Taxpayers would be held harmless from large electricity users, such as data centers, under legislation backed by Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted, with voting possibly as early as this week. The legislation already received overwhelming support in the U.S. House of Representatives, where just three members of Congress opposed its passage.
\n\nHusted’s office said the bill aims to ensure families and small businesses are not left paying for the energy infrastructure needed to support new data centers.
\n\nThe Ratepayer Protection Act would require states to consider establishing standards for energy regulators when connecting large electricity users, such as data centers, to their grids. The companies would then pay for the power generation, transmission lines, and other infrastructure needed to serve their facilities and prevent shifting those costs to ratepayers.
\n\n“Working families, small businesses and senior citizens should not open up their electric bills and discover the pain for the power infrastructure needed by some large tech company in the world or in their neighborhood,” Husted said in remarks on the Senate floor. “That is the principle behind the Ratepayer Protection Act. In plain language, if you create the cost, you should pay the cost. Most importantly, it will help the…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/
