Senate Democrats have blocked a bill that aimed to shield Americans from rising energy costs from data centers. 

Lawmakers voted 57-43 on HR 9340, called the Ratepayer Protection Act. The 43 votes against were cast by Democrats or independents. 

The same bill, HR 9340, previously passed the House on a vote of 417-3. 

The bill, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would have required states to consider activating a federal standard for large-load customers like data centers that would shoulder costs of  generation, transmission, or distribution incurred by heavy electricity use. The measure aimed to protect Americans from paying the costs associated with larger energy consumers such as data centers that have a peak electric demand of 100 megawatts or more at a single site or campus. 

Under the plan, an electric utility must require a large-load customer to provide financial assurance that it will cover the cost of any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade that is necessary to serve the load of a large-load customer before the utility makes upgrades. 

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Sen. John Husted (R-OH) has supported the data center bill that he called a "no-brainer." Democrats might have killed the bill to help Sherrod Brown, a Democrat seeking to win Ohio's Senate seat filled by Husted.