OKLAHOMA CITY – The proposed Data Center Customer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026 cleared the Senate Energy Committee last Thursday and awaits a Senate floor vote.
House Bill 2992 was filed by Rep. Brad Boles, a Marlow Republican who is a candidate for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
The legislation is designed to protect consumers and ratepayers from being saddled with the electrical power costs for new data centers.
HB 2992 requires large load data centers and crypto mining facilities to “pay their portion of infrastructure costs associated with significant electric demands,” said Sen. Grant Green, R-Wellston, who coauthored the bill with Boles. Green also proposed an amendment that was adopted prior to the final 9-0 vote in the committee.
The amended bill decrees that, “All electric suppliers shall establish and maintain separate terms and conditions of electric service applicable to any large load customer and shall create and maintain separate tariffs applicable to such large load customers.
“These terms, conditions, and tariffs shall include credit requirements and any other measures necessary to ensure that such customers reimburse the utility for all costs fairly allocated to them … including costs incurred to directly serve the customer that may remain unrecovered if the customer departs the system or materially reduces load. “The term of service for a large load customer shall be at least 10 years. For any public power utility using tax exempt municipal financing, the term of the agreement shall be the lesser of 10 years or the applicable Internal Revenue Service Guideline.”
“If you’re going to put strain on the grid and have to have new infrastructure, you’re going to have to pay for it,” Green said. “It won’t fall back on the ratepayers,” he told members of the Energy Committee. “It will prevent the cost from being passed on to residential, industrial, agriculture, and commercial ratepayers through higher utility rates. Essentially, they’re either going to have to go ‘behind the meter’ or they’re going to pay for their infrastructure.”
The Boles-Green bill is the only such measure of its kind still alive in this year’s legislative session and has drawn support from a growing number of legislators on both sides of the Capitol rotunda.
It arose from concerns of ratepayers and consumers who questioned the impact of proposed new large-load data centers in the state. Some opposition groups contend the ratepayers will be left bearing the brunt of costs by utilities as they expand their electricgenerating powers to meet the demand of artificial intelligence manufacturing operations.
As a result of large-load growth in the state, including data centers, utilities are asking the Oklahoma Corporation Commission for permission to expand their power operations and pass along the costs.