Debbie Dingell

On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) responded to a question on whether it was a mistake for Senate Democrats to block the Ratepayer Protection Act that she, along with 205 other House Democrats voted for, “I want to say that the legislation itself is not comprehensive. It does not protect people from many of the concerns.”

Host Audie Cornish asked, “Was it a mistake for Senate Democrats to block that legislation?”

Dingell responded, “Well, first of all, I want to say that the legislation itself is not comprehensive. It does not protect people from many of the concerns. Could it potentially — and it’s even — the way that these are being written, you really have to dig into this. And I have dug into it. So, you’ve got to make sure in these — tax credits aren’t the answer to many of these. You have to have contracts which ensure that, over the operation of the data center, those resident — that rate increases because of that are never passed onto residential rate users. But you’ve also got to make sure they’re not paying the cost of infrastructure that is created towards it. It’s a very comprehensive issue. And water rates and water infrastructure [are] as complicated and how do you measure the water being used equal to the utility rates, and how do you protect the community to ensure that, if something happens, they’re protected and the infrastructure’s going to support them, not the data center?”