Oregon is close to ensuring data center owners pay what they owe for their growth following several years of painful residential electricity hikes driven in part by rising energy demand from the facilities.

House Bill 3546 , also called the POWER Act, passed the Senate on a party-line vote Tuesday and with bipartisan support in the House on Thursday. Five Republican representatives voted with Democrats to pass it, and Gov. Tina Kotek is expected to sign it.

State Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, was one of two Republicans excused from voting on bills Thursday. Levy’s family business in 2021 sold farmland to Amazon for a data center and receives wastewater used for farm irrigation from another Amazon data center. But under House rules, she would have had to vote on the bill if she had been o

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