Occasionally in Washington, “power” actually does mean electricity rather than authority.

Congress is talking about the electricity needed to fuel the enormous expansion of AI and data-center infrastructure, and who should pay for the grid required to support it.

But that definition is fleeting. Congress is also exercising the more familiar kind: shaping infrastructure, regulating crypto and, apparently, reminding billionaires that congressional subpoenas are not optional.

Around here, “power” is usually our cue to check for our wallets. Washington is very good at telling us how much power it has while reaching for more from us. The record is better at telling us what it can actually do with it.

I was always taught that government power derives from the people. Maybe that only applied before electricity.

— Teddy Brosevelt

The House has four electricity bills on its September 14 floor list aimed at problems created by large data centers and rising power demand.

The most direct is H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act. For data centers with at least 100 megawatts of peak demand at one site or campus, the bill would have utilities recover the full incremental cost of generation, transmission and distribution upgrades from the customer creating the demand. Utilities would also require financial assurances before making those investments.

The other three bills attack different pieces of the same problem. H.R. 9332 examines how utilities forecast large new loads. H.R. 6633 would require higher-capacity conductors for certain transmission projects. H.R. 9339 directs the Energy Department to assess where AI itself could improve grid capacity and operations.

There is broad agreement on the core idea. Energy and Commerce advanced H.R. 9340 52-0, and the White House has already gotten seven tech companies to pledge that data centers will pay their own infrastructure costs.

The bills do not decide what fuel powers new data centers or guarantee that electricity prices fall. They only set out who pays for the infrastructure those centers require. Rep. Frank Pallone, the committee's top Democrat, calls the approach a useful start but wants Congress to also address water use and pollution from data-center construction. Public-power utilities support billing large customers for the costs they cause, but want state regulators, not Washington, deciding how those rules apply to their own grids.

The open questions are how much Washington should standardize and whether electricity costs are only one piece of a larger set of community impacts.

Read Deep Reason: Who Pays for AI's Power?

What's Loud: Crypto has acquired a political problem that has little to do with blockchain technology. President Trump's financial ties to the industry have become a central objection to the legislation, with Senate Banking Democrats arguing that its ethics language leaves large loopholes for presidential holdings. Their case has been running alongside an expensive lobbying fight by crypto companies and banks ahead of the vote. Reuters

What's Missing: Senators are also deciding something that will last beyond Trump. H.R. 3633 would establish federal market rules for digital assets and clarify the regulatory roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Senate Banking Committee advanced it 15-9, and cloture on the motion to proceed ripens at 2:15 p.m. on September 15. Senate schedule

What Matters: The ethics fight can still determine whether the bill survives. If it does, Congress will have made one of its biggest decisions yet about where crypto fits inside the American financial system.

House Oversight will decide on September 15 whether to recommend that the full House hold Leon Black, the billionaire co-founder of Apollo Global Management, in contempt of Congress for skipping a deposition and withholding subpoenaed documents in its Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Oversight says Black paid Epstein at least $158 million after Epstein became a registered sex offender and wants his testimony and nondisclosure agreements to explain how Epstein kept ties to powerful people. Black has sued the committee over the subpoenas, and the vote tests Congress's ability to enforce its own subpoenas, not whether he committed a crime.

President Trump signed the Stop Secret Spending Act on September 11. The law expands federal spending disclosures to include Other Transaction Agreements, a flexible contracting tool used outside the usual federal procurement system, and requires more accounting for federal spending missing from USAspending.gov.

The practical effect is simple: a larger share of federal spending should become easier for the public to find.

The Ninth Circuit upheld a jury verdict for six former Bay Area Rapid Transit employees who sought religious accommodations from a COVID-19 vaccine requirement, ruling that BART could not defeat their claims merely by pointing to a safer alternative. Under the Supreme Court's Groff standard, the employer had to show the accommodation posed a substantial burden on its business, and general public-health guidance did not settle that question by itself. Read the opinion

For employers, the ruling adds another appellate guidepost for what "undue hardship" means when a worker asks for a religious accommodation.

The Justice Department used the Alien Terrorist Removal Court for the first time since Congress created it in 1996, removing an Afghan national who conceded that she qualified as an alien terrorist. The specialized federal court can hear classified evidence, provides appointed counsel when necessary and allows appeals to the D.C. Circuit. A court built nearly three decades ago finally has a first case, which makes its future use worth watching.

The House also has the Common Cents Act on its September 14 floor list. H.R. 10167 would end production of pennies for general circulation and establish rounding rules for cash transactions while leaving electronic payments exact. The change matches the Mint's own numbers: each penny costs 3.69 cents to produce, more than triple its face value, and ending production is expected to save about $56 million a year.

7.8%: Business applications fell that much from July to August, a sharp monthly drop in the pool of new business filings the Census Bureau uses to track the pipeline toward future employer businesses. Census Bureau

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