You’re paying higher energy bills while data centers profit

Across the country, tech companies are gunning to build data centers on whatever land they can get their hands on.

These facilities use as much power as 100,000 homes and take enormous amounts of water to cool. For the parts of Oregon and our country that are already drought-prone, that's a strain on our resources we cannot afford.

Meanwhile, the demand data centers are putting on our energy grids are driving up costs for everyone else. Utility bills have skyrocketed in the last year thanks to Republican policies that are gutting new energy projects and allowing data centers to gobble up energy from the grid.

But even with those insane costs, they're being built all over the country as fast as possible, including in Oregon.

Working folks shouldn't be footing the bill to subsidize the richest companies in the world.

That's why I've unveiled a new proposal that will ensure that data centers start paying for the disruptions they cause to our communities by making them pay their fair share.

These taxes would help offset the costs that communities have been stuck paying. While we prioritize innovation and remaining competitive in global markets, we must ensure that companies are paying their share of the bill, and my plan is the way to do it.

Onward,

Ron