Washington DC – This week we were joined by Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Fox Business” “The Bottom Line” discusses AI policy, data centers, and ratepayer protection laws.
About Chairman Guthrie Ratepayer Protection Act and data center:
“Now, here’s the thing, we’re competing with China, so what a lot of people are looking at is…
Data centers, that’s important, but we’ve been talking to our stakeholders.
China controls the information that flows around the world.
“Either our values control it, or China’s totalitarian values control it.
“To win the fight against AI, we need access to data in our data centers. So we’ve been talking to stakeholders involved in AI, and the most important stakeholder for us is our constituents. We don’t want them to pay for it.”
“And what we’re doing is directly providing federal resources to help states implement ratepayer protection pledges, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all federal government.
“But there are calls for a moratorium, and you just said that New York state will be on board, and New York state also passed a moratorium, which doesn’t help at all.
“People are predicting that we’re about six months ahead of China and AI. Even if we had a one-year grace period, if we were to do it on a national scale, if we fall behind China, we’ll never catch up.
“And that will continue, and China’s march to becoming a superpower that we must protect will continue.”
Chairman Guthrie on temporary suspension of New York data center:
“We have something big [data center] We’re here in Kentucky, and what we’re trying to do is at the federal level, we need to help each state implement the ratepayer protection pledge at the state level.
“So we’re not enacting federal laws, we’re helping states do that. And as you said, Governor Kathy Hochul was here with me in the Legislature. When she signed the executive order for the moratorium, she said, ‘Energy bills are already too high, so why add a data load?’
“Well, the reason it’s too expensive is exactly what Secretary Burgum said. But the other thing is, I went to school in New York, and I actually went to West Point back in the day. Beyond New York City, there are a lot of areas that are struggling. Some of those areas are the classic Great Lakes Rust Belt. – I’m not a Yorker and I welcome those companies to my area, but it’s really unfair to the people of New York.”Whether this is the industry of the future (which many predict it will be), economically disadvantaged communities just think New York State has decided to withdraw from competitive baseball.
“But in Kentucky, we have local communities that have decided not to participate in data centers. I think that’s their right. But as a state, we have communities, and one of my school districts received a $19 billion investment over 20 years in Anthropic. It will completely transform that community economically. That community’s school system will become the wealthiest school system per capita in the commonwealth. And I predict county officials in other states will take notice of that region as well.” To say, “Wow, how can we be a part of that?” But we don’t want local residents to bear that cost. We want our data centers to do it. ”
Chairman Guthrie talks about the economic benefits of data centers
“Well, Judge Robertson, the county executive for that area, is a friend of mine, and he’s talking about doing exactly what you say. It’s probably going to generate $1 billion worth of property value, not in property tax revenue, but in property value. Real estate values in that area will almost double. So they’re looking for refund opportunities.”
“They’re putting it on the site of an old aluminum smelter, and there’s also a 3% utility bill, so you’re looking at about a gigawatt of power, but the smelter is there and I said to him, ‘Is this going to replace the income that we already had? ?” and he said, “Oh, no, what a developed country, Governor Beshear, you get tax breaks when you go to Frankfort. They weren’t paying these taxes.”
“So our old industrial American model is that if you go to the states, you get a tax break and everything gets abatement. And as long as we keep cutting taxes, we’ll keep jobs here. The smelters will go, the data centers will come, and we’ll pay the bills in full.”
“And if the data center doesn’t pay its full bill, I tell the community not to put the data center in there, because the companies that need the data center are willing to pay a fair amount, and the community actually benefits in exchange for paying.”
