President Donald Trump said he is discussing the Ratepayer Protection Act with Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune after Senate Republicans failed to advance the measure through unanimous consent. The House passed the bill 417-3 earlier this week. It would require state utility regulators to consider whether large electricity users, including hyperscale data centers, should bear the incremental costs of generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure built to serve them. The bill applies to data centers or campuses with peak demand of at least 100 megawatts and would allow states to retain primary responsibility for implementation. Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, blocked the Senate proposal on Thursday, arguing that voluntary commitments by states and data-center developers did not go far enough. The dispute comes as recent PJM capacity auctions recorded more than $21 billion in data-center-related costs across 13 states and Washington, D.C., with affected household electricity bills potentially rising by $70 per month by 2028. Trump continues to support data-center expansion as important to U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence, while a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll found that only 11% of Americans support building an AI data center in their community.