During POWER Act Lobby Day, hundreds rallied at the State Capitol urging legislators to support the POWER Act.
Despite hundreds of advocates rallying in Springfield to protect Illinois consumers from high power bills caused by data centers, the Illinois General Assembly adjourned in the wee hours of June 1 without voting on the POWER ACT (Senate Bill 4016/House Bill 5513).
[Update: In a major development after the session ended, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced he was pausing new tax incentives for data centers, and outlined a framework for data center safeguards Read CUB’s statement.]
The end of the session came as Ameren Illinois and Commonwealth Edison customers were hit with power prices that are about 40-50 percent higher than just two years ago. Soaring demand from new and proposed data centers is one of the culprits of those higher prices.
The General Assembly also failed to act on a call by Gov. J.B. Pritzker to suspend tax credits Illinois offers to data centers to entice them to come to Illinois.
The POWER Act would require data centers to cover their costs to connect to the grid and bring enough clean power to the grid to cover their needs. Some of the Act’s key affordability provisions include:
- Requiring utilities to create new rules to protect their existing customers from subsidizing data center-related upgrades to the distribution and transmission infrastructure.
- Requiring data centers to bring their own new clean power if they want firm electric service that won’t be curtailed at times of high demand.
“It’s disappointing that the General Assembly didn’t pass commonsense guardrails to make Big Tech pay their fair share of data center-related energy costs,” CUB Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz said. “This problem won’t go away–we already face an expensive summer of high power bills–so this fight is far from over. We’re not giving up.”
Energy Policy Analyst Scott Allen served as a lobby captain, leading constituents to the offices of their legislators. Here he stands with Bob, a longtime CUB supporter.
NRDC has estimated that unless state, federal and power grid authorities take decisive action to fix the problem, in just a few years consumers across the PJM Interconnection power grid, which includes ComEd customers, could face rolling blackouts and average electric bill increases of up to $70 per month. As it is, millions of Illinoisans now face a second straight summer of high electric bills, and they are hungry for solutions like the POWER Act. Polling shows the reform legislation enjoys wide bipartisan support.
Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz met a longtime CUB supporter who along with hundreds of other advocates wore a t-shirt proclaiming: “Power belongs to the people, not data centers.”
On Saturday, as the clock ticked on the General Assembly’s session, CUB supporters were among more than 500 advocates who participated in POWER Act Lobby Day, which included a State Capitol rally urging legislators to support the POWER Act. CUB Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz and Energy Policy Specialist Scott Allen helped lead consumers to meetings with state legislators.
“Right now, data centers have been driving up power bills across the state of Illinois, but we have the power…to put guardrails in place to make sure they pay their own way and don’t end up driving up rates for the rest of us,” Sarah said in a video from the State Capitol.
CUB Board Member Mardi Klevs and Board Treasurer Steven Hall also came to Springfield. Even though legislators didn’t pass the POWER Act, Mardi said “no pun intended, it was really empowering to go there with 500 people to urge our legislators to regulate the data centers,” Mardi said. “Don’t forget to call your state legislators this summer and also the governor and tell them you want them to support the POWER Act.”
Please urge your legislators to support the POWER Act.
