Latest news with #HouseBill3546
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bill shielding Oregonians from utility rate increases by Big Tech heads to Kotek
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – A bill passed the Oregon legislature on Thursday, aiming to shield Oregonians from taking on increased utility rates from Big Tech facilities in the state. House Bill 3546, known as the Protecting Oregonians With Energy Responsibility (POWER) Act, would hold companies behind facilities such as data centers or cryptocurrency operations, responsible for their own utility bills, If signed into law, the bill would create a separate pricing system for energy users who demand more than 20 megawatts, or roughly the same usage as a small city, according to the Democratic Majority Office. Tillamook opens first owned-and-operated facility outside of Oregon 'Data centers play an important role in our growing technology needs in the United States, and they need to pay their fair share for infrastructure required to meet their energy needs, rather than passing the costs on to residential ratepayers,' said Senator Janeen Sollman (D – Hillsboro, Forest Grove & Rock Creek), a chief sponsor of the bill. 'Large energy users have the potential to place significant strain on the grid, especially in regions where energy capacity is already stretched thin.' 'The cost to serve certain large energy users is spilling on to other ratepayers,' added Rep. Pam Marsh (D – Southern Jackson County), a chief sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives. 'This bill will help state regulators assign these high costs to the data centers and crypto mining entities that are consuming the energy.' The Democratic lawmakers note that industrial users currently pay about eight cents a kilowatt hour while households are charged more than double the rate at 19.6 cents per kilowatt hour. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now 'The bill helps protect everyday users, like families and small businesses, from paying the costs that big businesses are running up,' said Sen. Deb Patterson (D – Salem), who co-sponsored the POWER Act. 'Household budgets are stretched far enough as they are. They shouldn't be covering corporate costs, too.' The POWER Act passed the Senate in an 18-12 vote on Tuesday, with the Oregon House of Representatives concurring for the bill's final passage on June 5. The bill now heads to Oregon Governor Tina Kotek's desk for signature. When the bill was introduced in the House, Rep. David Brock Smith (R-Port Orford) raised concerns that the bill would discourage tech companies from growing their presence in Oregon. Drug trafficker sentenced to 15 years in prison after largest meth bust in Oregon history In his letter – which was supported by industry advocates such as the Data Center Coalition along with unions IBEW 48, IBEW 280 and UA 290 – Brock Smith said, 'data centers strengthen grid reliability through infrastructure investments and help stabilize residential electricity rates by providing consistent demand. The current proposed legislation, with its misaligned regulations, threatened these widespread community benefits and could discourage future development that supports our digital economy.' The bill comes as large technology companies are facing two growing demands to raise their energy supply for artificial intelligence and data centers, while meeting long-term goals of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as reported by the Associated Press. AI uses 'vast amounts of energy,' said, noting a 2024 report from the United States Department of Energy estimated that the electricity needed for data centers in the U.S. tripled in the last decade and is anticipated to double or triple again in 2028, when tech companies could consumer 12% of the nation's energy. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bill to protect residential electricity customers from subsidizing data center demand moves forward
QTS Data Centers in Hillsboro on Oct. 11, 2024. (Rian Dundon/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Oregon is close to ensuring data center owners pay what they owe for their growth following several years of painful residential electricity hikes driven in part by rising energy demand from the facilities. House Bill 3546, also called the POWER Act, passed the Senate on a party-line vote Tuesday and with bipartisan support in the House on Thursday. Five Republican representatives voted with Democrats to pass it, and Gov. Tina Kotek is expected to sign it. State Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, was one of two Republicans excused from voting on bills Thursday. Levy's family business in 2021 sold farmland to Amazon for a data center and receives wastewater used for farm irrigation from another Amazon data center. But under Oregon law, she would have had to vote on the bill if she had been on the House floor. The POWER Act would clear the way for the Oregon Public Utility Commission to ensure charges for grid expansion and infrastructure needed to power data centers are not passed onto residential and commercial customers by creating a separate customer class for data centers. Those centers are the fastest-growing energy users in the state. The state's Public Utility Commission, a three-person governor-appointed group, is charged with regulating the rates of privately owned electric and gas utilities in Oregon. Shannon Kellogg, a lobbyist and vice president for Amazon, said on LinkedIn that company officials asked Oregon lawmakers more than a month ago to pause consideration on the bill so they could allow more time for 'a more comprehensive solution that advances shared goals without unintended consequences, or consider additional amendments.' The bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, noted in a news release following the vote that a single 30 megawatt data center uses as much energy in one year as the entire city of Ashland, and can be built in less than two years. 'The POWER Act focuses on a subset of energy users that have a massive impact on the electrical grid,' she said. 'That demand is unique and requires a distinct solution.' The bill also applies to Bitcoin mining facilities, but exempts a number of other heavy energy users, such as semiconductor manufacturers, and applies only to new contracts data centers and Bitcoin facilities make with electric utilities. That means only newly built ones, or existing ones that require more energy and infrastructure down the road, will fall into the new rate class. Charlotte Shuff, a spokesperson for the watchdog Citizens' Utilities Board, said other states and Oregon are seeing demand grow for companies that want to build processing centers for Artificial Intelligence. Those are more like 250 megawatt data centers, which would consume in one year the same amount of energy as the entire city of Eugene. Oregon's data center market is the fifth largest in the nation, according to Chicago-based commercial real estate group Cushman & Wakefield. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and X, formerly named Twitter, have massive data centers in eastern Oregon as well as in The Dalles, Hillsboro and Prineville that require enormous amounts of energy to operate. Amazon data centers in eastern Oregon have caused 554% load growth at the Umatilla Electric Cooperative in just the last ten years, according to a Sightline Institute analysis of US Energy Information Administration data. Between 2013 and 2023, Oregon's overall electricity consumption rose by more than 20%, the analysis found. 'Data centers undoubtedly drove a major share, if not almost all, of this growth,' analysts wrote. Four Electric utilities — including the two biggest utilities in Oregon: Pacific Power and Portland General Electric, or PGE — absorbed 75% of that load growth from the data centers. Hundreds of thousands of residential customers of Oregon's three private, investor-owned electric utilities have struggled to keep up with double digit rate hikes since 2020. The state's Public Utility Commission approved a 5.5% increase in December for residential customers of PGE and a nearly 10% increase in residential electricity rates for Pacific Power customers. Overall rates for residential customers of both utilities — which collectively serve more than 1.4 million customers in Oregon — are now up about 50% since 2020, with the Public Utility Commission approving increases nearly every year for the past five years. Residential rate increases have risen more than twice the rate of inflation during that period. A record 64,000 Oregonians had their power shutoff for nonpayment at some point in 2024, according to the Citizens' Utilities Board. Johnny Earl, president of SEIU Local 503, a statewide union representing about 72,000 caregivers and other professionals, said in a news release that the bill is about fairness. 'Working families, low-income households, and small businesses — already stretched thin in a worsening economy — cannot subsidize the massive energy demands of corporate tech giants,' he wrote. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Oregon bill shielding utility rate increases from Big Tech passes Senate
PORTLAND, Ore. () – A bill passed the Oregon Senate on Tuesday that would shield Oregonians from paying higher utility costs to cover electricity usage by Big Tech facilities in the state. House Bill 3546, known as the Protecting Oregonians with Energy Responsibility (POWER) Act, would hold companies behind facilities such as data centers or cryptocurrency operations, responsible for their own utility bills, the Democratic Majority Office announced in a press release. The bill would establish a separate pricing system for electricity users that use more than 20 megawatts – which is roughly the same amount used to power a small city, the lawmakers explained. Neighbors, PBOT fed up with NW 13th outdoor plaza 'Data centers play an important role in our growing technology needs in the United States, and they need to pay their fair share for infrastructure required to meet their energy needs, rather than passing the costs on to residential ratepayers,' said Senator Janeen Sollman (D – Hillsboro, Forest Grove & Rock Creek), a chief sponsor of the measure in the Senate. 'Large energy users have the potential to place significant strain on the grid, especially in regions where energy capacity is already stretched thin.' Since 2021, electric rates from some power companies have risen by nearly 50% and thousands of families have had their power shut off because they could not afford the bill, the Democratic office said, noting large industrial users pay about two cents per kilowatt hour, while households are charged more than triple that rate. 'The cost to serve certain large energy users is spilling on to other ratepayers,' said Rep. Pam Marsh (D – Southern Jackson County), a chief sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives. 'This bill will help state regulators assign these high costs to the data centers and crypto mining entities that are consuming the energy.' Oregon hurdler somersaults over finish line to win state title 'Traditionally, growth in energy demand was relatively balanced across all users, justifying roughly equal distribution of costs. But the explosion of huge technology facilities has upended that traditional metric,' Marsh explained in a for the bill. 'Without intervention, the costs created by the disproportionate demand of big energy users will be borne by residential consumers who are already struggling.' 'The bill helps protect everyday users, like families and small businesses, from paying the costs that big businesses are running up,' Sen. Deb Patterson (D – Salem), a cosponsor of HB 3546, added in a statement after the bill's passage. 'Household budgets are stretched far enough as they are. They shouldn't be covering corporate costs, too.' The POWER Act passed the Senate in an 18-12 vote, moving the bill back to the Oregon House of Representatives for final passage. ICE used 'deceptive' practices to detain asylum seeker at Portland courthouse, attorneys say In written testimony against the bill, Rep. David Brock Smith (R-Port Orford) raised concerns that the bill would discourage tech companies from growing their presence in Oregon. In his letter – which was supported by industry advocates such as the Data Center Coalition along with unions IBEW 48, IBEW 280 and UA 290 – Brock Smith said, 'data centers strengthen grid reliability through infrastructure investments and help stabilize residential electricity rates by providing consistent demand. The current proposed legislation, with its misaligned regulations, threatened these widespread community benefits and could discourage future development that supports our digital economy.' The bill comes as large technology companies are facing two growing demands to raise their energy supply for artificial intelligence and data centers, while meeting long-term goals of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as reported by the Associated Press. AI uses 'vast amounts of energy,' said, noting a 2024 report from the United States Department of Energy estimated that the electricity needed for data centers in the U.S. tripled in the last decade and is anticipated to double or triple again in 2028, when tech companies could consumer 12% of the nation's energy. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
