WASHINGTON — The House this week approved a cluster of bills aimed at helping local police chase financial scams that target older Americans, locking in a Justice Department fraud unit created under President Donald Trump and pressing states to keep giant data centers from shifting their electricity costs onto household ratepayers.
Three of the measures passed with large bipartisan majorities. A fourth, requiring states to share records from Medicaid and other federally funded programs with federal investigators, cleared on a near party-line vote. All four now sit in the Senate.
On Monday, the House voted 414-7 to pass the Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act, or GUARD Act. The bill, H.R. 2978, sponsored by Iowa Rep. Zach Nunn, would let state, local and tribal police use certain existing federal law-enforcement grants to investigate elder financial fraud and “pig butchering” schemes, in which criminals slowly win a victim’s trust and then talk the person into sending growing sums, often in cryptocurrency, into a fake investment. It would also encourage federal help with blockchain tracing and require a Treasury report to Congress.
Nunn said the idea came from an Iowa sheriff’s deputy who told him officers were watching retirees lose their savings and lacked the tools to follow the money.
“Iowa retirees spent a lifetime building their savings, and scammers are using increasingly sophisticated technology to steal it out from under them,” Nunn said. “Today, the House voted to give state and local law enforcement the resources they need to pursue fraudsters, recover stolen funds, and deliver justice for victims.”
Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger said seniors should not lose their retirement “to scammers hiding behind a computer screen.” Democrats cast no “no” votes on the floor. Seven Republicans opposed the bill. The Senate received it Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the House passed two bills members said would make permanent parts of the Trump administration’s anti-fraud campaign. The White House’s Fraud Ledger lists about $245.7 billion in estimated fraud “uncovered” since January 2025, an administration figure that has not been independently audited.
H.R. 9576, the National Fraud Enforcement Division Act of 2026, passed 352-72. It would put into statute a Justice Department division created this year and place it under an assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement. Sponsor Minnesota Rep. Brad Finstad said Minnesota had seen “systematic failure” to police fraud and credited the administration with taking “decisive action.” All voting Republicans supported the bill, as did 139 Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. 72 Democrats voted no.
The closer fight was H.R. 10326, the Preventing Rip-offs and Obtaining Oversight of Funds Act, or PROOF Act, sponsored by New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew. It passed 217-207, with six Democrats in favor and one Republican opposed. The bill would require states to give the Justice Department information it says it needs to investigate alleged fraud in Medicaid, SNAP, TANF and other federally funded programs, with limits that confine the records to fraud-related law enforcement.
“States should not be able to block important fraud investigations when federal taxpayer dollars are involved,” Van Drew said. Most Democrats treated the mandate as a federal overreach. The bill was referred Wednesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Also Tuesday, the House voted 417-3 to pass H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act, sponsored by Colorado Rep. Gabe Evans, with Florida Democrat Rep. Kathy Castor, as an original cosponsor. The bill would require state regulators to consider a standard holding large-load customers, data centers and similar facilities drawing 100 megawatts or more, responsible for the full incremental cost of grid upgrades built to serve them. Members said the language tracks a White House pledge signed by more than 300 utilities and developers.
“Hardworking families should not have to subsidize the energy demands of data centers,” Evans said. “America needs the infrastructure to lead the world in AI and outcompete Communist China, but we cannot have that growth at the expense of hardworking families, farmers, seniors, and small businesses.”
None of the four bills has a scheduled Senate vote.
Click Here For The Original Source.
