Robert C. "Bobby" Scott

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I rise in support of my legislation, H.R. 6893, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Advancement for Training, Education, Restoration, and Science, the WATERS Act.

The Chesapeake Bay is a natural treasure and a critical resource for the millions of Americans who live within its watershed, including my constituents in Hampton Roads. The Chesapeake Bay's fisheries sustain the region's centuries-old fisheries and seafood industry, which generates about $8 billion in economic activity every year. The bay's unparalleled recreational opportunities not only support tens of thousands of jobs and generate more than $14 billion annually, but are also critical to the well-being and happiness of all that live throughout the watershed.

The Federal Government has helped our efforts to restore and protect the bay by devoting the resources and staff of multiple departments and agencies, including NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Office. This office provides scientific and technical support to government, industry, and nonprofits with the goal of advancing strategies that improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. This is an effort that has been going on for decades. We are making slow but steady progress.

Among its many responsibilities, NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Office manages the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System that provides researchers and watermen with near real-time data on weather and water quality conditions. The Chesapeake Bay Office also oversees the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Education and Training, or B-WET, program. This competitive grant program supports environmental education opportunities throughout the watershed that not only teach students about the bay but also connect them to it through experiential programming.

The Chesapeake Bay Waters Act reauthorizes NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Office. This ensures the agency can continue supporting the goals of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement and restoring the Chesapeake Bay. My bill also authorizes the Chesapeake B-WET program for the first time in its history, ensuring that future generations can continue to engage with the Chesapeake Bay.

I thank my fellow co-leads, Virginia Representatives Wittman and Kiggans and Maryland Representative Elfreth, for their support of this legislation. I thank Chairman Westerman and Ranking Member Huffman for their leadership in getting this bill to the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, today, we find ourselves here, again, purportedly to address anti-Semitism in American higher education. While we should be able to agree that there is no place in higher education for anti- Semitism, the fact is my colleagues on the other side have been curiously quiet, or selectively quiet, about addressing anti-Semitism when it actually does occur.

Recall when President Trump declared that there were fine people on both sides when a bunch of White supremacists and their Unite the Right rally marched on the University of Virginia's campus chanting: ``Jews will not replace us.''

My colleagues on the other side were also silent as numerous reports regarding chapters of the College Republicans openly promoted their hated of Jewish people among other groups.

All the while this has been going on, my colleagues have not told the President to stop firing lawyers at the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education, the agency responsible for investigating claims of anti-Semitism in education.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are certainly mum about how this administration is dismissing Title VI disparate impact analysis, the very tool necessary to address practices and policies that may appear facially neutral but, in fact, discriminate against protected classes under the law.

I have not heard them comment on the whistleblower allegations, and many investigations into anti-Semitism on college campuses, led by the Department of Justice's Anti-Semitism Task Force, were based not on fact patterns or legal analysis but political priorities.

With that said, we have the bill before us, the so-called Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, which would amend the Higher Education Act by imposing new conditions on colleges and universities that receive higher education funding. Under the bill, institutions receiving Title IV Federal student aid would be legally required to certify that they are not engaged in a nonexpressive commercial boycott of Israel.

I will begin with an important distinction: there is a difference between actions, or views of students, or even recognized student organizations and the official policy of the colleges and universities they attend.

Students have the right to express their political views, but that does not mean that their university has adopted those views, such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement. We have yet to see a single college or university in the United States adopt the BDS movement or institutional boycott policies contemplated in the bill.

Simply put, the bill does not address any ongoing or existing higher education policy boycotting Israel. Nonetheless, this would create new Federal requirements intended to prevent institutions from adopting such policies in the future.

Moreover, as we examine the bill, Members should be careful to consider how these Federal requirements would operate in practice, the potential of negative effect on institutions receiving Federal funds, and whether the bill is misusing the power that we have from the Constitution's Spending Clause to illegally sanction First Amendment- protected speech, particularly those of students.

As written, the bill presents serious First Amendment problems and improperly limits academic freedom.

I had hoped these problems could have been resolved before we got to the floor, but they weren't, so I will be opposing the bill. For these reasons, I ask Members to vote ``no,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

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

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a statement from J Street, which says in part: ``This means infringing on constitutionally protected free speech and academic freedom by penalizing institutions (and thereby unrelated research) for participation in certain boycott or divestment efforts targeted at Israel or Israeli settlements. There is a fundamental distinction between the State of Israel and the territory that it occupies over the Green Line, and penalizing universities for expressing their opposition to activities that further annexation sets a dangerous precedent.''

[From J Street, Aug. 31, 2026]

J Street Statement Opposing H.R. 4795

Washington, DC--J Street opposes the Protect Economic and

Academic Freedom Act of 2025 (H.R. 4795), which would

condition federal funding on a university's choices regarding

investments, procurement, partnerships, and other

institutional activities in Israel and the West Bank.

While we oppose the Global BDS Movement and strongly

support academic engagement between American and Israeli

institutions, we believe this legislation takes the wrong

approach to these issues.

Specifically, the legislation would penalize any

institution that chooses to engage in a nonexpressive

commercial boycott against Israel and ``an entity licensed or

regulated by, or organized under the laws of,'' Israel, which

would include Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

This means infringing on constitutionally protected free

speech and academic freedom by penalizing institutions (and

thereby unrelated research) for participation in certain

boycott or divestment efforts targeted at Israel or Israeli

settlements. There is a fundamental distinction between the

State of Israel and the territory that it occupies over the

Green Line, and penalizing universities for expressing their

opposition to activities that further annexation sets a

dangerous precedent.

Furthermore, this bill does not keep American Jewish

students on campus safe, nor does it address the lived

experience of antisemitism that American Jewish students

encounter. Instead, by changing US code to to exceptionalize

the treatment of Israel at American universities, this bill

runs the risk of inflaming antisemitism.

J Street believes the most effective way to counter

antisemitism on college campuses is through open debate,

education, and renewed efforts to achieve a peaceful

resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--not through

punitive legislation aimed to curb the freedom to boycott.

We urge Members of Congress to vote against this bill and

instead cosponsor the Antisemitism Response and Prevention

Act (H.R. 6806). This bill would implement a whole-of-

government approach to fighting antisemitism by funding the

Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education and

mandating the designation of a Title VI coordinator on every

college campus in order to provide students with additional

resources in hopes of preventing antisemitism and other hate

on campus.

Mr. Speaker, I also include in the Record a statement from the American Federation of Teachers which says in part: ``The AFT has long fought for academic freedom, the safety and dignity of all students and educators, and policies that keep higher education accessible. H.R. 4795 undermines those goals rather than advancing them.''

Mr. Speaker, I will close by returning to the central point: that we must distinguish between student or faculty expression in university policy.

A student organization or individual faculty member supporting BDS is not the same thing as the university administration adopting BDS as policy. A faculty member expressing a political opinion is not the same thing as the institution imposing a boycott.

Importantly, we have yet to see a single American college or university adopting BDS in the way the bill suggests. Furthermore, we know the bill is intended to target the BDS movement. Yet it is not clear whether a school that even joined the BDS movement would be covered by the text of the bill.

The bill implicates ``nonexpressive boycotts'' as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro) just pointed out. If it is expressive, it is protected by the First Amendment. BDS by its very nature is designed to express disapproval of the actions of the State of Israel. If a college or university came out and publicly said it was joining BDS, most people would agree that that announcement and any activity that flowed from it would clearly be expressive, and therefore, out of the scope of the bill.

As an expressive activity, the statement would be protected under the First Amendment, and therefore, the First Amendment would protect the funding from being removed. But, again, no college or university has embraced the BDS movement anyway.

We should combat anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, but we should not do so by punishing protected speech or conflating students' views with university policies.

For those reasons I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) leaders Dorothy Laigo Cordova, Dr. Allan Bergano, and Edwina Bergano.

Known as the ``Mother'' of the Filipino American National Historical Society and the Filipino American civil rights movement, Dorothy Laigo Cordova co-founded FANHS with her late husband, Fred Cordova, in 1982 as a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and sharing Filipino American history. For seven decades, she has worked to combat racism and ensure that the Filipino American story is recognized as an integral part of the American experience. FANHS was born out of frustration with the lack of accurate representation of Filipino Americans in mainstream history and has since grown to more than 40 chapters across the United States, including one in Hampton Roads. Dorothy's tireless efforts were instrumental in establishing Filipino American History Month, observed every October and recognized by President Obama in 2012.

Dr. Allan Bergano and Edwina Bergano founded the Hampton Roads Chapter of FANHS in 1990. They are taking a much-deserved retirement after nearly 40 years of service and a shared commitment to intergenerational community leadership. The Hampton Roads Chapter is the oldest on the East Coast and focuses on preserving, documenting, and sharing the history and culture of Filipino Americans in the region.

As the only present Member of Congress with Filipino ancestry, I have the privilege of representing this rich and vibrant Filipino American community in Hampton Roads while serving as co-chair of the U.S.- Philippines Friendship Caucus. The region is home to the largest Filipino American population on the East Coast and several U.S. military bases. Many Filipinos immigrated to the area through service in the U.S. Navy or by working in the health professions.

In closing, I thank Dorothy Laigo Cordova, Dr. Allan Bergano, and Edwina Bergano for the sacrifices they have made and the bridges they have built for the Filipino American community.