This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
During its last week in session, U.S. senators tried to pass a flurry of bills with little success.
Republican leaders teed up procedural votes to advance two bills that Democrats signaled they would not support, including Colorado Republican Rep. Gabe Evans’ Ratepayer Protection Act.
Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper voted against advancing both measures.
The bill, which passed the House 417-3, would require states to consider having data center owners pay for any added infrastructure or electricity costs and not have it borne by ratepayers.
Democrats slammed the bill. “The bill is a fraud. I can sum up the shortcomings of the Republican data center bill with one word: optional. The bill is optional,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said on the floor.
“Basically this bill’s a piece of s***,” quipped Hickenlooper, saying the bill is not enforceable, but merely a suggestion. “But we’ve got a couple of bills that are already out there that are much stronger.”
Evans, however, criticized the move as political.
“Rather than joining the House in putting Americans first, Senate Democrats choose to prioritize political games over a commonsense solution that protects ratepayers across the country,” he said in a statement. “The House proved that this wasn’t a partisan issue. Senate Democrats decided to make it one.”
Bennet said he’d be the first in line to vote yes on a bill that lowers costs for ratepayers and makes data centers pay their own way. “This bill fails that test and does nothing to undo the tens of billions in tax breaks for data centers that Gabe Evans and other Republicans supported,” he said in a statement.
Bennet was referencing tax incentives (100% bonus depreciation, Opportunity Zone Enhancements) in the One Big Beautiful Bill, otherwise known as the Working Families Tax Cut, that data center operators have been utilizing.
The bill did not have any hearings in the Senate before being brought to the floor and was led by Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, who like Evans, is facing a tough reelection fight.
The other bill that failed to advance via recorded vote is one designed to stop stock trading by members of Congress. Senate Democrats blocked the Stop Insider Trading Act, which the House passed by a narrow margin in July, from clearing a procedural vote. House Republicans attached an unrelated poison pill measure that would require showing ID to vote.
Still, these votes will provide messaging opportunities for Republicans on voter ID and affordability, casting Democrats as the “Party of No".
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic move to bring to the floor a resolution that would require the State Department to report on violence against U.S. citizens in the West Bank by Israel. The Democrat-led resolution was sponsored by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
Senators from both sides of the aisle blocked attempts to pass bills via unanimous consent, a process that can get a bill passed quickly but only requires one senator to object and block it. Bills ranging from the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill to hold social media companies and digital platforms accountable for harm to minors, to attempts to stop President Trump from unilaterally cutting congressionally approved funding to setting up a National Fraud Enforcement Division within the Department of Justice all faced objections to quick passage.
But some bills did pass with unanimous support from all Senators, including the Crystal Reservoir Conveyance Act. The bill led by Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd in the House and Sen. Michael Bennet in the Senate would convey property and water rights around Crystal Reservoir to the city of Ouray. That bill will now head back to the House.
A bipartisan duo of Western senators also got a bill to ensure that states aren’t penalized under the Clean Air Act (CAA) for conducting prescribed burns. The House passed a different bill on how prescribed fires would be treated under CAA from Evans called the FIRE Act.
Senate poised to advance permitting reform after the election
Senators did get one major bipartisan policy win before adjourning. The leaders of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources committee released text of a permitting reform bill, titled the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act.
“This is a major step towards making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure projects, certainly without giving up any of the strong protections for our environment,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, the Republican chair of the Environment and Public Works committee.
It contains priorities for Republicans, such as reforms to how environmental reviews are conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. And it contains Democratic priorities like making it easier to place major interstate power lines and getting the White House to lift its block on some solar and wind projects.
It also has a provision that would mandate that data center developers pay the costs for extra generation and infrastructure and not ratepayers.
“The wins from this, I think, could be very, very big ones,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, ranking member of EPW. “This should lower electricity costs measurably for Americans. This should increase clean power significantly for Americans. This should significantly add construction and jobs across the country, and this should contribute to a lift in America’s overall economy.”
The Senate is expected to act on the bill when the chamber returns after the November election. Hickenlooper, who has long pushed for permitting reform, said he was cautiously optimistic.
Capito, Whitehouse and Republican Chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Ranking Member Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said they expect their colleagues to review the text and offer amendments. They added they were also in touch with key counterparts in the House.
The quartet did not expect the midterm elections to impact the outlook for the bill.
“We have negotiated this thing in a way that really is good for both sides,” Lee told reporters.
Capito said the goal is to have this bill be the first vote when the Senate returns on Nov. 9.
