Jayapal Statement on Vote for Ratepayer Protection Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) released the following statement after voting for the Ratepayer Protection Act. 

“I voted for this bill because there is nothing objectionable in it, and at least it makes slight headway in proposing regulatory standards for data centers to operate and not push costs onto consumers. But I want to be clear: this bill has no teeth to it—it does not require states to do anything. It is merely a suggested standard that states are not required to adopt. It does absolutely nothing to address the very real concerns that voters have around AI, data centers, and the safety and accessibility of their water and air. And importantly, it does nothing to actually hold AI companies responsible for the havoc that they are wreaking on communities across the country.

“Let’s remember that Donald Trump continues to call the threats of AI a ‘hoax’ and that this Administration — right now — has laws that could be enforced against the AI companies to hold them accountable for the threats they have unleashed in surveillance, scraping knowledge, and creating models that could very seriously cause the extinction of the human race, in the words of their own researchers and CEOs.

“We need real solutions to rising costs of energy, like the Energy Bills Relief Act, rather than backroom deals that help to shield big polluters and data centers while doing very little to address the affordability crisis that people are facing. I intend to continue doing that work.”