Congressman Riley Moore Co-Sponsors Ratepayer Protection Act to Shield Consumers from Data Center Energy Costs
West Virginia Congressman Riley Moore has co-sponsored the 'Ratepayer Protection Act,' a bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation aims to prevent the costs associated with powering large data centers from being passed on to residential utility customers. The Act establishes a federal standard requiring utilities to design rates that ensure data centers consuming 100 megawatts or more cover the full cost of any new generation, transmission, or distribution infrastructure needed to serve them. This includes provisions for financial assurances from data centers to cover these upgrade costs upfront, even if a contract is later terminated. The bill intentionally sets broad federal guidelines, leaving the specifics of implementation and enforcement to individual states, which would have one year to consider and two years to decide on adopting the standards. Congressman Moore emphasized that the bill's scope is designed to avoid federal preemption of state laws, though he is ope...
