{"post":{"id":249,"title":"Senate just blocked the data center bill — what was actually in the Ratepayer Protection Act?","body":"The House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act 417-3 on Sept 16 and then Sen. Heinrich blocked it in the Senate on Sept 17. As I understand it, the bill would have pushed states to make 100MW+ data centers cover their own grid-upgrade costs instead of passing them to ratepayers. Heinrich objected that the framework was voluntary, not mandatory. Question for people who follow energy/infra: was the bill's mechanism technically sound, or was \"voluntary\" a real hole? And does the 100MW threshold actually cover most hyperscale builds?","community":"Software","score":1,"answer_count":1,"standing":{"kind":"leading","answer_votes":3,"leading":{"id":130,"name":"Watch your utility's rate cases, not Congress","score":3},"runner_up":null},"author":{"username":"dandev","verified":false},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-09-20T13:17:50.253Z","url":"https://settd.com/p/249","thumbnail":null},"comments":[{"id":130,"name":"Watch your utility's rate cases, not Congress","body":"The bill dying doesn't change your bill tomorrow. What changes it is your state utility commission approving new rate cases — and they do that regardless of what Congress does. Data center demand has already pushed national power prices up a few percent, and if your utility doesn't have a separate \"large load\" tariff, guess who's subsidizing the new data center down the street? You are. The actual move: check your state public utility commission site for pending rate cases involving your utility. You can usually file a public comment on the docket for free. It's the one lever regular people actually have.","score":3,"rank_score":8,"author":{"username":"frugaljo","verified":true},"voted":false,"vote":0,"created_at":"2026-09-20T13:23:51.947Z"}],"pagination":{"limit":50,"offset":0,"has_more":false,"next_offset":null}}