WASHINGTON — Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Thursday he is seeking Republican Senate support for legislation he considers critical to ensuring Americans aren’t paying the tab for massive amounts of energy required by new data centers.

Van Hollen and Maryland Reps. Johnny Olszewski Jr., Kweisi Mfume and Andy Harris said at a news conference that they are hearing from frustrated constituents about rising electricity costs.

"I’m angry,” said Mfume, who represents most of Baltimore City.

“We know that people are hurting right now,” said Olszewski of Baltimore County.

The lawmakers’ briefing followed Republican President Donald Trump’s announcement during his State of the Union speech last month that leading AI companies had agreed to a “ratepayer protection pledge” ensuring they would guard against rate hikes driven by data center energy demands.

“Obviously, there’s bipartisan agreement,” said Harris, the Eastern Shore and Harford County lawmaker who is the only Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation.

“The president, during his State of the Union (address), talked about the fact that these companies that are literally trillion-dollar companies have to stop putting the costs of their energy on the backs of our ratepayers,” Harris said.

The White House said in a statement this week that the president, through the pledges, had advanced the cause of “energy affordability.”

But Van Hollen, a Democrat, said pledges from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and other companies are not enough. “It’s not good enough, simply for the heads of sort of AI companies to get out and express their intentions,” he said. “The only way you can actually defend consumers is to pass the law.”

Van Hollen referred to his ratepayer protection bill, called the “Power for the People Act,” filed in January. It would direct states and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take steps to prevent companies from passing along the expense of new data centers to energy customers.

The bill so far has only Democratic co-sponsors.

“We’re continuing to reach out to Republican senators,” Van Hollen said. “I do think there’s momentum growing. As you’ve heard, it’s a bipartisan concern.”

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