Department of Education Protection Act

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. McClellan) tonight in opposition to the Trump administration's attacks on education.

Mr. Speaker, as the gentlewoman just mentioned, our country has a very spotty history when it comes to educating everybody. I know a lot about the history she just mentioned in Alabama and Mississippi and now in Virginia.

Hailing from South Carolina, my own dad was not allowed an education beyond the seventh grade by the State of South Carolina.

Thanks to Black churches. In fact, in my congressional district, there are seven HBCUs. Only two are supported by the State. The other five are church schools: The AME Church at Allen University; the Baptists at Benedict College and Morris College; and Episcopalians at Voorhees. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion, AME Zion, has a school up in Rock Hill outside of my district. I better mention Claflin University in Orangeburg, as well.

Mr. Speaker, as we talk about education and think about the Trump administration's efforts to minimize the importance of focusing on areas that have been left out of the process, I will mention a couple things here tonight that is going to run a little bit contrary to what my staff has researched for me.

The knowledge and skills of our young people and the things that they learn in school should not be limited to people who look like them or only people with similar backgrounds and experiences. We learn from each other when we bring to discussion a plethora of backgrounds and experiences that we can learn from.

I found that out in my own marriage. I was married to the same woman for 58 years. I remember when schools were first integrated and the courts demanded in the case called Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education in Charlotte, North Carolina, that we ought to allow busing to educate children.

Mr. Speaker, I thought there was something wrong with that decision. I didn't like it because I thought it put too much burden on students.

I went out talking about my opposition to that decision.

In fact, I spoke to a TV reporter who held the mike in my face and I waxed what I thought was eloquent until I got home. When I got home, my wife was standing in the middle of the door, tears were streaming down her face. I asked her what was wrong. I thought maybe something had happened to our daughter. We had one child at the time. I rushed toward her, what is wrong? Is something wrong with Mignon? She said no. There is nothing wrong with Mignon. I just saw you on television and there is something wrong with you. Sit down and let me ``splain'' something to you.

Now, it is one thing to get an explanation, but when the Gullah Geechee woman from South Carolina starts ``splaining,'' it is time to sit down, and I did. She told me about her experiences growing up in rural South Carolina when her class, her students did not have schoolbuses. They had to walk 2.5 miles to school every morning and 2.5 miles back home every afternoon. She told me that the White kids had buses. They would ride by them and throw urine-filled balloons as they walked.

She said to me on that day, they were not against busing then and you best not be against busing now.

I learned the difference in our backgrounds. I grew up on a paved street. I walked three blocks to my elementary school, six blocks to my middle school, and I am a graduate of Mather Academy. We called it a boarding school in those days. So I didn't know what it was like to have to walk 2.5 miles to school. Then I reflected on those children in Clarendon County, South Carolina, who walked 9.5 miles to school every day, no bus. The White kids had buses and they had to walk. Why? Because the superintendent of education said that yours don't pay enough taxes for buses. That is what we have been trying to get over in this country. That is why we had Brown v. Board of Education, which started in that little town of Summerton, South Carolina, as Briggs v. Elliott when a Federal

judge, Waties Waring, himself a great-grandson of a Confederate soldier, Waties Waring decided that the time had come for us to put that kind of process behind us, and he wrote the dissenting opinion in Briggs v. Elliott that Earl Warren used to issue the majority opinion in Brown v. Board of Education getting that behind us.

That is what this is all about, bringing people of different backgrounds and experiences together so that we can educate our children properly. When we see young people going to school, becoming educated, and trying to do the things that are necessary to prepare themselves for the future, we would do well as a government, a Federal Government, to reinforce the efforts of our States because when you give total educational responsibility to States, it means that the quality of education will be dependent upon the wealth of the State.

South Carolina is becoming wealthy, but it is not a wealthy State. We have States in our country that will not be able to afford the investment in education that other States can. We should not have an educational system with 50 different kinds of educational levels for our children. We should have a unified process, and that is what we have been trying to do with the Department of Education.

When the President closes the Department of Education and he then sends all of that back to the States, we will have people in one State getting a different quality of education than kids in another State. That is not what building a unified country is all about. E pluribus unum; Out of many, one. We ought to have out of many departments of education one Department of Education that would take on the responsibility of making sure that all of our children get the kind of education they deserve.

I will speak just a little bit to what my colleague just talked about here about DEI. I will say a little bit about DEI here as it relates to education and to the all-important industry that we have in South Carolina.

Now, this picture here is a picture that tells you a little bit about education and DEI. As you can tell, this picture is about the Revolutionary War. Now, a lot of people talk about Massachusetts and Virginia and what they did for the Revolutionary War.

Let me tell you something, if you were really educated properly, you would know that some, if not the most important battles, of the Revolutionary War took place in South Carolina. If you talk to people today about a war in South Carolina, they can only talk about the Civil War.

Yeah, it started there in the Charleston Harbor, but if you go back and look at the Battle of Charleston, that critical battle that we had lost twice, General Gates was not a good general, and then George Washington decided that he would get outside of his comfort zone. George Washington decided that he would not hold Nathanael Greene's background up in Rhode Island against him.

He sent Nathanael Greene down to Charleston and Nathanael Greene took over, won the Battle of Charleston, and changed the direction of the Civil War.

I love this kind of history. That is why way back in 2001, along with Congressman John Spratt, I authored a resolution to do a study of the Revolutionary War sites because I thought it was important for little children in the public schools of South Carolina to know what role our State played in the Revolutionary War. That was important to me because all they could see in their textbooks was what happened in the Civil War and that is all people knew about.

It took me all the way to 2019 to introduce the legislation, and I think it got passed in 2022. Twenty years we worked on this and then we had the big celebration. I am getting to this DEI stuff here.

We had the big celebration there in Camden, South Carolina, where I graduated from high school, this cannon was fired just about six blocks from the school I graduated from. The bill I worked on for 20 years finally became law. We took about 100 pictures that day. Look at this picture. The Congressman from the Fifth District you can see him standing there in the center. The Congressman from the Seventh District standing there in the center. Where is the guy from the Sixth Congressional District whose bill this was? Well, let me show you where he is. If you can see through this guy, you can see me. Why is that? It is called DEI.

They are saying the person who is in charge of taking the picture decided who he wanted to have credit for it. That is what DEI is all about.

I don't know what this gentleman is talking about. We all know what DEI is. We have been having trouble with these lights all day. I hope I am more than a silhouette back to my constituents tonight. We celebrate Thomas Edison as the most prolific inventor of American history. Why? Because we said he invited the lightbulb and that is true. I taught that when I was teaching history that Edison invented the lightbulb. I am proud of that.

However, what was not in those textbooks that I was teaching from, and I had to go to my own book to teach my children properly, because Thomas Edison couldn't get the lightbulb to work properly. It was not until Thomas Edison sat down with Lewis Latimer who had invented a filament.

Lewis Latimer's filament is what made Thomas Edison's lightbulb work. Then I am hearing from this administration that there is something wrong, uncomfortable about children learning about Lewis Latimer. Well, it is not uncomfortable for me to teach about Thomas Edison, why should it be uncomfortable for you to learn about Lewis Latimer because together they made the lightbulb work?

Why should we leave Lewis Latimer out of the textbooks and keep Thomas Edison in? That is what this administration is facilitating. That is why I saw on the front page of The Washington Post--I think it was this morning; it might have been yesterday--it was a big story about Harriet Tubman checking her stuff out of Federal facilities. What is this about? Why is it that it is uncomfortable for people to learn about that?

It is not uncomfortable for me. I was very proud of Albert Sabin. When Albert Sabin finished his professional career at the Medical University of South Carolina because Albert Sabin discovered how that little drop of serum on a lump of sugar would help eradicate polio.

I was proud of that. I know Jonas Salk had one too, but I like Albert Sabin better because Jonas Salk was a shot in the arm. Albert Sabin was a little lump of sugar. Who would rather get a shot in the arm than a lump of sugar?

I was proud of Albert Sabin finishing his career at the Medical University of South Carolina. I don't mind telling people about him. I don't mind teaching about him. What is wrong with teaching about Charles Drew, an African American who discovered the method by which we can refrigerate blood and save it until we would need it. What would we have done without that discovery? That is what the proper education is all about.

I mentioned here last week Charity Adams and Arthur Gregg. Now my colleagues think Arthur Gregg was from Virginia because that is where he retired, but he was from Florence, South Carolina. Charity Adams, Columbia, South Carolina, Fort Gregg-Adams.

Is that DEI because the Army decided that their contributions to the defense of this country were significant enough to name a facility for them? Am I going to see them taking their name off of that fort now?

We have taken Jackie Robinson's picture and resume out of the Department of Defense. I understand they took it back.

Why are you thinking about taking it out in the first place? That is what education is all about. We are in need of bringing our people together.

My number one industry in South Carolina happens to be tourism. When I came to Congress, the two big things in South Carolina were tobacco and textiles. Today, it is transportation and tourism.

Tourism is big for my State. People are going to come to South Carolina because of legislation on that southern campaign of the American Revolution. They will come to South Carolina to visit the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor. They will come to visit the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. They will come for those three national parks we have, including the Congaree National Park. They

are going to come visit Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park--six big tourist attractions.

I just read the other day that already tourism and visitations at Myrtle Beach are down over 15 percent already. Why? Because this is the time of year that the Canadians come. They aren't coming this year. Why? Because of this foolishness, this big tax that is coming out. We can call it whatever we want to call it--a tariff. A tariff ain't nothing but a tax at the border. So, the people in Canada are staying north of the border rather than coming.

Charleston's tourism is down. That is going to be the case throughout the South.

We created these opportunities for us to have better economies because when we have better economies, we will have better schools, because we will have our children being able to get the education that they deserve.

I had these prepared comments here, and I apologize to my staff for the work they did over the weekend, but listening to my colleague denigrate the history of this country--that is what he is doing, denigrating the history--we ought to celebrate our history.

All of it wasn't good. My parents lived through a history that I don't want to see my children and grandchildren live through, but if we continue down the road that this administration is taking us, that is what is going to happen.

I am the ninth African American to serve in Congress from South Carolina, eight before me. The problem is there are 95 years between number eight and number nine. Why? Because of a history we ought to be ashamed of and should not ever allow to come back again.

Yet, the policies I am seeing coming out of this administration, the decisions coming from some of the courts in this country, seem to be wanting to take us back to that history that I thought we had gotten beyond.

I am proud to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, but I am also proud to work in this body with people whose backgrounds are different from mine, trying to find common ground and how we can make what this country is all about accessible and affordable for all of its citizens.

I am proud to be a part of what I consider to be a great country. There is no need of being made great. We have to make that greatness accessible to everybody, affordable by everybody. That is what educating everybody is all about.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for the Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to voice objection to the Trump Administration's attacks on our Nation's education system, which I view as part of a wider attack on the fundamental principle that we all benefit when people come together, exchange ideas and opinions and learn from each other in an atmosphere of respect and good will.

At the same time Americans are calling for their leaders to do the things that are necessary to lower everyday costs so that they can better their conditions and plan effectively. Their schools--our greatest laboratories for economic development and individual advancement--are being targeted.

The repercussions of eliminating the Department of Education would perpetuate cycles of economic instability for generations of American families. As a former public schoolteacher, I know very well the value of education as a tool for upward mobility.

The knowledge and skills our young people learn in our schools are crucial to securing a good foundation for vocations and professions-- that provide financial security and family stability for decades to come.

The destruction of the Department of Education is compounded by another serious threat to our economic future: the indiscriminate, non- strategic tariffs the president announced on so called ``Liberation Day'' last week.

With markets tumbling in response to these exorbitant taxes--and that's what tariffs are, taxes--the only thing Americans are ``liberated'' from is their hard-earned retirement savings.

A small group of my Republican colleagues in the other body has moved to vote to reclaim their congressional trade authorities in response to the president's misguided tariff war on our friends in Canada, by introducing legislation to reclaim Congress's authority in the face of the president's recklessness. Mr. Speaker, it is time for this body to act.

At first glance, it may appear that dismantling the Department of Education and imposing slapdash sky-high tariffs have little in common beyond their destructiveness. I believe, however, that they both give us an insight into this Administration's narrow, dark, dangerous mentality.

Public schools and international trade are both fundamentally rooted in bringing people together.

Our public schools, at their best, bring children together from a wide array of backgrounds to learn with and from each other, on a level playing field, forming, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a beloved community that will make our society stronger as generations emerge into adulthood.

International trade, at its best, brings together individuals and corporations from around the globe to do business with each other on a level playing field, each contributing their talents and specialties so that all can be better off.

soybean farmers

You will note, Mr. Speaker, that in these descriptions of public education and international trade, I included the phrases ``at their best'' and ``on a level playing field.'' And it is regrettably true that in recent decades, our public education system and international trading system have not been at their best, and have not brought students, workers, and countries together, as effectively, they could have, to learn and to trade on a level playing field. As a result-- American children have been denied good educations, and American workers have been denied good jobs.

Yet rather than working together to seek constructive solutions, the Trump Administration has used these challenges as a pretext for destruction. And the result will be worse education and a worse economy.

Without the Department of Education providing resources and guidance, our public schools will move further from the unifying, excellent educational institutions that we aspire to have.

It is important to note that the Administration's aim to move the oversight and authority for administrating education completely to the states overlooks the lessons of history.

The Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education was created because of the ongoing discriminatory practices in Southern schools denying education to African American students and students with disabilities.

dad's story

the southern campaign

Federal intervention was required to rectify the situation and ensure that states were complying with the letter and the spirit of Brown v. Board of Education, which ensured that children of different races could learn together.

With trade hobbled by confiscatory tariffs, including on some of our closest allies, American families will lose affordable access to the items they need to sustain and enrich their lives, and American business will lose affordable access to the items they need to make the products that sustain and enrich their employees and their customers.

This trade policy reveals ignorance of history as well, particularly the history of the catastrophic effects of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs during the Great Depression.

The common thread of the Trump Administration's misguided approach to these issues appears to me to be that they do not believe people of diverse backgrounds can come together in a mutually beneficial way-- whether they are coming together to learn or to engage in commerce. To the Trump Administration, the world is zero sum, where if there is a winner there must a loser.

I fundamentally reject that approach, and I believe the American people are rejecting it as well as they begin to suffer its harmful consequences. I believe that when people learn together and work together, all can be made better off.

One area where the Trump Administration's zero-sum worldview is having a harmful impact in my home state of South Carolina is in the tourism industry. Tourism is a clear example of people, interacting with unfamiliar people and places, benefit both the tourists themselves and the communities they visit.

This Administration's divisiveness is turning people off, and South Carolinians are suffering the consequences.

The tourism expected this year in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a popular destination for Canadians subjected to the president's demeaning rhetoric and policies, is already down 15%.

Expected rates of tourism in Charleston have declined as well.

The success of a long-anticipated seasonal flight directly from Canada to Charleston airport is now in question as Canadians choose to vacation outside of the United States in response to the president's bluster.

You can see here on this poster a prime example of the tourism that bolsters my state's economy by bringing together people of diverse backgrounds to learn about our shared history: the Southern Campaign of the Revolution National Heritage Corridor.

This heritage corridor is one of three in my state along with the Gullah Geechee Cultural

Heritage Corridor and the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor. We now have three National Parks, Congaree, Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter, and the Reconstruction Era National Park. I am also particularly proud of a historic site in my congressional district--part of the African American Civil Rights Network--which commemorates the Briggs v. Elliot case, the first of the five consolidated cases that became Brown v. Board of Education.

I am particularly proud of this because it was a South Carolinian, great grandson of a Confederate soldier, J. Waites Waring, who dissented in Briggs, writing ``They showed beyond a doubt that the evils of segregation and color prejudice come from early training, . . . and that it is an evil that must be eradicated.''

These attractions illuminate examples of how tourism enriches people both financially and educationally by bringing them together with other people, places, events, and ideas they may not have otherwise encountered.

indian burial mound

These mutually beneficial interactions sadly appear to be at odds with this administration's worldview.

It is a sad irony, I have observed over the years, that those with the outlook held by this administration are those who would benefit the most from learning from, and interacting with, those different from them--yet they are the most resistant to doing so and actively seek to prevent American children from learning these lessons.

I want to share a few such lessons I believe all of us would do well to remember and heed.

Over the Christmas holiday's, I held a viewing of the historical drama, The Six Triple Eight. The subject of the film is success of a regiment of Black female soldiers who overcame extra ordinary obstacles to eradicate a backlog in mail correspondence to American soldiers on the front lines of World War II and restore morale by ensuring servicemembers could communicate with their families back home. The leader of that group was Chasity Adams. (Gregg/Adam)

We also remember the all-Black Tuskegee Airmen who went valiantly into battle for the United States in the European theater. They gave a sense of confidence to their fellow airmen, many of whom would not fly unless they had the assurance that the Tuskegee Airmen would join them in the skies.

We also remember the first U.S. mission to orbit the earth and that the astronaut leading the mission, John Glenn, refused to go up into space without the final sign off on the orbital mathematics of the mission by NASA's Katherine Johnson.

These pivotal moments are all instances where the coming together of people of very different backgrounds had immense benefits for themselves and for all of society.

It is these types of events that this Administration's policies will make far less frequent by its dismantling of the Department of Education and of mutually beneficial international trade.

It is sadly no surprise that this administration seeks to prevent the teaching and celebrating of these types of moments in our schools and museums.

I'll close by reiterating the admonition to my Republican colleagues I shared during this hour last week: it is my hope that fairness and dignity will prompt them to speak out and act against this administration's reckless agenda.

If the economic destruction of the last week has a silver lining, it will hopefully be that it is awakening the American people to the destructiveness of the administration's divisive zero-sum agenda and making it clear to my Republican colleagues that the American people prefer an approach that brings people together.

I often refer to this Hall as America's classroom and in the classroom and the marketplace, even on travel and vacation--that we should lift each other up toward a better future for all.

Mr. Speaker, by the direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 242 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, last night the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House Resolution 242, providing for the House's consideration of several pieces of legislation: H.R. 1048, H.J. Res. 24, and H.J. Res. 75.

The rule provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 24 and H.J. Res. 75 under closed rules. The rule provides each with 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, or their designees. Additionally, the rule provides each a motion to recommit.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 1048 under a structured rule. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divide and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Education and Workforce or their designees. The rule also provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule before us today provides Congress with another opportunity to take a stand for consumer choice in America and take a stand against our Nation's foreign adversaries who continue to infiltrate colleges and universities across the Nation.

The DETERRENT Act, one of the bills considered under this rule, offers a necessary injection of transparency, accountability, and clarity to foreign gift reporting requirements for colleges and universities. It offers legislative prescriptions that are long overdue.

Under current law, section 117 of the Higher Education Act, colleges and universities must adhere to reporting requirements related to foreign donations. However, many fail to do so because of how weak the current law actually is.

A 2019 Senate report found that up to 70 percent of colleges and universities fail to comply with reporting requirements outlined in section 117 of the Higher Education Act. You heard that right. Up to 70 percent of colleges and universities fail to comply.

The DETERRENT Act updates section 117 to provide the very clarity and guidance that colleges and universities need to ensure they properly disclose foreign sources of funding and remain in compliance. It also adds a set of razor-sharp teeth to current law to hold colleges and universities accountable for failing to comply with section 117. Again, the DETERRENT Act offers legislative prescriptions that are long overdue.

The other two pieces of legislation under consideration via today's rule are two separate Congressional Review Act resolutions: H.J. Res. 24 and H.J. Res. 75. These two CRAs will strike down separate rules from the Department of Energy that were finalized under the Biden administration.

H.J. Res. 24 overturns a wrongheaded midnight rule from the Department of Energy relating to conservation standards for walk-in coolers and walk-in freezers. The Department of Energy issued this final rule a mere 2 days before Christmas last year. This is yet another gift from the Biden administration that nobody asked for.

This midnight rule piles on additional costs to the shoulders of Main Street businesses, while at the very same time takes a hatchet to consumer choice.

H.J. Res. 75 will overturn yet another wrongheaded rule from the Department of Energy related to conservation standards for commercial refrigerators, freezers, and refrigerator-freezers.

Like the previous rule from the Department of Energy that was just discussed, this rule is yet another example of the regulatory barrage that the Biden administration launched against Main Street as well as consumers. Thankfully, the regulatory warfare of the past 4 years is over. Republicans are back in charge.

Mr. Speaker, regulating this country into the ground benefits absolutely no one. It does not benefit Americans and their families. It does not benefit free enterprise and entrepreneurs. It does not benefit small businesses. Nobody wins when the Federal Government goes hog wild with regulations.

These two CRAs that the House will consider under this rule will help us break out the shovels and bury the Department of Energy's rules in the grave. They won't be missed.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I spent time last week in my district, too, talking to people. I spend time every weekend talking to the people in my district. Do you know what they complain about the most? Unnecessary rules and regulations.

I met today with folks from the homebuilding industry. They can document that 25 percent of the rules related to homebuilding are unnecessary and drive up the costs of doing business for homes. We need new homes everywhere.

My colleagues are trying to make it look like what we are doing is frivolous. Mr. Speaker, this is far from frivolous. We in Congress are taking back our authority from unnamed, unaccountable bureaucrats who, in the dark of night, write unnecessary rules and regulations that burden the American people and drive up the cost of business and drive up the cost of products.

It is important for us to have further discussion on this critical Congressional Review Act that we are operating under. The Congressional Review Act agenda as a whole is important. My Democratic colleagues are falling into a repeated trap of copying and pasting comments these days. It is true of remarks for rule debate, as well. Every week, they come before this body to complain that we are undoing this or that regulation and that our collective time could be better spent

elsewhere. Well, Republicans beg to differ.

The Congressional Review Act provides the American people the greatest possible say over the endless tide of regulations that always stem from Democratic administrations, and it is one of the greatest keepers of Congress' Article I authority. It is also upsetting in many ways that the Democrats complain we are doing these individual rules when they opposed the Midnight Rules Relief Act, where we could have taken care of these all in one fell swoop.

Let's not forget it was a Democrat, President Clinton, who signed the Congressional Review Act into law on a bipartisan basis, but our colleagues have obviously fallen far from those past overtures of consensus and common sense.

Republicans and President Trump are constantly emphasizing common sense, which is not very common from the other side of the aisle. Many Members of Congress provide lipservice to excessive rules and regulations, but the Congressional Review Act provides Congress the ability to put our money where our mouth is.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has tabulated that Federal regulations impose a cost of $1.9 trillion on the economy. This averages out to more than $14,000 imposed on every American household, a hidden regulatory tax that is eating up American paychecks.

The amount of rules far exceeds statutes by Congress. In 2022 alone, there were more than 3,100 rules issued by agencies compared to 247 laws passed by Congress. Yet, despite these figures, my Democratic colleagues can't seem to muster the courage to find one regulation that they believe is worthy of repeal.

The fact is that we have a very limited window under the Congressional Review Act to expunge these harmful rules, again, written by unnamed, unaccountable bureaucrats. These rules continue to drive up costs for American families and take away consumer choices.

I am so glad that we are taking up these CRA resolutions, ones that would protect consumer choice and competitive prices for freezers, refrigerators, and walk-in coolers.

To my colleagues on the other side, these may seem like small issues to you, but driving up the cost of appliances is a regressive approach that will hurt low-and middle-income Americans the most. Regulating every possible square inch of the economy in the name of your zealous green radicalism may give the coastal elites a sense of accomplishment, but it is doing real harm to Americans.

When the Congressional Review Act window is completed, we are going to be tabulating the cost of these regulations, as well as the votes to repeal them. It may seem like a little bit of cost here and there, but wait until you see the cumulative price. I hope my colleagues can heed the warning, but if the past is prologue, I won't be holding my breath.

I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I have said it before. They are cutting and pasting and saying the same things over and over again. Fear-mongering is beneath the dignity of this body. That is not what we are here to do.

We have told our colleagues over and over, and they know this, but they refuse to acknowledge it. Nothing we have done this session has touched the sanctity of Social Security, nothing. In fact, President Trump has over and over again said that he will not touch the sanctity of Social Security. I have said that, and our colleagues have said that. We have done nothing.

Putting out false information to the American people is really unfortunate because it does frighten people. However, we have the facts on our side, Mr. Speaker, and the facts are that no bills we passed, the budget bill nor the Trump administration continuing resolution, hurt in any way Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, or any other program that the Federal Government has a contract with the American people on. It is time for our colleagues to stop saying that.

In fact, Republicans sued over ads that were being run in certain districts last week, and the Democrats had to pull those ads because the court ruled that they were not factual. They were the same kinds of things that are being said on this floor day after day.

Nonetheless, let's get back to the bill at hand: the rule that we are discussing and the underlying bill of that rule.

We have talked in the abstract, but I would like to drill down on the actual problems this bill would address and the specific failures of disclosure that this bill addresses.

A 2019 Senate report found that up to 70 percent of all institutions, these are postsecondary institutions, failed to comply with section 117 and those that do not comply often underreport.

Investigations by the Trump administration discovered that there was $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed gifts and contributions provided to so-called elite colleges, and this money came from countries that pose serious national security threats to our country.

In 2020, the Department estimated that schools had anonymously accepted $8.4 billion in foreign money over the past decade.

Let's keep in mind that the Biden administration did not utilize section 117 authorities at all in its 4 years. You heard that correctly, Mr. Speaker. In 4 years, the Biden administration did not enforce section 117. Despite the Trump administration's uncovering and investigating, the Biden administration didn't invoke section 117 at all, not once.

Let's turn to some more recent examples.

In April 2023, the former chair of Harvard University's chemistry and chemical biology department was sentenced to prison for lying about his affiliation with and income from the Wuhan University of Technology in Wuhan, China.

In July 2024, University of Maryland, College Park paid $500,000 for failing to disclose foreign funding from the Chinese companies of three researchers who simultaneously received Federal grants.

In September 2024, the Research Foundation of the State University of New York paid $313,574 after a scientist failed to disclose Chinese support.

In December 2024, the University of Delaware paid $700,000 for not disclosing that a faculty member receiving a NASA grant taught at a Chinese university.

A 2024 joint investigation between the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and Workforce found 21 joint U.S.-Chinese education institutes. A case study of two such institutes, UC Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology, revealed both a lack of proper disclosure under section 117 and research with clear military applications. Just those two schools alone totaled over $40 million in unreported contracts with China.

Clearly, Congress needs to do more to bring these unreported contracts, gifts, and funding sources of all sorts into the public eye. Taxpayer dollars are going to these universities. The public is owed the facts about where the rest of these funds are coming from.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, give me a break. We are to believe that something printed on the front page of The Washington Post is always true? Mr. Speaker, only 31 percent of the American people have any faith in the print media in this country, and they are very, very wise in that assessment. That is almost as low as the 27 percent of Americans who have faith in the Democratic Party right now.

I would like to clarify something else that was said. It was said that Republicans hate universities or there is a question as to why we hate universities. Mr. Speaker, we don't hate universities. We just want the universities to be honest, and we want them to be transparent. That is one of the bills we are discussing here today that this rule covers. It is very important that we have transparency throughout our government, and that is what Republicans want.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and the gentlewoman seem to believe that the new personnel structure at the Department of Education couldn't possibly implement this bill, yet our colleagues failed to mention the fact that section 117 investigations weren't invoked a single time under the Biden administration. What were the people at the section 117 desk doing under President Biden's watch? They were collecting a check, apparently, or perhaps they were asleep at the switch, which is very fitting for the Biden era.

Mr. Speaker, President Trump has made it clear that the Department of Education will implement the laws that we pass here in Congress until such time as the full transition is made with the Department.

The number of personnel at the Department doesn't really matter if you don't have the political will to carry out the authorities. I know that the people in the Department of Education will carry out these authorities until such time as the Department does not exist, and at that time, whatever laws exist will be implemented by appropriate agencies and departments.

Whatever we do is going to be better than what was done under the Biden administration when this law was never enforced and should have been.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would characterize what we are doing here today as the people's business. We are the people's House. We are here to look after the American people in the best way that we can. We are fulfilling our constitutional duties. Unnamed, unaccountable bureaucrats pass rules and regulations in this city every day that they should not be passing.

Congress gave us the ability to stop them, and my colleagues are complaining that we are wasting time, that it is slow and inefficient to implement the Congressional Review Act. It is slow and inefficient, but we passed a bill called the Midnight Rules Relief Act primarily with Republican votes that would have allowed Congress to dispense with multiple rules and regulations under one bill. That bill is currently in the Senate, and if that would pass and be signed by the President, we could all save time and be much more efficient. We are doing the people's work today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, being lectured to about how we feel about anti-Semitism on our side of the aisle is not something that I am used to hearing. It is the Republicans who have led the fight against anti-Semitism on our college campuses.

Mr. Speaker, we did make Democratic amendments in order in this rule. If my colleague had submitted his amendment in a more timely fashion and not just a few minutes before the Rules Committee met yesterday, we would have certainly had a chance to consider it. The deadline for submitting amendments was last Thursday, and that gives us an opportunity to review the amendments to see what can be put in.

Mr. Speaker, I urge our colleagues to follow the rules for deadlines because that is very important for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I am not really amenable to hearing people criticize us about our response to anti-Semitism when I fight it every day of my life. I am wearing my necklace that I wear every day, which says: ``Bring Them Home.'' I am wearing my yellow ribbon. Being told that I am not sympathetic to fighting anti-Semitism is not something that I take lightly.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we are nearly at the end of this, and I don't believe that we need to have a colloquy. We each have an opportunity for closing comments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are laser focused on governing and advancing legislation that addresses pertinent issues across the Nation. It is unfortunate that our colleagues do not agree that protecting Americans from unnecessary rules and regulations is not something that is important to them.

It is very important to us, and we are following regular order here. The Rules Committee is represented by me, the chair, on this important rule today. That is significant.

The three pieces of legislation that will be considered under the rule that will be debated tomorrow are part of our governing efforts and are in alignment with the mandate that Americans gave us last November.

Shielding consumer choice and combating foreign influence within higher education are issues that Americans care about. We have heard their concerns, and we are addressing them yet again this week.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question, ``yes'' on the rule, and then, later, ``yes'' on the bills that will be presented as a result of this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Chairwoman Foxx, for the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today yet again to expose to the American public the misplaced priorities of the House Republican Conference and the Republican majority here in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority gaveled us out of session 11 days ago. Here we are back in Washington, D.C. Of course, for us, it feels a lot like ``Groundhog Day'' because, notwithstanding all the economic turmoil, the conflicts across the globe, the various ways in which this administration is making life harder for the people of Colorado, for folks across our country, notwithstanding all the challenges that our country is grappling with, House Republicans have decided to spend this week debating what? Three bills: walk-in freezers, commercial refrigerators, and giving new responsibilities to a Department, the Department of Education, that they are seeking to dismantle, that they want to abolish. That is what we are debating here today, Mr. Speaker.

I listened to every word of the chairwoman's address outlining every component of the bills that we are considering, but for folks who are watching, for those who have graced us with their presence in the gallery, please understand the three bills: one regulating commercial refrigerators; another regulating walk-in refrigerators; and the third, a bill to give new responsibilities to an agency that they are seeking to destroy. That is it. That is what we are debating this week in Washington, D.C.

If folks in the gallery stay here through the week, that is what you will hear. You will hear a debate today, a debate tomorrow, and a debate on Thursday on those three bills.

I suspect that the folks who are watching this debate, Mr. Speaker, would agree with me that there are better things for us to spend our time on here in Washington, D.C., than debating walk-in refrigerators. Seriously? I don't know, maybe for Madam Chairwoman it is really important to the people of North Carolina. She may have a lot of constituents who have walk-in refrigerators. I don't know.

For me, I can tell you I just spent a week in Colorado, in the rural communities that I represent, hosting townhalls, visiting with folks in my community, constituents, ranchers, farmers, teachers, working families, packed townhalls. At those townhalls, do you know the one subject that no one brought up? Commercial refrigerators. It never came up.

At a townhall that we held 3 days ago with over a thousand people in my community, no one at that townhall approached me and said: ``Congressman, can you please go back to Washington and pass legislation on commercial refrigerators? It is really important.'' Nobody said that.

They are really concerned about the Republicans' plan to gut Medicaid. They are pretty concerned about the Republican plans to dismantle Social Security offices across the country. They are deeply concerned about reports that this administration is going to end phone line customer service for senior citizens who are relying on Social Security. They are pretty concerned about a Secretary of Defense who apparently is sending out war plans on unencrypted messaging apps, putting our national security at risk.

Those are the topics that my constituents care about. Commercial refrigerators is not one of them.

You can tell the frustration, I suppose, Mr. Speaker, in my voice. It is the frustration borne from having to come to the floor every week and debate appliances. Can the Republicans just put all the appliance bills in for consideration for 1 week? We can just do them all and then be done with it, and we can move on to having a debate about defending Medicaid, defending healthcare for the millions of Americans who rely on it. Is that too much to ask?

I just would beg of the chairwoman, I understand this is an important priority to her. It is important to the Republican Conference. We get it. They are obsessed with appliance regulation. After this week, can we please just be done with these appliance resolutions and get back to debating the issues that the American people expect us to debate?

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, just to be clear, I am not trying to make their legislation on commercial freezers look frivolous. It is frivolous. The American people understand that. They get it. Maybe there are a lot of people in the chairwoman's district buying commercial freezers. Again, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you it is not the top priority of the people whom I represent in northern Colorado and in western Colorado. It is far from it.

Now, I must say, I did hear with interest the chairwoman reference visiting with her constituents. I would simply say that my understanding was that the chairwoman doesn't do townhalls. I think she recently said in an interview that she doesn't do townhalls because they are an opportunity for constituents to yell at their Congressperson. So I find it of great interest.

I would just encourage the chairwoman and every member of the Republican caucus to do a townhall. They are nothing to be afraid of. It is a great opportunity to visit with our constituents. Perhaps if the gentlewoman would do that, she would come away with the same conclusion that I did, which is that the legislation we are considering today is a waste of time and grossly disproportionate to the priorities of the American people. It is simple.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), who is the ranking member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Parliamentary Inquiry

First, I just want to note, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps it is a point of information for your purposes, you admonished the prior speaker, the ranking member, for not making personalities, or rather making personalities against the President. My understanding is the only person he referenced throughout the duration of his speech was Elon Musk. So I am not sure if that was an accident on your part or if that is intentional, and perhaps the Speaker can clarify because I don't believe he referenced President Trump, but apparently you mistook his references to Elon Musk as a reference to the President.

I would just say, Mr. Speaker, that would be an important thing to clarify in the House moving forward that references to Elon Musk will be treated as references to the President of the United States, which is apparently what the Speaker is doing, that if someone references Elon Musk, that the Chair, that the Speaker will treat it as though we are referencing the President.

It is perhaps a point of clarification for a future time. I will say this, before yielding some time to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico, the chairwoman made reference to supposed fear-mongering regarding Social Security. It isn't fear-mongering. It is on the front page of The Washington Post.

I will read you the quote: ``Elon Musk put a big target on the Social Security Administration in the first weeks of the Trump administration.''

So it is not fear-mongering to share on this floor the concerns that have been articulated by our constituents regarding the dismantling of the Social Security Administration that President Trump and his administration is engaged in. It happens to be the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), who is a member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I understand the chairwoman apparently now is saying she won't believe The Washington Post articles. I wonder if she will believe the sentiments of her own colleagues? I believe it was Mr. Lawler from New York who a week ago was bemoaning online the closure of one of the Social Security offices in his own district.

What are we talking about? These offices are being closed in North Carolina, as well, I believe. This isn't some fictional, imaginary hypothetical. The Social Security Administration is closing down offices. Wait times are getting longer.

I just would urge my colleague, whom I have great respect for, to visit with her own constituents, and I suspect that they would share the same frustrations that I am articulating here on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 433, the Department of Education Protection Act, which would shield the U.S. Department of Education from efforts to dismantle the agency and ensure that every student receives the education they deserve.

As my colleague Representative Leger Fernandez already articulated, it makes no sense that Republicans have pushed forward a bill today to give more responsibilities to an agency that they are trying actively to dismantle.

Nonetheless, there is a way forward to save teachers and students and rural schools across the country, including back in Colorado, and that is by ensuring that the Department of Education Protection Act receives a vote here on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes) to discuss this bill. Mrs. Hayes is the author and the sponsor of this legislation, a former public schoolteacher, and a National Teacher of the Year. She is someone who has spent her life serving the students, the young folks, and the working families of the people of Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, some of this can get lost in translation, so I will try make this very simple. The gentlewoman, who I respect, wants to abolish the Department of Education. She is unabashed about that. She has voted to close the Department of Education. She supports the President's efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. I presume she supports the President's efforts to reduce the workforce by half. Mr. Speaker, 50 percent of the personnel in the Department of Education are now gone on administrative leave.

Yet, here we are today, debating her bill to create new responsibilities, new requirements, new duties on the very department she seeks to destroy.

What are we doing here?

If they don't want the Department of Education--again, that is their view; they don't want a Federal Department of Education; they are not hiding that--why are we debating a bill to give the Department of Education more power? It is insanity, insanity.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I simply echo the sentiments that have been expressed by so many of my colleagues that the policies that Republicans are pursuing here on the House floor are not the priorities of the American people. I think we all would be far better served if we debated the actual issues of the day, such as the challenges that Representative Stansbury and so many others described so eloquently.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion about townhalls. I don't quite understand, and perhaps the gentlewoman would be willing to expound upon her opposition and the opposition of so many of my colleagues in the Republican Conference to doing townhalls.

I have held 100 townhalls over the course of the time that I have had the privilege of representing Colorado in the United States Congress. We have held them everywhere in my district. I represent communities and counties that voted for Donald Trump, and I have held townhalls and will continue to hold townhalls in those communities because my obligation is to represent every person in western Colorado and in northern Colorado in the district that I serve.

My job is to be accessible to my constituents regardless of their political beliefs. I understand that Republicans are scared right now to host townhalls because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know that the policies that the majority is pursuing in Washington are deeply unpopular.

If I spent my week in Washington pushing bills on commercial freezers, I would probably be a little nervous to do a townhall back in my district, too. I get it. I understand where Republicans are coming from. However, maybe the way forward is to spend our time in Washington working on matters of substance. If we do that, I can promise Republicans that their townhalls will go just fine. They will go just fine.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman).

Mr. Speaker, I don't know if the gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman) is still here, but I will relay the substance of the chairwoman's remarks regarding his amendment and the timing of his amendment submission.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close. I have only a few minutes of debate left. As the chairwoman said, this is the people's House, a House that I have great reverence for.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might, via the Speaker, make a request to the chairwoman to engage in a brief colloquy. Perhaps that could provide the viewing public a sense of real debate, as opposed to us just giving speeches.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, with much respect to the gentlewoman, I think that is a shame because I think the American people ought to be able to hear a fair and full exchange of views in an active debate. I think that is far more present when we actually have a colloquy as opposed to just making speeches.

I simply say that the question I was going to pose to the chairwoman is that she has made clear that these three bills, the bill to give more power to the Department of Education that she seeks to dismantle and bills on the regulation standards for refrigerant walk-in freezers and commercial refrigerators, that those bills are very important to the House Republican Conference, that they are a top priority. Interestingly enough, not a single Republican Member of Congress in the last hour that we have had allocated for debate has indulged us with their presence today to come to the floor and extol the virtues of the legislation that Republicans have pursued on commercial refrigerators. I wonder why. It is probably not an accident.

Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine that there are a lot of Republican Members of Congress who wanted to sign up to come do floor debate today on commercial refrigerators. In light of the biggest mishap on a national security front in decades and in light of all of the challenges that our country is facing, debating refrigerators apparently was not something that many of my chairwoman's colleagues wanted to do.

Nonetheless, I am grateful that we have had an opportunity to share with the American public and give them full transparency into how the Republicans have decided to spend their time and their majority here in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will proceed with a few more days of debate. I am sure Republicans will pass their bills on commercial freezers and walk-in refrigerators, and then we will be back next week. One can only hope that Republicans will have seen the light by then and that we won't be up for appliance week number 4, 5, 6, or whatever it is now.

Mr. Speaker, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to actually debate substantive issues, there is an easy way to do it: opposing the previous question and opposing the rule and the underlying bills so that the House can get back to doing the people's work.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the following:

opening remarks from civil rights forum on trump's attacks on students,

workers, and families

We have seen this Administration attack diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the federal government and, by extension, in schools, workplaces, and public services and research--attacks on civil rights that we have not seen since the 1960's.

DEI, regrettably, has been attacked by the Republicans and this Administration to erase contributions and accomplishments of so many Americans. We have seen the Administration remove references to Jackie Robinson's military participation. References to women in health care research or women who served at the CIA have been erased. References to the plane which carried the first nuclear bomb in World War II, the Enola Gay, because artificial intelligence flagged it as a reference to the LGBTQ+ community, so they wanted that erased along with everything else. And now, they are attempting to ``rewrite history'' with the latest executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institute. Specifically, the Executive Order singles out the African American History Museum for its ``corrosive ideology.'' Before these relatively recent attacks, diversity itself had been the goal--in fact, the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 said that segregation of children in public schools, solely on the basis of race, denies the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and tangible factors may be equal. Regrettably President Trump, during his last administration, appointed dozens of judges who, during their confirmation hearings, refused to say whether Brown v. Board was properly decided.

Last week, the President signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education--a department that was created to ensure that students' civil rights were protected. The Department actually does very little in education--most of its work is civil rights, guaranteeing rights of low-income students. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: money in low-income areas to offset the effect of funding education with the real estate tax, guaranteeing that low-income areas will be at a disadvantage, so we put money in Title I. ED helps low-income students, racial minorities, dealing with achievement gaps, English as a Second Language, and students with disabilities. On higher education, they deal with access, Pell grants, and student loans. Some of the proponents of the elimination of the Department of Education campaign on the slogan of `states' rights.' We remember that campaign was used in the 1960's by those who wanted to maintain segregation.

The Trump Administration's war on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are not just limited to education. It prompted a purge of federal agencies of employees who supported DEI initiatives, culminating in the unprecedented firing of EEOC Commissioners. Without their presence, the EEOC actually lacks a quorum and is essentially unable to protect the rights of workers whose rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act have been violated.

Similarly, President Trump rescinded Executive Order 11246, which has been the cornerstone of civil rights protections in federal contracting since the 1960's. This Executive Order ensures that federal contractors must take affirmative action to ensure that they are not discriminating against workers based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. These actions ensured that taxpayer dollars were not being used to fund discrimination.

But despite the President's reckless actions and the acquiescence of congressional Republicans, we need to assure the public that many are still fighting for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Now, this is not just a fight in Congress. That is why we have asked these organizations here today to remind us why civil rights need to be protected and to tell us what they are specifically doing to combat those attacks.

Let's be clear: We are not here to do what I call ``celebrating the problem.'' We know what this Administration has done, and we know what this Administration is doing. We want to let the public know what we are specifically doing to fight back, and know how the public can join into that fight.

opening statement at education and workforce full committee hearing

entitled, ``the state of american education''

I would first like to start with the elephant in the room. There is current reporting that President Trump plans to issue an executive order to eliminate critical programs at the Department of Education and call on Congress to eliminate the entire department. But then I recall that that's exactly what Project 2025 said the president should do--it said that on page 319 of Project 2025.

The irony is not lost on me that we are here to discuss the ``state of American education'' while the current Administration is actively discussing how to dismantle the main federal agency responsible for ensuring safe, quality education for all students. According to polls, the majority of voters oppose the abolition of the Department of Education. I also know that I, and every Democrat, will do what we can to ensure the Department continues.

Now to the issue at hand. As reflected in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data, schools are struggling to make up for lost time in the classroom following the COVID-19 pandemic. Achievement gaps, which existed before the pandemic, have widened. According to that assessment, math and reading gaps between higher- and lower-performing students continue to rise, as Black students continue to be more than 10 points behind their white peers in all subjects.

In 2021, Democrats passed the largest one-time investment in education in the history of the United States in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), to provide schools with the resources they needed to reopen classrooms safely and make up for lost time due to the pandemic. Without this investment, we would undoubtedly be in a worse situation today. However, the American Rescue Plan Act was only a band-aid on the larger issue of underfunding in schools. It is abundantly clear that we need sustained federal investment over time to overcome decades of underfunding.

Unfortunately, instead of investing in our children, Republicans are stuck on proposals that will only create more challenges for students. Consider that the first education bill we considered this Congress targets--indeed bullies--transgender youth. Also, my Republican colleagues have misrepresented programs intended to expand diversity, equity, and inclusion as a problem in education. Republicans have threatened to ban books, police bathrooms, and take away funds from communities that need them most. Simply put, the Administration is promoting a warped version of DEI--discrimination, erasure, and inequity.

This all serves to distract Americans so that they will not notice the privatization of the American education system with taxpayer funds going to private schools, the resegregation of public schools, the erosion of services for students with disabilities, cuts to the student loan program, and distracts from the price of eggs going up. And while some folks may be hollering about imagined ``DEI problems,'' many in the public will fail to notice how the taxpayers' money is being siphoned away from public education and the student loan program to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected.

And so, Mr. Chairman, I know that we can all agree that every student in this country should have access to a safe, welcoming, and well- funded learning environment. That begins with eliminating disparities in education with sustained federal funding. This Congress, Committee Democrats will reintroduce legislation such as:

the Rebuild America's Schools Act, which would make a critical investment to repair and rebuild school facilities--particularly in high-need areas.

the Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act, which would restore the private right of action for students, parents, and local civil rights groups to bring discrimination claims based on disparate impact under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And the Strength in Diversity Act, which would provide resources to states or school districts that want to voluntarily develop plans to integrate their schools.

We have to take steps to lower the cost of higher education for students and families. To that end, we'll also reintroduce the Lowering Obstacles to Achievement Now (LOAN) Act, which would lower the cost of college for current and future student borrowers and their families by making critical reforms to the student aid system, including doubling the Pell Grant, improving the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and making loans more affordable and accessible.

Allow me, to that end, to promise to my colleagues and students across the country, that we will not go along with programs to dismantle our education system. We will fight any

attempt to dismantle the Department. We don't know what the plan will be, but count on our opposition to any plan that will abolish the Department of Education and the programs in it. To that end, Democrats will always be for the wellbeing of students, teachers, and parents across the country.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to co-anchor this CBC Special Order hour along with my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

For the next 60 minutes, members of the CBC have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on education, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, and the constituents who we represent.

Mr. Speaker, in the 1880s, my great-grandfather founded a school in his rural community because the State of Alabama did not provide a good education to Black children. As explained in his autobiography, he wanted to teach children, whose parents and grandparents had been enslaved on plantations nearby, to be of better service to themselves, their employers, and the community in which they lived.

In the 1930s, my father and his sisters attended that school because the State

of Tennessee did not provide a good education to Black children. Like his father and his grandfather, my dad became an educator himself, ultimately teaching the next generation of educators at Virginia State University.

In the 1950s, my mother had to move away from her hometown because the State of Mississippi did not provide a good education for Black children. The only school that did was run by the Catholic church, but only up until the eighth grade.

As the third youngest of 14 children, she wanted more than the domestic and laborer jobs that were available to her parents, her grandparents, and her siblings. She had to move to go to high school, becoming an educator herself, eventually running the TRiO Programs at Virginia State University. These are federally funded programs run by the Department of Education to work to ensure that children like her have the support they need to go to and graduate college.

My parents understood how important a good education is not only to individual opportunity, but to a thriving, healthy economy, community, and democracy. Like my grandparents and great-grandparents before them, they dedicated their lives to ensuring not only that their children had a good education but every child did. Not every child is so lucky.

The legacy of 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow, massive resistance, and chronic underfunding have created too many obstacles to the ability of States and local governments to give every child an opportunity for a good education.

For the past 20 years, first as a State legislator and now in Congress, I have worked to ensure that every child in Virginia could have a good education. As the mother of two children in public schools, I know that, even with bipartisan and Herculean efforts, there are still gaps in Virginia and across the country.

The Department of Education was created to fill those gaps. The Department protects students' civil rights, particularly those with disabilities who often need special accommodation to learn. It provides support to attract, train, and retain the best and brightest teachers, school administrators, support personnel such as counselors, nurses, and mental and behavioral health specialists, especially in hard-to- staff rural or urban schools.

It measures and tracks academic progress across the country and helps those school divisions that lag behind address areas of concern. It manages student loan and grant programs that ensure children without financial means can go to and succeed in college without incurring more debt than they could ever pay off.

The Trump administration's illegal actions to dismantle the Department of Education will ensure that these gaps remain. The administration claims that it is just returning control of public education back to States and localities. States and localities have always had that control, but they have not always had the will or the ability to ensure that every child can get a good education.

In my own State of Virginia, State and local officials and educators right now fear that local agencies and the Virginia Department of Education will not have the funding or the staff to handle the workload, especially in areas like special education.

The block grant funding that the Trump administration promises comes with little accountability, making it unclear whether the funds will actually reach the students and schools that need them the most: children with disabilities in rural and low-income communities.

Education lays the foundation for a strong future. Our Founding Fathers understood that. Today's students are the entrepreneurs, civic leaders, teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and Members of Congress of tomorrow. We owe it to our parents, our grandparents, and our great- grandparents to protect and build upon the progress that they have made. We owe it to our children and theirs to fight efforts to roll back that progress now.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the gentleman from the great State of South Carolina, the Honorable James Clyburn.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Mr. Clyburn for his speech.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), who represents the State's Seventh District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Georgia for speaking.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), who represents the State's Fourth District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. McIver).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes), who was Teacher of the Year.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I want to end where I began and that is with the story of my mother who lived to be 94.

She was the third youngest of 14 children in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi where the only school available to her was the Catholic church because Mississippi did not deem Black children important enough to educate. She wanted more than the life that was available to her siblings, her parents, her great-grandparents, and her grandparents. She had to move to go to high school.

She ended up running the Federal TRiO programs at Virginia State University to ensure that a little girl, whether she is in Petersburg, Virginia, or a little boy on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, would have the same access to an education, no matter their parents' financial situation, no matter the obstacles in their way. As a mother of two children in public school who has spent almost 20 years in public service, I have dedicated my life to making sure that every child has that same opportunity.

The Department of Education doesn't run schools. They don't set the curriculum. They fill the gaps that State and local governments have been unwilling or unable to.

Without the Department of Education, there is going to be a little girl

somewhere in this country as brilliant as my mother was, as dedicated as my father was to public education, as passionate about it as I am now, who will not be able to succeed because their school lacks a quality teacher or a principal who knows what he is doing or the school lacks the resources to provide a student with disabilities the tools they need to succeed.

Every Member of Congress in this body was privileged enough to get a good education to get here, but not every child we represent has that same ability. The Congressional Black Caucus, as the conscience of Congress, will fight for every child no matter their ZIP Code, race, creed, or background to get that education.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your attention tonight and I yield back the balance of my time.