OLYMPIA, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – A bill sailing through the state legislature is seeking to hold data centers accountable.

HB 2515 places the burden of resource use for data centers on the operators of those facilities.

Bill sponsor Rep. Beth Doglio said in a Senate Committee on Environment, Energy & Technology that data center construction in the state in 2021 looked very different after the AI boom earlier this month.

Doglio noted that data center construction is growing across the country, and Washington should join other states in regulating their resource use to protect ratepayers.

“It seeks to protect rate payers by ensuring that new data centers are picking up the whole tab for the growth,” she said. “It seeks to protect stranded assets. If we build all these resources and then for some reason it doesn’t all work out, we don’t want rate payers to be left holding the bag.”

Several tribal leaders spoke at a public hearing late last week to ask for a provision to be added to the bill that could have forced data centers near the Columbia River to pay the full cost of their energy use.

The bill has passed to its second committee in the Senate after passing the house earlier this week.