Senate Republicans are scrambling to hold at least one vote on a cost-of-living issue before adjourning for the midterm elections, a last-ditch effort to convince voters to keep them in the majority.
The plan is to hold a roll call vote on the Ratepayer Protection Act, a House-passed bill to prevent electricity consumers from shouldering the energy costs of data centers built in their communities.
“Everybody’s going to get a chance to decide whether they are for the American consumer or not,” said Ohio GOP Sen. Jon Husted, the lead Senate sponsor of the bill.
Democrats “say they’re for more affordability. This is a chance for everybody to prove it,” he said. “And I hope we get it passed.”
Mr. Husted’s Democratic opponent, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, has attacked him for giving out billions in “sweetheart tax cuts” to bring data centers to Ohio when he was lieutenant governor.
The vote on his bill to ensure consumers don’t foot the bill may be too little, too late to make a difference in the Ohio race.
“It’s good policy. Maybe we ought to do it. But if people are doing it under the assumption that it creates a sea change, I just don’t buy it,” said retiring North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis.
Mr. Tillis said it is “irrational” to believe passing the data center bill will change voters’ minds or that there is anything the Senate can do this late in the election cycle to shift the mood of the electorate.
“A lot of that’s baked in,” he said.
Mr. Husted tried to pass the data center bill last week by unanimous consent, but Democrats blocked it.
Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said the measure is “feckless” because it does not do anything to actually force data centers to pay for their own electricity costs.
“It seems like such a transparent attempt to pass some bill before the election, but it’s not going to help,” he said.
The Ratepayer Protection Act asks state utility regulators and non-regulated utilities to “consider” adopting a federal standard requiring electricity providers to recover the costs of serving data centers with an aggregate, peak electric demand of 100 megawatts or more.
Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat, dismissed it as a “show vote” and suggested the Senate instead pass his more comprehensive data center bill that addresses other issues besides power costs, including water, setbacks and non-disclosure agreements.
“You got to have teeth, and that teeth would be you shouldn’t get bonus depreciation until you do that,” he said, referring to a tax break that allows businesses to more quickly write off investments in physical equipment, such as machinery and computers.
The vote on Mr. Husted’s data center bill comes as Senate Republicans are increasingly speaking out about their party not having done enough to address cost-of-living issues, which Democrats have hammered them on.
“We haven’t done a damn thing, and it’s biting us in the ass right now,” said Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley also said he is “worried” about Republicans’ limited legislative record.
“We ought to vote on capping the price of insulin. We ought to vote on my bill to do no taxes on health care,” he said. “I can think of a lot more things. We got to suspend the federal gas tax.”
“I think what matters in these races is what the candidates do, and we actually need to do something in order to have something to run on,” Mr. Hawley said.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, one of the Republicans considered vulnerable this cycle, said she made a pitch to her colleagues on Thursday to vote on her bipartisan bill to cap the cost of insulin at $35 per month.
Other GOP incumbents are largely campaigning on the sweeping tax cut package they passed more than a year ago. Ms. Collins voted against the bill because of concerns about the impact of its cuts to Medicaid spending.
Mr. Kennedy said he’s been pressuring Republican leaders to do more to address cost-of-living issues since the tax cut law was enacted. He said Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been “too cautious,” trying to work with Democrats instead of using the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to pass more party-line bills.
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, pointed the blame in a different direction.
“We’re flying into some serious headwinds on the issues because the president does not believe that we should address affordability issues, which are top of mind for most voters,” he said. “So you can have the best candidate in the world, you can have all the money in the world, but if you’re not running on issues that people care about, then you’re not going to win.”
Mr. Cornyn lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is trailing Democrat James Talarico in public polls.
The Senate has one more week left in session before it adjourns for a long recess stretch of campaigning before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
In addition to the data center bill, Republicans are considering teeing up a vote on a House-passed bill to ban lawmakers from trading stocks. That measure includes provisions requiring voters to show photo ID when casting their ballots, a key GOP election integrity priority.
Some Republicans have pushed for votes on measures to address voters’ concerns about fuel prices, but that is unlikely to happen, given disagreements over the best approach.
A bipartisan push to enact safety guardrails around artificial intelligence is also unlikely to see action before the election, despite recent alarms about AI escaping human controls.
“We continue talking, but we’re not there yet,” Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, said of bipartisan negotiations. He had hoped to hold a committee markup on AI safety bills this month but said that is now “likely to be after midterms.”
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