Hello: Just as we were about to send this newsletter, we got word that Senate Democrats struck a deal with the White House to avoid a government shutdown while they haggle over reining in President Donald Trump’s aggressive, deadly surge in immigration enforcement. The funding picture for the Department of Homeland Security is complicated right now. Luckily we just published an explainer on how that funding works.

If you’ve noticed your electric bill creeping up these past few years, you’re in good company.  

Electric and gas utilities asked for permission to increase rates by a total of $31 billion last year — double what they asked for the year before. In most cases those rate increases were approved, according to nonprofit PowerLines.

Osyrus Bolly lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, and his electric and gas bills are about to explode again.

“We’re all experiencing this winter storm, and you have no choice but to run the heat all day long, especially if you have children,” he said.

Completely aside from the storm, his bills have already been rising.

“It’s went up $100 over the last few years for gas and electricity,” Bolly said.

He said he’s annoyed that the public service commission keeps approving the utility’s rate increases: “A lot of corporate welfare, I would say.”

Every utility market is different, but overall electricity and natural gas are among the biggest drivers of inflation, according to nonprofit PowerLines.

“Utility bills have gone up about 40% over the past five years,” said Charles Hua, PowerLines executive director.

It’s not just because of data centers, which are geographically concentrated. In fact, in a lot of places, it’s not even mostly because of data centers.

“Our grid is getting old. We’re not using it efficiently, so it costs a lot of money just to replace and repair and modernize our grid infrastructure,” Hua said.

For years, there was underinvestment in the power grid as a way to keep prices down, according to Thomas Rowlands-Rees, head of power market analysis at Bloomberg. He said underinvestment hadn’t been a problem, because U.S. power demand was stagnant.

U.S. power demand is definitely not stagnant anymore , and the long delayed upgrade bill is catching up with all of us, Rowlands-Rees said.

“Demand growth a decade ago was running about half a percent per year. In the past three or four years, it’s ticked up to one-and-a-half percent per year,” said Dan Pickering, cofounder of Pickering Energy Partners.

Soon after taking office last January, President Trump issued an executive order aimed at ending gender-affirming care for transgender children and teenagers under 19. 

That rule is not in effect yet, and 19 states have sued to block it, but hospitals are spooked; many wouldn’t be able to operate without Medicaid and Medicare funding. Already in recent weeks, a number have stopped offering gender-affirming care to minors, at least for now.

The attacks on transition-related care, at both the state and federal levels, are having a profound effect on transgender kids and their families. They’re also having a profound effect on health care providers. 

President Donald Trump said an announcement is coming next week, after he excoriated current chair Jerome Powell for keeping interest rates steady. Polymarket likes former Fed governor Kevin Warsh for the job. He's sitting center in the first row of the 2010 G-20 group photo above.