HB1038 — allow the Public Utilities Commission to assess actual costs to data centers that are customers of public utilities.
What changed between bill versions as it moved through the Legislature.
The amendment narrows the bill by replacing the broad authority to assess costs for any "large new customers" with a specific focus on "data centers" with a peak demand of ten megawatts or greater, and adds a definition of data center that explicitly includes digital currency mining operations. This change redirects the bill from a general cost-recovery mechanism to a targeted provision addressing costs associated with reviewing specialized electric service agreements for large data center customers.
The amendment clarifies that the Public Utilities Commission can assess actual costs only to data centers that are specifically customers of public utilities (rather than all data centers), and refines the definition of "data center" to specify it must have the "primary purpose" of data storage and processing. This NARROWS the bill's scope by explicitly limiting cost assessments to entities that actually purchase utility services.
The amendment removed all the substantive legislative language about assessing costs to data centers and replaced it with standard enrolled bill formatting and signature pages, effectively gutting the bill's operative provisions while retaining only its title and enactment framework.