Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (Mr. Guthrie) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this really important bill by my friend Mr. Evans from Colorado who led on this issue.…
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (Mr. Guthrie) for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this really important bill by my friend Mr.
Evans from Colorado who led on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the latest advancement in technology. If you think about the history of this great Nation as we celebrate 250 years of America, one of the things that America has been so successful at has been always being on the frontier of new innovations. In fact, in the last 150 years, America has led the world in advancements in technology.
Today is no different. In fact, today, America is at the heart of the domination of technology all around the world. If you think about some of the simplest things we are able to do in our lives, that give us the ability to have more free time, or the things you can do on a cell phone that would have taken a supercomputer 30 years ago to do, that is because of advancements in technology.
Artificial intelligence and data centers are no different. It is another advancement in technology. As we are advancing in technology, we have to do it the right way, Mr. Speaker, in a smart and thoughtful way. If you look at communities that have embraced data centers, some communities said it is not for me, and that is a choice communities make.
The Federal Government is not the one making that decision. What we have always said, and what President Trump took the leadership in doing, is meeting with all of the Big Tech companies building these massive data centers and said just make sure as you are making these big investments in communities, you won't add to the cost of a local community's ratepayer electricity rates.
The President got a commitment to do that. We are not fully codifying that. It is, in essence, a step in that direction what this bill is doing. But as the President did that, you saw companies going and making massive multibillion-dollar investments in some of our communities and helping those communities along the way, Mr. Speaker.
That story does not get told. Frankly, I think that story needs to get told more. I have seen massive data centers in my home State of Louisiana. In fact, if you go to little Richland Parish, a rural part of north Louisiana that not a lot of people live in, not a lot of opportunities for wealth in that parish, Mr. Speaker, but then Meta decided to build a data center, and that data center grew and grew as the community embraced it.
They worked with the community. They are building their own natural gas facilities. It is actually going to help the grid in that community because they are going to be paying their own way and anything extra they have is going to be off-loaded to the grid so the neighbors in that community will actually get lower utility rates.
Do you know what else happened, Mr. Speaker? This is another part of the story that is not getting told enough, but the data center is still being built. It is up to about $50 billion in private funding that is being built in little Richland Parish.
As they are building that data center, because of all of the increased sales tax collections to Richland Parish, they were able to give a bonus. I am not talking about the base salary of their schoolteachers. They gave a bonus to every schoolteacher in Richland Parish because of the building of that data center.
Mr. Speaker, do you know how much every schoolteacher in Richland Parish received a few months ago because of the data center? They received a bonus of $50,000 per teacher because of the data center.
Those are the stories that you are seeing in communities that have embraced it, where they worked with the local community. It is not a burden on that community. It is actually a tremendous benefit. Not only teachers will benefit, but small businesses are cropping up.
Loudoun County in Virginia, Mr. Speaker, is another community that made the decision for themselves. It is not a Washington choice. It is a local community choice, and I think everybody would agree with that. If there are local communities that don't want it, believe me there are other communities that will take those benefits.
Loudoun County in Virginia got the benefits of their data centers to the tune of a 30 percent reduction in property taxes for every homeowner in Loudoun County, Virginia. They are benefiting from that still to this day, as well as the jobs that come along with it. They are benefiting from the investment, the buildings that come along, and the small business growth that we are seeing.
There has been this assertion, Mr. Speaker, some of it funded by China, that data centers are driving up utility prices. There was a study done. In fact, the Institute for Energy Research did a State-by- State study in all 50 States of this country and they looked at energy costs, the kilowatt-per-hour cost in every State.
Some States have data centers. Some States don't. The study is titled: ``Have Data Centers Driven Up Electricity Prices?''
Their conclusion was clearly no, they do not. There was no disparity in kilowatt hours per customer in States that have data centers and States that don't.
Again, a lot of that is because President Trump made all of the data centers, the companies that build them, give those pledges that they will not have a negative impact on the ratepayers.
What they did find, Mr. Speaker, was quite interesting, and that was a disparity that does exist in electricity prices between States. It is not all States.
What they ultimately looked at is States that have a unified government, all one party, either Republican or either Democrat. The States that have all unified Democratic Party control in those States actually have higher electricity costs than States that have all Republican.
The Institute for Energy Research did the study. You can go find it online. It shows you State by State the kilowatt-per-hour cost. The reason it is rising is because a lot of those States that have unified Democratic government are also States that are losing population. Some hundreds of thousands to nearly millions of people have fled those States. As those States lose population because of bad policies, Mr. Speaker, their baseload capacity is the same. The cost to run their grid is the same. It is spread amongst fewer people because their bad policies are running hundreds of thousands or a million-plus people out of the State.
The States that are growing, that have good government policies, and that are attracting people and jobs, those States have lower kilowatt- per-hour costs for their consumers because the same grid has the same fixed costs, but there is more people to spread the cost around so those people pay less.
That is what actually is happening in this country. Look at all the States. Go look at the Institute for Energy Research study, Mr. Speaker, because it shows you what is really happening out there.
There is a revolution happening. China is competing, and America is competing. We surely do not want China to win this war. America is staying at the forefront. I want us to stay at the forefront. Let locals make the choice and let consumers reap the benefits. That is what is happening right now, and this bill, by my friend Congressman Evans, ensures that we continue to see that growth continue.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption.
