Senate Permitting Bill Advances 73-25 With 20 MW Data Center Rule
The Senate's 73-25 vote on Nov. 9 only opened debate on the permitting bill that makes data centers of 20 MW and up pay grid costs. Amendments, passage and the House are still ahead.
Energy & Cooling DeskEdited by Ege Erten
3 min readAI-assisted
Follows our story: Senate Permitting Bill Faces 60-Vote Test Nov. 9 on 20 MW Data Center Rule
The Senate's 73-25 vote on Nov. 9 opened debate; the bill as introduced sets a 20 MW threshold for data centers.
Illustration (AI-generated)
The Senate voted 73-25 on Monday, Nov. 9, to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, the permitting bill that would make data centers of 20 MW and up pay grid costs. It was not a vote on passage.
Voltgrid previewed the vote on Nov. 8. The result clears the first three-fifths (60-vote) hurdle, which ends debate only on whether to take up the bill. The Senate is using a House-passed tax bill, H.R. 2347, as the legislative vehicle. The bill itself has not been amended, debated at length or voted on.
How the 73-25 Cloture Vote Split by Party
According to the Senate's own roll call (vote 257, Nov. 9), 73 senators voted yes, 25 voted no and two did not vote. Counting from the posted list, 51 Republicans, 21 Democrats and independent Angus King of Maine voted yes. The 25 no votes came from 23 Democrats, Republican Mike Rounds of South Dakota and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, and Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, did not vote. Among the Democrats voting no were Ed Markey, Maria Cantwell, Cory Booker and Tim Kaine.
