Robert J. Wittman

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Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act. This legislation will require State utility regulators to examine standards to ensure that data centers pay all the costs associated with their power generation, transmission lines, and grid upgrades needed to serve their facilities. The Commonwealth of Virginia is home to approximately 13 percent of all data centers in the world. Some of these data centers are located in the district that I represent. While data centers create economic opportunities for our communities, they also come with enormous challenges. Data centers support telehealth, mobile banking for American small businesses, and everyday technologies like streaming services. At the same time, they consume massive amounts of power and place increasing strain on our electric grid while threatening to increase costs for families. Virginians and Americans who choose to have data centers in their communities should not be paying higher electric bills as a result. Instead, these costs should be borne directly by the data center developers, the primary catalysts of this increased demand for energy. We have a responsibility to ensure that our constituents are not picking up the tab for data centers, and this legislation will do exactly that. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Ratepayer Protection Act, and I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage.