WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill that attempts to address voter worries about data centers and their impact on energy costs failed to advance in the Senate on Wednesday, falling victim to an election-year clash on how best to address a growing concern.
Watch the Senate floor in the video player above.
Before leaving Washington to campaign, Senate Republicans reserved one of the chamber’s final votes for a bill they hoped would underscore efforts to address the impact data centers have on voters’ monthly energy bills. The bill needed 60 votes to advance, but fell short, 57-43.
WATCH: How data centers became a major issue in the midterms
The bill is a modest one. It requires utility regulators to consider adopting a federal standard that charges large power customers a rate that covers the cost of the system upgrades needed to serve them. Democrats say it amounts to a suggestion and that more is needed. Republicans say the bill sends a message to regulators to act.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, is in a tough reelection battle and has been labeled in campaign ads as the “face of data centers” by his Democratic challenger, former Sen. Sherrod Brown.
“You all know this is the only game in town,” Husted told reporters in advocating for his bill. “This bill passing is the only way to get a chance to prove to the American people before the midterm elections whose side you’re on.”
Senate Democrats say the bill isn’t tough enough
The measure passed the House by a vote of 417-3. It needed support from at least seven Democratic senators to proceed to a final vote, but that didn’t happen given the criticism from within their ranks that it doesn’t go far enough and knowing that passage could give Husted’s reelection prospects a lift.
“The bill is a fraud, plain and simple,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Democrats have offered competing proposals. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. sponsored legislation that would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue rules for large electricity customers that requires them to pay for necessary grid upgrades.
“They want it optional, which means zero. We want it mandatory,” Schumer said.
Republicans are looking to position Democrats as obstructionists who are blocking progress on key voter concerns. Husted’s bill is one example. Another would be the bill from Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., that would bar members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks. The issue is a popular one with candidates running for office this election cycle, but also includes voter identification requirements that Democrats have called a poison pill.
Thune teed up both bills for procedural votes and both failed to meet the 60-vote threshold for advancing.
“Both pieces of legislation strike at the very heart of issues that the American people care deeply about, passionately about, and we’ll see if the Democrats are willing to take yes for an answer,” Thune said.
Data centers have become a top campaign issue
The House and Senate are both expected to be out of session for all of October. The House left in mid-September, canceling nearly two weeks of votes as Republicans were anxious to get on the campaign trail in a bid to keep their majority in the next Congress.
President Donald Trump has embraced the building of more data centers, but there is growing wariness from voters. About 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of new data centers that can be built, including most Democrats and Republicans.
And a majority of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built.
In Ohio, a data center hot spot with closely contested races for governor and U.S. Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a recent memo that Husted is vulnerable to losing his seat because of the centers. Husted helped promote Ohio as a destination for data centers while serving as lieutenant governor.
The Ohio race is seen as vital to determining control of the Senate, helping explain why the data center bill has generated so much scrutiny and is so hotly contested despite the overwhelming vote it received in the House.
Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Husted said that the bill requires states to at least confront the issue of data centers paying their own way for their power and the grid improvements needed to serve them. He said the bill could hardly get broader support than it did in the House, but by blocking the bill in the Senate, Democrats would be showing they don’t care about the issue of affordability.
“Let’s hold data centers accountable and let’s stop blocking a path to affordability,” Husted said.
Legislation to permanently ban the sale of Chinese vehicles in the U.S. stalled out on Wednesday as senators struggled to seal an agreement, virtually guaranteeing that the bill will have to wait until after the November elections.
The bipartisan bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, aims to prevent China’s auto industry from gaining a foothold in the U.S. market. It would ban the import, manufacture and sale of internet-connected vehicles, software and hardware linked to China or other foreign adversaries, including Russia and North Korea.
Chinese automakers are already effectively banned from selling or building vehicles in the U.S. under a policy put into place by the Biden administration, but senators are hoping to more permanently shut the door.
The summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump in Washington last week, which focused in part on trade between the world’s two largest economies, had given the legislation renewed momentum. Slotkin said nearly every senator was prepared to support it, and they had initially planned to seek passage last week without a formal roll call vote.
Senators delayed action to continue negotiations with the lone holdout, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who argued the legislation could unfairly sweep in Mercedes-Benz. The bill would bar vehicles made by companies with more than a 15% ownership stake from Chinese entities. Mercedes-Benz has nearly 20% passive Chinese ownership.
Supporters say they will try again after the elections. But the delay is a setback for bipartisan legislation that has drawn support from automakers and labor unions as Washington grapples with the growing global reach of China’s auto industry — and concerns about potential surveillance technology.
“It is literally a driving spy machine on wheels,” Slotkin said of Chinese vehicles. “All of that data and all of that information goes back to Beijing.”
Lawmakers see threat from Chinese EVs
Lawmakers and analysts have warned of dire consequences if Chinese EVs should become available in the U.S.
“I am concerned about what can happen to the U.S. automobile industry with the Chinese electric vehicles,” said Republican Sen. Steve Daines in an interview with The Associated Press before the Trump-Xi summit. “They are remarkable, high quality at a much lower cost. But it’s not fair if you have a product that is significantly subsidized by a government to be able to come into our market.”
Chinese automakers have expanded rapidly overseas, competing aggressively on price and technology and putting pressure on established manufacturers in Europe and other markets. In the first eight months of this year, China’s exports of new-energy vehicles more than doubled from the previous year, shipping out more than 3.4 million vehicles, according to China Association of Automobile Manufactures.
Chinese automakers supplied 60% of global electric car sales in 2025, while European and North American automakers were each responsible for about 15% of global sales, according to IEA, or the International Energy Agency.
Their emergence has raised concerns in Detroit that allowing them into the U.S. could expose domestic automakers to a new source of lower-cost competition.
Trump, however, has at times taken a more welcoming approach to Chinese investment in the U.S. auto industry. Speaking at the Detroit Economic Club in January, he said he was open to Chinese automakers building factories in the United States as long as they employed American workers.
“If they want to come in and build the plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that’s great. I love that,” Trump said. “Let China come in.”
That position has put Trump at odds with an unusual coalition of lawmakers, automakers and labor unions that has pushed to keep Chinese vehicles out of the U.S. market.
In April 2026, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said “no” when he was asked if Chinese EV makers such as BYD would come and set up joint ventures in the U.S.
But in early September, before he hosted China’s Xi, Trump again said he would not oppose Chinese automakers building cars in the United States.
The White House didn’t respond to a request by AP regarding its stance on the bill.
