims to shield Georgia's utility ratepayers from increased costs associated with servicing data centers and other large-load energy consumers.

"The Georgia House has presented the strongest, most effective plan to ensure Georgia utility ratepayers aren't footing the bill for data centers," said Speaker Jon Burns. "This bill not only codifies the cost protection regulations adopted by the Public Service Commission but also goes a step further by safeguarding energy affordability for Georgia families and small businesses by ensuring data centers and large-load consumers pay their own way up front."

House Bill 1063 requires electric utility contracts with data centers to protect residential and retail customers from costs related to data center operation, mandates minimum billing requirements in contracts with large-load consumers to keep costs from being passed down to other customers, codifies protections for other customers if a data center were to default on its contract and mandates termination provisions to protect retail customers if an electric service contract with a data center ends.

"Georgia is experiencing unprecedented demand for energy from data centers. That growth can be good for our state, but only if it's managed responsibly," said Rep. Thomas. "The Public Service Commission has already put strong cost allocation rules in place. House Bill 1063 takes those protections and puts them into statute so they can't be weakened, reinterpreted or bypassed down the road."

The full text of HB 1063 may be found here.

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