The fight over data centers and rising electricity bills reached the U.S. Senate floor last week, where Democrats blocked a measure sponsored by Ohio Sen. Jon Husted aimed at keeping tech companies from driving up power costs for consumers.
Speaking at a rally in Vandalia on Saturday, President Donald Trump said Husted had brought the Ratepayer Protection Act to the Senate floor just three days earlier, and that nearly every Senate Democrat voted to stop it. The legislation would prevent data centers from raising electricity costs and require developers to pay their own way by funding the power generation and infrastructure their projects demand.
The bill tracks with a White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge that seeks to ensure large technology companies behind data centers benefit surrounding communities rather than burdening them. Trump has defended the rapid buildout of massive data centers, arguing that blocking them would hand an advantage to China in the global race over artificial intelligence. Still, he backed Husted’s approach of letting the projects proceed while shielding ratepayers.
The issue has become one of the most contentious in Ohio politics. An April poll from Bowling Green State University found most Ohioans believe data centers are bad for home energy costs and the environment, and more than 70 percent of respondents favored temporarily banning new centers until the effects are better studied. Democrats have poured $7 million into anti-data-center messaging in Ohio, and a National Republican Senatorial Committee memo warned this summer that the issue could be “the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck” in his toss-up race against former Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Brown, for his part, has branded Husted “the face of data centers,” arguing that as lieutenant governor he championed massive tax breaks for tech companies while local communities got little say. Ohio Democrats have pointed out that Ramaswamy himself has millions invested in data centers, launching a mobile billboard outside the Statehouse last week to make that point. With early voting set to begin Tuesday, the battle over who owns the data center debate — and the electricity bills that come with it — is shaping up as one of the defining fights of the final month of the campaign.