Congressman Brett Guthrie, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, discussed artificial intelligence policy, data centers, and the Ratepayer Protection Act during an appearance on Fox Business’ “The Bottom Line,” according to a July 23 statement.
Guthrie said, “Well, so here’s the issue, we’re competing with China, so a lot of people are focused on data centers, and that’s important, but we’ve been talking to stakeholders, and we have to beat China to control the information that flows around the world. Either our values are going to control it or Chinese totalitarian values are going to control it. In order to win the AI battle, we have to have access to data in the data centers. So we’ve talked to stakeholders that do AI, but the most important stakeholders to us are our constituents. We don’t want them to have to foot the bill.” He added that federal resources would be directed toward helping states implement their own Ratepayer Protection Pledge rather than enforcing a uniform federal standard.
Addressing New York’s moratorium on new data centers signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, Guthrie said he believes such measures could hinder economic opportunities for communities outside New York City. He said local communities in Kentucky had chosen not to participate in some cases but noted significant investments such as a $19 billion project by Anthropic in his district: “The school system in that community will be the wealthiest school system per capita in the Commonwealth. And I predict that other county officials in other states are going to be looking at that area… But we don’t want the local citizens footing the bill. We want the data centers doing that.”
Guthrie also discussed economic benefits from these projects: “They’re putting it in an old aluminum smelter site… So our old industrial America’s model is you go to the state, you get tax breaks… The smelter left, [but] data centers come and it’s going to pay its full bill.” He continued: “And if data centers don’t pay its full bill, I would tell communities not bring them in because there are enough businesses… willing pay what is fair… instead of paying [out], communities are going actually benefit.”
The House Energy and Commerce Committee addresses legislation related to energy policy, health care matters including pharmaceutical pricing reforms and broadband deployment initiatives; it stands as one of Congress’s oldest standing committees tracing its origins back to 1795 when formed as Committee on Commerce and Manufactures, according to its official website.