Ratepayer Protection Act Fails Senate Vote 57-43

Where the Ratepayer Protection Act stands in the Senate

The bill is stuck at the first step in the Senate: a motion to start debate on it got 57 votes on September 30, 2026, and needed 60. Senators voted on "cloture on the motion to proceed" to H.R. 9340. Cloture is a vote to cut off debate, and this one decided whether the Senate would start debating the bill at all.

A cloture motion needs 3/5 of the Senate, which is 60 of 100 senators. This one got 57 yeas and 43 nays and was rejected.

This was not a vote on the bill itself. Because the motion failed, the Senate did not begin floor consideration of the bill.

The roll call (Vote 254) shows every Republican voting yea. Four Democrats joined them: Hassan, Klobuchar, Ossoff and Warnock. All other Democrats and both Independents, King and Sanders, voted nay.

A faster route had already been tried. According to McGuireWoods Consulting (MWC), Republican leadership asked on September 17 to pass the House bill by unanimous consent. That request succeeds only if no senator objects, and MWC says Senator Heinrich of New Mexico objected.

What the standard says about data center electricity costs

The bill's standard says that when a utility has to build more grid for a very large customer, the rates charged to that customer must be designed to recover the full cost. Picture a utility asked to build a new substation for a data center campus. If the company cancels the project a few years later, the substation is already built and its cost could fall on the remaining households through their rates, and the standard is written to prevent that.

The bill works by amending Section 111(d) of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), a federal law under which state regulators must consider standards that Congress sets. It adds a paragraph (22) with three parts. “What paragraph (22) requires” follows the bill as introduced on June 18.

What paragraph (22) requires

In plain terms, a large-load customer is a very large power user. The end of the first row matters most: recovery applies even if the customer terminates the contract or stops buying power. That keeps the upgrade cost with the customer the upgrade was built to serve.

The committee changed the scope after introduction. NACo reports that Energy and Commerce members amended the bill to target data centers more narrowly, whereas the introduced text covered any non-residential customer at the 100 MW line. “What paragraph (22) requires” therefore describes the introduced text, not the amended one.

Why states can still decline the standard

A state does not have to adopt the standard. Section 112 tells each state regulator to hold a proceeding on a PURPA standard and reach a determination. The bill as introduced sets one year to start that proceeding and two years to finish it.

A determination is not an adoption: PURPA Section 111(a) says nothing in it prevents a state authority from deciding that a standard is not appropriate to implement under its own state law. A commission can run the full proceeding and say no. Utilities outside state ratemaking jurisdiction carry the same duty themselves.

An exemption can also remove the duty before it starts under the introduced text. Sections 112(b) and (c) do not apply to a utility whose State acted before enactment, by implementing the standard or a comparable one, holding a proceeding on it, or voting on it in the legislature. The test is applied to each electric utility in a State, not to the State as a whole.

Who pays for data center power: the sponsors and the objection

The committee says the bill would have state regulators consider making data centers pay their own way, while Senator Heinrich objects, according to MWC, that leaving it to states is not enough. Representatives Evans of Colorado and Castor of Florida introduced the bill together. The committee forwarded it 52-0, and the House passed it 417-3.

Subcommittee Chairman Latta pointed out that numerous states, Ohio among them, already have large-load tariffs for data centers. That bears on the exemption above, which can lift the duty where a state has already acted. Chairman Guthrie tied the bill to protecting Americans from rising electricity costs while positioning the United States to win the race for AI dominance.

MWC reports that Sen. Heinrich argued that the state-led approach does not go far enough, and that he backs his own GRID Savings Act, which would set stronger federal requirements on large electricity users. The Georgia Municipal Association's summary describes a similar criticism: critics call the standards voluntary rather than mandatory, and argue they may duplicate policies already in place in some states.

What to watch next after the failed Senate vote

The next step is Senate passage, which has not started. A bill becomes law only after the Senate passes it and the president signs it. As of the September 30 vote, the Senate had not begun floor debate on this one.

MWC wrote that further action was unlikely until after the November midterm elections. It noted that the Senate is scheduled to return on November 9, when the chamber could take up the bill in the regular way or try unanimous consent again. That is MWC's outlook, not a schedule the Senate has announced for this bill.

The White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge is a separate matter from H.R. 9340. It is a voluntary commitment by data center and technology companies. Another bill, on shutting down AI systems, is covered in AI Kill Switch Act: DHS Shutdown Power and Scope.