An Oklahoma House budget subcommittee has approved legislation aimed at protecting residential ratepayers from having to foot the bill for new infrastructure driven by rising data center demand.

House Bill 3917, introduced by Representative Mickey Dollens (D-Oklahoma City), was passed unanimously in the House Appropriations and Budget National Resources Subcommittee and now moves to the full House Appropriations and Budget Committee.

If passed, the proposal would require large data centers to pay a surcharge during peak electricity demand periods. Revenue generated by the surcharge would be funneled into the newly formed “Grid Modernization Revolving Fund” to support upgrades and modernization of Oklahoma’s electric grid.

Dollens said the bill is intended to prevent households from bearing infrastructure costs driven by high-volume energy users.

“This would make sure that regular ratepayers aren’t having to pay for those really high energy costs, and the surcharge would be put into a dedicated fund that would go toward grid modernization,” Dollens said. “So, this is really a win-win for everyone. It’s a win for Oklahoma ratepayers, but also our grid.”

Oklahoma has seen growing interest in large-scale data center projects that require substantial, continuous power loads. As a result, the state has seen several bills proposed in its upper and lower chambers to attempt to address the impact.

Lawmakers in both chambers have introduced multiple bills addressing their impact. Last month, Republican State Senator Kendal Sacchieri introduced legislation in the Senate to establish a three-year moratorium on the construction of new data centers in the state.

Dollens said the unanimous subcommittee vote reflects bipartisan concern about protecting consumers.

“It’s not too often you have something that passes unanimously with bipartisan support, but I think that really speaks to this issue of how many Oklahomans are talking about data centers and protecting our water and making sure that people, especially on fixed incomes, aren’t paying more than their fair share,” he said.

If approved by the full committee, HB 3917 will advance to the House floor for further consideration.

While Oklahoma has seen some high-profile data center proposals, including the Beale Infrastructure-backed Project Atlas outside of Tulsa, which could span 270 acres, it remains quite a small data center market.

The move to protect ratepayers follows a growing trend across the US, with several states proposing and passing new rate classes for large data centers to insulate regular customers from price increases. These include Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Kansas, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Idaho, and Pennsylvania.