Kean voted four times to stop New Jersey from regulating AI data centers

Although he missed more than 140 roll calls in Congress while hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. voted four times for a proposed federal moratorium on state and local regulation of artificial intelligence that could have prevented New Jersey from enforcing new protections intended to keep the cost of powering massive data centers from being passed along to residential customers.

Kean, who is America’s most vulnerable GOP incumbent and is struggling to win another term representing New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, cast three votes for the provision as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee before voting for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) on May 22, 2025.

The House version of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending legislation contained a 10-year prohibition on states and local governments enforcing laws or regulations that limited, restricted or otherwise regulated artificial intelligence models, AI systems or automated decision systems.

The provision never became law because the Senate removed the AI moratorium from the legislation ultimately enacted.

But Kean and the state’s other two Republican congressmen, Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, all cast House votes that have taken on new significance in New Jersey following enactment of a state law specifically regulating the electricity costs associated with large data centers.

Gov. Rebecca ‘Mikie’ Sherrill signed S731/A796, known as the Data Center Fair Share Act, on July 7. The law requires special electricity rules for large data centers aimed at preventing their enormous power demands and associated infrastructure costs from being shifted onto other utility customers.

The legislation was enacted as P.L. 2026, c. 32.

The law requires the state Board of Public Utilities to establish standards governing electricity service to large data centers and requires utilities to create a separate tariff for those customers.

Among other provisions, the law is designed to ensure other utility customers do not subsidize data centers and are protected against stranded infrastructure costs if a project fails or uses less electricity than anticipated.

That is the type of state regulation that could have faced a federal preemption challenge under the House AI moratorium that Kean, Smith and Van Drew supported.

The proposed federal provision was broadly written. It would have prohibited states and political subdivisions for 10 years from enforcing laws restricting or regulating AI models or systems, while defining an “artificial intelligence system” to include a “data system, hardware, tool, or utility” operating in whole or in part through AI.

The House proposal also protected state measures intended to facilitate AI deployment while placing limits on requirements involving design, performance, data handling, documentation, civil liability, taxation and fees.

The National Conference of State Legislatures warned Congress in 2025 that the provision could interfere with states’ authority over data centers, including their permitting, construction and operation. The organization said the moratorium could affect ratepayers, zoning decisions and power-grid infrastructure.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund, which opposed the moratorium, argues that New Jersey’s new data center law is an example of a state measure that likely would have been vulnerable under the House language.

The precise reach of the proposed moratorium was never tested in court because Congress removed it before enactment, and critics have claimed that the New Jersey law does not go far enough to restrain the harmful impact of data centers that cause significant harm through massive energy and water consumption, localized air and noise pollution, and increased utility costs for nearby residents.

Kean Jr. on September 12, 2026, quietly released a report showing that he made more stock trades in the month of August.

This latest report shows that Kean Jr. was trading stocks of companies involved in data center development after he voted to give data centers tax breaks.

Kean is locked in a competitive re-election battle against Democratic nominee Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, in the November 3, 2026 general election.

“If you want to know who Tom Kean Jr. fights for, take a look at his stock portfolio. Kean Jr. has voted to raise healthcare costs and give tax breaks to data centers while trading stocks in both industries,” said Bennett, who divested all of her individual stocks and said, “I will fight for a full stock trading ban for members of Congress because I want New Jerseyans to know exactly who I serve.”

Bennett favors a nationwide regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, suggesting that the federal government should establish consistent rules instead of allowing individual states to create a confusing patchwork of policies and laws.

Among the organizations that gave Bennett their endorsement are the League of Conservation Voters, Climate Power Action, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, all of which are substantially involved in efforts to impose environmental, energy, water-use and consumer-protection rules on AI data centers.

Kean cast four votes for data centers

Kean’s record goes beyond his vote for the overall House bill.

As a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Kean participated in a marathon markup May 13 and 14, 2025, in which lawmakers repeatedly considered the section containing the AI moratorium.

Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat and the committee’s ranking member, offered an amendment, designated COMM19, that would have removed the moratorium. The amendment failed 24-29, with Kean voting against Pallone’s proposal — effectively voting to keep the moratorium in the legislation.

Kean then joined other committee Republicans in voting to advance the communications subtitle containing the moratorium to the House Budget Committee and he later voted to transmit the committee’s recommendations, including the provision, for the next stage of consideration.

His fourth vote came when the full House considered the sprawling legislation May 22.

In all, 215 House Republicans voted for the House package containing the moratorium.

New Jersey’s other Republican House members at the time, Reps. Christopher Smith and Jeff Van Drew, also voted for the House legislation containing the moratorium. Unlike Kean, however, Smith and Van Drew were not members of the Energy and Commerce Committee and therefore did not cast the three earlier committee votes.

The votes created a sharp partisan divide within New Jersey’s House delegation over the House bill. Democrats opposed the legislation, while the state’s Republican representatives supported it.

State later moved to regulate data centers

The issue has become more consequential as artificial intelligence companies and data centers place growing demands on the electric grid.

New Jersey’s new law directs regulators to establish special rules intended to prevent ordinary electricity customers from subsidizing large data centers. It also calls for protections against stranded costs and incentives for data centers to increase energy efficiency and add new clean generation or energy storage.

Sherrill signed the measure as part of an energy package her administration said was designed to reduce electricity costs and make large energy users shoulder more of the expenses they create.

“We’re bringing accountability back to New Jersey energy and standing up to everyone who makes your families pay for their mistakes,” Sherrill said when she signed the legislation.

The contrast puts Kean’s 2025 votes under a different spotlight: New Jersey is now exercising precisely the kind of state authority over data centers that critics warned the House moratorium could restrict.

The federal language did not explicitly use the term “data center,” and whether New Jersey’s current law would definitively have been preempted would have depended on interpretation of the statute and potentially litigation.

The House proposal’s broad definition of AI systems, however, extended beyond software to hardware, data systems, tools and utilities. The proposal also would have restricted state requirements involving taxation, fees, performance and other obligations imposed specifically on covered AI systems.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund concluded that New Jersey’s law “would likely not have been allowed” under the House moratorium because it imposes requirements specifically on data centers.

The Senate’s decision to strip the moratorium from the legislation means New Jersey remains free to implement its data center law.

For Kean, however, the congressional record remains: He voted once against removing the proposed 10-year restriction, twice to advance committee legislation containing it, and a fourth time for the House bill that included it.