Democrats “will burn this country down to keep and obtain political power,” including blocking Republican-led legislation that would protect Americans from electric bill hikes caused by AI data centers, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) said on Thursday.
Moreno spoke about Democrats blocking Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-OH) Ratepayer Protection Act ahead of the midterm elections during a Breitbart News Fight Club Roundtable hosted by Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow and Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle. Democrats blocked the bill again in a 57-43 procedural vote — short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster and open debate — even though the House version of the bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, 417-3.
“This was a dirty trick to make Republicans look bad,” Marlow remarked. “Could you explain the dirty trick to people?”
“It was Jon Husted’s bill. He wrote the thing, he fought for it in the House. It was extremely successful. He gets to the floor of the U.S. Senate. We’re thinking, ‘My God, this thing’s gonna pass. It’s a no-brainer. Make the data centers pay for their own power.’ Sen. Martin Heinrich (D) from New Mexico says, ‘I object. It doesn’t go far enough.’ My point of view is like, ‘Fine. What do you wanna do?’ Well, he offers a bill. I said, ‘Well, can we do both? You know, we’ll move the needle down the road, and get something done, and then if you wanna pass your bill, let’s do that, and you go make the case to the House and see if the president will sign it,”‘ Moreno recalled.
“Of course, all the Democrats hid behind him because all it takes is one Democrat to object to fast track. So to Leader Thune’s credit, he said, ‘Well, let’s expose them all. Let’s put the bill on the floor, have a roll call vote.’ Here’s what’s crazy: [Democrats] didn’t technically vote against the bill. They voted against ending debate on whether we should even consider the bill. See, that’s what the media won’t tell you. There was no vote to say, ‘should we pass the Ratepayer Protection Act?’ It was, ‘should we end debate on whether we should take this bill up and consider it?’ The Democrats were so gung-ho on killing any thought of actually saving America’s electricity prices that they didn’t even want to consider the bill, and it went down in flames” he continued.
VIDEO:
DC Democrats just blocked @SenJonHusted’s bill that would have held data center builders responsible for their own energy and prevent homeowners and small businesses from seeing their electricity prices go up. The House had passed it by an almost unanimous vote yesterday!
Why?… pic.twitter.com/7WYMXqhCl6
— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) September 17, 2026