June 10, 2026 · Energy Committee · 715 words · 10 speakers · 17 segments
This meeting of the Senate Energy Committee will now come to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? Chair Chavez? Here. Vice Chair Landis? Here. Ranking Member Smith? Here. Senator Serino? Here. Senator DeMora? Here. Senator Lange? Here. Senator Manchester is excused. Senator Reinecke? Here. Senator Schaefer? Here. Senator Timken? Here. Senator Weinstein? Here. Senator Wilkin? We have a quorum. We'll proceed as a full committee. I'd like to stand and do the Pledge of Allegiance and I'd like to ask Senator
Sereno to lead us today. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Members, a copy of the minutes from the evening June 9th meeting were on your iPads. Please take a moment and review them. The question is, shall the minutes be agreed to? Without objection, the minutes are agreed to. The first and only order of business is the third hearing of Substitute House Bill 646 The chair recognizes Vice Chair Landis for a motion Mr Chairman I move to adopt Substitute Bill 3344
The motion is in order, and I will give you a brief summary of what the Dash 5 does. It's not substantially different from what we had in the Dash 4. It's a lot of cleanup and LSE clarifications. Two pieces that we did add in there, we added in that this eliminates the ability of data centers to use the standard service offer, the SSO. This is a ratepayer protection piece to keep the market from fluctuating when these big loads go in and out of the standard service offer. So we wanted to make sure that we protected ratepayers. AND WE HAVE GONE TO, WE WERE, THE DEFINITION OF DATA CENTER INCLUDED A CAVEAT THAT IS 25 MEGAWATTS OR ABOVE. YESTERDAY WE WENT TO 50 AND ABOVE TO TRY TO MAKE SURE THAT WE DIDN'T UNNECESSARILY CAPTURE INDUSTRIES THAT WEREN'T A PART OF THIS. WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN ASSURANCES AND CHANGED A LITTLE BIT OF THE DEFINITION IN THERE AND WE HAVE GONE BACK DOWN TO 25 MEGAWATTS TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE CAPTURING THE SIGNIFICANT LOADS OUT THERE AND THE Changed a little bit of the definition in there and we gone back down to 25 megawatts to make sure that we are capturing the significant loads out there and the PCO has the ability to do what they need to do and it also marries up with the existing tariff from AEP which starts at 25 megawatts We also added some enabling mechanism language for the tariffs and the data centers. So as I mentioned, a lot of other cleanups and just minor clarification. So with that, is there any discussion?
Seeing none, the question is, shall the substitute bill be adopted? Are there any objections? Without objection, the substitute bill 3344-5 has been adopted. The chair recognizes Vice Chair Landis for a motion.
Mr. Chairman, I move that we favorably report substitute House Bill 646 to the Committee on Rules and Reference.
The motion is in order. Is there any discussion Will the clerk please call the roll Chair Chavez Yes Vice Chair Landis Yes Ranking Member Smith No
Senator Serino? Yes.
Senator DeMora? No.
Senator Lang? Yes.
Senator Manchester is excused.
Senator Reineke? Yes.
Senator Schaefer? Yes.
Senator Temkin? Yes.
Senator Weinstein? No.
Senator Wilkin? Yes.
Having sufficient votes, the bill will be sent to the Committee on Rules and Reference. Members, please be sure to sign the vote sheet. This concludes the third hearing on Substitute House Bill 646. And I would just like to make a brief comment. A lot of the conversations that we're having is we wish this bill would do this, we wish it would do this, we wish it would do whatever. So we did the best that we could with the time that we had. This is the first step. will be more bills there'll be more consideration there will be more legislation it's going to be thoughtful and I just want to assure folks that this isn't the last step so appreciate everyone's patience and with that with no further business before the committee we are hereby adjourned