As the House cleared out of Washington for August recess, congressional aides working on major policy fights on Capitol Hill were being flown out to corporate headquarters by a dark money group with deep ties to industry.
The staffers took sponsored trips to companies with stakes in the lobbying battles, including a fusion startup seeking to power AI data centers and Big Pharma firms as they fight President Trump’s push to tie U.S. drug prices to lower prices overseas.
Center Forward, a centrist 501(c)4 group that does not disclose its donors, organized and paid for the trips, sending three separate groups of House staffers to Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver beginning July 29.
The Seattle trip was focused largely around artificial intelligence and the energy infrastructure that is proposed to support it. In its disclosure to the House Ethics Committee, Center Forward said the program would cover frontier AI development, AI applications in research and business, consumer protections related to AI, and other aspects of the industry.
At Salesforce headquarters, the company’s executives briefed the staffers on "agentic decision making" and how Congress should set AI guardrails. Salesforce has helped to fund Center Forward, disclosing giving it $70,000 through May of this year, after giving it $55,000 in 2025. Amazon, another company that has disclosed funding Center Forward, demonstrated its delivery drones and discussed safety frameworks for the technology, while Uber discussed autonomous vehicles. And at Helion Energy, a fusion startup with an agreement in place to provide power to Microsoft's AI data centers, the tour was focused on federal funding, permitting, grid infrastructure that is needed to meet the rising electricity demand.
Center Forward invited staffers in the thick of the policy debates. Dylan Irlbeck, a policy adviser to Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), was invited for his “insights on negotiations for federal regulatory frameworks governing frontier artificial intelligence.” Trahan and Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) have been working on federal AI legislation as Congress debates whether national rules should preempt state AI laws. Donald Pollard, legislative director to Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.), was selected because he could discuss “federal energy policy and building the grid capacity to support artificial intelligence development.” Luke Dube, legislative director to Energy and Commerce member Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), was picked for his focus on federal support for nuclear and renewable energy.
