ai may land on your power bill

Unless one bill passes this week.

Alaska has less than a week to decide what to do about AI data centers. Demand for them has exploded across the country, and there's real money on the table for states willing to host them. There's also real risk for the people paying the utility bills.

One bill directly addresses this. SB 250, sponsored by Anchorage senator Loki Tobin, blocks data center power costs from being folded into Alaska utility rates. It also requires community benefit agreements between developers and the towns they build in.

Alaska is one of only a handful of states with no data center rules on the books. Lower 48 ratepayers have already been getting stuck with the bill in states that welcomed these centers without protections. With the legislative session ending May 20, this is the only direct play on the table this year.

For Chugach and Matanuska Electric ratepayers across Anchorage, Eagle River, the Mat-Su Valley, and Fairbanks, this bill is the difference between getting the jobs and the tax revenue, or getting saddled with the power bill.