{"id":505913,"date":"2026-10-23T23:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T23:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/505913\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T23:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T23:58:11","slug":"can-a-bill-on-capitol-hill-tackle-data-center-concerns-in-san-diego-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/505913\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a bill on Capitol Hill tackle data center concerns in San Diego? \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego<\/a>, is stumping for an energy transmission and permitting bill on Capitol Hill that supporters want to take up in the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress \u2014 and Peters says part of the expansive legislation can address the controversy surrounding a potential data center on the Naval Base Point Loma Old Town Campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the only bill that really pushes back on data centers,\u201d Peters said of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, nicknamed BAAJA.<\/p>\n

Debate over the federal bill comes as the\u00a0Manchester Financial Group has confirmed<\/a> it is exploring whether to build a data center among a range of options the local company is considering to develop about 60 acres on the site that the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) calls home.<\/p>\n

The prospect of a data center has drawn opposition<\/a> from city politicians, environmentalists and others whose concerns include that the facility may add more strain on the electric grid and lead to even higher monthly power bills.<\/p>\n

Because NAVWAR is on federally controlled land, the city of San Diego does not have jurisdiction over what gets developed on the property adjacent to Pacific Highway.<\/p>\n

But Peters said the sweeping 417-page<\/a> legislation, if passed, would \u201ccover the whole country, including this project\u201d in San Diego by addressing two issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne is, you (data center developers) gotta pay all the costs of your electricity, and two is you gotta pay for the hookups,\u201d Peters said. \u201cThe infrastructure can be very expensive. That\u2019s what keeps this project from adding to our residential electric bills. Without this bill, there would be no such restriction, and the city wouldn\u2019t be able to stop it. So that\u2019s why this bill is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result of years of negotiations in both chambers of Congress, BAAJA aims to reform and streamline the permitting process for critical energy infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n

Despite a polarized political landscape, BAAJA is a bipartisan bill that\u2019s received buy-in from Democrats keen on freeing up the grid to deliver more clean-energy projects across state lines and Republicans who predict it will accelerate infrastructure projects by reforming federal environmental and permitting laws.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Senate plans to hold a procedural vote on the bill after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, shortly after lawmakers return to Washington from recess. If BAAJA passes the Senate, it moves on to the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Backers of the bill in both parties say they have received assurances that President Donald Trump would sign the legislation if it reaches his desk.<\/p>\n

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has signed an executive order<\/a> to direct city staff to advance a temporary moratorium on all new data-center development within the city limits.<\/p>\n

The proposal, which is on the City Council docket on Monday, includes establishing a working group of up to 15 stakeholders to develop recommendations for water and electricity demand and potential impacts on utility bills, housing and neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Peters says BAAJA can help on that front as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will help (Gloria) and the city a lot because it\u2019s going to deal with that cost issue,\u201d Peters said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to say, \u2018No, you can\u2019t build a data center unless you pay for all the electricity, all the infrastructure to hook it up and keep all those costs off of ratepayers\u2019 bills.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

During his time in the House of Representatives, Peters has worked on a slew of energy and transmission bills, and BAAJA includes components of legislation he has introduced.<\/p>\n

He said the bill poised for a Senate vote can help tackle the huge increase in electricity demand that is expected across the country \u2014 not just from data centers that help drive the burgeoning artificial intelligence boom, but also clean-energy projects that promote electrification over natural gas and other fossil fuels, reshoring manufacturing and increased demand from air conditioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t keep up and build more energy, all that energy that we pay for is going to cost more,\u201d Peters said at a news conference Thursday at the headquarters of Cleantech San Diego<\/a>, a trade group that promotes green-energy projects. \u201cThis bill will help by speeding things up (and) keep those costs down because we hear that a big project, if it gets delayed for a year, that\u2019s a 10% increase in price that\u2019s passed on to consumers at a time when we can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill has generated support from organizations on opposite sides of the political spectrum, ranging from the American Petroleum Institute<\/a> to the Citizens\u2019 Climate Lobby<\/a> and ACORE<\/a>, a trade group representing the solar and wind industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the bill has also drawn some opposition.<\/p>\n

Conservation groups that include the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth <\/a>say BAAJA \u201cincludes sweeping attacks on the Endangered Species Act that would gut protections for nearly every endangered species across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the Natural Resources Defense Council<\/a> said that while it \u201cis encouraged by the transmission provisions, other elements of the bill are deeply flawed\u201d and the environmental group \u201cwill be seeking improvements\u201d to the bill in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

With polls indicating that Democrats may take control of the House and even the Senate after the midterms, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael<\/a>, has argued the party should hold out and negotiate a deal<\/a> that is more favorable to their interests when a new Congress gets sworn in.<\/p>\n

Peters disagrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows this has to get 60 votes in the Senate,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no world in which we\u2019re going to have 60 people on one side or the other \u2014 60 Democrats or 60 Republicans. So you\u2019re going to have to have bipartisan support\u201d to get a bill through. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to think we\u2019ll get a better deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four primary Senate sponsors of BAAJA are Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, is stumping for an energy transmission and permitting bill on Capitol Hill that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[387,6774,643,181,2582,100,13,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-505913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-business","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-national-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}