Oregon lawmakers rejected a bill focused on reducing the carbon output of new data centers and cryptocurrency miners.

 

Oregon lawmakers rejected a bill focused on reducing the carbon output of new data centers and cryptocurrency miners.  Some proponents of the legislation have attributed its failure to the lobbying efforts of Amazon, CNBC reports. The bill, labeled HB 2816, failed to pass through a legislative committee in Oregon's state legislature on Monday. The bill's co-sponsor, Oregon state Rep. Pam Marsh, said, "From the very first moment we started talking about this bill, Amazon started organizing against it." Amazon Web Services (AWS) operates 12 data facilities in Oregon, and a spokesperson for the company noted that Amazon opposed the measure. The AWS spokesperson said that the bill failed to consider the process necessary for establishing infrastructure capable of scaling up clean energy for the U.S. grid. He said that one of Amazon's goals is to lay down the necessary groundwork to access "more clean energy in Oregon."