[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES, EDUCATION, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2026
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
______________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES,
EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama, Chairman
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana, ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut,
Vice Chair Ranking Member
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN, LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
Tennessee BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan JOSH HARDER, California
ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia
NOTE: Under committee rules, Mr. Cole, as chairman of the full
committee, and Ms. DeLauro, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Kathryn Salmon, Emily Goff, James Redstone,
Kirk Boyle, Jaime Varela, and Emma Lou Ford
Subcommittee Staff
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PART 3
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U.S. Department of Labor....................................... 135
U.S. Department of Education................................... 297
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-905 WASHINGTON : 2026
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
----------
TOM COLE, Oklahoma, Chairman
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky,
Chairman Emeritus
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
BEN CLINE, Virginia
GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
TONY GONZALES, Texas
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona
CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina
MARK ALFORD, Missouri
NICK LaLOTA, New York
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama
CELESTE MALOY, Utah
RILEY M. MOORE, West Virginia
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut,
Ranking Member
STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
JAMES E. CLYBURN, South Carolina
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
GRACE MENG, New York
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
PETE AGUILAR, California
LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
NORMA J. TORRES, California
ED CASE, Hawaii
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
JOSH HARDER, California
LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
SUSIE LEE, Nevada
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
MIKE LEVIN, California
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
MARIE GLUESENKAMP PEREZ,
Washington
GLENN IVEY, Maryland
Susan Ross, Chief Clerk and Staff Director
(II)
DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES, EDUCATION
APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2026
----------
Wednesday, May 14, 2025.
FISCAL YEAR 2026 REQUEST FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES
WITNESS
HON. ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Mr. Aderholt. Well, good morning. The subcommittee will
come to order.
It is my pleasure to begin today's hearing by welcoming our
new Secretary of Health and Human Services to the House
Appropriations Committee. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was
confirmed to his Cabinet post just 3 months ago, and he has hit
the ground running with the aim of implementing the President's
goal to make America healthy again.
And, Mr. Secretary, we are very pleased to have you today.
Welcome to the subcommittee.
Let me say that I believe Secretary Kennedy brings fresh
eyes and a new perspective on public health and the state of
healthcare systems in America, what is working and what is not
working.
The Federal Government is currently spending an estimated
$1.9 trillion annually on healthcare programs and services,
which constitutes over \1/4\ of Federal outlays and the largest
category of Federal spending. The United States vastly outpaces
every other country in the world on per capita healthcare
spending. And yet even with that, despite this massive and
growing investment, America's health outcomes lag behind our
peers.
Life expectancy in the United States is lower than in other
developed economies, while rates of infant and maternal
mortality, obesity, diabetes, and healthcare are higher. At the
same time, public trust in government health agencies has
notably eroded. Clearly, we have a problem. Adding more and
more money to the status quo simply isn't solving that problem.
It is time to seek out bold and to seek out fresh ideas.
In that spirit, I am interested this morning to hear more
today from Secretary Kennedy and about his efforts and his
ideas to reform the Department of Health and Human Services and
refocus to improve health outcomes for men, women, and children
who represent our local communities.
In my home State of Alabama, we confront a number of health
challenges that are common to rural communities across the
country. And I appreciate Secretary Kennedy--we have discussed
this. He has spent time in Alabama. He knows rural America
quite well. And I appreciate his understanding of this
challenge before us.
Rates of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer in my State of
Alabama exceed the national average. Meanwhile, rural hospitals
that serve our communities are facing significant financial
challenges to stay afloat. And in many cases, that is a gross
understatement of the financial situation of these hospitals.
In 2010, at least 14 hospitals in Alabama closed their doors
and even more stopped offering inpatient services and maternal
health services.
In addition to that, our rural communities face ongoing
challenges with health workforce shortages. Therefore,
Secretary Kennedy, I look forward to working with you on these
critical challenges that face rural America.
As Secretary Kennedy knows, I am a strong supporter of the
right to life, and I am encouraged by his commitment to protect
the sanctity of life in his role at HHS. Mr. Secretary, I look
forward to working with you closely in our efforts to protect
innocent life and the conscience rights of all Americans,
including medical professionals and students who are pro-life.
I am encouraged by President Trump's tremendous success in
getting our Nation's border under control so quickly and so
effectively. The President's success in securing our border
directly benefits public health by reducing the incoming flow
of illicit drugs like fentanyl, which has fallen by 54 percent
since this time last year, and that is no small thing.
Similarly, the President's border actions have
significantly reduced the number of unaccompanied minors being
trafficked into our country. I look forward to hearing from the
Secretary about these efforts as well.
I also look forward to learning more about the Secretary's
plans to reform and reorganize the Department of Health and
Human Services. Over the past 2 years, Secretary Kennedy has
spoken eloquently to the American people about the urgent need
for healthcare reform. He continued to make the case for reform
as he partnered with President Trump to make America Healthy
Again movement. Last month, the Secretary announced a number of
structural reform proposals within the Department of Health and
Human Services and its numerous subagencies, including the
establishment of a new Administration for a Healthy America.
Mr. Secretary, I appreciate the preliminary details of this
plan that you have shared with us, and I look forward to
hearing more this morning.
Congress has also been engaged on the urgent need to reform
our healthcare agencies. Last year, I was pleased to work with
our colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee to initiate
reform proposals for NIH, or the National Institutes of Health.
I am encouraged to see that the administration is building off
of this process by making additional reform proposals at the
National Institutes of Health. I look forward to hearing more
details about that, your proposal, and to continue on a
dialogue between the Department and the Appropriations
Committee as we begin the budget process in earnest.
Mr. Secretary, I am sure you know all too well that
implementing reforms in Washington is no easy task. However,
the President has asked you to take on this weighty challenge,
and you have accepted that challenge. We here in Congress want
to partner with you, bringing our own experience to the table
as elected representatives of our communities. We share your
goal to make America healthy again, and we look forward this
morning to your testimony here today.
And with that, I would like to turn to our ranking member
of the Appropriations Committee, Ms. DeLauro, for any opening
remarks that she may have. Ms. DeLauro, you are recognized.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for holding what is a very critically important hearing on
President Trump's disastrous budget request for the Department
of Health and Human Services.
Secretary Kennedy, good morning to you. We welcome you to
the House Appropriations Committee for your first budget
hearing.
However, I cannot thank you for the Trump administration's
budget request to cut funding for important health programs by
$33 billion. Quite frankly, I view it as a disgrace. Under your
budget proposal, Americans would die of needless and
preventable deaths.
But before we talk about the request to cut tens of
billions of dollars next year, I would like to talk about what
is happening right now. The American people are demanding
health with a cost of living, but President Trump is not laser
focused on the cost-of-living crisis. He is actually making it
worse. He promised to fight for the working class but instead
put Elon Musk and billionaires in charge of the government and
you to destroy everything we know about good public health.
Mr. Secretary, this administration is recklessly and
unlawfully freezing and stealing congressionally appropriated
funds from a wide swath of agencies, programs, and services
across the government that serve the American people. And
recall that this is a violation of the Constitution. The power
of the purse resides with the Congress. It is Article I,
Section 9, Clause 7. Yourself and President Trump and Elon Musk
are attacking health programs to pay for tax cuts for
billionaires. And by promoting quackery, we are endangering the
health of the American people with pseudoscience,
fearmongering, and misinformation.
Governments should fight for the middle class, the working
class, and the vulnerable, not the interests of billionaires
like Elon Musk. Instead, with you at the helm, the Trump
administration and Republicans in the Congress are destroying
the crown jewels of our health system--the National Institutes
of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and
the Food and Drug Administration.
At the NIH, the world's largest funder of lifesaving
biomedical research, you and Elon Musk have fired or driven out
nearly 5,000 personnel, including some of the world's most
preeminent scientists, frozen billions of dollars in research
to develop cures for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, women's
health, and the list goes on.
China and Europe are taking advantage of this disaster by
recruiting American scientists away from the United States.
China wants to overtake us as a global leader in health
research and innovation. You and President Trump are aiding and
abetting them.
Two weeks ago, I called a hearing on the cuts to CDC
because the Republican majority is refusing to hold this
administration accountable for its wanton destruction. As part
of your drastic and haphazard purge of CDC, you and Elon Musk
eliminated entire divisions without consideration of what is
being lost. More than 70 percent of CDC's funding is provided
to State and local jurisdictions. These cuts affect families
and communities in every one of our districts. These cuts are
dangerous.
Dr. Peter Marks, the country's top vaccine regulator at the
Food and Drug Administration, helped to develop the COVID
vaccines at record speed under the first Trump administration.
Dr. Marks was told to resign or be fired. In his resignation
letter, Dr. Marks wrote that ``It has become clear that truth
and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather
he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and
lies.'' Mr. Secretary, Dr. Marks was talking about your
misinformation. He was talking about your lies about vaccines.
Mr. Secretary, you are gutting the lifesaving work of the
Department of Health and Human Services and its key agencies
while the Republicans in this Congress say and do nothing.
But the destruction of HHS is not limited to NIH, CDC, and
the FDA. Mr. Secretary, you are eliminating entire agencies
that have saved the lives of someone near and dear to each and
every one of us. Because of these cuts, people will die.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
SAMHSA, eliminated. Health Resources and Services
Administration, HRSA, which as you know is responsible for
ensuring access to healthcare for the uninsured, isolated, and
vulnerable people, eliminated. The Administration for Strategic
Preparedness and Response, ASPR, which was created to prepare
for and respond to public health emergencies, eliminated. The
Administration for Community Living, ACL, eliminated, hurting
seniors and people with disabilities.
You can make the baseless claim that you are simply
reorganizing these functions of HHS all you want. It is simply
a matter of fact that you cannot cut the Department's budget
and maintain all of its lifesaving programs and services.
HHS has closed half of its regional offices, which serve 22
states and 5 territories. Twenty thousand HHS employees are
gone. And Republicans have set the stage to cut Medicaid
benefits from people who rely on that program to see a doctor,
including roughly half of our Nation's children.
HHS has terminated more than $12 billion in funding for
State and local health departments, including funding for
mental health, substance abuse programs, treatment, sabotaging
our progress in addressing the opioid crisis.
Mr. Secretary, you are eliminating scores of CDC prevention
programs, including HIV, tobacco, drowning, asthma, lead
poisoning, and gun violence. Why on earth are these the places
you are terminating for so-called waste? The life of a teenager
that does not become addicted to cigarettes or injured by a
firearm is not waste.
Last month, you wrote in The New York Post, ``America has
the highest rates of chronic disease in the world. We rank last
in terms of health among developed nations. And life expectancy
is declining for many groups of Americans.'' Mr. Secretary,
much of what you wrote is true, but it is confounding and
incomprehensible to then turn around and eliminate the CDC's
Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
And with respect to your views on vaccines, quite frankly,
I believe you are promoting quackery. Under your watch, our
country is now failing to contain vaccine-preventable diseases.
Measles, a disease eliminated in the United States just decades
ago, has now claimed the lives of three Americans, including
two children who died needlessly, and over 1,000 are confirmed
to have contracted the disease, all while you peddle unfounded
and dangerous vaccine skepticism, spread lies and
misinformation about people living with autism.
Vaccine programs for millions of Americans, including
children, we do that so that they do not get these diseases
like measles. This is not a waste. The thousands of experts and
experienced staff who help keep Americans safe from global
infectious diseases like measles, polio, HIV, tuberculosis, and
Ebola are not waste. These programs help to save the lives of
men, women, and children from all walks of life in this
country.
And you have decimated the Food and Drug Administration by
firing 3,500 employees, taking a wrecking ball to FDA's food
safety mandate. You talk about making our food supply healthier
while gutting the support staff for critical inspections of
things like baby formula.
You talk about closing the ``generally recognized as
safe''--or GRAS--loophole, which allows food companies to
determine the safety of their own ingredients, something that I
have advocated for years, but while firing staff in charge of
food and chemical reassessment.
The former deputy commissioner of the Human Foods Program
resigned in February, writing, ``I was looking forward to
working to pursue the Department's agenda of improving the
health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease
and risks from chemicals in food. It has been increasingly
clear that with the Trump administration's disdain for the very
people necessary to implement your agenda. However, it would
have been fruitless for me to continue in this role.'' That is
a damning indictment of your work on food safety.
I am worried. I am worried about a future public health
crisis that emerges once the Trump administration has fully
dismantled the Nation's public health system. We are currently
in the midst of an outbreak of avian influenza, and this
administration is woefully unprepared to protect Americans and
mitigate its impacts if it transforms to be transmittable from
person to person.
This is all happening today, right now. We are not talking
about hypotheticals or what-ifs or worst-case scenarios. This
destruction has happened and is happening today, right now.
Even though we received President Trump's concept of a budget
plan on Friday, we are now into May without a real budget from
the White House.
Mr. Secretary, in the budget outline, you are asking
Congress to cut funding for health programs by $33 billion, a
cut of more than 25 percent. You are asking Congress to cut CDC
by nearly $4 billion, NIH research by $18 billion, and you
claim to be reorganizing NIH. Any reorganizing of NIH must go
through the Congress. We need to hold public hearings, engage
in a thoughtful process to incorporate the best ideas to
advance NIH as a crown jewel of biomedical research.
Mr. Secretary, you have no lawful authority to undertake
this by yourself. These are vital institutions built up over
decades that protect Americans' health and the health of people
around the world. I do not believe the American people want
less cancer research, fewer people tracking infectious
diseases, but that is exactly what this budget will deliver.
We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, driven in
part by skyrocketing healthcare costs, and you and Elon Musk
and President Trump are making it worse. You are wreaking havoc
at every level of our most critical health institutions. You
are jeopardizing our families' health for the sake of
billionaire tax cuts, but we are seeing pushback at every
level. The public is outraged at the enormous harms you have
wrought. Dozens of courts have put restraining orders on the
administration's actions, but the courts can only play defense.
Republicans in this Congress could stop the mayhem, the chaos,
and the destruction today if they had the courage, but they
remain silent, petrified of the President's scorn, revenge, and
retaliation.
Those of us who serve in elected office, we are blessed,
and we have the power to do something. We know what is right,
and we know what is wrong, and we understand the harm being
wrought on the American people. We need to stand up, not be
afraid. This is the time to meet the moment.
As a top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, I will
never stop fighting against this dangerous dismantling of
health and human services and its agencies, which is
jeopardizing the health, the safety, and the well-being of
millions of America's families.
Thank you. I look forward to your testimony and to the
important conversations we will have in this hearing this
morning.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Aderholt. All right. Mr. Secretary, we look forward to
your opening remarks. You are now recognized. Of course, your
written statement will be included for the record, but you have
the floor, and we look forward to your testimony.
Secretary Kennedy. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Ranking
Member DeLauro and members of the committee. I am honored to
appear before you today to present the Department of Health and
Human Services' fiscal year 2026 budget.
Debilitating disease, contaminated food, toxic
environments, addiction, mental health illness affect families
across every race, class, and political belief. When my team
and I took the helm at HHS, we set out with clear goals. First,
we aimed to make America healthy again with a special focus on
the chronic disease epidemic. Second, we committed to
delivering more efficient, responsive, and effective services
to the over 100 million Americans who rely on Medicare,
Medicaid, and other programs. Third, we focused on achieving
these goals by cutting costs to taxpayers. We intend to do
more, a lot more, with less. The budget I am presenting today
supports these goals and reflects two enduring American values,
compassion and responsibility. I invite the committee to unite
around these ideals with me.
The United States remains the sickest developed nation, and
we spend $4.5 trillion annually on healthcare, two to three
times more per capita than comparable nations. Clearly,
something is structurally and systemically wrong with our
approach.
Furthermore, our healthcare costs are steadily increasing
at a rate 2 percent greater than the economy. If we don't
staunch this unsustainable hemorrhage, we will ransom our
children to bankruptcy, servitude, and disastrous health
consequences. Yes, an exploding debt is a social determinant of
health.
We won't solve this problem by throwing more money at it.
We must spend smarter. We will shift funding away from
bureaucracy toward direct impact. Some things at HHS will not
change. We will preserve legacy programs like Medicare,
Medicaid, and Head Start as the foundation of the MAHA agenda.
Vulnerable populations, seniors, and veterans deserve
consistent access to care, and I will ensure that they receive
it.
Today, 83 million Americans, urban and rural, lack adequate
access to primary care physicians. We will prioritize these
families, especially Native Americans and Alaskan communities.
We will protect IHS funding, streamline its operations, and
give the tribes more autonomy for managing their resources.
Let me be clear. We intend to make the Trump HHS not just
the most effective but also the most compassionate in U.S.
history. Our official budget statement outlines many
priorities, but I will highlight a few.
First, we will consolidate programs to better tackle mental
health and addiction. These issues now rival chronic disease
and their impact. HHS will aggressively combat the opioid
crisis, especially the spread of synthetic drugs like fentanyl.
We will empower State, local, and tribal leaders to create
effective solutions.
Second, we will address nutrition, physical activity, and
healthy lifestyles. The present budget requests $94 billion in
discretionary funds to support these priorities, including the
Administration for a Healthy America. We will emphasize healthy
eating and Head Start and ensure the program continues to serve
its 750,000 children and parents effectively.
Third, we will equip the FDA to expand its food safety
efforts through research, regulations, independence, and
education to remove harmful chemicals from food and packaging.
And we are already doing this more aggressively than any other
administration in history.
We will fund cutting-edge research at the NIH while cutting
risky or nonessential services. That includes ending of gain-
of-function experiments and research based upon radical gender
ideology. At the CDC, we will return to its core missions,
tracking disease, investigating outbreaks, and sustaining
public health infrastructure while cutting waste.
And I will add, in response to your critique about the
measles, we are doing a better job at CDC today than any nation
in the world at controlling this measles outbreak. I am happy
to elaborate on that afterward.
Fifth, we will eliminate DEI funding and redirect resources
toward real poverty reduction. We will move beyond lip service
to communities of color and take meaningful action to meet
their needs.
Sixth, we will strengthen cybersecurity and health IT. The
AI revolution has arrived, and we are already using these new
technologies to manage healthcare data more efficiently and
securely.
Finally, we will rebuild public trust, trust that eroded
through years of industry capture, corruption, waste, and
misplaced priorities, including by some of the gentlemen that
you just mentioned, Ranking Member. We will launch a new era of
transparency and public service, creating an honest, science-
driven HHS that answers to the President, to Congress, and to
the American people.
I look forward to working with Congress to pursue this
mission together as a bipartisan cause. Let's work side by side
to make America healthy again.
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Mr. Aderholt. Thank you----
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Yes, sir?
Mr. Hoyer. We have another committee meeting of which I am
the ranking member. I will be back, but I didn't want Secretary
Kennedy to think I was walking out on him.
Mr. Aderholt. Duly noted.
Secretary Kennedy. I welcome your absence, Congressman
Hoyer.
Mr. Hoyer. I will be back.
Mr. Aderholt. All right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I will
begin.
I mentioned in my open remarks that I appreciate your
commitment to upholding the sanctity of human life in your
capacity as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The
pro-life community was deeply concerned by numerous actions
that were taken during the Biden administration that undermined
the right to life and the conscience of rights of pro-life
Americans. For example, the Center for Disease Control revealed
at the end of the Biden administration that the CDC-funded
nurses in Mozambique were performing abortions that violated
the HELMS Act, which prohibits U.S. foreign aid from funding
abortions. In addition to that, the Biden administration
punished states by denying them Title X funding for refusing to
provide abortion counseling in violation of state law.
Can you talk to us for a couple of minutes or whatever
about steps that you see the Department are now taking to
protect the right to life and the conscience rights of pro-life
medical providers and also medical students?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Every abortion is a
tragedy. I don't believe that our Nation can live up to its
role as a moral authority around the globe when we have
hundreds of thousands, if not a million abortions per year in
our country.
Under President Trump's leadership, I have ended Federal
funding to the kind of overseas programs that fund abortions or
counsel abortions, and we have withheld the Title X funding
from NGOs that refuse to differentiate the funding streams so
that the Federal Government and my agency can't tell whether
money that is being sent to that agency is being used for
legitimate family planning issues or it is being used to
counsel or fund abortion. And we have said that as soon as they
differentiate that, we would begin refunding them.
I think at this point, the administration is now fed up
with that. And, you know, the budget that is proposed by OMB is
a budget that cuts out Title X funding because they don't
believe that these NGOs can actually, in good faith, comply
with the law and with the EOs.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that, and like
I said, I appreciate your commitment to that for the
President's vision.
One of the most significant challenges facing rural
hospitals is the area wage index, which is used, of course, by
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. And, as you
know, under the reimbursement formula used by CMS, mandates
that the area wage index remain budget neutral and high-wage
hospitals receive a higher reimbursement rate, whereas low-wage
hospitals receive a lower reimbursement rate.
This system has the perverse result of preventing low-wage
hospitals, many of which are in rural areas and underserved
communities, from paying higher wages. By keeping these
hospitals at the lower end of the wage spectrum, they cannot
compete against higher-paying hospitals, increasing their risk
of closure, which I referred to earlier, and locking them into
a downward spiral.
During the first Trump administration, CMS attempted to
address this disparity. However, the Biden administration did
not successfully defend the policy when it came to the courts.
Therefore, rural hospitals again confront this downward spiral
of the CMS area wage index. Can you tell us if CMS has taken
any steps under your leadership to review the impact of the
area wage index on rural hospitals?
And can I get your commitment to work with me and, of
course, with Administrator Oz on a solution to this very
critical problem that is affecting so many rural hospitals?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, Mr. Chairman. As you point out, the
Trump administration initially tried to address this disparity,
which is destroying rural healthcare. And as you know, many of
these rural hospitals provide critical access to care. Without
them, patients would have to drive sometimes hours to get to an
emergency room. They are absolutely critical in those regions,
but they are also important economic drivers for many of those
regions. And they are institutions that provide cohesion to
those communities.
If we want to preserve rural America as a livable space
with dignity, enrichment, prosperity, and good health that they
deserve, we need to keep those hospitals and those treatment
institutions in good shape. We need to keep them financially
viable. The initial Trump administration, 2016 to 2020, tried
to redress those disparities. Unfortunately, as you know, as
you pointed out, the Biden administration did not robustly
respond to a court challenge, and we got a very bad decision
from that. That said, that my agency has no power to redress
this disparity, but I pledge to work with you and with
Congress. Change has to be statutory. And we will do our job at
providing technical support, including the kind of studies that
you just mentioned that show how badly this disparity is
wounding rural America.
Mr. Aderholt. Yes. Well, thank you. And like I said,
someone who represents a rural State, certainly, I hear about
it almost every day or very frequently, so I appreciate your
commitment to that.
With that, let me recognize the Ranking Member, Ms.
DeLauro.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me
address one area of correction, which has to do with the
measles issue, Mr. Secretary. You keep comparing the U.S. to
other countries. You compare us to Europe. But the Europe you
are referring to is the WHO European region. That is 53
countries in Europe and in Asia, including those with low
vaccination rates, like Romania, that has never eliminated
measles. If you compare us to Western Europe countries that we
often compare ourselves to like Great Britain, they have seen
no measles deaths this year.
Let me move to the NIH. In your testimony, you say you want
to ``rescale our biomedical research budget.'' Excuse me, but
that is BS. You are not rescaling NIH research. You are
proposing to cut it by $20 billion. And according to our
colleagues in the Senate, NIH has effectively cut research
funding by $2.7 billion this year in comparison to the same
period last year. That is a cut of 35 percent during that
period. That includes cutting cancer research by 31 percent.
This is the report put out by the Senate, Trump's war on
science, which goes into detail about how we are, in fact,
dealing with cutting scientific research.
Mr. Secretary, are you freezing or withholding funding that
Congress appropriated in 2025 for lifesaving NIH research?
Secretary Kennedy. Let me address your first issue first
because I want to correct you. We have about 1,100 measles
cases in this country. The growth rate last year was 15
additional, so we have plateaued. Mexico has roughly the same
number with a \1/3\ of our population, and they got 300 extra
cases last week. Canada has more measles, 1,500. They have \1/
8\ of our population. Western Europe has about 6,000, which is
10 times the number that we have.
Ms. DeLauro. Well----
Secretary Kennedy. You are wrong about what you said
earlier.
Ms. DeLauro [continuing]. We can discuss that, but I think
one has to consider whether or not we are dealing with decades
of data proving how effective and safe the measles vaccine is.
I want to move to that. I want my questions answered on are you
freezing and withholding funding that Congress appropriated in
2025 for lifesaving NIH research?
Secretary Kennedy. We are not withholding any funding for
lifesaving research.
Ms. DeLauro. Okay. Do you commit to following the law----
Secretary Kennedy. Of course.
Ms. DeLauro [continuing]. And fully obligating funding that
Congress appropriated, we appropriated--it is the law of the
land for NIH research--and to obligate those funds by September
30 of this year, or are you planning to break the law by
impounding congressionally appropriated funds?
Secretary Kennedy. If you appropriate me the funds, I am
going to spend them.
Ms. DeLauro. We have. You are cutting the NIH by $18
billion, or you are proposing to cut it by $20 billion. The
Congress appropriated those funds, it passed into law, it is
part of the 2024 budget, and we are under a continuing
resolution that has adopted the 2024 numbers. How then can you
justify cutting $20 billion from the biomedical research
budget?
Secretary Kennedy. If you appropriate the money to me, I am
going to spend that money.
Ms. DeLauro. We have appropriated, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Kennedy. Then I am going to spend it.
Ms. DeLauro. Then you are not going to spend? You are not
cutting $20 billion from the NIH?
Secretary Kennedy. The White House proposal is to do very,
very large cuts at NIH.
Ms. DeLauro. But that is contrary to the money
appropriated.
Secretary Kennedy. Ranking Member----
Ms. DeLauro. Yes.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. If Congress appropriates me
the money, I am going to spend the money. You have the power of
the purse here.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you.
Secretary Kennedy. I am sure you know that.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you for reiterating that, but I think
that I am not sure the administration really has internalized
that, particularly Mr. Vought hasn't internalized that when he
says that we can in fact impound money. The money is there. The
2024 budget includes the funding for the NIH. Will you commit
to spending the money that is in 2024 in that budget?
Secretary Kennedy. As I said, Ranking Member, if you
appropriate the money, I am going to spend that money.
Ms. DeLauro. The money has been appropriated, so the answer
to that is you are not willing to accept the funds that have
been lawfully voted by Members of the House and Senate on the
money for the National Institutes of Health. I am going to hold
you to your word that that funding is there. It should be
transferred from '24 to '25. And you have cut already $20
billion. Let's get that money back. Let's get that money back.
You have an obligation to carry out the law and to implement
what the Congress has done. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Chronic disease in tobacco, tobacco use is a major
contributor to chronic disease and is a leading preventable
cause of death in our Nation, each year killing nearly 500,000
Americans, costing the Nation nearly $250 billion in healthcare
costs. CDC's Tips from Former Smokers media campaign alone is
estimated to have saved more than $7 billion in healthcare
costs by helping more than 1 million smokers quit. Why did you
eliminate CDC's Office of Smoking and Health, an office that
reduces the number of kids using tobacco products, helps other
tobacco users to quit, and saves taxpayers dollars?
Secretary Kennedy. We have, under the reorganization--and I
am going to talk very, very broadly because as of 4:00
yesterday afternoon, we are under a court order not to do any
further planning on the reorganization. And I have been advised
by my attorneys not to talk about it. But I will just say
broadly, many of the programs that the Democrats are now saying
were cut at CDC were not cut at all. Those programs were
transferred to the Administration for Healthy America. But I am
not permitted to talk in any more detail----
Ms. DeLauro. Fine. That is----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Because of a court order.
Ms. DeLauro. We are just dealing with words. You transfer
it here, there is less money overall for the agency, therefore,
there is less money for the programs. In 2024, 2025, Congress--
again, power of the purse resides here--appropriated $246
million for CDC's tobacco prevention programs. Do you commit to
following the law again, fully obligating those funds so that
we can help adults who want to quit using tobacco and prevent
teens from becoming addicted?
Secretary Kennedy. Allow me to answer that by pointing out
the absolute cataclysmic disorganization of this agency under
your oversight for 40 years. We had nine separate Offices of
Women's Health. When we consolidate them, the Democrats say we
are eliminating them. We are not. We are still appropriating
the $3.7 billion, but we are not keeping all nine. We had eight
separate Offices for Minority Health. We eliminated one. We had
27 HIV offices.
Ms. DeLauro. Okay. Let me just--I am going to jump in
because----
Secretary Kennedy. We had 59 behavioral health programs.
Ms. DeLauro. The chair is right. I am well over time. If
you could just get us what has been eliminated, why you are
doing it, and the criteria by which the elimination has
occurred. That is information that this committee needs in
order to be able to do our job in terms of appropriating funds.
Thank you for your indulgence.
Secretary Kennedy. And we will gladly provide that to you,
but right now, we are under a court order that prohibits us
from doing so.
Mr. Aderholt. Okay. Before we go on, I just want to say we
also need to make sure that we bear in mind that the Secretary
is here talking about fiscal year 2026 funding, so he is
committed to that. So I just want to make sure that we are all
clear we are talking about fiscal year 2026 on this. Mr.
Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Secretary, for being here, and thanks for taking on what is a
huge task. You have done that before in your history, and I
look forward to--you know, most of the people I talk to are in
favor of MAHA and Making America Healthy Again. And I agree
with a lot of the things you have said. Some of the things I
question, want to see more studies on, and there is probably a
couple in there that I might disagree with, but that is okay.
Opening this debate of how we can make America healthy again is
very important.
Let me ask a couple questions. I chair the Interior
Committee that funds Indian Health Services, which is in your
department. I noticed in your opening statement you want to
maintain the level of funding for Indian Health Services to
keep the promises that we have made to our Native American and
Alaska Natives. That is not just a promise, that is a legal
obligation we have with those. Those are treaty rights. So we
have been doing a great deal in my bill increasing funding for
Indian Health Services.
We also did something that we call forward appropriations
so that they have appropriated a year in advance because we
found that during shutdowns and those kind of things, they
weren't protected like other health organizations were and
stuff. Your skinny budget--and I haven't seen your full budget
yet--do you maintain that forward appropriation for Indian
Health Services?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, Congressman. You know, I want to
point out I spent 20 percent of my career working on tribal
issues, representing the tribes in treaty negotiations and
litigation against big polluters in the extractive industry and
others. I was one of the founding editors of Indian Country
Today, which is the largest Indian newspaper in Indian Country.
It has been an issue that I have been committed to my whole
life.
I fought successfully to exempt the Indian Health Service
from the probationary freezes from the fork in the road, the
early retirement from the rifts and from all of the downsizing.
I also made an opportunity that people at my agency who lost
their jobs in other parts of the agency from the rifts, et
cetera, could transfer to Indian Health Service because Indian
Health Service is chronically understaffed. It is very, very
difficult to find competent personnel who will move to Indian
Country or to distant locations.
I am committed to protecting it. I am committed to working
with you to make sure that we can finally make this work for a
population that is not only probably, you know, among the most
aggrieved in our history but also a population that suffers
more from chronic disease, that has the shortest lifespan, the
highest rates of diabetes, the highest rates of alcoholism of
any other population.
And, you know, one of my big priorities will be getting
good, high-quality food and traditional foods onto the
reservation because processed food for American Indians is
poison.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, and they are finding that the way to
attack diabetes on reservations with the highest rate is by
going back to their traditional foods.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, I mean, I will say one thing. The
Pima Indians were a Blue Zone in Arizona, the longest-lived
people on the continent. Today, they are among the shortest
lived. I think their lifespan is around 47 years old, the
highest rate of diabetes, second in the world. About 80 percent
of adults are diabetic, have chronic obesity. Right across the
border in Mexico, there are Pima Indians who are still long
lived, have no diabetes, no heart disease, no obesity because
they are not being fed ultra processed food. Ultra processed
food is a genocide on the American Indian, and we have to end
it.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, I agree. One other subject that I want to
talk about is the reorganization of NIH and the fewer
institutes. There are some institutes that are concerned that
they are going to be left out of this reorganization. The
Division of Oral Health at the CDC is concerned about the lack
of focus on oral health. Will you commit that preserving the
congressionally appropriated funding and upholding the autonomy
of the National Institutes of Dental Craniofacial Research and
other institutes until Congress completes a thorough review of
the NIH restructuring?
Secretary Kennedy. I don't know what the OMB budget says
about dental health, but I can tell you that I am deeply
committed to dental health. There is so much new science out
there that shows how dental health is intricately related to
health and the rest of the body, to the microbiome, to the
brain health. You know, we want to do those kind of studies to
make sure that we understand that, and we need to make a big
commitment to dental health.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate that, and I look forward to
working with you on that and making sure that--you know, most
diseases can actually express themselves in the oral cavity
first.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. It can be detected there. I am concerned about
the fluoride issue. I have seen the benefits, having been a
practicing dentist for 22 years. I just noticed this morning
that the FDA brings action to remove ingestible fluoride
prescription drug products for children from the market. And as
I am reading through this, I want to see some of these studies,
but it says the best way to prevent cavities in children is by
avoiding excessive sugar intake and good dental hygiene,
obvious. Then it says, ``For the same reason that fluoride may
kill bacteria on teeth, it may also kill intestinal bacteria
important to children's health.'' I would tell you, you don't
prevent cavities by fluoride killing the bacteria in the mouth.
What it does is make the enamel more resistant to decay. So I
want to see the studies on this and where we are headed with
this.
And I will tell you that if you are successful in banning
fluoride, I noticed you congratulated Utah and Florida, I
think, for banning it. That is up to them. They can do what
they want, but we better put a lot more money into dental
education because we are going to need a whole lot more
dentists.
Secretary Kennedy. I think that, you know, Marty Makary's
concern with ingestible fluoride is that the emerging science
shows the benefits of fluoride to caries and to cavity
prevention comes from topical exposures rather than--it was
once thought that it was systemic, that if you ingested it,
that the benefit came from that. We now know that virtually all
the benefit is from topical, and we can get that through
mouthwashes. We can get it through fluoridated toothpastes. The
National Toxicity Program issued a report in August, a
metareview of all the science that now exists on fluoride, and
showed a direct inverse correlation between fluoride exposure,
dose-related, and lower IQ. It is an issue that we have to all
be concerned with. We want high IQ kids----
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Hoyer.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. And we need them right now.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate that, and I look forward to
working with you on it.
Secretary Kennedy. Okay.
Mr. Hoyer. As promised, I returned.
Ms. DeLauro. You and MacArthur.
Mr. Hoyer. Yes, me and MacArthur. I am not going to ask
questions about specific issues about which I am very
concerned. I subscribe, frankly, to the remarks that Ms.
DeLauro, our ranking member, made. However, Mr. Secretary, with
reference to my concerns about what is happening, first of all,
let me ask you this. You submit a budget, it goes to OMB, the
President will submit it to us, and Congress passes a budget,
sends it to the President, presumably the President signs it.
Once that happens, do you consider that budget that Congress
passes to be a suggestion or directive?
Secretary Kennedy. Well, as far as I am concerned, it is
the President's budget, and my duty is to defend it. It is
Congress' choice about whether or not they are going to fund.
You know, Congress appropriates the funding.
Congressman, there is no agency head that I know of that
wants to see his agency gutted or his budget lowered. There is
tremendous waste in my agency. You know, it grew by 38 percent
during the Biden administration, and public health went down.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay. I got 5 minutes.
Secretary Kennedy. Right, but I just say this. President
Trump has a broader vision than me, which is that the $2
trillion we are spending a year that we don't have is landing
on our children. That is a health crisis for them.
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Secretary, my question to you respectfully
was, do you believe it is a suggestion or a mandate? This is a
very important issue, which we differ greatly with the
administration and with Mr. Musk, that willy-nilly without
Congress' approval, they can remove things, take things away,
defund things, fire people. That is not my proposition. I want
to know whether it is your proposition. You have answered in
the sense that once the budget is adopted, you need to carry it
out. Now, whether that was President Trump that signed that
budget or President Biden that signed that budget, I presume
your premise is the same. Is that correct?
Secretary Kennedy. I mean, I don't know whether you are
asking me a rhetorical question because I think it is self-
evident.
Mr. Hoyer. No, it is not a rhetorical question. It is
whether or not you think once the Congress says we are going to
spend X number of dollars on Y objective, that you will follow
that.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay. That is the answer I wanted.
Secretary Kennedy. Incidentally, that happens throughout
history, you know, a Republican----
Mr. Hoyer. Throughout history--Mr. Secretary, with all due
respect, you and I know this. Mr. Nixon said that was not the
law, that he could take whatever we--and he took it as a
suggestion. And he wanted to impound, and he did impound in the
early '70s, and we passed an act that said you can't do that.
Then the Supreme Court heard that case, and very frankly, one
of the most conservative judges, Justice Scalia, said President
Nixon, the Mahatma Gandhi of all impounders, asserted at a
press conference in 1973 that his constitutional right to
impound appropriated funds was absolutely clear. Scalia went on
to say our decision 2 years later in Train v. City of New York
proved him wrong. That opinion has been reiterated by the
Supreme Court subsequent to that decision.
This is a critically important issue because there are
conflicting opinions. We will try to come to consensus on that.
The President has to sign the budget unless we override his
veto of the budget. That becomes the law. We think, and a lot
of courts over the last 2 months have decided, that that law is
not being followed, so that was my point.
Now, let me ask you something. You have reduced the
Department by 20,000 people, as I understand it. You have been
quoted as saying some of those firings were mistakes. In fact,
of course, Musk fired 70 percent of the people when he bought
Twitter and then brought a large number of them back because he
found out, as you point out, not with respect to that, but with
respect to these 20,000 people, there were mistakes. My
question to you is, have you had an analysis prior to making
those decisions or Mr. Musk making those decisions? And I ask
you first, who made those decisions, you or Musk?
Secretary Kennedy. They were made--I mean, ultimately, we
executed the decisions----
Mr. Hoyer. I know you executed them, but my question is----
Secretary Kennedy. Elon Musk gave us help in figuring out
where there was waste, fraud, and abuse in the Department. It
was up to me to make the decision. And there are many instances
where I pushed back and said, you know, that would hurt us to
eliminate that group.
Mr. Hoyer. Let me ask you a question based upon that
response. Was there an analysis of the consequences of these
cuts and the reduction in force and elimination of programs?
Was there an analysis that you can provide the committee that
indicated those, as you concluded in your statement, would not
harm people, would not undermine, frankly, the people who are
being served, the healthcare not delivered, people not served,
children not educated, research not accomplished, frankly,
lives not saved? Is there an analysis that you can provide to
this committee prior to us determining the budget that will
show that, in fact, those cuts will not be harmful to those
objectives?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, I mean, yes, there were analyses.
The simplest analysis was at the outset, the analysis that we
are spending $2 trillion a year that we don't have.
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Musk said he was going to----
Secretary Kennedy. At some point----
Mr. Hoyer [continuing]. Cut $2 trillion.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Spending $2 trillion more
than you have, you have to make cuts. The other analysis that
was more detailed is that----
Mr. Hoyer. You cut the children or the Indians that you are
so concerned about?
Secretary Kennedy. We didn't cut the Indians. We didn't----
Mr. Hoyer. No, I understand that.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Cut the Indian services.
Mr. Hoyer. I am asking you, you said we have to cut----
Secretary Kennedy. I made sure that those services were not
cut. I made sure that Head Start was not cut. But the cuts that
were done were cuts that were to duplication, to redundancy, to
streamlining. We increased our workforce 70 percent in 4 years,
so we were going back to the 2019 levels.
Mr. Hoyer. Yes. Mr. Reagan----
Secretary Kennedy. And I would ask----
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Reagan said he was going to cut waste,
fraud, and abuse. He increased the budget deficit by 189
percent, the highest of any President in history.
Ms. DeLauro. No analysis.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. You know, we are allotted 5 minutes, and I am
trying to be lenient, you know, instead----
Mr. Hoyer. I appreciate it.
Mr. Aderholt [continuing]. Of cutting somebody off
midsentence. But if you all could be respectful to me so that
we can sort of wrap up when I start tapping.
So anyway, let me recognize Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, good morning. I am Chuck Fleischmann. I
represent the 3rd District of Tennessee, that is east
Tennessee, Chattanooga, Oak Ridge. I want to thank you for
stepping up in this important role and serving our great
President, President Trump, in all of your endeavors.
I want to begin with a thank you because I am going to have
some questions later about some other issues, but thanking you
for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation under HHS.
What it does with Oak Ridge, which was the birthplace of the
Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in my
district, it works to make sure that the Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Compensation Program at the Department of
Energy is run well, and it is. This keeps our hardworking
civilian employees insured and cared for long after their years
of service. So that is a profound thank you to you and yours
for running that so well.
Mr. Secretary, I am going to talk a little bit about the
Food and Drug Administration. That is under my dear colleague
and friend, Andy Harris' jurisdiction. I chair Energy and
Water. But while I have you here, Mr. Secretary, I know the FDA
has taken significant steps to ban or phase out synthetic food
colorings over the years, and I respect that. The current
colors, though, Mr. Secretary, that are used and have been
approved by FDA have been deemed safe for many years.
Candidly, I represent many snack manufacturers. I am a big
fan of the oatmeal cream pie in many ways. I have M&M's in my
district. I know you are going to come and visit me in a couple
weeks. We can all have some M&M's and Little Debbie's together.
But on a very serious note, we want to make sure that FDA
has done due diligence to ensure the safety of these
replacement colors. Will you work with me on that? Because,
candidly, I think these dyes are safe. They have been approved.
But really, trying to find substitutes, the costs, we have seen
estimates 5 to 10 times try to fix that. Will you work with me
on that, sir?
Secretary Kennedy. Absolutely, Congressman. And one of, I
think, the really important accomplishments that we have done
over the past 100 days is we have been working with the food
industry, and we found the food industry very, very receptive.
We think we have good science that links almost all of these
dyes with ADHD, with neurological injury, with cancer. And they
have agreed to phase out the two worst of them, which is orange
B and red citrus number 3 within 2 months, and the other 7 dyes
within 2 years.
And some of the food companies, like Tyson's Food, have
already eliminated them because of our talks. They asked us to
do one thing. They said, can we try to fast-track the vegetable
dye substitutes that we need? And we have fast-tracked those,
and we have already got them approved. So we have 3 dyes
approved this week that are substitute dyes that can be used by
the food industry, and we are going to continue to respond to
the needs of the food industry. We are going to continue to
work with them, and I am happy to work with you, Congressman.
Mr. Fleischmann. And I thank you. I thank you for your
answer and your response.
Mr. Secretary, I wanted to talk with you about this
subcommittee's oversight of the 340B Drug Discount Program. I
am a strong supporter of that. I have hospitals in my district.
It provides funding to safety net community health centers,
hospitals, and other healthcare providers with discounts from
prescription drug sales. CHCs and rural hospitals across
Tennessee have become dependent upon this program. Just a
question, sir. We have heard that this department will move
oversight from HRSA to CMS. Can you either confirm or deny
that, sir?
Secretary Kennedy. I can't because of the court order, but
I can tell you, you know, the 340B program, as you know, it is
not a straightforward program because it was originally
intended for 100 institutions that were serving very poor
communities. It has now grown to 27,000 institutions. The
patients themselves seldom get the benefits of the drug
reduction, and actually 100,000 if you look at all the kind of
satellite institutions.
But we also recognize that it is the lifeblood of rural
hospitals right now so we can't mess with that program without
giving those rural hospitals something else that is going to
support them, and we understand that.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir.
Secretary Kennedy. I can tell you that drug companies are
worried because if we do what President Trump wants, which is,
you know, through compliance with the executive order to go to
the most favored nation, it will lower the price of all drugs,
which means it will further lower the cost of 340B drugs, and
they consider that existential. So that is a problem that we
all need to work out together.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Pocan.
Mr. Pocan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary. I am Mark Pocan. I represent the 2nd Congressional
District of Wisconsin. All are part of six counties in south
central Wisconsin.
I don't know you, and I think it is important to have a
good working relationship with you because of everything that
you have. There is a lot of jurisdiction. Now you have
definitely got your hands full with a lot. Some things I think
we agree on, and some things I am not sure if we do, so I am
trying to explore a little bit of that. I think some things
that we agree on--and you brought it up. You wanted to have a
special focus on chronic disease, correct?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Pocan. Yes, great. And one that maybe Chuck and I
disagree a little bit on, but I support what you are doing on
ultra processed foods, on food dyes and other junk chemicals,
and promoting healthier diets. That is another focus, correct?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Pocan. And also, I think you are supporting and making
it easier to access nonpharmaceutical, in other words, natural
remedies as part of a person's healthcare decisions.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Pocan. And one I didn't have on the list, but I heard
you tell Mr. Simpson on dental care. I have a constituent who,
because of an infection with a tooth, is now getting Meals on
Wheels, and his health is destroyed, so I appreciate that as
well.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Pocan. So in trying to get to know you, there are some
public things that, you know, make you somewhat of a conundrum
to people like me, just trying to, you know, understand. One is
on vaccines. And I don't want to ask you about all the specific
theories on vaccines, but something that might be helpful is
you have previously said you vaccinated your children. Just
because I think this is a helpful answer, and this isn't a
gotcha, I promise. If you had a child today, would you
vaccinate that child for measles?
Secretary Kennedy. For measles? Probably for measles. You
know, what I would say is my opinions about vaccines are
irrelevant. I have directed Jay Bhattacharya----
Mr. Pocan. Sure. No, like I said, I don't want to----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. To decide, so that
everybody can make that decision. But, you know, I don't want
to seem like I am being evasive----
Mr. Pocan. Yes.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. But I don't think people
should be taking medical advice----
Mr. Pocan. Right.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. From me.
Mr. Pocan. Right. No, I got that. And I am not asking you
to give them medical advice----
Secretary Kennedy. So, you know, and----
Mr. Pocan [continuing]. But would you vaccinate your child
for measles?
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. I think if I answer that
question directly, that it will seem like I am giving advice to
other people, and I don't want to be doing that. I want people
to make up their own----
Mr. Pocan. Okay. But that is kind of your jurisdiction
because CDC does give advice, right?
Secretary Kennedy. Well----
Mr. Pocan. I am not trying to do it as a gotcha. I was just
going to----
Secretary Kennedy. Yes. I think what we are going to try to
do is to lay out the pros and cons, the risks and benefits
accurately as we understand them----
Mr. Pocan. Okay.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. With replicable studies.
Mr. Pocan. Can you talk about chickenpox? Would you
vaccinate your child against chickenpox?
Secretary Kennedy. Again, I don't want to give advice. I
can tell you in Europe they don't use the chickenpox vaccine
specifically because the preclinical trial shows that when
you----
Mr. Pocan. Okay.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Inoculate the population
from chickenpox, you get shingles in older people----
Mr. Pocan. I got you.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Which is more dangerous.
Mr. Pocan. Just one last one, just a yes or no, please, if
you could. Polio?
Secretary Kennedy. Polio? Again, I don't want to be
giving----
Mr. Pocan. Okay.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Advice.
Mr. Pocan. That is fair. Like I said, I was not doing it as
a gotcha. I was just----
Secretary Kennedy. And I am saying----
Mr. Pocan. I thought it could be helpful if--okay. So let
me ask this. On the 988 hotline, in your budget, you have
eliminated--there was a special button you could press for
LGBTQ+ youth. You know, I am an openly gay man. I deal with a
lot of organizations that deal with this. You know the suicide
rate among LGBT youth is 4 times nationally the rate of other
youth.
This is one where I hope that we could try to, like Chuck
asked, work together to try to see if we could have a
conversation about not eliminating this because, unfortunately,
because of the bullying that is out there, because of,
honestly, adults' bullying, both in Congress and State
legislators, these kids are often at unique risk, and having
that specific button they can push helps them to be able to get
that service. Is that something we could talk about, at least
trying to----
Secretary Kennedy. I am happy to talk to you about it. And
I love the way that you approach this in a way that, rather
than attacking me, is, you know, reaching out, and, you know, I
would love that from other Democrats because I think we have a
lot to talk about. As you know, and, you know, I like that
you----
Mr. Pocan. Just because I am short on time----
Secretary Kennedy. The 988 line, you know, was created by
President Trump. He believes strongly in it. The reason he----
Mr. Pocan. If I could----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Removed that button is
because we----
Mr. Pocan. Mr. Secretary----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Don't want to isolate----
Mr. Pocan. Yes, I got you.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Different demographics and
polarize our country. Everybody----
Mr. Pocan. Yes.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. On that line is trained in
cultural sensitivities.
Mr. Pocan. Sure. I get you. I just would love to talk to
you because I think this is a unique one, and I respect that we
can have a conversation.
Secretary Kennedy. I am happy to talk to you. You can pick
up the phone----
Mr. Pocan. Last one, just because I am down to 22 seconds.
I lost a little time there.
Secretary Kennedy. Okay.
Mr. Pocan. Medicare Advantage, I know, you know, the Trump
administration is going after waste, fraud, and abuse. This is
a program we had a lot of constituent complaints on. It costs
more than Medicare. It was intended to find savings. It
doesn't. In fact, I think the current estimate is $80 billion
in overpayments have gone to private insurers. Are you
committed to, one, going after those overpayments; and two, if
Medicare Advantage isn't more cost-effective, would we have a
conversation about either eliminating the program or making it
more effective?
Secretary Kennedy. Medicare Advantage--I mean, I definitely
want to go after the waste, fraud, and abuse----
Mr. Pocan. Yes.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. In the private sector.
There are 30 million people who want Medicare Advantage. I have
Medicare Advantage. It works very well for me. I like it. I
love it.
Mr. Pocan. But it costs more, and that is the point. It
does.
Secretary Kennedy. I mean, I think our administrative costs
are still far less than private industry.
Mr. Pocan. But it costs more than Medicare. That is my
point, so that is all I was trying to----
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, but the services are much better.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. Another thing if we can talk about and
continue the conversation----
Secretary Kennedy. Okay. Well, why don't we talk about it--
--
Mr. Pocan. I am sincere about wanting to have a working
relationship with you----
Secretary Kennedy. I am happy to talk to you about it.
Mr. Pocan [continuing]. Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Kennedy. Thanks.
Mr. Pocan. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Mr. Aderholt. Mrs. Bice.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for being with us this morning.
I first want to address a comment that was made by the
ranking member earlier as it relates to getting the President's
budget out. Just a reminder that when President Biden was
elected, he did not send out his first Presidential budget
until May 28th of 2021, so giving some grace to a new
administration, I think, is warranted.
I want to take a minute to highlight the Oklahoma Medical
Research Foundation or, for short, OMRF. OMRF was chartered
nearly 79 years ago and started out with 18 scientists on
staff. They now have more than 475 scientists.
Secretary Kennedy. At which----
Mrs. Bice. It is the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
Secretary Kennedy. Okay.
Mrs. Bice. And I have actually given your team some
information. Last month, I was proud to attend a ribbon-cutting
for their new Biomedical Data Sciences Center, which will
provide computing and data analysis capabilities to support
scientists in researching very important areas, including heart
disease, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. This center cements
OMRF as a leader in research methods and is a hub for
collaboration in my district. It is important that OMRF
continue their partnership with HHS in their research to expand
life expectancy and healthcare outcomes across the Nation.
The impact that OMRF has had on Oklahoma and the country is
really immeasurable. It ranged from certainly economic impacts
to healthcare advancements, community engagement. The positive
impacts are endless. And I want to mention them because, you
know, I want to make sure that we are investing in the right
things. Like you and President Trump, I am focused on reducing
the prevalence of chronic diseases. And the discoveries that
they have made over the last many years have produced three
lifechanging drugs. Most recently, in 2019, the FDA approved
the first targeted therapy to treat sickle cell disease. And
this is based on discoveries by OMRF researchers.
The point being here, Mr. Secretary, OMRF has been crucial
in advancing research and treatment of chronic and rare
diseases for millions. And they take pride in being one of 7
NIH autoimmune centers of excellence. And I hope you and your
team will continue to work with OMRF so they can continue the
positive impact in Oklahoma and across the country to make
America healthy again.
That being said, in order for the U.S. to maintain its lead
in biotechnology, we need to ensure that the U.S. continues to
be the country of choice for best and brightest in the field.
What will HHS do to help attract biotech researchers?
Secretary Kennedy. Well, we spend already, at this
juncture, 70 percent of the research funding in the world on
biotech and biomedical research is coming from my agency. And
we understand that it is our aspiration that the United States
remain the hub of biotechnology around the globe. We need to
change some of the FDA policies to give a faster track for
biotechnologies to get approved. We are working on that now.
We are trying to reform phase 3 studies, for example, which
are the longest, the most expensive, to do a lot of those
functions by AI. We are phasing out most animal studies at NIH
and FDA, which, again, is a very expensive part of the process.
And because we can accomplish a lot of those goals on safety
and efficacy with AI technologies, we brought the best AI
developers in the country into HHS. Nothing like this has ever
happened before, people walking away from billion-dollar
concerns to come and work for us to transform our agency into a
central hub for AI on the globe.
Mrs. Bice. Can you also----
Secretary Kennedy. And a lot of those changes are designed
to make it easier and faster to get, you know, biotechnology to
market.
Mrs. Bice. Perfect. Can you talk a little bit about the
changes at NIH in particular? I know that there has been a lot
of conversation around that. Certainly, streamlining is part of
that, but can you talk a little bit more about what your vision
is for NIH moving forward?
Secretary Kennedy. When I was a kid, NIH was the premier
gold standard scientific institution in the world. Over the
years, it was captured by industry and by, I think, a kind of
ossification that happened at NIH because the longevity of some
of the leadership there. And there was a tremendous amount of
corruption. And, you know, part of that corruption is we now
have the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Energy, and the
Department of State all saying that the COVID-19 pandemic came
out of research and was then sent over to China, and that was
the endpoint. We also have the sickest people in the world. NIH
with the best science is supposed to be protecting. We should
be the healthiest people in the world.
We are switching the trajectory so that we are going to
really focus narrowly on chronic disease, ending the chronic
disease epidemic, and then we are going to make sure that the
science cannot be corrupted and every scientific study is
replicated and the raw data for those studies is published,
that the peer review for those studies is published. And we are
going to focus on making sure that we get to younger scientists
rather than the old boys network.
And I could talk to you about scientific corruption all day
long, about horror stories that we know have happened with NIH.
One of those, probably the worst, is the amyloid plaque
scandal. For 20 years, because of utter corruption and fraud,
we were directing Alzheimer's research to one hypothesis and
any other hypothesis was shut down. We should have the cure for
Alzheimer's today. We don't have it purely because of
corruption at NIH.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Frankel.
Secretary Kennedy. And we are going to have it quickly.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Frankel.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Welcome, Mr.
Secretary. Before I ask my questions, I just want to make this
statement. Draconian abortion restrictions are killing and
maiming women, and that is a tragedy. You don't need to respond
to that.
I want to thank you for being here. You know, I am going to
try to ask my questions as kindly as possible. Do not take them
personally.
In the past, I have believed----
Secretary Kennedy. I won't take your kindness personally.
Ms. Frankel. Okay, well, whatever. What do they say? If you
can't take a joke, don't go into politics.
So let me start by saying, in the past, I have believed
very strongly in the mission of the Department of Health and
Human Services. Funding this department should be one of our
highest priorities because if it is run correctly, it has the
power to save lives, advance lifechanging research, and protect
the health and well-being of our families, especially our most
vulnerable, our children, our seniors.
But to be straightforward, as my colleagues know, in other
words, my, my, my, I am deeply wary of giving one dollar to
this administration under the current leadership, especially
because it seems to be a disregard of science and, most
importantly, ignoring the body of government that appropriates
funding. That is us, the Congress.
In just a few short months, we have seen a level of chaos
and destruction. I compare it to a tornado hitting a populated
community. Without the consent of Congress, which appropriated
funds, with Elon Musk's chainsaw, medical research has been
gutted, clinical trials have been halted, billions of research
grants have been yanked without warning, preventative health
programs, those that keep people healthy and out of hospitals,
have been slashed to the bone. And I am from Florida where we
have one of the largest senior populations in the country, and
I am particularly alarmed. Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease,
these are not abstract concerns. Research has been stopped.
These are everyday fears of millions of Americans, including my
own constituents.
And so we have seen the firing of thousands of scientists
and other professionals, all this to give tax breaks to our
wealthiest citizens, who are also probably our healthiest
citizens. And to me, that is unconscionable and dumb.
This should not be a partisan issue, really, because it
doesn't matter what political party you are. People want to and
should be healthy. But the Trump administration, ideological,
dismantling the Republican infrastructure must go in a
different direction for me to vote for your budget.
Now, I have a few questions for you. I think you said that
the decision for all these cuts was done by a varied amount of
people. Were any of the cuts made before you were sworn into
office? Were you handed--do you remember that? Were people
fired before you were--all right, well, what did you say?
Secretary Kennedy. I think so, but I can't tell you.
Ms. Frankel. Okay. Let me ask you this. Was any Member of
Congress or anyone on this committee consulted before the cuts
were made? And could you tell me who you talked to here?
Secretary Kennedy. I mean, I stayed in pretty close touch
with Bill Cassidy during the----
Ms. Frankel. Okay. Well, I am asking if anybody here--
because you are here----
Secretary Kennedy. Oh, here?
Ms. Frankel [continuing]. You are asking us for money. We
appropriated the funds. Did you talk to any of us, Democrat or
Republican? You know what, there are actually some very bright
Republicans, I will say that, on both sides of the aisle. So
the answer to that question is no.
So your decisions, were they based on merit or generated by
an algorithm? Did somebody get Elon Musk's computer and say,
okay, just make 20 percent cuts?
Secretary Kennedy. You know, I mean, I disagree with your
entire characterization. It was like----
Ms. Frankel. Well, did----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. A recitation of a narrative
that, you know, everybody knows out there and it is the
Democratic Party narrative.
Ms. Frankel. I am just asking you a question.
Secretary Kennedy. It is just not true.
Ms. Frankel. Would the----
Secretary Kennedy. We weren't cutting thousands of
scientists.
Ms. Frankel. All right. I am reclaiming my time.
Secretary Kennedy. We weren't cutting clinical trials. I
mean, everything you said was essentially----
Ms. Frankel. Okay.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Dishonest.
Ms. Frankel. All right. That is my prerogative.
Secretary Kennedy. And don't take that personally.
Ms. Frankel. I don't take it personally. Mr. Secretary, how
many employees have been let go so far?
Secretary Kennedy. Excuse me?
Ms. Frankel. How many employees have been let go so far
from your----
Secretary Kennedy. About 10,000 left, took the fork in the
road, about 10,000 more.
Ms. Frankel. And how many are on administrative leave now,
waiting to be fired in June?
Secretary Kennedy. Well, that would be the second 10,000.
Ms. Frankel. Okay. And are they currently being paid?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Ms. Frankel. So they are being paid to do nothing?
Secretary Kennedy. Well, a lot of them are supposed to be
coming in still.
Ms. Frankel. But they are coming in to do nothing because
they are not allowed to work.
Secretary Kennedy. Oh, no, no, we want them working.
Ms. Frankel. Are you empowered to reverse these decisions?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Ms. Frankel. You are? Okay. And how was the 15 percent
indirect research cost cap decided?
Secretary Kennedy. Fifteen percent?
Ms. Frankel. There is now a 15 percent----
Secretary Kennedy. That is pretty much about 2 to 3 points
above industry standards. So, we were just--I mean, if you are
the Gates Foundation, and you give a scientific grant to
Stanford, you are giving them a 10 percent indirect research--
--
Ms. Frankel. So you based this on the Gates Foundation?
Secretary Kennedy. Or the Rockefeller Foundation----
Ms. Frankel. Right.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. All of the other
foundations that give biomedical research.
Ms. Frankel. One more question.
Secretary Kennedy. You are asking me a question----
Ms. Frankel. You have done----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. But you won't let me answer
it, Congresswoman.
Ms. Frankel. You have done very well, very, very well. I
just want to know, can we trust you, if we put money into the
budget for you, you are going to spend it the way we have
directed it?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes----
Ms. Frankel. Really?
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. That is what the law
requires.
Ms. Frankel. Okay, thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Moore.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
Secretary Kennedy, for being here.
So, yesterday, we had good news in West Virginia. I want to
thank you and your team for working with the West Virginia
delegation, and especially my office, to bring back NIOSH, the
facility in Morgantown. This facility and the programs it
administers are absolutely critical to West Virginia and to our
Nation's coal industry.
Mr. Secretary, my understanding is that the 111 employees
at NIOSH in Morgantown were reinstated earlier this week. Is
that correct?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, I reinstated 328 employees at
NIOSH. About a little over \1/3\ of them were in Morgantown and
about \1/3\ in Cincinnati, and the World Trade Center group I
also reinstated.
Mr. Moore. Well, thank you for that. And the Black Lung
Screening Program and the Coal Workers Health Surveillance
Program are particularly important to West Virginia. My
understanding is that the Coal Workers Health Surveillance
Program at NIOSH will be fully reinstated. Is that correct?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, the program will continue to
function with continuity.
Mr. Moore. That is great. And thank you for that very much.
And, Mr. Secretary, it is my understanding that the
programs for occupational safety and testing like the
respirator testing programs will also be fully operational
again. Is that accurate?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, that is accurate.
Mr. Moore. Very good. Well, thank you so much for working
with my office on that. As I stated, it is critically important
to our coal miners and their safety and the work that they are
doing, which is hazardous but very important to our country.
And lastly, I do want to say I am not going to take a lot
of time here, Mr. Chairman. So I do want to thank you for
visiting my children's school, their Catholic school there in
Martinsburg, West Virginia, with our Governor recently. My
daughter was there on stage with you, one of my kids. And we
had a great announcement there as it relates to food dyes. And
thank you for being there and being supportive of us and also,
just your generational service to this country.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention my close family
friend who passed away just a few years ago, who was your
father's campaign manager in the State of West Virginia when he
was running for President, who obviously left a huge impact on
our State. Thank you for all the work you are doing to make
America healthy again. We obviously need the help in West
Virginia. And thank you for all the support that you have come
into the State, helped us support these programs that we are
trying to bring back our folks to a healthy lifestyle and path.
Thank you so very much for everything you are doing for this
country and for West Virginia.
Secretary Kennedy. Thank you, Congressman. I have spent a
lot of my career in West Virginia, and my family has deep roots
there. My uncle, President Kennedy, would not have been
President had it not been for the people of West Virginia. And
that primary was the most critical primary, and Wisconsin was
the second one in 1960. And he always reminded us of that, and
I don't think any member of my family has ever forgotten. And
it is a joy for me to be able to spend time in your State.
Mr. Moore. Well, thank you so much for that. There is a lot
of great books written, by the way, on that primary in West
Virginia.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Moore. So thank you so very much, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Simpson. Mrs. Watson Coleman.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, few things enrage me more than the racist
attacks I see this administration carrying out by embarking on
an ignorant crusade to rid the government of any programs that
are working to improve the lives of Black Americans. The
administration has moved to ban the words Black, race, bias,
minority, oppression, prejudice, discrimination, disparity, and
racism. Any grant application on Federal programs that include
these words had them immediately stripped. It is painfully
clear to me that in doing this, this administration that you
work with and work for is attempting to legitimize racial
discrimination. And that, sir, is a moral disgrace.
It is not woke to improve the health and well-being of
Black people who are disproportionately impacted by just about
every health issue. It should not be controversial to make
right a healthcare system that was not built to help people
like me, to take my concerns, my pain, my health very seriously
in this country. Black women die from childbirth complications
at a higher rate in this country than any other high-income
country. And last year, where there was overall maternal deaths
dropping in this country, for Black women, maternal deaths
rose. This sickens me, and it tells me that our government has
so much more that we must do to focus on improving the lives of
Black women, not less.
Your decision and justifications are damning and troubling,
particularly for destructive impacts your choices and benefits
will have on poor minority people. So tell me, sir, how will
eliminating minority health offices, how will eliminating
initiatives and programs across the Department that were
created to look at the disparity in healthcare and the need to
give greater attention to the fact that Black folks' experience
in healthcare was very damaging, was very different? How
exactly will HHS banning the words that we use to describe
ourselves make us healthier?
Secretary Kennedy. Congressman, President Trump's vision of
this country is the same as Martin Luther King's, that we
should have a colorblind administration. President Trump is
deeply concerned about the maternal health crisis and the fact
that Black mothers are more likely to die in childbirth, 2.6
times, 260 percent more likely to die.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Excuse me, sir. Let me reclaim my time
because I don't need this rhetoric about Donald Trump and the
lie that he cares about me and Black people. What I want to
know is the proposals----
Secretary Kennedy. I was answering your question,
Congresswoman.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Reclaiming my time, sir, reclaiming
it. I want to know specifically, how do you intend to address
those disparities and to overcome those disparities as it
relates to Black health in this country with the changes that
you have decided are important or someone has decided for you,
I don't know, with your department?
Secretary Kennedy. I----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Specifically, sir.
Secretary Kennedy. I have spent a lifetime working on those
priorities, and I continue to do so. We have eight divisions,
eight programs for minority health at HHS. We have closed one
of those offices. We are maintaining the other seven. We have
42 programs for maternal health. We are going to close a couple
of them and consolidate them. We are going to still spend $1.7
billion a year. The commitment is there. We are just
reorganizing.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Okay. You know what? The impact of
reorganization is something that I shall continually ask you to
show me. So, please, let me warn you now.
Secretary Kennedy. I welcome those inquiries.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. And I don't want rhetoric. I want
numbers.
The other thing that really troubles me, sir, is LIHEAP. It
is a program specifically to address the needs of low-income
and minority families as it relates to heating and even air
conditioning. Why, why, why, why? And what is your rationale
for eliminating that program specifically? Why, why, why and
what, what, what?
Secretary Kennedy. I am very committed to LIHEAP. My
brother ran a low----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I don't care about your past. I care
about your functioning in this department, in this
administration right now in response to this question.
Secretary Kennedy. My time has expired.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Well, then, so has your legitimacy. I
yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Moolenaar.
Mr. Moolenaar. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us.
And I don't know if you want to follow up on any of that, but--
--
Secretary Kennedy. I would be happy to.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Okay. Feel free.
Secretary Kennedy. As I was saying, I am very conscious of
the importance of LIHEAP to poor people all across this
country. My brother ran a low-cost, nonprofit fuel company for
most of his life that provides a low-cost fuel to people in New
England. I have had many, many people come up to me and said,
my life was saved because of that. I talked to Buu Nygren, who
is the president of the Navajo Nation, when I visited about 3
months ago, and he said cuts to LIHEAP will end up in killing
people, so I understand the importance of this.
I think OMB's rationale was that President Trump's energy
policy is going to reduce dramatically the cost of energy in
this country. And if that happens, then LIHEAP is just another
subsidy to the oil industry. If it doesn't happen, then
Congress is welcome, and they should appropriate the money for
LIHEAP, and I will spend it. I already allocated $400 million
from LIHEAP during the last 100 days, and I will continue to do
that and get that funding to the people who need it in this
country if the fuel costs do not go down.
Mr. Moolenaar. Great. Thank you for that reassurance.
Mr. Chairman, I want to submit an article for the record
here in a minute, and I will refer to it. But last month, the
National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology
concluded in its report to Congress that the Chinese Communist
Party seeks to dominate the global biotechnology industry so
that other countries, including the United States, are
dependent on the channels it controls.
China is already deeply embedded in the United States'
critical biotechnology supply chains, including those for
lifesaving medicines. And as you know, Secretary, China has a
history of weaponizing supply chain dependencies for critical
goods and medicines against countries. For example, in March
2020, following the arrival of COVID-19 from China onto the
American homeland, the CCP's mouthpiece Xinhua News published a
commentary proposing to throw the United States into a sea of
coronavirus, and that is what I would like to submit for the
record, Mr. Chairman. I request unanimous consent.
Mr. Aderholt. Yes.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Moolenaar. Would you agree, Mr. Secretary, that overt
reliance on the CCP and the U.S. biotech and health ecosystem
poses a threat and that we should be developing independent
supply chains to protect the health and well-being of Americans
so that we reduce our reliance on China for critical medicines
and their active pharmaceutical ingredients?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, absolutely. And this is a priority
for me and for this administration. China does not spend its
biomedical research money on DEI or on other issues. They are
directly and narrowly focused on creating dominance across the
globe. We saw the problem with supply chain control by the
Chinese during COVID.
And also, the Chinese have a specific program called the
Thousand Talents Program. It is designed to steal U.S. IP and
technology, and we have facilitated that at NIH. By funding
Chinese scientists with contracts that don't require them even
to report their science back to our country, but they give it
directly to Chinese military scientists on bioweapons research,
and we gave them the technology for it. This is how out of
control NIH was under my predecessors.
We are working very, very hard and successfully to bring
production home. You know, I have met repeatedly with Eli
Lilly, which is now building nine facilities, nine factories in
this country, including for essential medicines, the essential
ingredients for those medicines. We are regularly meeting with
all the other pharmaceutical CEOs, and we have told them this
is our priority. We want to produce all the parts of all the
essential medicines here in the United States, and we have
already launched a program to do that, and it is already very,
very successful.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And then, on the
issue of medical countermeasures, I wondered if you could talk
about challenges facing BARDA, the Strategic National
Stockpile, and how Congress can help you overcome any
challenges in that arena.
Secretary Kennedy. I mean, you know, BARDA, we are
redirecting BARDA so that it is going to do gold standard
research. BARDA has been very successful in the past. It
produced over, I think, 103 FDA-licensed drugs or protocols or
medical devices for national emergencies.
We run the national stockpile, which has $17 billion worth
of supplies. Some of those supplies are misaligned, and we need
to do a better job, and we are going to do that at NIH to make
sure that we are prepared for all emergencies, including
radiological, chemical, and biological emergencies. And I would
love to work with you, Congressman, on helping us to achieve
those goals.
Mr. Moolenaar. Wonderful. And then, finally, a couple of
things. One is, I want to compliment you on your commitment to
public service and the way you have responded with grace
towards people who have opposed some of your political views,
including some of your family members, and I have kind of
followed that.
I want to really highlight the fact that your Make America
Healthy Again has really put this in the spotlight, and these
chronic diseases and especially starting with children and
nutrition, healthy lifestyles. I know our community health
centers in my district, which is a rural district, want to work
with you on those goals. What can we do to promote this with
young children, healthy lunches, all sorts of areas where local
communities can partner with you in this effort?
Secretary Kennedy. We are about to reissue the dietary
guidelines, and we are going to do it very quickly. We have
until January, but we are going to do it. I think we will have
it done even before August. And we took the Biden guidelines,
which were 453 pages long and were clearly written by industry
that are incomprehensible, driven by the same industry capture
and those kind of carnal impulses that put Froot Loops at the
top of the food pyramid, and we are changing that. So we are
going to have four-page dietary guidelines that tell people
essentially eat whole food, eat the food that is good for you.
That is going to drive changes in the school lunch programs,
and we are going to need your help to make sure we can get good
school lunches to Head Start.
I have been touring these Head Start facilities. Everything
they eat is in a package, and it is just loaded with sugar and
with chemicals. We are poisoning this generation, 800,000 kids,
the poorest kids in our country, and we are starting them out
with this count against them, with, you know, diabetes,
prediabetes. Thirty-eight percent of our youth are diabetic or
prediabetic. That was zero when I was a kid.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Dean.
Secretary Kennedy. When anybody thinks that we did old
standard medicine in this country from these institutions, look
at our children. They are the sickest children in the world.
Congresswoman DeLauro, you say that you have worked for 20
years on getting food dye out. Give me credit. I got it out in
100 days.
Ms. DeLauro. I will give you that credit.
Secretary Kennedy. All right. So let's work together and do
something that we all believe in, which is have healthy kids in
our country for God's sake.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Dean.
Secretary Kennedy. Let's all do that together. There is no
such thing as Republican children or Democratic children. There
are just kids, and we should all be concerned with them.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Dean.
Ms. Dean. Mr. Secretary, Madeleine Dean, suburban
Philadelphia. Thank you for being here.
I want to read the very first sentence of your written
testimony, which you have submitted. ``The mission of the
Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, is to enhance and
protect the health and well-being of the American people.'' And
we are here to analyze the 2026 budget request, as the chairman
points out. But I also want to take a look at what the ranking
member has taken a look at, which is the cuts going on right
now to that which has already been appropriated. We have to
really keep a clear line here between what is your proposal for
'26 and what is going on right now against the legislation that
we have passed and that has been signed into law.
I have to tell you that I am more interested in substance
than slogans. I am getting a little lost in the MAGA, the MAHA.
Now there is AHA. I don't know where we are going with this. I
want to talk about the substance.
And in this case, something very personal to me is the
issue of addiction and mental health. And I know that you care
deeply about these issues. I know you have been honest about
your own recovery, your own struggle with addiction. In my
family, my middle son, Harry, is now 12 1/2 years in recovery
from opioid addiction. It was a long road. It was a hard road.
In active addiction, you know how difficult it is, and it is
difficult to bring a family member back. I give Harry great
credit. He now works in the area of addiction.
That is why I am very, very worried about what is going on
with SAMHSA. If you take a look at the data, the numbers, we
were getting somewhere. Two years ago, three years ago, we were
losing 110,000 people a year to overdose. That is 300 people a
day. I call that a jetliner a day of souls crashing to this
country. Just last year, the second half of '23 and the first
half of '24, 12 months, that number went down 27 percent to
81,000 deaths of overdose. Don't let me minimize 81,000 deaths.
That is still 220 people a day. Today, tomorrow, yesterday, 365
days a year. But a 27 percent reduction in overdose deaths in
this country? Overdose is still stealing a generation in this
country. So why in God's name are we shuttering SAMHSA?
Secretary Kennedy. We are not shuttering SAMHSA. And I
share your concerns, and I am anxious to work with you on this
problem. I am fully committed to it because of my own history.
I lost a brother to overdose. I lost one of my nieces during
the pandemic to overdose. Like every family in this country has
somebody that was lost.
As you point out, we were losing, I think, 2 years, 3 years
ago, 106,000 American kids. It is double the number that we
lost during the 20-year Vietnam War. And we ought to be
applying the same resources.
Ms. Dean. Why the cuts to SAMHSA? And why are you
shifting----
Secretary Kennedy. We are not shuttering SAMHSA. We are
still running 500 addiction centers.
Ms. Dean. You have already cut SAMHSA, and the budget
proposal is to shutter it and shift it to an AHA program, which
I don't know what AHA means.
Secretary Kennedy. To shift it to the Administration for
Healthy America.
Ms. Dean. How is that----
Secretary Kennedy. We are shifting a lot of the chronic
disease programs out of CDC into a center that will address
chronic disease.
Ms. Dean. And you and I agree that overdose is a public
health epidemic in this country.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Ms. Dean. And why would we, when we are finally seeing some
success, bury that success, put it in an AHA program, which, by
the way, logically doesn't make any sense. We have to now
rehire people and figure out what their roles will be within
AHA. Why wouldn't we analyze the data that shows we just saved
20-plus thousand lives in the course of one year? This matters
in my district. I have buried way too many kids to overdose, to
fentanyl poisoning, by the way. You don't have to be an addict.
You can just be poisoned by fentanyl. Why, in God's name--this
administration wants to shutter it, we know that, and shift it
into AHA. Why would you do that?
Secretary Kennedy. They don't want to shutter it. What we
want to do is we want to shift that function into a place where
we are going to be able to administrate it more efficiently,
and that is all.
Ms. Dean. What analysis was done? Can you show us the study
that led you to the decision, shutter SAMHSA, shift it. We call
that shift and shaft in my old days as an appropriator in
Pennsylvania. Shift it over here, throw it in a block grant
program, and good luck. What is the analysis that you did that
said whatever SAMHSA was doing with harm reduction, by the way,
with making naloxone available, with training for naloxone? I
literally carry this with me every day. I want to normalize the
lifesaving capacity of naloxone. And you guys want to bury it
in AHA.
Secretary Kennedy. We want to provide naloxone, Narcan. We
want to make sure that addicts----
Ms. Dean. But you are----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Have every option.
Ms. Dean. You are eliminating the training for that.
Secretary Kennedy. Suboxone to methadone and to----
Ms. Dean. Medicated----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. 12-step programs to
inpatient, outpatient.
Ms. Dean. You are----
Secretary Kennedy. We run 500----
Ms. Dean [continuing]. Zeroing them out.
Secretary Kennedy. We run 500 addiction centers. We are not
going to stop doing that. My agency was to do it.
Ms. Dean. Are you looking at----
Secretary Kennedy. It is shifting to a subdivision where we
can operate it more efficiently with other chronic diseases.
Ms. Dean. But do you realize----
Secretary Kennedy. EDC is going to do infectious disease,
which is why we created it. It had mission creep, and it was
operating with----
Ms. Dean. Mission creep as it was saving lives?
Secretary Kennedy. Mission creep----
Ms. Dean. Mr. Secretary, please, I beg of you, talk to
these families. You know these families. You are these
families. Help us save more lives. Don't shift it and shaft it.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Clyde.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
Secretary Kennedy, for appearing before our subcommittee today.
As we consider the future of Americans' health in the
Department of Health and Human Services, I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss reforms that prioritize the health of
our citizens while restoring transparency, accountability, and
constitutional limits on Federal power. For too long, Federal
health policy has been burdened by wasteful spending and
ideological agendas undermining the scientific integrity and
public trust. I am encouraged by this administration's efforts
to end the politicization of our health agencies and to bring
common sense and accountability back to HHS.
I also support the Make America Healthy Again initiative,
which addresses the consequences of misguided policies, poor
nutrition standards, and harmful medical practices. Americans
face record levels of obesity, chronic disease, mental illness,
and pharmaceutical dependency. Secretary Kennedy, I commend
your leadership in launching a commission to examine the root
causes of these crises.
But we cannot talk about restoring health without also
confronting one of the most horrific scandals of our time, the
trafficking and exploitation of children at our southern
border, often under the watch of the very agency tasked with
protecting them, HHS. The Biden administration dismantled
critical safeguards, turning the Unaccompanied Alien Children
program into a pipeline for abuse. These are not bureaucratic
oversights. They are instances of state-enabled child
trafficking, and they must end.
I support the President's budget proposal to eliminate
welfare benefits for illegal aliens and refocus the UAC program
on its core mission, and that is protecting vulnerable children
from trafficking, labor exploitation, and abuse. Now, no
taxpayer dollar should fund these horrors, and yet the Biden
administration made the Federal Government the final link in
the chain of child trafficking. So I want to ensure the money
that we spend on health policy is guided by constitutional
principles, rigorous science, and the interests of the American
people.
So my first question for you is, do you know approximately
how many children over the last 4 years have gone missing or
remain unaccounted for after being released by HHS?
Secretary Kennedy. The estimate, Congressman, from the
Office of the Inspector General--and it is considered a very
low estimate--is 291,000 children missing.
Mr. Clyde. Two hundred and ninety-one thousand children
missing?
Secretary Kennedy. But the actual numbers are probably much
higher than that. They could go up to half a million, and if
you look at the grand jury report from Florida, what happened
to many of those children is just horrific. My predecessor was
deliberately employing a policy of speed over safety, so they
waived all of the identification requirements for sponsors.
Sponsors were not required to show valid identification. They
were never fingerprinted, so we didn't know if they had
criminal records. There was no DNA testing, so their claims
that they were taking a family member were----
Mr. Clyde. Dubious at best?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, they were dubious. And in
Cleveland, according to the grand jury testimony and the grand
jury findings in Florida, there are so many episodes. One of
them is a man in Cleveland who picked up a 16-year-old girl
claiming to be her brother, raped her, impregnated her, put her
in a home where she was being regularly raped of all men, and
then got a 16-year-old boy who disappeared and went back two
other times for other children. This was happening again and
again.
One agency placed 592 children with 120 sponsors. Four
hundred children were shipped to a town where there is a
meatpacking plant in Kansas, 400 children who, you know, they
had to come and claim that they--the sponsors had to claim that
those children lived in that town.
And we have seen a fake ID where you have one guy who is
photoshopped in with a whole bunch of different children, and
he is showing up and picking up these kids one at a time. The
Biden administration knew about it, they saw the same pictures
we did, and they did nothing.
There are 160,000 HELP complaints that were never
investigated. I have launched now a criminal task force. We
have opened up 500 criminal investigations and already brought
80 to court. So we are going to try to do everything we can. We
are working with DHS to find these children. But the Federal
Government under the Biden administration became the biggest
facilitator for child abuse probably in the history--certainly,
in the history of our country.
Mr. Clyde. Well, thank you. I was going to ask you how are
you going to hold these contractors and officials accountable,
but I think you answered that question already.
Secretary Kennedy. We are already doing fingerprinting on
every sponsor. We are doing DNA testing on every sponsor. We
are doing income testing on every sponsor. And we are doing
valid ID testing. Nobody gets a kid without showing that they
are a family member.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you. And I see my time has expired, so I
yield back. Thank you for that excellent work.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Clyde. Mr. Harder.
Mr. Harder. Thank you so much.
Secretary Kennedy, I would like to start by talking about
your personal story. You have talked openly about your battle
with addiction, and I want to thank you for being so open about
talking about your road to recovery.
As you know, addiction is a real crisis. Tens of thousands
of Americans died this year from overdoses. My community knows
this all too well, and all of us have been to far too many
funerals. So, Secretary Kennedy, I would like to start by just
grounding us in the reality of what treatment like that
actually looks like. As I understand it, you were 15 when you
entered into an inpatient rehab facility. You credit the care
you received there as a turning point. Do you have a sense of
approximately how much money your family spent on your
addiction treatment?
Secretary Kennedy. Well, I spent the money on my addiction
treatment, and at that time, the rehab was probably like $800 a
day. I think today they are much higher than that, many of
them.
Mr. Harder. Yes, I think that is right. My understanding is
that the private rehab facility, like the one that you went to,
would cost in today's dollar for that same treatment over
$286,000 out of pocket, just for addiction treatment that I
think we can all agree, Republican and Democrat, is absolutely
necessary to make sure that we are keeping our communities
safe. I bring this up because----
Secretary Kennedy. There are, Congressman. There are many
really gold star rehabs that do it for a tiny fraction, like
$20,000 to $40,000 a month.
Mr. Harder. There you go. I bring this up because in my
community, the average salary is $40,000, so most folks in my
community can't even afford $20,000 or $40,000 per month. And
most of the folks in our area rely on public clinics that are
mostly financed through Medicaid. About half of my district is
on Medicaid, and the recent budget that is being discussed in
the House right now would leave 50,000 people in my community
without health insurance. So Secretary Kennedy, my question for
you is, why do you think that a community like mine doesn't
deserve access to that same basic healthcare provided by
Medicaid that you benefited from?
Secretary Kennedy. I do believe that. I do believe that
that is the design of the Medicaid program.
Mr. Harder. So do you disagree with the cuts that are being
proposed for Medicaid right now?
Secretary Kennedy. Oh, the cuts to--I don't know if you
understand this or whether you are just mouthing, you know, the
Democratic talking points. The cuts to Medicaid are for fraud,
waste, and abuse, and I will tell you what that means. It means
that, because of DOGE, we were able to determine--and it is
about 8 million people who would be affected. Because of DOGE,
we were able to determine that there are a million people who
are claiming Medicaid from multiple States. That is illegal. It
is theft. You are not allowed to do that. There are another
million people who are collecting both under Obamacare and----
Mr. Harder. Mr. Secretary, that has nothing to do with the
budget that is actually being proposed in the House.
Secretary Kennedy. These are the only cuts that are being
made to Medicaid.
Mr. Harder. That is not true.
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, it is. There are another million
illegal aliens. We announced a rule yesterday, we are not going
to pay illegal aliens anymore, and guess what Gavin Newsom did
this morning? He said, we are going to take all the illegal
aliens off the California Medicaid rolls because the feds
aren't paying for them anymore, so the compassion ends----
Mr. Harder. Secretary, let me focus you----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. When he has to write the
check.
Mr. Harder [continuing]. On the actual numbers of the
budget----
Secretary Kennedy. Last group----
Mr. Harder [continuing]. That is being proposed.
Secretary----
Secretary Kennedy. The final group----
Mr. Harder. I reclaim my time. I think what you are saying
is absolutely----
Secretary Kennedy. The final group----
Mr. Harder [continuing]. Inaccurate in terms of the 13
million Americans that will lose access to healthcare. Let me
tell you, the folks in my district are not actually getting
Medicaid in another State. They can't travel to get another
State.
Secretary Kennedy. Well----
Mr. Harder. The clinics that are providing that lifesaving
care----
Secretary Kennedy. Let me tell you the----
Mr. Harder [continuing]. Are the last resort for folks in
our area.
Secretary Kennedy. Let me tell you the last category. The
last category is adults who are able-bodied, who refuse to look
for a job, to volunteer, to get a job, or to show that they are
in service----
Mr. Harder. Secretary----
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. Or to take a part-time job.
Mr. Harder. I reclaim my time. That is absolutely not true.
The vast majority of folks in a community like mine who are on
Medicaid are working. They want to work. People want to be able
to make sure that they have----
Secretary Kennedy. Then they are in no danger of losing
their Medicaid.
Mr. Harder. That is just not true. We have seen in----
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, it is.
Mr. Harder [continuing]. Time after time, including in
Arkansas and Florida and other States, that when you put----
Secretary Kennedy. This is a new program.
Mr. Harder [continuing]. More red tape--yes, but we have
seen this chapter before. When you put more red tape in front
of people actually getting that lifesaving care, you are going
to prevent people from accessing health insurance----
Secretary Kennedy. Medicaid----
Mr. Harder [continuing]. And being able to go see a doctor.
Secretary Kennedy. Medicaid is for poor children. It is for
mothers, and it is for the disabled.
Mr. Harder. It is. And 13 million of those people are going
to lose health insurance if this budget becomes law.
Secretary Kennedy. They are already losing their health
insurance because of all the able-bodied people who are not
looking for jobs on Medicaid.
Mr. Harder. Secretary, I will just close by saying this. I
hope that you remember the grace that was given to you during
your darkest days, and I recommend that you come to a district
like mine and stare at a single mom who has young kids who is
at risk of losing her health insurance because of more red
tape.
Secretary Kennedy. Where is your district, Congressman?
Mr. Harder. Stockton, California. Come on out. We would
love to have you. And I hope that you can actually explain why
this program is going to make her life healthier and help with
the actual outcomes that we are talking about because I think
that is a hard case to make.
Mr. Aderholt. Dr. Harris.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much.
Mr. Secretary, you are absolutely right. No pregnant woman
or single mom who qualifies under traditional Medicaid is going
to lose anything. This talking point is ridiculous. The million
people who are committing absolute illegal fraud by being on
Medicaid rolls in two separate States is a fraud, and the
insurance companies make a ton of money from it. You are
absolutely right. We have a $2 trillion deficit. It is not
sustainable, period. There are a lot of things I would love to
do, believe me. You appreciate it. $2 trillion deficit is not
sustainable.
You know, you are right. You know, a lot of what you are
doing is going back to pre-COVID levels. You know, as a famous
person on the other side of the aisle once said, you never want
a serious crisis to go to waste, and they didn't let COVID go
to waste. We increased Federal spending by 40 percent after
COVID. COVID is over. Let's go back to the old one. We have to
look at every program.
We spoke a couple days ago about nutrition. Look, I am
1,000 percent behind you on nutrition. First, we have to agree
that there is a problem. First thing is we can't get agreement
that this country is sicker, not healthier. When I proposed
that to the last director of NIH, there were arguments from the
other side that that is not true. It is absolutely true. By
every measure, you can--let's take life expectancy. The
simplest measure, simplest, easy-to-understand measure, you
know life expectancy is going down. Then let's look at the
chronic diseases, which you are absolutely right, whether you
look at obesity, overweight, hypertension, cardiovascular
disease, they have all gotten worse, not better, and almost all
can be linked to nutrition. So I am glad that you and the
Secretary of Agriculture are going to support finally taking
the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and put some
meaning in the word nutrition.
Let me talk a little bit about the NIH because I think one
of the most telling things about the NIH, which some people say
should be called the National Institute of Disease, not
National Institute of Health, because we study disease, but we
are not keeping people healthier. When I wanted to hold a
hearing with my other hat as the Ag Subcommittee chair, we
called over to NIH to get an expert on nutrition. This should
be pretty easy, right? You have probably got a million of them,
right? No, they couldn't send someone over. Now, if I had asked
for an oncologist, they could have sent dozens. They would have
sent the director of the division. They would have sent the
director of the NIH over. And yet, it is pretty clear--and you
understand this--nutrition is linked to cancer, too. We might
need fewer oncologists if we had some better nutrition.
And, you know, God bless you in what you are trying to do
with that. You know, that study out of Wash U in December that
actually shows the link with high intake of fructose to the
carcinogen, the lipid, the lysophosphatidylcholines that are
metabolized by humans from fructose that increase tumor growth.
I mean, these are the kind of things we should be studying,
linking it back to nutrition.
So I will just ask you, when you envision what we are going
to do on nutrition writ large to try to make us a healthier
country, what do you think we have to look at? What are the
first things we have to look at?
Secretary Kennedy. I mean, you know what--and that is a
really good question, Congressman. What we need to be doing
is--NIH has done really good--and I talked to Congresswoman
DeLauro last night, and she said, okay, NIH has done all this
great science so that we can cure cancers faster. And so my
question is, is it a great thing that you can now cure or treat
colorectal cancer, which is only 50 percent rather than 100
percent of people die? Or should somebody be thinking about why
are we getting colorectal cancer in children, which has never
in the history of humanity happened before? It is now an
epidemic. There was nobody at NIH to answer those questions,
nobody. No research was done on it. The etiology of all these
chronic diseases were just buried because they didn't want to
offend the large industries who are putting these poisons in
our food and putting them in our pharmaceutical products.
For some of these ingredients, we just need to let the
public know and probably do labeling so that people can make
their own choices. If you want to eat a Twinkie, if you want to
drink a Coca-Cola, you should be able to do that. We are a free
country. You ought to know that it may increase your cancer
risk and that it may increase your risk for diabetes. And so we
are going to study each of these ingredients, starting with the
most common ones, the greatest, you know, suspected culprits,
and we are going to tell the ones that are so bad they should
be taken away, we are going to work with the industry to get
rid of them.
Mr. Harris. Great idea. And----
Secretary Kennedy. And the other ones, we are just going to
tell people so they can make an informed choice.
Mr. Harris. I am sure that, you know, if we add money back
into the NIH budget, we should actually insist that it be
nutrition spending.
The only last thing I will say, just very briefly, Mr.
Chairman, is that, again, wearing my other hat from the ag
side, is that our farmers are worried that if we look at
pesticides, as we should, that we just be careful that we work
together to make sure that we don't cripple our agriculture
economy, and I look forward to working with you on that.
I yield back.
Secretary Kennedy. I mean, we cannot make America healthy
again without the partnership of the American farmers. We
cannot be putting them out of business. And they are already
operating on razor-thin margins.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Ellzey.
Mr. Ellzey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being
here, Mr. Secretary.
I was a 20-year Navy veteran. And I am both a warrior and a
father, so I am also a protector. And 4 years ago, I went down
to the border of Texas when the mass wave of humanity came in
from South and Central America. And I went down with the Texas
Department of Public Safety and stood right on the edge of the
water at the river there, and I watched a coyote bring a
family, a so-called family, across the water. I was powerless
to do anything, although, you know, for my own self-protection,
I was armed and certainly wanted to take action on this man
that was trafficking in human beings.
His family came across. At least I thought it was a family,
man and wife and two children. One of the kids didn't get out
of the boat. And the Texas DPS trooper says, you forgot one.
Now, why was this happening? It was because they were allowing
families to come in undocumented if they brought someone in
under the age of 8.
I am not going to relitigate the last 4 years. It is
irrelevant at this point. All we have got now is 300,000
children that we know of, probably double that because you
can't count ones that you don't encounter, missing in the
United States of America. And evil exists in the world. And it
exists in the realm of human trafficking and child sex trade.
And they are in this country.
And so that was the Department of HOUSEHOLDS. That was
their responsibility to make sure that the sponsors were
vetted. They didn't do so. We have addressed what you are doing
now. What is out there? What capabilities do you have in
coordination with other agencies to try to find these kids?
Secretary Kennedy. Well, we don't actually have at HHS
enforcement capability. What we are doing is unprecedented,
which is we are doing data sharing, and we have a war room
where we are doing everything we can to locate these children.
And then when we get close to locating them, we turn that
information over to ICE and to DHS. And they have the
enforcement capacity to actually find them, but we work
together with them. And we have got an extraordinary team in
our war room, in my building at HHS that is working 10-hour
days to track down every single one of these kids and try to
bring them back. You know, a lot of them, it is going to be
very, very difficult.
Mr. Ellzey. It sure is. I am glad you are doing that
because, you know, you can't just forget them. We have got a
lot of big issues facing child health. But the idea that some
of these kids just got handed over to people that we don't know
and that they disappeared. And I remember being down on the
border. I don't know what these folks did with this little
girl. I have an idea, but I know we were finding them dead in
ditches. And so I am glad that HHS is working with other
agencies to do that. And as it is Police Week, I guarantee
everybody on this mall this week is willing to help out in any
way they can to find these kids.
And I would just like to follow up with I have watched--and
you talked about lunches and how kids aren't being fed very
well and processed foods. And I remember growing up in
Perryton, Texas, and my favorite people in school, because I
hated school, was the lunch ladies. And they made the best food
ever, and it was home-cooked meals. And I knew it was healthy
because they weren't, you know, giving us sugary stuff. They
were giving us home-cooked meals. And I went to lunch with my
son a couple of years ago, and everything they had was highly
processed, frozen, and then heated up. And it was inedible. And
so I would love to see the Federal Government get out of making
sure that everybody eats the same thing, because we talked
about the tribes, too. Tribes can't eat the same thing
everybody else does.
Secretary Kennedy. No.
Mr. Ellzey. So I want to go back to local control on
figuring out what is best for the local kids in those schools,
and then they cook those meals and get the Federal Government
out of determining what is good and what is edible and what is
not. So----
Secretary Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Ellzey [continuing]. I appreciate you.
Secretary Kennedy. I am 100 percent onboard. I mean, we
have a research capacity at FDA to give categories of food.
And, you know, very simple, basic, don't eat anything that
comes in a package. You know, don't eat anything, you know,
with chemicals on it that you can't read. Don't eat anything
with more than three ingredients in it and sending that out and
letting people solve the issue of what exactly makes sense in
their locality.
Mr. Ellzey. Yes, sir. Thank you for your time. I yield
back.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Letlow.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you so much,
Secretary Kennedy, for being here with us today. And I am so
grateful for your efforts to make sure our Federal health
system is laser focused on creating a healthier, more
prosperous America.
And my home State of Louisiana has embraced the MAHA
movement, including a lot of concerned mamas out there. I am
one of them. And I am so eager to hear from you on how we can
best support your mission moving forward.
And I would love to talk about how we can work together to
improve women's health research. As a woman, a mother, a Member
of Congress, I am deeply concerned about the longstanding gaps
in research and care that affects women's health. I hear from
women daily about how a simple blood test or a routine
screening could have prevented debilitating cancers,
stillbirths, preventable diseases, and the high price tag that
comes with the treatments for these diseases.
In just my State this year, we can expect close to 30,000
new incidences of cancer, including 4,230 new incidences of
breast cancer and 210 new incidences of cervical cancer.
Louisiana's 5th Congressional District already sits higher than
the national average for breast cancer deaths. Yet women are
still underrepresented in clinical trials. The unique
biological health factors that impact women's health are too
often an afterthought rather than a priority.
We have made some progress with programs such as the CDC's
National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program,
which has provided access to lifesaving prevention and early
detection services for women in underserved areas, and the
Pregnant Women and Lactating Women Advisory Committee to
address this gap in clinical research. But I know more work can
be done.
Secretary Kennedy, what specific actions will the
Department be taking to build on these existing programs and
ensure that research funding, policy direction, and
implementation reflect the full scope of women's health needs?
Secretary Kennedy. Yes, I want to thank you, Congresswoman,
and also take note of the fact that there was a--you know, one
of the canards that has been widely reported, you know, in the
mainstream Democratic Party press is that we terminated a 30-
year women's health study at NIH, which was reported initially
in The New York Times. The report was inaccurate, really badly
inaccurate. We very strongly support that.
Jay Bhattacharya, who is the director of NIH, actually has
done a lot of his research on that database, and we are going
to continue that. We have 42 maternal health programs
throughout the agencies. We are going to continue that
commitment, and that is a multi-billion-dollar commitment, and
we are going to continue that. And I would love to work with
you directly to figure out, you know, what we can do more to
make sure that we have great detection, that we have great
diagnosis, early detection, and prevention.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you. I look forward to working with you
on that.
I also represent a largely rural district that covers 21
parishes in Louisiana, many of which are considered medical
deserts. I hear from my constituents daily about the lack of
access to regular and specialized care. My district is part of
the Delta region, along the Mississippi River, and within the
Delta, there are a number of types of cancers and chronic
illnesses on the rise, and there seems to be little success in
slowing the morbidity rates down. The 5th District also ranks
worse than the national average in cardiovascular disease
deaths, kidney disease, and diabetes deaths. This is only one
part of the long history of the Delta region having poorer
health outcomes than the rest of the Nation.
Secretary Kennedy, what initiatives are the agency planning
to implement to improve health outcomes in the Delta region,
and how can Congress partner with you to ensure that these
plans come to fruition for our rural healthcare deserts?
Secretary Kennedy. Congresswoman, this is a priority for me
during this administration. I made that commitment to many of
the Senators who voted for my confirmation. It was probably the
most commonly repeated concern about rural health and the
decline in opportunities in rural health.
We have programs at HRSA to increase personnel and
frontline responders and frontline treatment personnel in those
districts, which there are chronic shortages of doctors and
nurses who want to move to those areas. We are going to make
sure to continue to support rural hospitals and healthcare
centers. We are going to dramatically revolutionize the
availability of telehealth and AI so that people can avoid
emergency rooms by getting treated at home.
I looked at a technology yesterday that can accurately
diagnose strep throat by telephone using your telephone camera,
taking one picture of the inside of your throat, and the
accuracy of that test is greater than a strep swab. And these
are opportunities so you can prevent somebody from having to go
to the emergency room, and you could get them a prescription on
site.
There are so many opportunities that are so exciting----
Ms. Letlow. Yes.
Secretary Kennedy [continuing]. And we have just the right
team in place to implement them and deploy them across the
country. Dr. Oz and we have Chris Klomp, who, you know, came
out of the tech industry, who is integrating AI into all of our
systems there. We are really going to revolutionize this
agency.
Ms. Letlow. That is wonderful news. My time has expired.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Ms. Letlow.
And I think we have covered all the--every member has got a
chance to ask a question. But before we do adjourn, I would
like to recognize the ranking member, Ms. DeLauro, for any
closing comments.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And first, I would like to, on Congresswoman Dean's behalf,
enter an article into the record.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Ranking Member. I wanted to enter an
article into the record on the topic of Medicaid and work. It
is by the Kaiser Family Foundation. It is dated February 4. I
believe you have it at the desk. Understanding the intersection
of Medicaid and work, unlike the bigoted chestnut that we see
very often written that Medicaid recipients are not working,
the data shows the vast majority of able-bodied people are
working.
Mr. Aderholt. Without objection, it will be included.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Dean. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. DeLauro.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much.
I am sorry Ms. Letlow left, but I think it is important to
note that in the 2026 budget under CDC, the breast and cervical
cancer program has been eliminated. I think that is important
to understand for women's health.
Also, Secretary Kennedy, you committed to following the law
and awarding congressionally appropriated funds in 2025. And
please understand that we are in 2025, and we are under the
continuing resolution, which is the 2024 budget, so, quite
frankly, it should be an easy transfer to 2024 to 2025. But
that is what is operative. That is the law of the land, not a
suggestion, not a directive, a law of the land.
But the evidence suggests that you are cutting billions of
dollars in funding right now. The evidence shows that you are
withholding at least $2.7 billion in lifesaving NIH research,
and that is only midway through 2025. And based on the
evidence, I believe--and the OMB director has indicated--that
you are going to illegally impound billions of dollars of
congressionally appropriated funding for NIH research in 2025.
To make matters worse, you are proposing to cut NIH funding
by $20 billion in 2026. You do not have the authority to do
what you are doing. Congressman Hoyer pointed out very clearly
and explicitly, you don't have the authority. This
administration does not have this authority. Your reorganizing
of the NIH, you don't have the authority. That is in the
jurisdiction of the United States Congress. You want to
eliminate five agencies. You want to create a new agency. Once
again, I don't mean to be repetitive, but I do mean to be
repetitive. You do not have the authority to do any of that.
A couple of other areas I think are important. HHS makes
medical decisions every day. You are making medical decisions
every day. You are the Secretary of HHS. You have tremendous
power over health policy. I am really horrified that you will
not encourage families to vaccinate their children, measles,
chickenpox, polio. Vaccines are one of the foundations of
public health. Vaccines, yes, save lives. And the fact that the
Secretary of Health and Human Services refuses to encourage
children to be vaccinated is a tragedy. And we have already had
two children in the United States who have died needlessly from
measles.
Let me also move forward. You talked about the NIH and the
science of the NIH. And just very, very quickly, high-profile
successes from NIH research: Human Genome Project,
immunotherapy, CRISPR gene editing, sickle cell cure, vaccines
for HPV, hepatitis, mRNA vaccines, including the lifesaving
COVID vaccines, artificial heart valves, GLP-1 medications for
diabetes and weight management. One can look at and see what
works or doesn't work, but you can't sit here and tell us that
NIH has been a failure and that the science and people who have
worked at the NIH have not made unbelievable, unbelievable
discoveries to cure.
I have a question which has to do with NIOSH. And you don't
have to answer this question, but I don't understand why
Republicans get to call you to spare offices like NIOSH. Who do
Democrats have to call? Is there a special phone number if I
want to say tobacco prevention, lead poisoning. Nine million
children were lead poisoned in Flint, Michigan. Nine million
kids, okay? So tobacco prevention, lead poisoning, oral health,
who do we have to call to be able to get those things
reinstated?
And finally, let me just say this to you because there has
been a discussion here. Well, on nutrition, I would just say to
you that, look, I am very, very big on nutrition, food safety.
I have spent, you know, the last 20 or 25 years dealing with
this issue, so I am supportive of some of the areas that you
have talked about. And by the way, the Office of Research at
the NIH, they can only spend $1 million on research. This
committee can provide them with a hell of a lot more money if
we want them to do more on research.
But a side issue on Medicaid with regard to young children,
it is children, disabled, low-wage workers, and seniors who are
the beneficiaries of Medicaid. And that would appear to be
really on the chopping block.
Mr. Chairman, I have just one more comment to make to you.
The testimony with regard to unaccompanied children, spent a
lot of time on that issue, a lot of time because by law, as you
know, we have to accept unaccompanied kids. That is HHS
responsibility. You are right, there is an enforcement, but we
have that responsibility to keep them safe, put them in the
best set of circumstances.
I was chair of this committee during the first Trump
administration, still outraged, was horrified at the time to
learn that Stephen Miller was directing border agents to
separate children from their parents as a deterrent, as a
deterrent to coming to the United States. Some of these
children were taken away from their parents they were less than
5 years old. Now, there was about 4,600 kids separated from
their families. That was in 2017, 2018. I had a conversation
with Secretary Azar at the time. It was in my home in my office
with my grandson on my lap. And I said to him, do you have a
list of the families and a list of the children so that they
can be reinstated? He assured me that they did. Mr. Secretary,
it is 2025. Thirteen hundred of those children are unaccounted
for. Do we want to look for missing kids to get them to their
parents? Let's start there. That was a tragedy of great
proportions inflicted by the United States of America.
You have an unbelievable job. When we talk about HHS, it
really is a cornerstone of what this country is all about and
what we can do. We don't deal here with airplanes, with roads
or bridges or helicopters. That is not what we do. But our job
and your job is to save lives. And I would hope that you would
take another look at what is being proposed.
And I would say fight back, as I would ask my colleagues to
fight back and say, we can't do this. We can't eliminate some
of these programs. The havoc that we are going to cause in
dealing with research and cutting back on research is going to
put lives at risk.
You have an incredibly important job.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Ms. DeLauro.
Ms. DeLauro. I think you can make the difference.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
Ms. DeLauro. Please do.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. And
let me say, I do think you bring fresh eyes. I think you bring
a new perspective on public health and the overall state of our
healthcare system in America. And I appreciate what you are
doing to look at what is working and what is not working. And I
think that is what is very much needed in this and not take
everything as a status quo.
And so I think we have had a very good hearing, had a very
spirited hearing today. But I think we have covered a lot of
topics. And I am very happy that all the members got a chance
to ask questions. I am sure we could go on for a couple more
hours, and I would love to do a second round, but I know that
you have another hearing I think you are scheduled this
afternoon for, and so you can take a break for a minute, maybe
get some lunch, a healthy lunch. And --
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Chairman, would you yield for a question?
Mr. Aderholt. He has got another hearing to go to, so with
that--
Mr. Hoyer. I want to----
Mr. Aderholt [continuing]. We stand adjourned.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES, EDUCATION
APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2026
----------
Thursday, May 15, 2025.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
WITNESS
HON. LORI CHAVEZ-DEREMER, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Mr. Aderholt. Well, good morning. The subcommittee will
come to order, and I want to welcome Secretary of Labor Chavez-
DeRemer, and we welcome you to the subcommittee today, and
particularly the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education, for this hearing on the Department of
Labor's fiscal year 2026 budget request. I want to congratulate
you on your bipartisan confirmation as Secretary and look
forward to working with you, especially in this new role that
you have started just a few months ago.
Of course, the role of the Department of Labor is to
foster, is to promote and develop the welfare of wage earners
in the United States, to improve their working conditions and
to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.
Unfortunately, under the previous administration, the Agency
too often exceeded its statutory authority and attempted to
implement a regulatory agenda that, had it not been rejected by
the American public in the last year's elections, would have
crippled American job creators and undermined the ability of
the American workers to secure economic opportunities they need
to support their families. Moreover, the Department was more
interested in catering to beltway-based liberal social policy
concerns rather than responding to the real needs of American
workers, job seekers, and employers.
These misguided, harmful regulatory proposals included an
OSHA requirement that, if not found unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court, would have required Americans to receive the
COVID-19 vaccinations as a prerequisite for employment. Also,
it would have included a wage and hour regulation that would
have ended freelance and independent work opportunities,
particularly important to workers with caregiving
responsibilities who value flexibility, and also a change to
overtime regulations that would have reduced worker opportunity
for career advancement. More than 417,000 businesses in Alabama
employ over 47 percent of private sector workers in the State.
Many of the small businesses in the district that I represent
are family farms. No industry suffered more under the harmful
regulation regime of the previous administration than the
American farmer because of an increase in the H-2A Adverse
Effect Wage Rates.
And so, Madam Secretary, I look forward to working with you
and your Agency as well as USDA to address this adverse effect
wage rate issue and supporting this vital industry going
forward. President Trump's election and your subsequent
confirmation is a breath of fresh air, not only for the
American worker, but also for the job creators. No longer will
American businesses have to fear regulatory overreach or
enforcement actions designed to punish employers and limit
their success.
Madam Secretary, while the Department's regulatory matters
are frequently contentious, we have often been able to find
bipartisan common ground on skills training. Apprenticeships
produce positive outcomes for workers and job seekers, putting
a priority on what should be the end goal of all workforce
development programs, which is a job. These programs only exist
where businesses choose to adapt this intensive approach to
human capital management. We have seen support for these
programs flourish under multiple administrations, and I hope we
will continue to build out these opportunities.
The Alabama Office of Apprenticeship was, in part, created
to respond to employer frustration with the Department of
Labor's management of the Registered Apprenticeship Program.
These frustrations included a bureaucratic and outdated one-
size-fits-all approach to skills training with overly-
prescriptive requirements. Too often under the previous
administration, the Department of Labor showed favoritism in
reviewing apprenticeship program applications, and, in the name
of equity and inclusion, would have turned a 2-page law into a
776-page rule that would have reduced opportunities for
American workers of all race and both sexes. We should be
ensuring that American workers and job seekers have direct
access to career pathways that work for them and not adding 776
layers of byzantine mazes to navigate.
Apprenticeships represent an opportunity and a pathway to
high-paying jobs. Unfortunately, the barriers to growth of this
career training model will not be solved through funding alone.
Improved program administration and more effective leadership
at and by the Department can better support the adoption of
registered apprenticeships for our Nation's workforce. I am
hopeful that as we work through this shortened budget year,
that we are able to once again find some common ground as we
move forward, and I am not only hopeful, but I feel like we
will be able to do that. I know that this subcommittee looks
forward to hearing from your testimony today and asking
questions about the budget and the policies over at your
Department, but at this time, before you begin your opening
remarks, I would like to yield to the ranking member, Rosa
DeLauro, for her opening statement. Ms. DeLauro, you are
recognized.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Chairman Aderholt, for
holding this important hearing on what I regard as, and I start
out with, what I believe is President Trump's anti-worker
budget request for the Department of Labor. Secretary Chavez-
DeRemer?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. DeRemer.
Ms. DeLauro. DeRemer, thank you. Welcome, and I have said
to you on the phone it is great to see a House colleague here,
and congratulations to you. Big job, and I would just say
personally that I have been on this committee, I think, full
committee for 32 years and the same amount of time on the
subcommittee, and I have always believed that the Department of
Labor, with regard to resources, has been shortchanged, so I am
not saying anything different than I have over the years to
whatever administration there has been, but I particularly
really regard the President's budget request for the Department
of Labor as anti-worker.
Let me start off by saying I don't take protections of
American workers lightly. On Friday, I joined more than 3,000
striking machinists on the picket line at Pratt & Whitney's
plants in East Hartford and Middletown, Connecticut, as they
fight for fair wages and for job security. Unions built the
middle class in this Nation. They are the reason why we have a
minimum wage, a weekend, overtime pay, and better working
conditions, and I will always fight for trade unions in the
Congress.
I am the daughter of a garment worker. My mother worked in
the old sweatshops in the City of New Haven sewing shirt
collars and piecework for pennies where I visited. She had me
meet her there every day after school, and I didn't realize the
method of her madness until I was an adult. And her admonition
to me and watching those women hunched over those sewing
machines, not taking a lunch break, and in the needle trades,
if you get the needle in your finger, you don't go and get a
tetanus shot. You just pull away, you wrap it up, because if
you get a drop of blood on the garment, you do not get paid for
it. And my mother's admonition to me was, get an education so
that you don't have to do this, and so I have been an advocate
for workers, for working people, for unions, and for better
working conditions. The conditions she worked in were
deplorable, and the American people earned and deserve far
better.
Our country's history is a story of desperately hard-fought
progress for the rights of the American worker, and, Madam
Secretary, let me be clear. We will not go backwards, not for
Elon Musk and any other billionaires who want to pillage the
middle class, continue extracting and hoarding extraordinary
wealth, and not for the corporations lining up at the White
House for special privileges and for tax breaks. To that end, I
strongly oppose your proposal to cut the funding for the
Department of Labor by $4.7 billion. I believe it is a 35-
percent hatchet job to the crucial programs that help workers
gain the skills to secure middle-class jobs, and to the
agencies whose mission it is to protect the safety, health, and
hard-fought rights of American workers.
But before we talk about your request to really suffocate,
I believe, your own Department next year, I want to talk about
what is happening right now. The American people are demanding
help with the cost of living. President Trump is not laser
focused on the cost of living crisis. He is actually making it
worse. He promised to fight for workers, but instead, he put
Elon Musk and billionaires in charge of the government. Madam
Secretary, this administration is recklessly and unlawfully
freezing and stealing congressionally-appropriated funds from
agencies, programs, and services across the government that
serve the American people, and the Congress holds the power of
the purse. It is in the Constitution, Article I, Section 9,
Clause 7. President Trump, Elon Musk, and as you being
Secretary, you are attacking job training programs, labor
protections to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Government
should fight for the middle class, for working class, for the
vulnerable, not for the interests of billionaires like Elon
Musk.
Already in fulfilling Musk's agenda, rather than fighting
for the needs of American workers, you canceled more than 2
dozen Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations,
the WANTO Program, WANTO grants that support women in trades
like construction, manufacturing, information technology. These
are so many of the in-demand jobs today in communities
nationwide, and yet women make up less than 25 percent of the
workforce in those sectors. How can we take you seriously on
economic issues that matter most to American families when we
are turning our back on the women in the workforce?
One of your first actions as Secretary was to cancel grants
funded by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, ILAP, that
is around the world, demonstrating that we are not serious
about trade partners and asking them to live up to their labor
commitments to America so that we can protect the jobs for
workers here in America when they undercut the standards that
we have and they undercut the American worker. The recklessness
sells out American workers by turning a blind eye to countries
relying on exploitative labor conditions, including child labor
and forced labor, to sell a high volume of low-cost goods here
in the United States. By cutting these programs, you are waving
a white flag to the countries that will steal American
manufacturing jobs from us.
What else could explain your decision to cancel countless
grants that make sure Mexico fulfills the USMCA labor
commitments, specifically grants to implement critical labor
justice reforms and strengthen Mexico's enforcement of labor
laws? If this is your plan to complement President Trump's
reckless and rudderless trade policy, then American workers and
manufacturers are in for a brutal awakening. At best, you do
not understand your Agency's responsibility to make sure
American workers are not ripped off by our trade partners. At
worst, there seems to be not a care if American workers lose
manufacturing jobs to other countries with nonexistent labor
standards. Either way, I think that your tenure as Secretary of
Labor has been hampering the American workforce, and I intend
to hold you accountable. I want to work with you, but I am
going to hold you accountable on behalf of American workers.
That is the role and the function of the Department of Labor.
Under your leadership and the President's scheme to tax
families and businesses even more, we are not on a path to
restoring critical manufacturing jobs and boosting American
productivity. We are on a path that will only lead to fewer
jobs and higher costs to Americans. It is reported that you
plan to fire 90 percent of staff at the Office of Federal
Contract Compliance Program, leaving just 50 employees to
conduct civil rights investigations, enforce equal employment
opportunity law, rectify pay disparities for women, and protect
the rights of some 3.6 million Federal contractors. There are
already reports that you have placed many of these staff on
administrative leave. This is all happening today, right now.
We are not talking about hypotheticals, or what ifs, or worst
case scenarios. This destruction of support for workers has
happened. It is happening today.
Turning to your budget request for 2026, we are well into
May with only a skinny budget, and the administration has
provided almost no details about its proposal to cut the
Department of Labor by $4.7 billion. That is a staggering cut
of 35 percent, but we do know that the American workforce will
bear the brunt of that cut. A central component of your plan is
to eliminate WIOA--that is, the Workforce Innovation and
Opportunity Act, WIOA adult and youth programs--and replace
them with a block grant to States, but you propose to provide
$1.6 billion less to train America's workforce.
A block grant is a cut. You go to any state in this Nation,
you tell them there is a block, they know it is a cut, and we
know it is a cut. States cannot afford to pick up the slack.
Eliminating WIOA adult job training would deny job training
employment service for more than 300,000 adults who need help
to find a good-paying job. Eliminating WIOA youth job training
would rob 135,000 young people of employment opportunities. In
fact, Chairman Aderholt and this subcommittee held a hearing in
February on, ``Innovations from Community Colleges and the
Private Sector,'' and one of his invited witnesses, Dennis
Parker from Toyota USA, testified about the critical roles of
WIOA resources in setting up and scaling the Alabama Federation
of Advanced Methods Manufacturing Education, the FAMME program.
He said, ``Strategic Federal funding, such as resources
allocated through WIOA, plays a crucial role in scaling
workforce training programs like FAMME. By allowing employer
collaboratives to direct funds towards specific training needs,
these resources help institutions acquire equipment, build
facilities, hire instructors, critical elements for launching
and sustaining, sustaining high quality programs.'' Madam
Secretary, your proposed cuts would abandon employers like
those in Alabama and all around the country, and job seekers
looking for opportunities would suffer the consequences.
You propose to eliminate Job Corps, where we know that
there are more than 10,000 youngsters waiting to get in, as
well as the Senior Community Service Employment Program,
setting back our efforts to help low-income youth and seniors
who are looking for work. So far we have seen zero details, but
the sheer magnitude of your cuts mean that you must be aiming
to slash worker protection agencies by close to $1 billion.
Will those cuts be to the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration--OSHA--jeopardizing the lives and safety of
workers, toiling in some of the Nation's most hazardous
conditions, like meat packing, poultry, and agriculture, and I
told you about the conditions that my mother worked in, or will
you be cutting the Wage and Hour Division, which makes sure
that Americans get paid for the work they perform, ensures that
children who should be in school are not instead being
exploited in the fields or on the factory floor. Madam
Secretary, I want to know how the Department of Labor will be
able to perform function and protect the American workforce
while under this hatchet. The American people deserve to know
what will become of the programs and protections that so many
workers throughout our Nation's history fought and died for.
I understand the administration is eager to find a way to
pay for tax breaks for billionaires, but doing so by
dismantling protections from workers, stealing from job
seekers, throwing the middle class and our workers' livelihoods
under the bus, is indefensible. We are in the middle of a cost-
of-living crisis. Yourself and Elon Musk and President Trump
will be making it worse. Republicans in Congress could stop the
mayhem, could stop the chaos and the destruction today if they
had the courage. They remain silent, petrified of the
President's scorn, his revenge, his retaliation.
Those of us in elected office, and we are blessed to serve,
we have the moral responsibility to work on behalf of and
provide the services to the American people. We know what is
right and we know what is wrong, and we understand the harm
that is being wrought on the American people. We need to stand
up, we need not to be afraid because this is the time to meet
the moment. As the leading Democrat on the Appropriations
Committee, I assure you we will never stop fighting against
this dangerous dismantling of the Department of Labor and its
agencies, which is jeopardizing the paychecks of middle-class
working families and the vulnerable, and undermining the safety
and the health of our workers. I thank you. I look forward to
your testimony, and, yes, I do look forward to working with
you. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. All right. Again, we are glad to
have you here, Madam Secretary, and we have received your
statement, it will be included in the record, but certainly,
you will now give your opening remarks, and we look forward to
hearing from you and as we follow up with questions. Thanks.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member
DeLauro, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
invitation to testify today. It is an honor to appear before
the subcommittee to share the important work the administration
is doing at the Department of Labor. It is a privilege to serve
as the 30th Secretary of Labor and to lead the Department's
efforts on behalf of President Trump and the American
workforce. My role as Secretary is to ensure that the American
worker is at the center of the economic strategy. The middle
class, union workers, and small businesses have given us a
clear mandate. It is my job to guarantee those men and women
are not just heard, but respected and prioritized at every
level of government.
From the moment I was sworn in on March 11, I promised to
put American workers first, and that mission has guided my work
from the very beginning. Through commonsense reforms, we will
focus the Department of Labor on the same purpose, saving
taxpayer resources while safeguarding protections that are
critical to the health and well-being of our workforce, like
enforcement efforts, inspectors, and investigators.
Additionally, I am committed to having an open door policy with
every worker. As their liaison and advocate, I am committed to
painting an accurate picture of laborers' needs and concerns to
the President.
I launched my listening tour, America at Work, to hear
directly from the men and women on the ground who are living
this day in and day out. These insights and experiences are
imperative to shaping Federal labor policies and practices. I
told my team when I began this tour that I want to visit all 50
States to better understand the regional workforce needs, and
we are making good headway. I have held many meetings with
local leaders to learn more ways that the Federal Government
can help develop a skilled workforce, improve infrastructure to
attract businesses and investment, prioritize workers, and
identify smart regulations that expand economic opportunity and
drive job growth.
From a training facility demonstration with the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in
Pennsylvania, to a day spent with students learning to become
aviation mechanics in Nevada, I am experiencing and relaying
the challenges and triumphs of America at work. We have a
responsibility to turn these stories into actions through smart
reforms and Federal solutions that deliver real results. This
worker-centric approach is part of the broader economic
momentum President Trump is driving. With more than $8 trillion
in private investment so far, Americans are seeing great
progress in the growth of our jobs, our economy, and our
competitive edge.
To further stimulate economic growth, the Trump
administration is overhauling the waste, fraud, and abuse that
has characterized the Federal Government's use of tax dollars
for decades. The Department of Labor is eliminating unnecessary
red tape that stifles innovation. We are on track to restore
freedom and purchasing power to hardworking men and women. For
example, the Department of Labor recently uncovered $4.4
billion of unspent and unusable COVID funding and is actively
working to return that money to the Treasury in its entirety.
When Americans' hard-earned tax dollars are wasted, more of
their paychecks can go to things that actually matter: putting
food on the table, gas in cars, and providing stability for our
families. Workers are the cornerstone of our economic comeback,
and that is exactly why America First policies matter. I stand
ready to equip, train, and support our workforce so they can
thrive in an ever-changing job market.
Pursuant to two critical executive orders, my Department is
hard at work to collaborate with the Departments of Commerce
and Education to unlock the potential of the American worker.
We are looking to strengthen registered apprenticeships,
modernize workforce development programs, and invest in
opportunities that upscale to meet the current labor market
demands. As part of the new White House Task Force on
Artificial Intelligence Education, I am also excited to
identify new avenues to prepare the American workforce for
technological advances and challenges of the future. This task
remains at the forefront of the President's artificial
intelligence agenda. I am confident that by revitalizing our
workforce and preparing workers for the jobs of tomorrow, we
are breathing life into the American Dream. I believe, as you
all do, that we must work together to foster the economy that
ensures every American can thrive with good pay, safe working
conditions, and a secure retirement.
It is my honor to work on behalf of President Trump as we
all bring back jobs to the United States and put the American
worker first again. I look forward to working with Congress and
each and every one of you on these important goals, and I look
forward to our discussion here today. Thank you.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Madam Secretary, and we appreciate
your opening statement, and we look forward to doing our round
of questions. All the members will have 5 minutes. You know, I
try to be a little bit lenient on the 5-minute rule because
sometimes you are in the middle of a question or in the middle
of an answer and to finish that thought, but obviously, to make
sure that we have time for everybody, and there will be members
that will be coming in and out. I do appreciate all the members
when I start tapping to start wrapping up as move forward.
I'd like to start out by asking about the Adverse Effect
Wage Rates, and as you well know, family farms are essential to
the economy of all America, but in particular, I see it in the
economy of the district I represent and in North Alabama.
Unfortunately, under the previous administration, the H-2A
Labor Rates required of agriculture employers became more and
more unaffordable, and actually, to the point that many family
farms and specialty crop growers are at risk of being forced to
close their farms. I know this is an issue that you are very
familiar with, and because of that, I want you to commit to
working with us and ensure the family farms are able to
maintain these operations. And so I would just ask you if you
would be willing to do that as we move forward and any comments
that you would like to make about that.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah. Thank you, Chairman,
absolutely. I want to work with each and every one of you to
understand the complexities of really what is happening across
the country as far as it relates to any of the H programs, but
particularly H-2A. As a former member, I did serve on the H-2A
Subcommittee through Agriculture, as I sat on that committee,
to develop what is working and what is not, and the one-size-
fits-all, as we know throughout Congress, isn't always the
case.
You know, the Department has already received almost 19,000
H-2A applications from the employers, which is a 9-percent
increase in the workload that we are seeing. I know agriculture
and this AEWR, or the wage rate, is a real concern for our
farmers, ranchers, and producers, but what I do have to
mention, of course, as you know, that this rule is subject to
litigation, and it really precludes me, and I know that today
most of you will ask a lot of questions that while they are in
that reality and in that realm, I will not be able to comment
on that.
But what I will say is I am sensitive to the concerns that
we heard from the Biden administration, and I am committed to
working with you and Secretary Rollins to solve this issue
because it has been brought up by not only each and every one
of you, but almost every member of Congress that is concerned
with the rural parts of America and how we are going to fill
that workforce. So I am committed to working with you.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. In my opening remarks, I referred
to the apprenticeship programs, and given the challenges that
many employers face in finding well-qualified workers, many are
turning to apprenticeships to build their supply line of
skilled workers as they are in their particular business. The
Alabama Office of Apprenticeship links talent with opportunity.
Given how much I know you have heard about this important issue
on your listening tour that you referred to, what can the
Department of Labor do to support registered apprenticeship and
all forms of work-based learning?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah. I am telling you as we have
been on this tour, I have visited over eight States since I was
sworn in, and we will get to all 50 States before the end of
the year. As was mentioned, there have been plenty of
Secretaries before me, despite whatever party, that they want
to get around and understand the workforce, but it doesn't make
any sense to me that we wouldn't do this on the front end at
the very beginning to understand.
Through the executive order of the President, 1 million
apprentices is the goal for this country. We range between
680,000 to 700,000 at a time, so we have a ways to go, but I
just see the investments. I was just in Ohio as well, and the
Department of Labor is going to be focused on fulfilling that,
and we know that every sector needs more, and it is not just in
the traditional trades. We are seeing it across the board. So
we will work with every industry to expand apprenticeship
programs across the Nation in order to fulfill the President's
executive order for 1 million apprentices for that pipeline of
the future workforce of America.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. And before my time expires, under
the previous administration, the Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Programs rescinded a rule that provided clarity and
certainty around the religious exemption for organizations that
contract with the Federal Government. The rule allowed
religious organizations to operate according to their religious
beliefs while participating as a Federal contractor. Without
this important rule in place, what steps will the Department of
Labor take to ensure that religious organizations receive fair
treatment and protection in the Federal contracting process?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, thank you. On that, as the
Office of OFCCP is, again, under litigation, I would like to
work with your office to fulfill that answer for you when it is
available.
Mr. Aderholt. Okay.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. Ms. DeLauro.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I was
delighted, Madam Secretary, to hear you talk about a worker-
centered Department, as it should be, and that is also true
that our trade agreements need to be workers center as well.
You promised ``to bring back jobs to the United States,'' but
one of your first acts as Secretary was canceling all projects
funded by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs--ILAB--
including the countless projects to make sure Mexico fulfills
its labor commitments under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade
Agreement, which was done with President Trump, helped deal
with negotiations with several others, but that was passed into
law by the President. Cutting these grants amounts to waiving a
white flag to countries that will steal American manufacturing
jobs from us because it allows foreign companies to cheat to
undercut American jobs. They have lower wages, no labor
standards, et cetera. You get it. You understand that.
American workers are counting on you to monitor and enforce
USMCA labor commitments so that they do not lose to places with
weaker labor standards and institutions, but you and Elon Musk
DOGE characterized these grants, ``America last.'' I am going
to read some of the USMCA projects you canceled. Tell me how
they are America last from your perspective. Strengthening
government labor law enforcement in Mexico.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. You want me to answer it
individually as you go?
Ms. DeLauro. Yeah.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, thank you again, and I
appreciate the passion that you have had for the 30 years that
you have served. I have the exact same passion in just the
short amount of time because of my years of experience, so I
look forward to working with you on all these issues. Our goal
is to restore accountability through ILAB, and Focus the
taxpayer dollars for the American worker and business, and that
has been my focus from the beginning, working instance, working
with USTR, Jamieson Greer, in order to address the issues in
Mexico. We will be working those out together because we are on
the same subcommittee together, Ranking Member, and we will be
focused on that.
Ms. DeLauro. I don't mean to interrupt. I just want to ask
you----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. No, no problem.
Ms. DeLauro [continuing]. These projects have been
canceled. Strengthening government labor law in Mexico, a
Government of Mexico approach to combating child labor,
engaging Mexico's auto sector employers in labor law reform
implementation, these projects have been canceled. So how do we
then deal with maintaining what ILAB does or did, making sure
that American workers are not left behind, which looks to me
like that is where you are going with this, and I will ask you
about Ambassador Greer. Was he or anyone else dealing with
trade consulted? Was he involved in the discussions before
these programs were canceled?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, a couple of things, one
that I want to comment on. You couldn't be more incorrect in
saying that I don't care about child labor or I don't care
about what happens with these agreements. Number two----
Ms. DeLauro. But why then cancel the program?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. But number two, I do have to
recommend and say to you all that because these are subject to
litigation, I really can't talk about the specific grants. I
know you know that, and it is no disrespect.
Ms. DeLauro. Well, no, I just----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I just want you to know----
Ms. DeLauro. And I have no disrespect as well.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer [continuing]. No frustration that
I have----
Ms. DeLauro. But if we are committed to dealing with----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. As a former congressman, I wish I
could share with you, but it was subject to litigation.
Ms. DeLauro [continuing]. Forced labor, child labor, labor
reform, all that benefits American workers, doesn't put them at
a disadvantage, is being scuttled, is done----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah.
Ms. DeLauro [continuing]. And we can get no answer as to
why that is the case. So my view is that that mission is gone.
We are not going to be there to protect American workers.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. We will protect American workers.
Ms. DeLauro. Let me----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is my first and foremost
focus.
Ms. DeLauro. Yes, well, here, but you can have a focus, but
your actions have got to tie in with your focus. If your
actions are contrary to your focus, then you are not meeting
the mission. Okay. Let me talk about National Apprenticeships
Day this year. You stated that you ``will personally ensure
that the Labor Department is helping to fulfill our bold goal
of exceeding 1 million active apprentices.'' I am for that.
Registered apprenticeship programs work. They are the best.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I agree.
Ms. DeLauro. However, last week you celebrated with Elon
Musk's DOGE account as you canceled more than 2 dozen Women in
Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations grants--WANTO--
which is administered by the Women's Bureau, and it supports
women in trades like construction and manufacturing, including
a grant to North Carolina nonprofit that works with local
builders tradeswomen to enter the construction fields in
Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, and a grant to a Biloxi,
Mississippi nonprofit that trains women for construction jobs.
You are decimating the Women's Bureau and WANTO grants that
help women gain vital skills and better-paying jobs. Madam
Secretary, women make up less than 25 percent of the workforce
in these trades. Why should we believe your promises on active
apprenticeships when you and Elon Musk are canceling the grants
designed to help women fill in-demand jobs in communities
nationwide?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, thank you, and you should
believe me because I am a woman, and I am in the workforce, and
I do care about all American workers. And we will be focused on
those in the Labor Department as well, and statutorily the
Women's Bureau is in statute.
Ms. DeLauro. Yes, it is.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. We will work hard to focus on all
American workers, and I cannot say more than that on that grant
cut because it is subject to litigation.
Ms. DeLauro. Well, I would just say this. If we are going
to help women become more than 25 percent of the folks in those
in-demand jobs, then the programs that Elon Musk and yourself
and the President are terminating, then that does not meet the
goal. So aside from litigation, it is not going to work to help
women in the workforce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Fleischmann.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning.
Madam Secretary.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Good morning.
Mr. Fleischmann. It is a pleasure to see you today and wish
you congratulations for stepping up in this role, and really so
appreciate your leadership, your dedication, and I think,
almost most importantly, your positive attitude that you bring
to this job, so thank you profusely for that.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Fleischmann. We look forward to working with you.
Appreciated the phone call the other day. Thank you so much. As
you know, it is very important to me to maintain the integrity
of the independent contractor relationship. In my State, the
great State of Tennessee, we value this on both sides and it
has worked so well. And I know earlier this month, the
Department's Wage and Hour Division issued an announcement that
is currently working to reformulate the test as to how
independent contractor status is determined under the Fair
Labor Standards Act. And I just wanted to ask you how we can be
helpful in that process, and just thank you for your commitment
to maintaining that.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah. Again, as we do the
rulemaking and litigation, I can't comment specifically, but we
did issue through the Wage and Hour Division the Field
Assistance Bulletin so that there is some certainty for the
workforce on how to navigate this until the Department of Labor
continues down the road of that. So what I ask is, it is about
not only working with members of Congress on both sides of the
aisle to understand what this means in your respective States,
and you are sharing with me on how important this is to
Tennessee, but again, technical assistance back and forth and
how we work together is going to really round out how we are
going to move forward in the future on this. But more
flexibility and modernization is what the workforce is asking
for, and we want to grow the workforce at all costs, so we are
going to do everything we can to assist you in that.
Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you so much. Madam Secretary, a
question about Jobs Corp. These are skilled tradespeople, a lot
of young Americans who are waiting to engage in that program.
It is my understanding that currently that may be on hold, and
I would just like to know when we might expect some type of
resuming of that enrollment in Jobs Corps.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. No, thank you for bringing that
up. Again, there are so many Job Corps centers throughout this
country that have dedicated time, but there has been a report
that we have released from the Department of Labor most
recently in relation to all of these centers, the Job Corps
Transparency Report. And I highly encourage all members of
Congress, if you have a Job Corps center to take a look at
this, and it is publicly available. The Job Corps program has a
price tag of nearly $1.7 billion per year, and we owe it to the
taxpayers to be transparent about what is happening.
So the average cost per student is about $80,000, and the
average cost per enrollee, regardless of their length of stay,
is about $50,000. So there have been some concerns with that,
and we see the signaling from the President's budget that we
want to take a refocus and a relook on are we really focused on
where those dollars are going to have the outcome for the
workforce. This is a population that we also deeply care about.
As a member of Congress, I was a Job Corps champion. From what
I have discovered through this process, I do want to work with
each and every one of you in understanding how we move forward
to train this population, especially the 16- and 17-year-olds
that we have. We need everybody in the workforce.
And so we have no final decision. We will keep looking as
we do more of this reporting, but I highly encourage, I would
like to work with each and every one of you individually on
this. This is an important issue.
Mr. Fleischmann. And I thank you for your response, and
will close by saying this, Madam Secretary. So appreciate the
fact that you want to visit all the great 50 States, including
Tennessee----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Including Tennessee.
Mr. Fleischmann. Including the great Volunteer State, so I
welcome you to our State. Our State is one of those states
where we cherish our employers, our employees, our independent
contractor relationships. We are booming in the great State of
Tennessee. People are coming all across our great State, so I
do welcome you there and wish you continued success. With that,
Mr. Chair, I will yield back.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much. Let's try to do a speed
round here, okay?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Okay. Uh-oh, here we go.
Mr. Hoyer. You and I went over these on the phone. I am
going to ask the questions I asked you on the phone, and
hopefully, we have the answers already.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I am not going to make any
promises just yet, but we are going to work together.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I miss you on the seventh floor,
by the way.
Mr. Hoyer. We miss you. Every time I get in the elevator, I
say, where are you?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Where are you? That is where we
spent most of our time, in the elevator.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay. Let's go quick. What are the changes to
FTEs from January to now at the Department of Labor?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I am sorry. I am sorry. I missed
it. I missed it.
Mr. Hoyer. What are the changes in FTEs from January to
today?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, due to litigation, I can't
comment on that right now because there has been a stop on the
DRO about what is happening in HR, so due to litigation, I
can't----
Mr. Hoyer. Is this part of the transparency and
accountability program that the President talks so much about?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, I promise you,
Congressman----
Mr. Hoyer. The number is in litigation?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, through----
Mr. Hoyer. Whether you legally did what you could do,
whether DOGE has legally done, that is in litigation. I didn't
ask you that question. I said what is the number now. I can't
believe that is in litigation.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, with the deferred
resignations that have happened, I don't have a final number of
FTEs currently at the Department of Labor as of now. I do not
have that final number, but I will get it to you just as soon
as we have the final number.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay. Now, I asked you these questions on the
phone.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yep.
Mr. Hoyer. How many workers took the original buyout?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, exactly. I don't have the
exact number because they haven't all signed. It was offered to
a lot through the Department of Labor, and I don't have the
final number for you, but I promise you I will get it to you as
soon as I have the final number because not all have decided if
that is what they want to do or not, and I will have my office
brief you on it.
Mr. Hoyer. Well, one of the things I want to know, if you
have to find this out later----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Sure.
Mr. Hoyer [continuing]. And I asked you on the phone, how
many are still being paid but not working?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah. Everybody who had chosen to
be in the program, administration will be paid through, I think
it is September 30. I don't know if that is right. September
30, yes. That is correct, September 30, those who chose to do
the program.
Mr. Hoyer. That is very interesting, ``those who chose.'' I
don't know how many chose.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I don't have the final number
either. I really don't have the final number. I am not making
it up. I don't have the final number. It was offered. Not all
have signed back, and I don't have the final number.
Mr. Hoyer. No, no, no, I didn't ask you how many were
offered. How many signed up and are not working but being paid
every day to do work for the American people?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I don't have that final number,
but I will get it to this entire committee.
Mr. Hoyer. Well, I am glad you will do that, but I am
surprised because we had this phone call a week ago.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. And it changes, so I just don't
have it, but when I do, I will get it for you----
Mr. Hoyer. Well----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer [continuing]. Because people have
an opportunity to take it as they go along.
Mr. Hoyer. Madam Secretary.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hoyer [continuing]. With all due respect----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hoyer [continuing]. We had a delightful phone call.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes, and we continue----
Mr. Hoyer. I gave you the exact questions I was going to
ask you.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Hoyer. No tricks.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I am not tricking you.
Mr. Hoyer. No, you are not answering me either. How many
employees were let go but asked to come back?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I do not have that number for you
today.
Mr. Hoyer. We went over these a week ago.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes.
Mr. Hoyer. There is no point in having a conversation if--
we all know our time is short--if you don't ask your staff to
give you these answers. This is not an opaque question.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah.
Mr. Hoyer. This is a question of how many people are now
working in the Department of Labor.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Congressman, I will get you that
number when we have the final numbers in place. I don't have--
--
Mr. Hoyer. I don't want the final number. I want now, and
that is what I asked about, now. I know you can't give me the
final number because it is going to be a moving number.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes. So may I answer this for you
from my legal team? Forty-five days to confirm, about 15,000
DOL employees, and no one was fired and who has come back.
Mr. Hoyer. No one was asked to come back?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Correct. There you go. No, no,
no, that is how many at the Department of Labor.
Mr. Hoyer. How many are gone?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. And we will have 45 days from the
time that they leave to confirm those, and then I will give you
those answers. You know, Congressman. I am not here to play
games either. I take this very seriously, and I want to protect
the American worker. As it is subject to litigation, as we have
gone through either the DRPs or the reduction in force, I can't
comment any further than that, but I will get you the
information just as soon as I can.
Mr. Hoyer. To your knowledge, was there any study made for
DOGE or the Department of Labor that justified the removal of
those who have been removed or asked to resign?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, you had asked me that, and
I can answer this. I don't know of any study that was done.
Mr. Hoyer. My premise is that they knew how to do it. They
didn't know the consequences. We are going to find out. Let me
close with this, a quote, ``We want the bureaucrats to be
traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we
want them not to want to go to work because they are
increasingly viewed as the villains. We want to put them in
trauma.'' Are you familiar with that quote?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. No.
Mr. Hoyer. That is Russell Vought. You have just talked
about how we all want to be for labor, for workers.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I absolutely do.
Mr. Hoyer. What do you think that does to your workers at
Department of Labor and throughout the Federal Government to
talk about them that way?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, I am not familiar with that
quote, but I can promise you this. I am for and every focus
that I do every single day when I wake up is to focus on the
American worker, and I will continue to do so.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much. I look forward to the
numbers.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Clyde.
Mr. Clyde. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Madam Secretary.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you for the phone call.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Of course.
Mr. Clyde. I appreciated being able to chat with you, and
the questions that I raised and the answers that you gave me.
And so I am encouraged to hear your commitment to restoring
constitutional boundaries and returning power to the States,
localities, and, most importantly, the American worker.
Today, we face a critical shortage of skilled labor in
trades, manufacturing, energy, and other key industries, where,
while millions are burdened with student debt and degrees that
really haven't led to better jobs, it is clearly time to
rethink the Federal workforce investment. Taxpayer dollars
should fund results, not rhetoric, and that means cutting
ineffective programs and tying funding to clear outcomes, like
job placement, earnings, and employer partnerships. It also
means empowering the private sector. Employer-driven models
with on-the-job training and real-world experience frequently
outperform bloated Federal programs. For too long, the Federal
labor policy has been shaped by sprawling one-size-fits-all all
programs--I think you mentioned that in your statement--with
regard to political allies, and it prioritizes DEI checklists
over merit, and funds nonprofits that have little to do with
advancing real workforce development. I am grateful that the
Trump administration is reversing course, eliminating waste and
focusing on results.
I am especially encouraged by your support for
apprenticeships and skilled trades, practical, debt-free paths
to success. Federal policy must reflect that college isn't the
only way up. Trade schools are phenomenal, and they have
incredible graduation rates and job placement rates upon
graduation. I also share your concerns about Job Corps and the
Senior Community Service Employment Program. These programs
have been costly, ineffective, and, in some cases, unsafe, and
data is clear. Now, you mentioned a study that you all had
done, and they are failing those they are meant to serve. So I
thank you and I thank President Trump for eliminating the Job
Corps in the budget request.
Finally, I want to highlight your strong stand against
rewarding illegal migration with unemployment benefits. It is
unacceptable that American taxpayers are expected to subsidize
policies that erode our national sovereignty and displace
lawful workers. Your warning to governors on this front was
well placed and necessary. Thank you. So, Madam Secretary, your
recent warning to governors that States allowing illegal aliens
to access unemployment benefits could lose Federal funding. Can
you provide an update on how you are enforcing that policy and
what mechanisms are in place to stop the misuse of these
benefits at the state level?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. No, thank you so much. This is
such an important issue for, you know, the Unemployment
Insurance Trust Fund, to be whole for the people who need it
most, and I think that is the biggest concern. And so my
recommendation was for those governors to comply with not
allowing anybody who is of any illegal status to have
unemployment insurance. And as we receive feedback, we will
continue to discover what those dollars are and return them to
the State Treasury because we have already uncovered and we
have some returned already to the State Treasury, but we need
to follow up with that. I know Congress has approved through
the House an extension on that unemployment insurance recovery,
and we are looking forward to working with Congress and the
Senate to continue that because those are dollars that have
been taken and not returned, and we will continue to follow up.
And then as it extends to illegal immigration, we will continue
to work with every governor to be a good Federal partner, to
have them understand that that is not what the Unemployment
Insurance Trust is for. It is for the American people who need
it most.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you. Thank you for that commitment. Now,
our chairman asked about the Adverse Effective Wage Rate, and I
want to follow up on that. It is making it increasingly
difficult for farmers in my district--I have a very
agricultural district--to hire legal guest labor under the H-2A
program. So I know you mentioned that there is litigation going
on, but what is your Department doing to address the
unsustainable wage inflation under the AEWR, and will you
support a freeze at the January 2023 levels or lower to protect
American agriculture and food security?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, thank you for the question,
and because it is in litigation, I really can't comment any
further, but I will continue to work with your office and any
other office. This is very important, and I will also work with
Secretary Rollins on this issue as it is important.
As it reverts back to all of the H programs, though, as
well, one of the things that the Department of Labor is doing
is talking about accessibility and understanding the program in
itself, and oftentimes the mitigation process or the navigation
of the system. So streamlining those processes are working as
well, so as a culmination of all of those together, I think we
are going to have better outcomes for all the H programs, and
then as well as it resorts to the AEWR ISSUES. But until it is
out of litigation, I won't be able to comment specifically.
Mr. Clyde. All right, Well, I look forward to working with
you on that, and one last final question. Job Corps has been
plagued with violence, waste, and poor outcomes for years, and,
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent for this
article to be entered into the record. It is by Fox News. It
says, ``New Report Exposes How Government Program with Eye-
Popping Budget, $1.7 billion, is Failing Vulnerable Students,''
and it is April 25, 2025. So I ask that it be entered into the
record.
Mr. Aderholt. Fair enough.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Clyde. All right. And so I just want to thank you for
your bold action on Job Corps.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Clyde. And is there any comment that you would like to
make further about Job Corps and the decision by the President?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. If anybody needs any more
assistance with their specific Job Corps numbers, I would like
to offer that that is a public document.
Mr. Clyde. Right.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. But if there is anything else
that I can get for you, please, I really want to work with each
and every one of you on this issue because that population is
one that needs to be served, and how we do it more efficiently
and effectively and keep our students safe and our workers safe
is going to be a primary goal of the Department of Labor.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Pocan.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you very much, and I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Pocan.
Mr. Pocan. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Madam Secretary, for being with us.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Pocan. Sorry, I am almost out of breath a little bit. I
was running between----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Back and forth.
Mr. Pocan [continuing]. Because they were like, Clyde is
halfway through, so I tried to get here in time to make sure we
kept it going.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Pocan. Glad to see you in the position because we do
appreciate you had many pro-worker votes when you were in
Congress, and that provides me some comfort knowing you are
there. However, the President's budget does provide me some
anxiety when I see a billion-dollar cut, and there is no real
details in the skinny budget. Specifically, I think, I guess
the two questions I would love to have some reassurances from
you around, OSHA and the Wage and Hour Division on cuts because
I think those are two of the divisions, as you well know,
support workers the most. And I want to make sure that, because
we don't have the details, that you can maybe give us a little
insight on what you might see happening in those two areas.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah. Thank you again for the
question, and certainly. One, to fulfill the mission of the
Department of labor, first and foremost, that is my job today,
different than as a congressman representing Oregon. But you
are correct, the direction of the President when he nominated
me and now as the Secretary of Labor is to work with all sides
of the aisle, and work with labor and business to come together
to how we are going to best protect the American worker. So
that being said, on the OSHA and/or MSHA, the safety of the
American worker also is first and foremost, not only under
their agencies, but no worker should expect to go to work and
not come home safe and sound. It is going to be my goal,
statutorily when we are out visiting the sites, that we have
our investigators on site because we want to protect the
American worker, so that will be my focus, and I will continue
down that road.
As we streamline and modernize, oftentimes it does get
conflated, and it is hard to understand that you would make a
cut, then you can't do the job. I don't agree with that always.
More money doesn't always mean the best outcome, but we are
going to do everything we can to fulfill the mandate of the
Department of Labor and not let any American worker down, and
we will keep them safe.
Mr. Pocan. And again, I just really want to stress around
OSHA especially, and Wage and Hour Division, those two.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is right, OSHA and MSHA, and
Wage and Hour, again, when you are talking about protecting----
Mr. Pocan. Yeah.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer [continuing]. Minimum, when we are
talking overtime pay, that people get----
Mr. Pocan. Wage theft, all the stuff----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer [continuing]. All those things
that, that the American worker deserves will be first focus on
my Department and my Agency to focus on.
Mr. Pocan. Yeah. I know you as the member of Congress would
be doing that. I hope you as the Secretary can still do that.
In case another billionaire comes into the administration to
start playing with things, you know, your expertise would be
much appreciated in that area. One of the other questions was,
you know, because of the cuts, the Job Corps program, I guess
it has come up from a couple folks, I come from the
perspective, I think, where maybe Mr. Fleischmann was coming as
well. Like, it is an important program, right, because it does
have that pipeline.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is right.
Mr. Pocan. With the Make America Skilled Again initiative,
how will that program make up for the job training resources
that we provide to our youth and seniors in the soon-to-be
eliminated DOL programs, and what can we expect? Can you assure
us that these organizations will have access to the same
skilled candidate pool if Job Corps is dismantled?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, thank you for bringing that
up. I was just visiting with the carpenters and you know, there
were Job Corps students in their trade skills program, in their
apprenticeship program. So my goal on the apprenticeship of the
1 million apprentices, along with the President, is to, first
and foremost, focus that pipeline, because that is the market-
driven economy that we have been seeing and asking for. And if
Job Corps is not working, if it is not serving that population
that we are promising to serve, then I want to make sure we
serve that population through a different avenue. What that
looks like, I am not exactly sure at this moment because there
has been no decisions made, but there are approximately 20,000
students that we are serving. I need to know that they are in a
place that they can have the skills that they need, along with
the rest of America. And so making America skilled again, that
block grant, we want to focus on all populations to make sure
men and women are being served, and that is going to include
that same population.
Mr. Pocan. Hopefully we keep the same focus on registered
apprenticeships, too, as being the platinum standard sort of
out there. I spent 35 years as a signed contractor, IUPAT union
member.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Sure.
Mr. Pocan. I myself was a member as well during all that
time period, and those programs really are, in many ways, heads
and tails above other type programs out there. I know you know
that from your experience, so just so we can keep that focus as
well. Last thing, I think, because I only have 22 seconds, I
want to ask the question, but I just raise the concern that
when the President signed an executive order taking away
bargaining rights from 75 percent of the Federal workforce, it
reminded me of what Scott Walker did in my State in Wisconsin,
and that caused all sorts of problems that we are still dealing
with well over a decade later. I believe those workers have
collective bargaining rights. I believe that you believe that,
but I hope that we can do more in this area because I am
concerned that, already, watching the cuts from Elon Musk, the
DOGE Commission, this is just one more attack on workers, and
at some point, we do need people to work for the Federal
Government.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Pocan. So thank you for being here today.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Mr. Pocan. Sure.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Moore from West Virginia.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Madam
Secretary, for being here. The union labor in my district is
very thrilled to have you. All the workers in West Virginia are
thrilled to have you in this position, so thank you.
Just by background, I would mention, since we are talking
about trade school, myself, I went to trade school. I actually
used to be a welder. That is how I started off my career, come
from a multigenerational family of labor union membership, and
it provided my family a very good life, and we owe a lot to
that. To that end, I wanted to highlight something for you, and
that is this program when I was State treasurer of West
Virginia that I started that I would like to work on with your
office and I am going to introduce legislation on. It is called
the Jumpstart Savings Program.
So one of the things I noticed when I was working in labor
myself is that when you would graduate from one of these
apprenticeship programs or trade school, sometimes the barrier
of entry into the workforce was not so much paying for the
school. Obviously, union apprenticeship is structurally
different than that, but when you were coming out, it was
difficult to get going where you had to buy the tools or
equipment, necessary licenses, certifications, or new business
startup costs to really get going. So we started this program
called Jumpstart, which was endorsed in the West Virginia
legislature and passed in legislature, but endorsed by our
trade unions as well as the Chamber of Commerce. Not too often
those two come together on something.
And what the program does, it allows individuals to start a
savings account that looks like a 529, but functions different,
and it is for after graduation, and it allows individuals to
save money for tools, equipment, licenses, certifications, and
new business startup costs, and the accounts stay open in
perpetuity. Now, one of the structural issues that we had,
because it was a State-level program, we had tax incentives on
it where you could write off up to $25,000 a year money that
went into the account, or as you pulled money out, up to
25,000, so it was tax advantaged account. 529, the college
savings plan, obviously you are not paying the capital gains
tax, and that is a Federal issue, right? We were able to waive
it at the State level, but not at the Federal level.
This is a program that I think would be really beneficial
to the workers of this country when they are coming out of a
trade school, coming out of a union apprenticeship program,
looking to start a new business, because we are always thinking
about trade school and apprenticeship programs, and those are
great, and we need more of them. We absolutely need more of
them. Just in my district alone, where we have Northern
Community College, the welders there, it is hard to keep them
long enough to graduate because they are getting jobs so fast.
So that is the struggle is that so many of them are so
employable, they are going out and working immediately.
But is this something that you think your office would be
willing to work with my office in trying to get a piece of
legislation together and pass here in Congress?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Oh, absolutely. We used to work
with agencies as a member of Congress to assist in any of the
technical assistance that you need to get that done. And as you
work through Congress, I would look forward to working with you
on this issue and, you know, get it across the line if that is
something Congress wants to focus on, absolutely.
Mr. Moore. Well, I hope they will, and I look to the other
side of the aisle, maybe perhaps some of them might be
interested in supporting this. It passed bipartisanly in the
West Virginia State legislature. I will give you one example.
Like, auto mechanics is a great one. They have to buy all of
their own tools when they come out of school, and it is tens of
thousands of dollars, and if they don't have the ability to
save to be able to buy those tools, it is a real barrier to
entry into the workforce, and that is just one great example.
I will end with this, is that in terms of protecting the
workers out there, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the
tragedy that happened in Northern West Virginia under the last
administration. We were not able to get tariff relief on
tinplate steel in this country. President Biden refused to put
tariffs on tinplate steel. We had to idle a steel plant in
Weirton, West Virginia that cost us over 3,000 United Steel
worker jobs, and nobody did anything about it. The Biden
administration was supposed to be the most pro-union
administration in history, left them in the dark. I mean, it is
a tragedy. They got sold out, for whatever reason, by Beijing
Biden, and they all lost their jobs, and that plant is idled.
We used to have two blast furnaces in the United States that
made tinplate steel. We are now down to one left.
So thank you for your work that you are doing with USTR,
and if you want to support workers, I would support tariffs. If
on the other side of the aisle, you want to support workers,
support tariffs on steel and aluminum because that is a way
that we are going to protect those jobs. I yield back. Thank
you.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Frankel.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, sir. Good morning. Thank you.
Welcome. Congratulations on your new appointment. I just want
to start off by saying it is astonishing that President Trump,
while blatantly disregarding the priorities set forth by
Congress in our appropriations bill, is still sending Cabinet
Secretaries to request funding.
But with that said, all across the country, working people
have long relied on the U.S. Department of Labor to safeguard
their paychecks, their safety, and their dignity, and they
expect the government to stand with them, not sell them out.
But under Donald Trump, with Elon Musk wielding his chainsaw
through the lives of dedicated public servants and hardworking
Americans through his DOGE efficiency group, we are witnessing
the deliberate dismantling of one of the most critical
lifelines for the American workers, and that is the Department
of Labor. And especially egregious, at this very moment, the
Trump administration, through your Department, is orchestrating
targeted attacks on the fundamental right to fair treatment in
the workplace with the ridiculous excuse that diversity,
equity, and inclusion initiatives are woke, whatever that even
means, no clue.
And the damage is profound. It is no more evident in the
gutting of the Office of the Federal Contract Compliance
Programs--that is a lot of words--OFCCP. The Federal Government
pays private contractors over $600 billion, and 20 percent of
our workforce is employed by these companies. That is more than
33 million workers. For 60 years, the OFCCP has ensured that
these companies don't violate Federal law protecting
discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, national
origin, as well as certain veterans and people with
disabilities. So that means a company can't say I am not going
to hire you because you are black, or you are gay, or you are a
Jew, or you are Asian.
Public companies were required when they received this
public money, the private companies, to auditing for compliance
with antidiscrimination law. And as a result, the OFCCP
collected owed wages for workers who had been discriminated
against or faced illegal pay disparities, and directed
noncompliant companies to implement correct plans. They
collected over $260 million just in the last 10 years, but
then, more important, they sent a message: obey the law. With
one stroke of the pen, Donald Trump ordered OFCCP to cease its
essential functions. And also now, it is threatening the
nonprofits, the businesses with investigations if they are
investing in fairness and inclusion. It sends a message to
companies: you receive your Federal money, go ahead, do
discriminate, we have your back.
So I have a question. In the past several years, under
Biden, Lincoln was compelled to pay $1.8 million to over 600
women for discriminatory pay practices. Google paid $3.8
million to more than 5,500 women and Asian applicants due to
hiring and pay discrimination. Cisco Systems agreed to $4.75
million settlement after the audit revealed that women, black,
and Latino employees were paid less than their white male
counterparts in similar roles. Intel Corporation settled for $5
million following allegations of systematic pay discrimination
against female, African American, and Hispanic employees. And
Bank of America was ordered to pay $2.2 million to over 1,000
black applicants for discriminatory hiring practices, and I
could give you many more examples. These were systematic
violations that were uncovered through OFCCP, their audits, and
their proactive enforcement. My question to you today, isn't it
not true that your Department could not do that today?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is not true. We are ensuring
that OFCCP fulfills its statutory requirements, and no
discrimination will be tolerated under this Nation's laws. That
I will fully enforce. I am not familiar with all those
individual cases that you mentioned. I know that you are trying
to lay out a plan, but I am telling you, under the Department
of Labor, we will fulfill our statutory requirements under the
OFCCP.
Ms. Frankel. What I suggest is that, with all due respect--
--
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Sure.
Ms. Frankel [continuing]. Because you didn't sign this
executive order, but I suggest you read that executive order
because that executive order would not allow the Department of
Labor to take any of these actions against any of these
companies. And just to sum it up, under Donald Trump, the
Department of Labor, I should say the Department of
Unlawfulness, no longer protects workers from civil rights
violations. It is now, in my opinion, in the business of aiding
and abetting discrimination by businesses that receive Federal
dollars, and that is over $600 billion of taxpayer monies, and
with that, I yield back.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Ms. Letlow [presiding]. The chair now recognizes
Representative Bice.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer for being with us this morning, and
thank you for speaking with me recently about my initiative of
filing legislation on paid family leave that I introduced. I am
excited to be part of the bipartisan Paid Family leave Working
Group, where we spent a year and a half talking to stakeholders
and crafting legislation to address the lack of paid family
leave options in, what I believe, is a responsible way. The
More Paid Leave for More Americans Act, H.R. 3089, will provide
a modest incentive for States to establish their own family
leave programs using a public/private partnership model. And to
be clear, this bill is not a mandate. It is an incentive that
recognizes that States are already leading the way in many
spaces, and we want to support that. And there is a tie-in
certainly with the Department of Labor potentially having an
oversight of this particular program, so thank you for giving
me some time to talk to you about that.
Secretary, Oklahoma, like 26 other States, is a right-to-
work State, and President Biden issued Executive Order 14063 in
2022, requiring the use of project labor agreements on all
Federal construction projects over $35 million. This actually
limits competition for the projects and results in many
projects bringing in crews from out of State. Earlier this
year, the Federal Court of Federal Claims ruled that the
collective bargaining agreement requirement violated the
Competition and Contracting Act by excluding responsible
offerors that are capable of performing the contract. I am
working on legislation to ensure that no further PLA agreements
are placed on Federal contracts in the future.
With only 11 percent of the workforce unionized, will you
continue to support a free market and ensure fair competition
across the workplace?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah. Thank you. I wanted to go
back just quickly on the legislation. The Department of Labor,
again, as was mentioned, will provide any technical assistance
that we can offer as you move legislation through Congress,
anything that we can do to help out on that, because you are
right, as an oversight, if it was to come to fruition, would be
through the Department of Labor. So thank you because we
understand that is a growing concern amongst lot of our
working----
Mrs. Bice. The U.S. is----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer [continuing]. A lot of our working
families.
Mrs. Bice. The U.S. is one of seven developed nations in
the world that does not have a structured paid family leave
program. And so my colleagues and I, bipartisan and bicameral,
actually, are looking to try to solve that, and we look forward
to working with your Department.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Great, and thank you. And then
again on right to work, as was mentioned in my hearing and
mentioned here today, you know, it is a fundamental tenet of
labor law that States have a right to choose if they want to be
a right-to-work State or if they want to unionize. And again,
from the Secretary's office, you know, that is left up, you
know, to those States. Now, the specific PLA that you are
talking about was not really a Department of Labor law, but we
want to work with every State in order to understand that we
want to grow the workforce. That has been really at the
fundamental core of President Trump's agenda, is to grow this
economy and get out of our own way, so to speak. And so from
the Secretary's office, we want to make sure that we are
supporting growing that workforce in any way that we can.
Mrs. Bice. Well, speaking of the workforce, in April, the
jobs report beat expectations by 40,000 jobs, showing that
President Trump has strengthened the private sector and is
growing Main Street America. Can you describe your work on
removing some of the burdensome regulations that have allowed
wages to grow and how the committee can partner with you to
keep the momentum going?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, thank you, and again, I
would like to go back even one month prior to that. We did blow
it out of the water, and I think that that is what is important
to answering the call of the market and what is happening:
228,000 jobs in one, and then 177,000 jobs, and those are above
expectations. And I would imagine we will continue down that
road in growing this workforce because of the flexibility and
modernization of labor law. And I think that that has been key
for not only my Agency, but with our business and our labor
wherever they are in the continuum, that we will continue to
reduce those barriers so we can grow the American workforce
first and stay focused on the American worker. And every
conversation that I had with each and every one of you will
always come from the pinnacle of the American worker first.
Mrs. Bice. Very much appreciate that. That is an important
aspect of the tentative small business, but also of your
organization, so we appreciate your time and dedication to the
country. Thank you for your service, and with that, Madam
Chair, I yield.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you. The chair recognizes Representative
Watson Coleman.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome to
you, Madam Secretary.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. A question regarding your study that
you all referred to, I think. As related to the decisions that
you made with Job Corps, whose study was that?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, so that was a Job Corps
transparency report. Really, it is the most comprehensive
report that has been done out of the Department of Labor in
order to discover what has actually been happening.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So that is your study, your
Department.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. It came out of the Department of
Labor, yep.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Okay.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. And it is the first time that it
has been done.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I am very concerned about Job Corps
because I know Job Corps deals with individuals from 16 to 24.
It provides them not only opportunity to get an education in a
college, it also hooks them up with unions for apprenticeships
for things that are very important and responsive to the
market, and also provides them residential removal from very
dangerous areas. It gives them a new lease on life.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. They are a mixture of people,
predominantly minority, all low income, and I am wondering,
what is it that we are proposing to do that is better than
that, because I don't agree that Job Corps has done its job as
best it can. What I do think is that we don't necessarily hold
people up to the standards that we expect. I would like to know
as quickly as possible because I have one other area to
question----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Okay.
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. What is your proposal to
deal with that population specifically, to give them safety and
security in where they are living----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Mm-hmm.
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. Opportunities to go to
college, opportunities to engage in apprenticeships?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Sure. So working with our
respective State partners, as well, to understand it is very
different in every State and very different in every
congressional district as well, and so I did pull up these
numbers because I knew this would be so important to many of
you here. Congresswoman, I don't believe you have a Job Corps
in your actual district, but----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Next to it.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Next to it, I believe, yeah, very
close. But the cost per enrollee there is $56,000, and the cost
per graduate for yours is 268,000 per graduate, and only one-
third of those students are graduating across the board--not
yours, but across the board--and students go on to make about
$16,000 a year. So just the discrepancy alone concerns me, but
that doesn't mean the population we should forget about.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So that is why that is really
important----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah.
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. To follow through.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is right.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Number one, how they are employed is
another function of how this country deals with minorities in
particular, and so----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes. So through the internship
program, whatever I can do to work with you.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you. I am going to----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I know we didn't have a chance to
talk----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I am going to be working with you, and
I am sorry I missed your call.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. No, that is okay.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. It befuddles me why we don't
understand the significance of affirmative action and contract
compliance.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Mm-hmm.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. They both came into existence because
there were verified studies of the underutilization and the
lack of opportunity for women and minorities, and that they
were treated discriminatorily in both the contract world, as an
MBE or WBE, or even just an employee, as well as in the work
world. And it seems to me that the President is hellbent on
eliminating that opportunity to create equity among people in
this country who have been treated discriminatorily.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, absolutely not. We won't
discriminate against any of our American workers, and we will
fulfill----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Well, we are. We are, and I
appreciate----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer [continuing]. That obligation.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I appreciate your rhetoric, but I am
watching what he is saying and what he is doing.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, I----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. And so I think that it is really
important that we collectively recognize we have an obligation
to everybody.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is right. We will uplift all
Americans.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I have one other question regarding
these Job Corps. They are public/private partnerships. So in
each State or wherever they exist, is it a different private
entity that is in relationship with the government, or is it
one big, private----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. The operators are different.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Pardon?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Operators can be different.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Primarily, is there anyone that is
really owning the majority of them?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Across the board, and in this
report, I think you will get that information of exactly what
is happening, but I would like my team to be able to update you
in more detail so that you do fully understand.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I really appreciate it. I would like
to see the study. I would like to have conversations with you.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. We will get it to your office.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. And I would also like to understand,
what is the justification for eliminating the program that
provided jobs of whatever nature to older people who were low
income and needed that additional income? I just feel like we
are punishing older people who need to work.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, my goal is certainly not
that, but because those are subject, again, to litigation, on
the grant funding, I won't be able to specifically talk about
that right at this moment, but I would love to talk to continue
working with your office.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Well, can you talk to me about how you
are going to protect them, even irrespective of any kind of
lawsuit against your eliminating this particular program? What
is your vision to protect those individuals of that ilk, that
age group who need to work?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Sure.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. How do you plan to ensure that?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. We will fulfill the mission of
the Department of Labor, and as the Secretary of Labor, I will
focus on all the American workers wherever they are in their
continuum of the workforce. And that is the job of the
Department of Labor, and we will continue on that road. That I
can guarantee.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, ma'am. I yield back.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Ms. Letlow. The chair recognizes Representative Moolenaar.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Secretary Chavez-
DeRemer----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Nice to see you.
Mr. Moolenaar [continuing]. Nice to see you. Welcome back--
--
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Mr. Moolenaar [continuing]. And appreciate you being here
with us today.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Sure. Glad to be here.
Mr. Moolenaar. And I have appreciated our conversations
over the years, and you represented a State that has a lot of
agricultural activity and understand, I know, based on your
time in Congress, you were involved in the workforce issues and
agriculture. And I want to follow up on some of the discussion
you have already had on the H-2A AEWR situation. Have you been
to Michigan before?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Oh, sir, I used to live in
Michigan.
Mr. Moolenaar. Well, we need you to come back.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I used to live in Ann Arbor, and
my daughter lives in Saginaw now.
Mr. Moolenaar. Okay.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. So I was just there visiting my
grandson, so yes.
Mr. Moolenaar. Well, we want you to come back----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Glad to do it.
Mr. Moolenaar [continuing]. And we would love to have you
meet with some of our farmers. Some are fifth-, sixth-
generation fruit growers, vegetable growers who are really
under tremendous financial stress right now, and it is because
of a Federal mandate that increases the cost of labor for them,
the H-2A. And so in Michigan, you have these farmers where they
are paying transportation for their workers, they are paying
housing, and then they are also forced to pay over $18 an hour,
and they just can't make it anymore. And so there is an
urgency. It is of huge importance.
I know, you know, based on your willingness to work on
this, and I appreciate that, and I know the chairman talked
with you about it. What I would propose is working with
Secretary Rollins. We brought this up the other day in the
Agricultural Subcommittee, and she pledged to work on this as
well. And I think the two of you and your teams working
together--I know we have already done some calls on this--could
really help resolve this. And I know there is a process that
needs to take place, but there is also an urgency.
So I have introduced legislation, similar to what
Representative Clyde mentioned, pausing the increase for 2
years, just to give some relief as we work on a longer-term
solution. And I know some of the litigation issues, and you
don't necessarily want to comment one way or another, but I
would welcome your technical input on that legislation and
would welcome being part of any work group that could be
established to help resolve this, both on a short-term basis as
well as a long-term basis.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Absolutely. And so any technical
assistance that we can give you through the Department of
Labor, ETA, and specifically, glad to do it as you follow
through with any legislation that Congress is working toward.
In regards to Secretary Rollins, we visit often in regards to
how the workforce and agriculture really collide all the time,
and then working with Secretary Noem as well on just the H
programs.
One of the things that I heard as a member of Congress and
in working with a lot of you was the dedication on just the
systems in play themselves, and sometimes navigating that for
our farmers and ranchers has been quite difficult. And so we
are working on that through the Department of Labor, and I have
directed my team to make sure that there is a dedicated focus
to either members of Congress and/or, you know, respective
States who need to say, I just need some help navigating this,
because time is money. We understand that. We understand the
workforce matters, and so we are working hard in that process,
and I will continue to do so, really, at the direction of the
President, that we have seen, that all secretaries work
together to understand what is happening, and then the
workforce, you know, that pipeline is much needed, oftentimes,
and is so different in every State.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, and I also just wanted to follow
up, being familiar with Michigan as you are. Mackinac Island is
a very special place.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes, been there.
Mr. Moolenaar. And, you know, one of the things a lot of
people don't realize is the H-2B visa is very much in use
there. Because of the process where there is a cap on that and
sometimes there is a lottery where people don't know if they
are going to get, you know, the H-2B workers that they need,
they are in a situation where they don't know if they can open
their business. And so it actually costs American jobs because
businesses that employ H-2B workers, as well as local area
workers, don't have that certainty, and it would be an issue of
working with Secretary Noem and yourself. And we would welcome
your help lifting that cap or at least providing the certainty
so that more people can get the workers they need on Mackinac
Island.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. No, thank you for bringing that
up. It is important, and I will continue to work with the other
Secretaries as it takes all different agencies to determine
this, and streamlining that and working together is going to be
key. And we will continue down that road so that it is more
efficient for the people who are using the programs themselves.
Mr. Moolenaar. Can I ask one last quick question? In
Michigan, we have 83 counties. A lot of the counties have
county fairs. They have, you know, the carnival rides----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Sure.
Mr. Moolenaar [continuing]. And the workforce they need for
that. That is another area where I would ask you to consider
what options might be available because that is so important to
the rural communities.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. We want to grow all the workforce
that is needed here to supplement and supply our American
workers and our American businesses, so I will, and if you can,
at that fair, have some Mackinac Island fudge ice cream, I
would appreciate it.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you very much.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Of course.
Mr. Moolenaar. I yield back.
Ms. Letlow. The chair recognizes Representative Dean.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ranking
Member. Secretary Chavez-DeRemer, thank you for being here
today, for your testimony----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Ms. Dean. [continuing]. And for our conversation within the
last week. I appreciate that, and Madam Chair and Madam Ranking
Member, I know I am new to this committee, but I have to tell
you there is something a little jarring about what is going on.
I think we are here in Appropriations hearings, am I correct?
And nowhere in your testimony are you revealing what the
President is actually seeking, which is a $4.7 billion
reduction to the Department of Labor. These are Appropriations
hearings. We should be hearing about the dollars. Your words
are at complete odds, your value of labor and of workers are at
complete odds with the deep cuts that are proposed in the
President's budget, and I am puzzled that you wouldn't have
written about it in your written testimony or testified to it
today.
You want to protect workers, you want to grow jobs, you
just said that. Mackinac Island and everywhere else, you want
to grow jobs. How do we do that with a $4.7 billion cut to the
Department of Labor, 36 percent from 2025-enacted levels. So I
am concerned about these cuts. I am concerned what impact they
will have on workers across the Nation. Labor is the backbone
of this country. It is the backbone of this economy, an economy
that we want to grow positively as opposed to what is going on
right now. These budget cuts will affect critical programs that
support American workers, such as job training, unemployment
benefits, workplace safety, and other vital labor protections.
Workers are facing shifting job markets, and they have a lot on
the line, and we have an obligation to fully understand how
these proposed reductions that our President, your boss, is
putting forward.
You know, I was mindful of our new Pope who will be
installed this weekend, Pope Leo XIV, who selected his papal
name after Pope Leo XIII, who prized and was really sort of the
godfather of social justice, Christian Catholic social
teaching, and the rights of working people. It is in that
spirit that I hope we can recognize the importance of all
workers. And yet, if you take a look at the framing of this
administration and labor and workers, and read the March 27
executive order by this President stripping Federal workers of
their collective bargaining rights, as I said, this is in
complete juxtaposition to the language that you are using, and
you are not talking about the steep cuts. So let's talk about
some of them.
We know the benefits of workforce development programs. I
have seen it directly in the community college in my district
with their apprenticeship programs, working directly with the
county to provide 1- to 2-year Montgomery County work
apprenticeship programs, called MAP, for students to gain in-
demand skills at no cost. The program partners students with
businesses in my area, providing an opportunity for a
successful pipeline for employment. These programs are at risk.
I will tell you already, they are cutting.
The Montgomery County Commerce Department in my district
has already received notice of a 15-percent in annual Workforce
Investment Opportunity Act--WIOA--funding, totaling almost
$600,000. This is in conflict, again, with your words. You
prize workforce development, and we are already forced, as a
result of the actions of this administration, to cut. You talk
about cutting, waste, fraud, and abuse, and to restore freedom.
The President's proposed budget cut would take $1.6 billion
from Department of Labor grants and move the remainder to make
America Skilled again. I guess that is MASA. We will add that
to MAGA. We will add that to MAHA and AHA. I cannot stand these
slogans. I want substance.
Let's talk about the substance of cutting $1.6 billion and
shifting, and I say shafting when you send it over to the
States in a block grant program. Your argument is, the
President's argument is the States will have greater control.
We know that not to be true. You are cutting what the States
will get, and they have cut, as I just showed you, at the
county level, what we can do. The budget proposes eliminating
WIOA Adult Job training, which would deny job training and
employment services to more than 300,000 adults who face
barriers to finding good-paying jobs, which would rob 135,000
young people of employment opportunities.
Do you understand the conflict that we hear from your words
and the deep cuts that this administration, they are already
starting, and they are proposing for the 2026 budget, which you
have not raised whatsoever?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Congresswoman, I know we are out
of time, but I just do want to answer, and thank you for the
phone call. Thank you for recognizing my values for the
American worker. I do appreciate it, and so my words are true.
This is a reevaluation of the taxpayer dollars and
understanding how we can best dedicate it to the workforce. So
while you want to call it cuts--that is up to you--I want to
call it a reevaluation, and we want to focus those tax
dollars----
Ms. Dean. Four-point-seven billion dollars in cuts.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is the American First agenda
that we are putting forward, and I can guarantee you this: I
will work my tail off, day in and day out, to protect the
American worker, to provide the dropdown menu for the words
that I have used in this testimony today. And I will work with
you and everybody in this office to do exactly that----
Ms. Dean. But we are here today.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer [continuing]. While we reevaluate
taxpayer dollars that can save the taxpayer dollars and not the
waste, fraud, and abuse. That is the goal of the American First
agenda, that is the goal of this administration, and I will
enact this administration and do both. We can do both. We are
going to do both.
Ms. Dean. But in your role here today, you did not describe
a single cut. I think that misses what you were supposed to be
doing here today. Thank you. I yield back.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Ms. Letlow. The chair recognizes myself for 5 minutes.
Madam Secretary, it is a delight to have you with us today. I
am so grateful that President Trump entrusted you to run the
Department of Labor because somebody with your background and
your expertise as a small business owner, everything that you
bring to the table is going to be such an asset, not only for
the Department but for our country, and so I could not be more
thrilled to have you sitting before us today.
And I just wanted to share, wherever I go in my district, I
hear from young moms and dads about how hard it is to get back
into the workforce after a life-altering event, such as having
a newborn, which you are very familiar with as a new
grandmother. Congratulations.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Ms. Letlow. I have been so honored to be a part of that
working group, along with my colleague, Representative Bice.
And we put forward the More Paid Leave for More Americans Act,
which is truly a public/private partnership to encourage our
States to get more moms and dads back into the workforce
because I think we can all agree that workforce flexibility
leads to employee retention, which I know is so important to
you and your work and all that you are doing.
And I'd like to give one more plug to my home State of
Louisiana. We, through the Department of Veterans Affairs,
launched what we call The Boot. It is an initiative to improve
the recruiting, employment and retention of our transitioning
service members through partnerships with local businesses and
organizations. And together, efforts like expanding paid family
leave and supporting veteran workforce initiatives,
demonstrates how innovative, flexible approaches to employment
can strengthen both our labor force and our economy. So I'd
like to start by asking you what the Department of Labor's plan
to ensure those who may have taken a gap in employment, such as
our mothers, our dads, and our veterans, how they will have the
tools necessary to reenter and contribute back to the
workforce?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, thank you, Chairwoman. It
is an honor to be before you, and as we served together on
Education and Workforce Committee, we know how valuable the
workforce is, so a couple of things. One, thank you for working
on the legislation with Congresswoman Bice. Certainly, from the
Department of Labor's perspective, this is important to grow
that workforce, and whatever we can do on the technical
assistance, as we once said, glad to do and work with your
office as you move legislation forward.
That being said, yes, the culmination of my experience, and
thank you for recognizing that, I am the daughter of a
Teamster. I do understand how important that is for the
American workforce. I am a business owner and have created a
business over the last 20 years, and that also plays into it. I
am a former mayor and understanding what happens on the ground
in these respective States, and now former congresswoman and
now Secretary of Labor. Put those together and I believe that
is exactly, and I know that is why the President said you will
be best as a Secretary to bring all sides to the table and get
to good, bipartisan legislation for you all, and then how can I
enforce those.
Through Louisiana, the goal is to grow that workforce.
Everything that we can do. As a new grandmother, understanding
how key that is and that set the direction of the President,
how are we going to grow this workforce, whether it is through
a million apprenticeships, the pipelines that we need.
Respecting and understanding every State is very different,
that the one-size-fits-all is not always going to work, and we
need to listen to the market-driven economy, what they are
asking for in the flexibility and modernization of labor law.
That being said, I look forward to working with you and
your offices to do just that as we move through the America
First agenda and streamlining how labor law has been done in
the past, and still protect what the Department of Labor's
mission is, and that is to protect the American worker, the job
seeker, as well as the retiree as we move forward.
Ms. Letlow. Awesome. My background is in higher education,
as you know, and I am passionate about training up our next
workforce, and I am very well aware that a 4-year degree is not
for every student. We have some amazing fields that our
students can go into through the trade schools and community
colleges. I have to give a shout-out to Louisiana Delta
Community College back in my district because they are truly
stepping up to meet the workforce demands by producing these
programs that are going to do just that. We just announced a
new metadata center in my district, and they are actually
stepping up to make sure that that workforce is ready to
fulfill those high paying jobs.
So can you talk a little bit to us about what the
Department of Labor is doing to make sure that we are
bolstering that workforce and not just focusing on 4-year
institutions, but our trade schools and community colleges to
make sure that those partnerships exist so that we can produce
the next generation of workforce?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that
up. Community colleges, for far too long, have kind of been
left behind in knowing that they are really the conduit between
what the community is asking for as well as what we can produce
as a skilled workforce. And so upskilling, reskilling, that is
the job of the Department of Labor is to make sure that that
pipeline is always running and fulfilled. And you know, post
this last administration and post-COVID, we are just now
getting up and running, and under the direction of this
President that, you know, I firmly believe he is the President
of the American worker because he is focused on all workers
across the board, and I am going to do everything I can to
fulfill that, and one of those ways is to upskill, reskill, and
fulfill that apprenticeship, 1 million apprenticeships every
single year, and we are well on our way.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you so much for your time.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you.
Ms. Letlow. The chair now recognizes Representative Harder.
Mr. Harder. Thank you. Madam Secretary, I have heard you
and President Trump repeatedly state, even today, that you
support putting the American worker first. That is great, which
is why I am struggling to understand some of the actions by
your Department recently. Under your leadership, the Department
of Labor eliminated funding for several critical worker
protections. One of the most alarming decisions was defunding
the Wage and Hour Division, the team responsible for enforcing
basic child labor laws. You didn't trim this office, you erased
them completely.
Let's be clear about what that means. This Division
enforces the laws that protect kids from working dangerous
jobs, laws that say a 7-year-old doesn't belong in a coal mine.
These are no-brainer protections for kids. You cut this
division knowing that child labor is actually getting worse,
not better. In just the last few years, child labor violations
have skyrocketed to 88 percent across the United States. In
2023, your own Department found 13-year-olds cleaning razor
sharp saws and handling toxic chemicals in a meatpacking plant.
It is terrifying stuff.
You and Elon Musk labeled this enforcement, waste, fraud
and abuse, so simple ``yes'' or ``no'' question. Do you stand
by labeling child labor law enforcement waste, fraud, and
abuse?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. We did not erase any of the Wage
and Hour Division, so I am not exactly sure what you are
referring to there, and as far as the----
Mr. Harder. You have eliminated the funding for it.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Wage and Hour Division, we have
not. Child labor is so important to me and it always has been.
We will not tolerate any child labor violations, and we will
crack down and actually double down on any practices where
there is child labor violations, and we will fulfill the
mission of the Department of Labor to do so.
Mr. Harder. I think the rhetoric that I am hearing is not
at all matched by the budget or the work that we have seen from
Elon Musk and DOGE that have eliminated funding for enforcement
of basic child labor laws. I would recommend that you take a
look at what your department has done over the last couple
months because the reality is the enforcement for child labor
has gone down in the name of saving waste, fraud, and abuse. It
doesn't feel like waste, fraud, and abuse to actually make sure
that our kids are being protected. What does seem like waste,
fraud, and abuse is some of the other actions that we have seen
happening at your department. For instance, a taxpayer-funded
birthday party that you had recently, a bash complete with
wine, big screen TVs displaying your face. I imagine the cake
was pretty good. Are you planning on investigating that
birthday party as waste, fraud, and abuse?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is fake news. I don't know
where you get your information from, but that is fake news.
Mr. Harder. You didn't have a birthday party?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I did not have a birthday party.
Mr. Harder. There was no wine or big screen TVs at the
Department of Labor?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I am here to talk about
appropriations and you want to talk about fake news.
Mr. Harder. That is appropriations. That is dollars from
taxpayer-funded accounts going to your birthday party.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Congressman Harder, that is not a
true statement. I did not have a birthday party. So we had an
official swearing-in party for me and my deputy secretary.
Mr. Harder. And that wasn't funded by taxpayer dollars?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. It was not a birthday party. It
was a swearing-in party, and it was welcoming the Department of
Labor, and that is who was there.
Mr. Harder. Well, are you going to be investigating the
folks that actually put that wine and put that cake and those
screens on TV in the midst of cutting labor protections for
kids?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, Congressman Harder, maybe
we didn't have the conversation to work together. I do look
forward to working with you on the issues of the Department of
Labor that matter, and that is the workforce development that I
am here to discuss today at the direction of the President, and
work with the entire committee here to move forward to honor
what the mission is. And we will fulfill our mission, right
now, as a proposed skinny budget. I cannot speculate on the
full budget, but we will deliver on that mission
wholeheartedly, Congressman.
Mr. Harder. Madam Secretary, the hypocrisy that I think I
have seen so far from this Department is breathtaking.
Eliminating protections for vulnerable kids, then using
taxpayer money to celebrate yourself, so I hope that we are
able to see some change. I'd love a chance to work together,
but so far the----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. We haven't worked together, and
so----
Mr. Harder [continuing]. Actions that I have seen are not
at all matched by the rhetoric.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I understand that sometimes this
is important to do. I sat on the other side of the dais. I
never had the disrespect for my colleagues this way. I hope to
work with you and we will build a relationship so that this
doesn't go back and forth. Let's talk about the issues at hand.
I think that is important to do rather than this attack mode.
It doesn't make sense to me. I wouldn't do it to you, and I
don't expect that you to do it to me as a Secretary nor as a
former colleague.
Mr. Harder. Well, I wouldn't have a taxpayer-funded
birthday party, so thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Letlow. The chair recognizes Representative Ellzey.
Mr. Ellzey. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member. Madam
Secretary, it is good to see you again.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Nice to see you too, Congressman.
Mr. Ellzey. We were in the same hallway up in Longworth on
the seventh floor, and it is good to see you back in an even
greater position. You know, I am going to use a little sarcasm
here. You have been on the job for 66 whole days. How do you
not know everything already? I am shocked and I am saddened
that you don't know everything right now.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I am grateful----
Mr. Ellzey. Sixty-six days. I mean, we interviewed the
Secretary of the Navy yesterday. He had been on the job for 50
days. I want to say, other than him, you might be the most
traveled Secretary because the President has sent you all
across the country to actually do your job. How many days have
you been traveling in the last 66?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Oh, gosh. We have been on the
road. We have visited eight States, and I don't know the exact
number of days, but I was just back from a 12-day.
Mr. Ellzey. Well, that is a lot of travel. You are not
spending time in the office----
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah.
Mr. Ellzey [continuing]. Decorating the office. You are out
in the workforce doing your job, and I think that you need
accolades for that instead of criticism for it. Was your dad a
single father?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. No. No. My parents were married
and are still married.
Mr. Ellzey. Okay.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. I think they celebrated 60 years,
but my dad was a teamster and worked hard day in and day out.
Mr. Ellzey. And that was in Hanford, which was where I was
stationed, so we have that in common.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yeah, that is right.
Mr. Ellzey. Hanford in the Central Valley of California,
where there is a lot of agriculture, and he worked hard to
raise you.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That is right.
Mr. Ellzey. And I think that our colleagues on the other
side need to recognize that you are probably the most well-
rounded Secretary of Labor that has been on both sides, has had
a difficult upbringing, has had a life in which you had to
work, and you are perfectly suited for this job. And I think
that everybody should want to work hard with you on this
venture of making life better for the American worker.
The American workforce is facing a growing skills gap in
infrastructure-critical industries across the Nation's economy.
The return on investment for a 4-year college, as we have
discussed, has decreased to the point Americans have been
discouraged by the prospect of having to go to school and have
too many in loans. For too long, we have emphasized this as the
sole path to the middle class of American Dream, but I think we
are getting away from that now. So community colleges and trade
schools provide hands-on specialized training directly relevant
to the job market, so it is great to hear from your testimony
that almost 83,000 new apprenticeships have been registered.
Now, I am currently working on legislation called the
Apprenticeship Infrastructure Tax Credit Act--say that three
times fast--incentivizing more apprenticeships across the board
with an additional focus on recent military and military
spouses. The President's goal of creating 1 million new
apprenticeship opportunities is noble, so how might a targeted
apprenticeship tax credit for employers complement the
Department's efforts to expand registered apprenticeships?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, certainly we want to remove
all barriers, and I think that that is something that we hear
across the board, and so I look forward to hearing what, you
know, this type of legislation that you will work with your
colleagues on because, again, we want to grow the workforce.
And oftentimes, at least in my past experience, certainly in
Department of Education and Labor, oftentimes it was accessed
because of funding. And we see that across the board, whether
it is expanded Pell grants or any of those types of things,
anything that we can do to grow that workforce and not make
people make a decision where they want to continue or have to
stay where they are, but they have options. And so I look
forward to offering, again, that technical assistance that you
may need in order to work with your colleagues, if Congress so
chooses, to do that build. I think that would be something that
could be definitely beneficial to the workforce as well.
Mr. Ellzey. Well, I think that is great because employers--
employers--not the Federal Government, but employers, make the
biggest investment in apprentices through the payment of wages
and paid training, and what policies outside the current grant
appropriations is DOL considering supporting?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Well, anything that we can do to
assist the public/private partnerships. Again, as I meet with
either business owners, employees, unions that come into the
Department of Labor, the goal is how can we get to ``yes?'' We
don't want them to be an adversary. We want them to be an ally.
How can we assist and how can we help? And at the direction of
the President, it is to go out there and get to a ``yes''' in
growing this workforce and protecting our American workers, and
at the same time fulfilling, again, the mission of the
Department of Labor, which is protecting those wage earners,
those job seekers, and those retirees as they move through
their entire continuum of being in the workforce.
Mr. Ellzey. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Appreciate it.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Appreciate it.
Mr. Ellzey. Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Ranking
Member DeLauro for closing remarks.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very, very much. Let me just say one
thing about paid leave. You may or may not know this because I
have been here for 34 years, 32 on this committee, but in 1997,
I introduced the Paid Family and Medical Leave bill. I actually
worked for Senator Christopher Dodd, who introduced the first
family and medical leave legislation, which took several years
to pass and finally passed by President Clinton, and we knew at
the time that we couldn't get paid leave, so I have been on
that mission since I arrived in this institution. I lead and
author the Family Act. It guarantees 12 weeks of paid leave to
all workers.
The lack of having a paid leave program cost this economy
about $22-and-a-half billion a year, so I hope my colleagues
would support that bill and that you can look at it, and I
would hope to get your support for workers by supporting the
Family Act, again, introduced in 1997. So I am not talking
about particular administrations. I just think we have to meet
the moment and do what is right for American families across
the board, and it is particularly helpful for women as well.
Let me also make this statement to you, and you talked
about, as I talked about being a daughter of a garment worker,
you are the daughter of a teamster, so you have some idea of
the history of what the labor movement has meant in the United
States and what it has done, as I said in my remarks, created
the middle class in this country. But if I were you, and I just
mean this very, very sincerely, you head up the Department that
is central to what happens to working men and women in this
country. If you can, and I don't know if this is possible for
you, but your values with regard to this issue, and, quite
frankly, the values of others who have proposed a budget and
the disconnect between your values and the budget presented,
are really stark. And whatever way that you can find--I don't
want to invade your space or how you navigate the direction of
what you believe and what is occurring--I think you have to
come to grips with that.
Some of my colleagues here today, when they smear
regulations from labor laws, we need to remember what working
conditions were like for U.S. workers before the enactment of
our labor laws and the promulgation of the associated
regulations standard when we deal with OSHA or MSHA, these
efforts. And it was the first Secretary of Labor, who was a
woman, Frances Perkins, who was my role model. She dealt with
what happened in regulations after the Triangle fire. It was
massive loss of life, particularly of women.
And I wrote a book in 2011, and the opening graph of that
book, and I am going to read, ``It bears repeating that the
reasons companies do not feel free to poison us, to sell us
spoiled meat, lock our daughters up in ninth floor sweatshops
with no fire escapes, employ our underage sons in coal mines,
force us to work 13-hour shifts without overtime or a break, or
call in private armies to fire rifles at those of us who dare
strike for higher wages, is not because companies experienced a
moment of Zen and decided to evolve. No, they were forced into
greater accountability and social concern by the legitimate
actions of a democratic''--that is a small ``D''--``a
democratic government. In other words, if we depend on
goodwill, we are all screwed.'' That is the opening paragraph
of my book.
You have the enormous responsibility of making sure that
workers on the job are safe in addition to their wages and a
whole variety of other things, and to look at those who would
want to dismiss regulations, speak about whatever kind of a
market that they want, would allow us to go back to an era when
workers, men and women, were abused in the workforce, and I
don't believe that you want to do that. I also was very
concerned when we were talking here today about you are in
charge, but Elon Musk announced the Deferred Resignation
Program that has gutted your staff, but you won't share data on
the impacts of the response to our letters or to our questions
at this hearing. So I have to wonder, is Elon Musk in charge?
Should we ask him the questions? Are the questions best
directed to him, or are you the Secretary of Labor in charge of
the Department of Labor's staff?
We did get a response. We wrote to you 2 months ago, and I
mentioned this to you over the phone, we wrote 2 months ago to
you--myself, Senator Murray, Senator Baldwin, Congressman
Scott, Senator Sanders--expressing concerns about the staffing
reductions and office closures. We got a letter yesterday, a 1-
page letter, no information about the number of employees that
have been fired, placed on administrative leave, or who took
early retirement options. My colleague, Mr. Hoyer, asked about
this. But you have to provide to this committee, and I hope you
will commit to do this, you have to commit to doing this, a
list of the programs in the Department of Labor whose funding
has been cut, frozen since January 20, along with what was the
criteria for gutting or freezing those funds.
I am all for cutting. I cut Job Corps programs in the past
that were not working. Give us the criteria on which these
programs were cut. We may agree with you, but we have a
dialogue, agree or disagree, on what has happened. We have no
information. We are just told that there was a $2 trillion goal
that had to be met for saving, and, therefore, let's cut
without any thought about consequences of any of these cuts.
You need to provide the committee with a number of employees at
the Department by agency who received a reduction-in-force
notification, and will you provide this committee the number of
probationary employees by agency whose employment at the
Department was terminated? You have to provide the committee
the number of employees at the Department by agency who
accepted early retirement offers, and we need to do that as
quickly as possible if we are to address the appropriations for
this Department moving forward.
Let me also mention to you, we have talked about training
programs, upskilling, workforce, yes, and I told you about
registered apprenticeships. I have been fighting for that for
years, and I don't want unregistered apprenticeships. I think
it is a boondoggle, and it is BS. It is registered so we know
what is happening and that people have a job at the end of the
line. But the 2026 budget proposal slashes job training
programs by $3.6 billion. That is a 35-percent cut. That is
opportunities for American workers. The President is asking to
cut these funds while he administers disastrous policies that
increase the cost of living for the middle class.
We talked about WIOA. We have appropriated, 2025, and
understand that 2025, the numbers are based on 2024. That is
the budget. I didn't vote for it, but everyone on the other
side of the aisle voted for a continuing resolution that said
let's continue the 2024 budget. And in that 2024 budget for
2025, the Congress appropriated $2.9 billion for WIOA grants to
States and for job training programs. It is a violation of the
law and of the Constitution to steal the appropriated funds
from this committee or any other committee and move the dollars
wherever you want to. No, it is against the law.
And let me just say, you don't have to answer these
questions now, but I am going to submit it: are you planning to
freeze and withhold congressionally-appropriated funding WIOA
job State grants? Do you commit to following the law and fully
obligating funding that Congress appropriated for WIOA job
training State grants in fiscal year 2025? How many fewer
participants would be served as a result of these proposed
cuts? How would that impact the hiring needs of employers
looking for skilled workers? Is there a role for publicly-
funded workforce development programs, or is your goal to only
have workforce training by private companies? These are
questions that we need to have answered.
And I would just say to you that, just I am sorry. OSHA
closings, offices closed. Louisiana, the only office in
Louisiana for OSHA is closed. The only office in Oklahoma
closed, in Arkansas, in Illinois, over half in Georgia, the
Florida Panhandle, the Great Lakes Region. MSHA, deeper cuts.
You restrict inspector travel. It has been pointed out the
mining incidences in the first 4 months of 2025, but that staff
has been cut and offices closed. I do believe that
fundamentally you believe in workers' rights and safe
workplaces, but I think you are in an environment where there
may be others who don't share those values, and they are
demonstrating it by the presentation of their budget. And we
have heard about these cuts, not from you. You retweeted from
DOGE the cuts. ILAB, WANTO, those grants cancellations were
announced by Musk's DOGE account, and you retweeted that news.
Madam Secretary, the American worker is relying on you and
relying on us to make sure that we don't gut the worker
programs that people have lived and died for in this country
and to move forward. It is an awesome responsibility. I wanted
to be and I was interviewed for the position of Secretary of
Labor in the Obama administration, and when he asked me what I
wanted to do, I said I wanted to be Francis Perkins. I want to
protect the rights of American workers, men and women, protect
children, guard against forced labor, make sure our trade
agreements are worker centered. I believe you have those
concerns as well and care about them. Do what you need to do in
standing up for American workers. We have to have answers
before we can make a determination of what it is that we are
going to provide for this incredibly important Agency.
Thank you for your testimony, and I look forward, truly, to
working with you. Thank you.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you, Madam Secretary, for being with us
today. This hearing is officially adjourned.
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Great. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, EDUCATION, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2026
----------
Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
WITNESS
HON. LINDA McMAHON, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. Aderholt. Good morning.
Madam Secretary, welcome to the Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education. We are honored to
have you here today.
As you know, it is a busy day today on Capitol Hill, but we
look very forward to your testimony and talking about the
Department of Education as we hear more about the Department of
Education's budget request for fiscal year 2026.
Secretary McMahon has wasted no time implementing President
Trump's bold agenda to restore education to the States, and I
want to commend her for her efforts on hitting the ground
running.
First, I think we need to acknowledge the situation that
the Trump administration had to face on day one, and that was
plummeting test scores for K-12 students and millions of
borrowers who had never paid one dollar on their student loans.
This subcommittee examined a number of these problems
earlier this year. Despite increasing Federal spending on
education, our students are not getting ahead academically. In
fact, despite record spending, they have lost ground compared
to other nations around the world.
The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress
scores show that one third of eighth graders nationwide are
reading below the basic level. Student test scores overall are
below the 2019 levels, evidence that students have not
recovered from the pandemic despite $200 billion in Federal
COVID education spending. This was on top of annual Federal
spending for education, including almost $19 billion for Title
I schools.
Most alarming, the scores reveal a widening achievement
gap. In reading, for example, lower-performing students in the
fourth and eighth grades scored lower than students back in
1992, more than 30 years ago.
Students deserve better. But ever-increasing Federal
spending has not proven to be the solution. Just earlier this
year, one expert told the subcommittee that education spending
per pupil has more than tripled in real terms since Lyndon
Johnson's ``War on Poverty'' began back in 1965. More spending,
yet worse results.
Students need reading, writing, math, and critical thinking
for everyday activities to succeed in their jobs and to make
life's big decisions. Too many schools, encouraged and
facilitated by Federal funding, have let things like social
justice advocacy and divisive issues crowd out the focus on
teaching students the core subjects.
Thankfully, some States have pursued choice options for
students whose traditional public schools have not served them
well, including through charter schools.
Department data shows that as of 2021, public charter
school enrollment had more than doubled from a decade before,
growing by about 2 million students, while enrollment at
traditional public schools declined by 4 percent.
I look forward to hearing from you, Madam Secretary, about
increased support for charter schools.
However, this administration sees value in reassessing our
approach so we can do better for all students around the
country. It also recognizes a limited Federal role for
education. After all, only about one in ten education dollars
come from the U.S. Federal Government.
Education fundamentally remains within the purview of the
States and the local communities. At the same time, I should
note that we can still make priority key areas, such as support
for schools that are near Federal military installations and
underresourced schools in rural areas, while limiting the
overall Federal role.
In higher education, there are bright spots with bipartisan
support, such as Pell grants, which help lower-income students
pay for college.
But the prior administration somehow made a broken
financial aid system worse, injecting more politics into the
student loan program.
The disastrous Federal student loan program is the direct
result of the partisan Affordable Care Act, which included a
Washington takeover of student loans.
As we all know, a Washington takeover of anything is rarely
a good idea.
The ACA converted the guaranteed loan program into a
federally run program. At the same time, Members of Congress
were told that it would save $60 billion over 10 years.
However, in projections released last year, the CBO
reported that it expects the government will lose 18 cents on
every dollar it lends in 2025. Not a dollar of savings to be
had.
Thankfully, the Republican-led reconciliation efforts this
year seek to address some of these shortcomings.
Against this backdrop, the prior administration put untold
amounts of taxpayer resources into executive actions, waivers,
and programs it created without congressional authority, to try
to cancel loans and make loan payments more generous. It told
borrowers that forgiveness was always on the horizon, while
also going through the motions to restart repayment.
The result? Massive confusion for 43 million borrowers who
were supposed to begin monthly payments after a more than
three-year pause and confusion in the loan servicing system.
Because of the mass confusion that was created under the
previous administration, the Department estimates that nearly
one in four of these borrowers, more than 10 million people,
are in default or late on their payments, putting them at risk
of future default. Just 38 percent, or 16 million borrowers,
are in repayment and current on their loans.
Secretary McMahon, you have inherited an absolute mess in
the Department, but I hope you can correct the course.
You have taken swift action to restore common sense to our
college campuses. The Department has made clear that all
students should be able to access their campuses without fear
of their safety, while still allowing peaceful exercise of free
speech. Too many students in recent memory have been subjected
to severe campus disruption, including at some of our Nation's
most elite universities.
The Department has also taken steps to return to the
original purpose of Title IX: ensuring that women and girls
have equal opportunity to compete in sports.
I would also like to thank you and President Trump for your
actions to protect women and girls in sports.
Madam Secretary, thank you for your Department's bold
initiatives as you carry out the President's America First
agenda. We must consider new approaches to longstanding
problems, both for the sake of our students and to be good
stewards of taxpayer dollars.
I look forward to working with you and look forward to your
testimony this morning.
And with that, I would now like to recognize the ranking
member, Rosa DeLauro, for her opening statement.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And to you
and to the Secretary, my apologies for being late. But I want
to thank you, Chairman Aderholt, for holding this critically
important hearing on the Trump administration's budget request
for the Department of Education.
Secretary McMahon, good morning. I welcome you to the House
Appropriations Committee for your first budget hearing as
Secretary of Education.
Public education is deeply important to me. When I was a
kid, my mother took me to work with her. She worked in the old
sweatshops in the city of New Haven, and I know you know
Connecticut.
The conditions there were horrific. Dangerously hot,
unsanitary, mostly immigrant women bent over sewing machines
trying to pump out the dresses as fast as they could because
they were on piecework.
If you know anything about the needle trades, you get your
finger caught in those high-powered machines, you just pull
back, you wrap your hand up, because if you get a drop of blood
on the garment you don't get paid for it.
I recognized the method to her madness when she asked me to
be there every day after school, and what she said to me is,
``Get an education so that you don't have to do this.''
My dad came as an immigrant from Italy in 1913, was put in
the seventh grade. He couldn't read or write the language. They
laughed at him, his teachers and his classmates. He left school
in the seventh grade and never went back to formal education.
Served in the United States military, served on the city
council in New Haven, and always was invested in his community.
And, again, he said to me, ``Get an education.'' And he
said, ``If you get an education, you can make $10,000 dollars a
year.''
So the whole issue of public education is critical to me
and to my parents as they sacrificed to get me the finest of
education, and so allowed me to realize my dreams and my
aspirations.
And that is true of the nine out of ten students in our
country who attend public schools, and it is truly the stories
of pretty much the entire population, understanding what public
education means to their lives and how it is the key to
success.
And I might just say that this budget, in my view, should
be described as leaving every child behind. And that is why I
strongly oppose your proposal to cut investments in the
education of our Nation's children by $12 billion, or 15
percent.
It is clear that your mission is to dismantle our Federal
investments in the Nation's public education. You and President
Trump explicitly seek to eliminate the Department of Education,
which Republicans have proposed for decades.
But let me be clear with you: You will not have the
partnership of Congress in your efforts to destroy the
Department of Education and eliminate public education in this
Nation. Not on our watch.
We will go over your plans to suffocate your own Department
and slash our investments in the education of our children and
in students hoping to obtain a college degree.
But before we discuss next year, I want to talk about what
you are doing right now.
The American people demand help with the cost of living,
but President Trump is not laser focused on the cost of living.
He is actually making it worse.
He promised to fight for the middle class and working
families, but instead put Elon Musk and wealthy billionaires
like yourself in charge of the government that is meant to be
of and by and for the American people.
Madam Secretary, the administration is recklessly and
unlawfully freezing and stealing congressionally appropriated
funds from agencies, programs, and services across the
government that serve the American people. You, President
Trump, and Elon Musk are attacking public education to pay for
tax cuts you stand directly to benefit from.
Congress alone holds the power of the purse. It is right
there in the Constitution, Article I, section 9, clause 7.
Congress, not the President, determines how the taxpayers'
dollars are spent.
The law of the land is the 2024 budget. We are living in
2025 under a continuing resolution that carries forward the
2024 budget, and that is the law that you are bound to follow.
Furthermore, the Department of Education was created by the
Congress and it can only be undone by the Congress.
Under your leadership of the Department hundreds of
millions of dollars have been frozen and entire programs have
been terminated. Funding for vital research, protection of
student civil rights, and programs that support the recruitment
and professional development of effective educators has been
terminated.
Madam Secretary, if Congress agreed with your
determinations that these programs do not deserve funding, we
would have decreased the funding for these accounts
accordingly. We did not.
Nor did we remove funding for the Department staff. But you
took it upon yourself to eliminate half of the Department of
Education's workforce.
By recklessly incapacitating the Department you lead, you
are usurping Congress' authority and infringing on Congress'
power of the purse, and you will continue to lose these battles
in the courts.
You have been blocked from letting DOGE access student loan
borrowers' private information, from interfering with local
school curricula, from punishing school districts for curricula
you disagree with, and from stealing COVID relief aid from
States and school districts, and there are many more.
For as long as you continue to deliberately and flagrantly
defy the law, you will continue to lose in court.
But let us be clear about who is losing most of all. That
is the children and the families of this country. The
consequences will be felt by students losing access to school
psychologists, counselors, and social workers due to your
shameful decision to cancel hundreds of grants for mental
health services in public schools.
These grants were created and funded by a bipartisan basis
of this subcommittee and the Bipartisan Safer Communities,
including a mental health program that I created after hearing
how desperately it was needed in schools across Connecticut.
We are not talking about hypotheticals, of ``what ifs'' or
worst-case scenario. This lawless and cruel destruction has
happened and is happening under your watch today.
Turning to your budget request for 2026, I want to note
that the administration has provided sparse detail about your
proposal to cut the Department of Education by $12 billion. We
have no idea where that $12 billion is coming from.
A central component of your plan for elementary and
secondary education is to eliminate 18 unspecified competitive
and formula grant programs, replace them with a $2 billion
block grant to States, yet at the same time you propose that we
provide $4.5 billion less to educate our Nation's children
overall.
A block grant is a cut. All of my colleagues here know that
the States cannot afford to pick up the slack.
Your vision for students aspiring to access and pay for
college is particularly grim. You take away need-based
financial aid for 1.7 million students and you eliminate the
Federal Work-Study Program, opportunities for more than 500,000
students who need it to help finance their education.
They are from working families, middle class families,
vulnerable families, and they work in order to be able to pay
for their education.
These are students from working class families. They are
working their way through college. Some families do not need
financial assistance to go to college, but that is not true for
the rest.
Madam Secretary, in the middle of a cost of living crisis,
you are pulling up the ladder for everyone who has not found
their way to extraordinary wealth or even enough to simply make
ends meet.
What will happen if you get your way? What will happen if
your Department is dismantled and our investments in education
vanish?
Madam Secretary, your grandchildren, my grandchildren, Elon
Musk's grandchildren, President Trump's grandchildren will be
just fine, but it is the children and the grandchildren of
hardworking Americans who will suffer, and they will fall
further behind those whose families enjoy enormous wealth and
privilege.
I do not believe the American people want larger classes,
fewer teachers, but that is exactly what you are aiming to
deliver.
I do not believe students and families want you to turn a
blind eye to predatory for-profit charter schools and colleges,
but you appear prepared to continue to let scammers steal the
money and the educational dreams of hardworking families and
aspiring graduates.
I understand the administration is eager to find a way to
give yourselves a tax cut, but doing so and dismantling public
education is indefensible.
Your actions are lawless, they reek of disdain for public
education, and they are hurting the most vulnerable in our
Nation.
Education is not a handout. Education is not waste, fraud,
or abuse.
As a leading Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, I
assure you that I will never stop fighting against this
dangerous dismantling of public education which is undermining
and jeopardizing the futures of millions of children in this
country.
I look forward to your testimony.
I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Ranking Member.
And I now would like to turn to our witness, Secretary
McMahon.
You will have five minutes to deliver your opening remarks.
You submitted written testimony. It will be included in the
full record. But we do recognize you and look forward to your
comments.
Secretary McMahon. Thank you very much.
Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for having
me today to represent a Department on a mission--its final
mission--to wind down the Department of Education responsibly,
cut waste, and give education back to the States, parents, and
educators, all in a lawful fashion.
With your partnership, the fiscal year 2026 budget will
take a significant step toward that goal. We seek to shrink
Federal bureaucracy, save taxpayer money, and empower States,
who best know their local needs, to manage education in this
country.
We have reviewed our programs and identified spending that
does not fulfill the mandate of trust the American people have
placed in President Trump.
We have reduced a Department that was overstaffed by
thousands of positions, cut old contracts that were enriching
private parties at taxpayer expense, suspended grants for
illegal DEI programs. And now we are putting forward a budget
request that reduces Department funding by more than 15
percent.
At the same time, we are working to make American education
great again. In our conversations with governors, teachers, and
parents across the country we hear calls for accountability and
more local control.
That is our goal--to give parents access to the quality
education their kids deserve; to fix the broken higher
education industry that has misled students into degrees that
don't pay off; and to create safe learning environments for our
students.
We are holding institutions to account when they facilitate
discriminatory or hostile environments on campus.
A level playing field with limitless opportunity is a
vision I think we all can share.
Our budget reflects this vision. Its cuts reflect a
bureaucracy that is getting out of the way and its
continuations and increases represent smart spending that will
help improve student achievement, not serve bureaucratic
interests.
Our goal is clear: make education better, fairer, and more
accountable by ending Federal overreach and empowering
families, schools, and States, who best know the needs of their
students.
I am eager to partner with you to make this vision of the
future a reality and to ensure every child is part of it.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Madam Secretary. And, again, we
appreciate your attendance here today before the subcommittee.
The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress
report results are, quite honestly, pretty unacceptable. Too
many students have fallen behind in basic subjects and they
have not realigned learning lost during the time of the
pandemic.
For the sake of students and their parents, I appreciate
your call for bold change. As we reexamine our approach to
education, I think it is important to recognize that we can
appropriately limit the Federal role in education while
continuing supporting key areas. As I mentioned earlier,
schools near military installations and underresourced rural
schools.
Could you talk to us a little bit about the Department's
plan to refocus on the core educational achievement while
reducing the bureaucracy overall?
Secretary McMahon. Sure. Thank you very much.
I have really three priorities as the Secretary of
Education, and that is to increase school choice. But I really
want to focus everything we are doing, our competitive grants,
on literacy. I think that is the absolute basis of what we need
to do.
And we want to increase school choice for students so that
we don't have children trapped in our failing schools. And we
want to return education to the States, and that is really our
priority. So it is threefold and very simple.
Let's focus on literacy. What we are seeing in those scores
that you are talking about, Congressman Aderholt, is the
failing of our students to learn to read. From first through
third grade, or pre-K into third grade, you are learning to
read, and after that you are reading to learn.
And if you cannot read, you cannot learn. And that is one
of the reasons I believe sincerely that we have seen such
decreases or failing in our schools, because we are not
teaching our children to read.
We have lost the fundamental basics. And I want to see our
schools return to the science of reading, which focuses on
phonics, which focuses on understanding and fluency in reading.
Because if we can get that right, I think we are going to see a
great deal of improvement in our schools across our country.
But we are not doing it, and I think there have been
programs that have been tried with the best of intentions, but
they have not succeeded.
Here we are today with a Department of Education that was
really stood up in 1980 by President Carter. We have spent over
$3 trillion during that time, and every year we have seen our
scores continue to either stagnate or fall.
It is clear that we are not doing something right. We need
a change. We need a shake-up. We need to do things differently
than what we are doing.
And let's get back and focus on what was successful. Let's
focus on our public schools as well as charter schools, as well
as other schools that can deliver homeschooling.
The President is absolutely focused on making sure that
children have the right to an education that is best for them
and that parents should be deciding where their children can go
to school and get the best education.
They should have those opportunities, whether they are
private schools, charter schools, public schools,
homeschooling. They need to have the choice so that they can
succeed.
I believe that parents know what is best for their
children. I think that parents, working with local educators
and local superintendents, can develop those programs for
schools which will deliver the best results.
The President and I certainly agree that the best education
is that which is closest to the child. Who better to know and
understand what a child's needs are than that teacher working
in the classroom, than that parent, in cooperation with the
teachers in that classroom, to help understand what that child
needs?
So, clearly, my focus is definitely going to continue on
bringing education closest to the States.
And I, like you, Ranking Member DeLauro, am a product of
public school systems. My parents had dreams for me as well. I
was an only child. They really wanted to make sure that I went
to college and had the opportunity for the American Dream. So I
appreciate very much that background and where you were coming
from as well.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Aderholt. I noted earlier in my comments about one-
quarter of the Federal student loan portfolio is in default or
late stage of delinquency.
Borrowers who are very behind on their repayments would be
in this category. Only about four in ten borrowers are actually
in repayment or current on their loans.
And I think we need to be clear that the impact of this
situation that was set in motion by the previous administration
is both individual and corporate.
Individuals across the country are at risk of damaging
their own credit ratings and going into default. This kind of
financial damage can be devastating to countless constituents
across the country. And our country is at risk of losing
billions of dollars because of the previous administration's
disastrous messaging about loan forgiveness and repayment.
My time is fading away. But if you could just briefly tell
us how the Department is facilitating an orderly return to
repayment, including directing struggling borrowers to
available resources to help them get back on track.
Secretary McMahon. Thank you.
And I think that is one of the keys. We are directing them
through our website studentaid.gov. They can go and look at the
different payment option plans that they can be part of to
repay their loan.
You are absolutely correct that we have lost hundreds of
millions of dollars. I understand that COVID was part of some
of those programs. It was right, I think, to take a step back
during COVID. But once COVID ended, we should have resumed
collection on those payments and voluntary payments.
And I do believe that the past administration, with
confusing messages that they were sending about loans being
forgiven, et cetera, I am not too sure why anybody would have
stepped up and paid if they thought it was going to be
forgiven.
But we have put a program back on track now. We sent
letters on May 5. We are working through Treasury, through
their collection efforts, to make sure that we have programs to
collect that money.
And I can report that today, since May 5 and those letters
going out, we have now collected almost $100 million in back
loans, some on a voluntary basis and then some as we are
restructuring the way those folks are going to repay their
loans. So we are on the right track to get that.
Mr. Aderholt. Okay. Thank you.
My time is expired. And Like I said, every member will be
recognized for five minutes. I am one to understand that
sometimes the Secretary can be finishing a question, and so I
won't gavel down exactly five minutes.
But I would ask you to be respectful of the chairman as I
do this to not go over too much. So when I start tapping, if
you could start winding up, I would sincerely appreciate it.
With that, Ranking Member DeLauro.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I just might quickly make this comment, Madam Secretary:
The State and local taxes today overwhelmingly pay for
education in this country.
Madam Secretary, you testified that we should not, quote,
``spend money without correcting underlying problems.'' That is
what I love about serving on the Appropriations Committee,
delivering appropriations to correct underlying problems.
We have a nationwide psychologist, counselor, social worker
shortage in our schools, which is why this subcommittee worked
with Secretary DeVos to create new school-based mental health
grants, bipartisan grants funded by Congress for years, the
very grants that you canceled on the eve of the National Mental
Health Awareness Month.
What is the, quote, ``underlying problem'' you thought we
were not correcting when you canceled $1 billion in grants to
train and increase school-based mental health professionals
nationwide?
Secretary McMahon. Well, thanks very much for the question.
I think when we look at mental health nationwide, it
undertakes many particular facets. We have to understand, in
communities, I do realize that there are shortages of teachers,
there are shortages of healthcare workers.
But I think what we need to focus on is what are the needs
of the community, how can they best be served. And so we want
to make sure that we have healthcare professionals in place.
But what we were finding was there were a lot of instances
where the money was not being used really for healthcare
programs.
But I think if we are looking at healthcare, we would look
more, I think, at funding locally so that----
Ms. DeLauro. Well, it would be----
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. These people could be
brought in.
Ms. DeLauro. Excuse me for interrupting, because the
chairman has talked about time.
But I would then be very happy if you could provide to us--
one of the things we can't seem to get any information on is
why the programs were canceled, what criteria was used in order
for you to say yea or nay to a program. So that information
would be enormously helpful.
I would just say, I don't know, but I know the State of
Wisconsin here had multiple grants canceled that have reduced
the ratio of mental health professionals to students by more
than 10 percent. You have not answered the question about the
issue of mental health and that we have got a nationwide
problem in mental health and we have let all these people go.
Guilford County, North Carolina, used their grant to help
provide mental health services to a thousand additional
students, reducing rates of chronic absenteeism.
Did you consider the success of these programs before you
canceled them?
Secretary McMahon. Well, they are not being canceled. They
are continuing at this point. But they might not be continued
as we go forward, and I will get back to you on that.
Ms. DeLauro. Well, please do, because these grants, as I
understand it, were canceled, as I said, on the eve of the
National Mental Health Awareness Week. And in Wisconsin the
grants were canceled, North Carolina. There are many, many
other examples of grants that were canceled, and we, too, will
look into that effort.
In 2024-2025 Congress appropriated more than $200 million
for School-Based Mental Health Services Grants and the Mental
Health Service Professional Demonstration Grants.
Are you freezing or withholding funding that Congress
appropriated in 2025 for mental health services for students?
Do you commit to us to following the law fully obligating
the funding that Congress appropriated for mental health
services for students and to obligate those funds by September
30 of this year or are you planning to break the law by
impounding congressionally appropriated funds?
Secretary McMahon. Well, I can certainly report to you,
Ranking Member, that we are evaluating every single program. We
are looking at it very carefully. We are continuing or not
continuing some funds as we look at them. And as we go forward
in the budget, I am happy to get back to you----
Ms. DeLauro. But the point is----
Secretary McMahon[continuing]. With a careful evaluation of
the programs that are going forward.
Ms. DeLauro. I understand.
With all due respect, this is money that was appropriated--
appropriated. It is in the 2024 budget, which is what we are
now dealing with.
And so I have to understand from your answer that, in fact,
you are not going to abide--maybe you are not going to abide by
the 2024 numbers. So that means that you plan to break the law
by impounding congressionally appropriated funds. Yes or no?
Secretary McMahon. We are going to abide by the law.
Ms. DeLauro. You are going--that means--I just want to just
say that means that you are going to spend the dollars
appropriated by this subcommittee to carry out those programs
as directed in the 2024 budget that we are living under for
2025. So that means by September 30 that that money will be
expended for all of the programs that are listed.
Secretary McMahon. We will abide by the law.
Ms. DeLauro. Okay. Thank you. I am happy to do that.
Will we have a second round, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. We are going to try.
Ms. DeLauro. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Moolenaar.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, appreciate you being with us today.
I, along with Senator Tim Scott, co-chair the School Choice
Caucus, and I was really pleased to hear your priorities, your
focus on accountability, local control, empowering parents and
students.
And one of the things that become clear--very clear--to me
is this need for families to have options, and you have spelled
out a number of different options that are available.
Can you tell me what you plan to do and any initiatives you
might take that would expand options for parents and students?
Secretary McMahon. Well, certainly we are going to
support--you look at the numbers that are in the President's
budget, he is also including an increase of $60 million for
charter schools.
The President absolutely believes, as do I, that the more
choices that parents have, the better off the students are, and
we have seen that repeatedly in different States.
Governor Reynolds in Iowa has talked about how in
introducing school choice programs in her State that public
schools have improved. There is competition among the schools.
Scores are better when they have the opportunity to compete and
schools can do what they need and parents can put--they can put
students where they know they will thrive--whatever that school
program is.
I mean, we have looked at different schools. I was talking
to Governor Stitt from Oklahoma yesterday, and he was telling
me about one of the special schools that they have set up in
Oklahoma is relative to--now I forget the exact title--but it
was mechanics for airplanes. And he said, ``Look, in my
community, this is very, very strong.''
And so part of the schooling that we are developing for
those is to having these students in secondary education
already looking at these kind of programs so that when they
graduate they are ready to move right into the economy.
So I think we have to reimagine education totally, because,
look, when I was coming along, when my kids were coming along,
everything I said to them was you need to go to college, you
have to have a four-year college degree in order to get a foot
in the door to start your life, to make a good wage.
And while I still believe in secondary education--in higher
education for many, many students--I think that is not the
right pathway for every single student. And I think we need to
focus on the programs in those communities, in those schools,
and give local communities the opportunity to develop their
curriculum, as I mentioned with Governor Stitt, around what are
necessary needs for their community.
We will have more success, we will have higher graduation
rates, we will have students stay in school when they can focus
on subjects that are of interest to them. And I just think that
that is going to be incredibly important as we move forward in
how we look at our education landscape.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you very much.
I want to turn to the influence of the Chinese Communist
Party in our educational system.
Two years ago I asked your predecessor, Secretary Cardona,
if he was aware of efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to
influence the U.S. education system, and I was surprised he
told me he wasn't really aware of that.
Are you familiar with the efforts by the CCP to influence
American education?
Secretary McMahon. By things I have heard, yes. And one of
the things that we are stressing very much under Section 117 is
to make sure that these colleges and universities are complying
with the law and reporting to us when they have received
donations over the $250,000 minimum. We found that there are
many that are not doing that.
One of the things that we put in place is to make sure that
as universities are looking at their hiring practices, what
kind of vetting are they doing with those particular professors
that they are bringing in or students that might be coming in
on campus? What can be that effect and that influence?
But it is very important, I think, for us to know how much
money is coming in from foreign countries.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
Last year our Select Committee on the Chinese Communist
Party released a report, ``CCP on the Quad,'' and it detailed
how federally funded research at universities has advanced the
CCP's military goals. We also highlighted concerns about how
many American universities have joint institutes in China where
they partner with Chinese universities.
As a result of this scrutiny from our committee, UC
Berkeley, University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, and Oakland
University have all ended these joint institutes, and there are
a number more that could be ended.
I am asking if you would consider leading an effort across
the administration to work with those remaining universities
with joint institutes to close them so we don't have continued
efforts by our, in many cases, taxpayer dollars helping with
the Chinese military-industrial complex funding.
Secretary McMahon. We certainly are investigating a lot of
those universities who do still have those ties, and I would
like to work with you to make sure that we are operating our
universities in the best interest of the people of the United
States and our government.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
And I am sure the Confucius Institutes are on your radar
screen. Sometimes their efforts morph into something very
similar called the Confucius Classroom.
Is that something that we can work with you on to prevent
that malign influence into our K-12 system?
Secretary McMahon. Sure. I would like to and enjoy working
with you on that.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you very much.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you Mr. Moolenaar.
Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And, again,
as I promised, I came back.
The President instructed you to take all necessary steps to
facilitate the closure of the Department of Education. Did you
check with your counsel or legal advisers as to whether or not
you had authority to accomplish that request?
Secretary McMahon. The President's executive order and his
direction to me was to take those steps to lawfully shut down
the Department of Education and to work with Congress to do
that.
Mr. Hoyer. I understand what you said, but his quote was,
``take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the
Department of Education.'' It was not, as you suggest, from
reading of his quote and his executive order, inclusive of
consistent with the law. But that is your interpretation of
what he said?
Secretary McMahon. I would like to look at it again and get
back to you, but I do believe he said to lawfully close down
the Department of Education.
At least let me rephrase and say that is clearly his
direction to me. We both know and understand that the
Department of Education cannot be closed unless Congress votes
to do that.
So my goal, when I came on board and he asked me how I
thought we could do that, and I said my goal would be to work
with Congress so that we could have transparent programs. I
would like to, at the end of this program that I am working on,
as we try to bring up our test scores and work with our local
States to bring education back to the States, to make sure that
States have best practices and the tools to deliver those best
practices.
And so by sharing them with Congress, I would hope that
Congress would look at them and say eventually I believe that
this is going to be in the best interest of our students.
This is not taking away funding. This is having funding go
to the States for Title I-A, for IDEA. That is continuing. It
may flow through in a different tranche.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay. As you know, we have time constraints.
Secretary McMahon. Okay.
Mr. Hoyer. I hear you.
Having said that, does the budget that is submitted to the
Congress of the United States for fiscal year 2026 include full
funding for those programs that the Congress has authorized and
directed be established and carried out?
Secretary McMahon. Well, as you know, Congressman, we are
dealing with a skinny budget at this point. Not all of the
programs have been put into the full budget of the President.
But I can tell you that the Title I-A funding and IDEA funding
is fully funded under the----
Mr. Hoyer. Let me ask you about that. I have a table that
shows me about $4.3 billion were established for those programs
and are going to be--those 18 programs to which I think you
refer are going to be put down into a single grant of $2
billion.
Can you tell me--now, that is 2.3 billion. That is about a
55 to 60 percent reduction.
What will not be done--excuse me. Is it accurate that we
have taken 4.3 down to 2.8 or 2 billion? Is that accurate?
Secretary McMahon. Well, let's be clear about one thing,
though. The Title 1-A funding and IDEA funding is in full.
Mr. Hoyer. Correct.
Secretary McMahon. So they are not part of the 18 that is
being compressed.
So the 18 programs that you mentioned----
Mr. Hoyer. Yes.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. Are really--they will be
compressed into $2 billion, which will operate like a block
grant to the States where I think they can best be utilized by
understanding what is needed in the States and the communities.
Mr. Hoyer. So when you say we are not--I understand Title
I. But almost always when we talk about block granting
programs, we make very, very substantial, substantive cuts in
the availability of resources for the programs that are
covered. That is my reading of 18 programs going into--which we
are now spending $4.3 billion on--down to $2 billion.
It seems to me that is eliminating very substantially,
without authority from the Congress, programs that the Congress
has enabled and directed be undertaken for the American people.
Secretary McMahon. Well, let's look at it this way if we
could. We are eliminating regulations and red tape that a lot
of these different grants had with them, and therefore they are
going to require less compliance with regulations in order to
fulfill the mission of those grants.
Mr. Hoyer. Madam Secretary?
Secretary McMahon. If I could just finish this one thing.
Mr. Hoyer. Sure.
Secretary McMahon. One stat that I think was impressive to
me was that 47 cents of every dollar that goes in for these
kinds of programs is spent on regulatory compliance. We want to
get rid of that. Let the money flow to the States. And I think
we are going to see more money available in the States with
less red tape.
Mr. Hoyer. My time has expired.
But I came here in 1981. President Reagan talked about
getting rid of fraud, waste, and abuse. The deficit was
increased by 189 percent under President Reagan.
Fraud, waste, and abuse, nobody on this panel, on this side
or that side, wants to have fraud, waste, and abuse. We all
agree on that. But that is not what you are cutting out when
you take a 55 percent or 60 percent reduction in 18 programs, I
guarantee you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Aderholt. Mrs. Bice.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Secretary, for being here this morning with
us.
Let me start by saying it is amazing to me that our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to defend an
agency that I believe has become an abject failure.
If you look at the stats of students across the United
States, the reading scores have plummeted, the math scores have
plummeted, we are not doing well in science, and we have to do
something different.
You mentioned Oklahoma and Governor Stitt. In Oklahoma we
have certainly adopted charter school programs and have
expanded school choice. And I think it is important to talk
about why school choice is so important.
You have students attending Good Shepherd, which is a
school in Oklahoma that is focused on making sure that our
students with developmental disabilities, particularly with
autism, have the opportunity to attend a school that meets
their needs.
You have Mission Academy, which is a school that helps
children who are battling substance abuse. It is a very unique
environment for them to be able to leave a public school in
many cases they have been in and be able to get a specialized
education, but also address the issues of substance abuse with
these young people.
So I applaud what you are trying to do. I think it is
important that we look at the results. That is what we are
looking for here.
As a mother myself who decided to send my children to a
private Catholic school because I wanted them to get a faith-
based education, that was my choice, and I appreciate that.
And it is frustrating to me to hear my colleagues talk
about how great education is when we know the numbers say
something very different.
So I want to start with that.
I applaud your efforts to return education to the States
and reduce the bloated D.C. bureaucracy. In 2023, the average
U.S. Department of Ed employee made $112,000 and the average
teacher in my home State of Oklahoma made $61,000. As you know,
under President Trump the Department was the smallest Cabinet-
level agency that controlled the sixth-largest budget.
I would like you to maybe in more detail describe some of
the reforms you are implementing to cut waste, fraud, and abuse
at the Department and return education to the States.
And, particularly, I want to make it very clear, you said
something in a previous response that I think is worth noting,
and that is you are not eliminating Title I-A funding and you
are not eliminating IDEA funding, which is important to
students and families in my State.
But can you elaborate a little bit on what you are looking
at restructuring for the Department of Ed?
Secretary McMahon. Certainly.
Well, first of all, we did look at numbers of employees we
had at the Department of Education, and based on the fact that
we are looking to wind down the Department, we started looking
at was there overlap in the number of people that we had.
So we did reduce the Department by about half. But we
brought some back when we really evaluated all of our programs.
I think we have looked at them very carefully. We wanted to
make sure we had the right number of people doing the right
number of jobs.
We are doing that. We are delivering on all of our
statutorily required programs. We haven't missed a beat on
those. And so I am happy to report that. And so I think that
was a big thing.
But when you also look at rent, when you look at utilities,
when you look at building space, we have decreased that
footprint. So we are having savings there.
But other ways we are looking at savings. We have examined
some of the contracts.
One of the things we have talked about here, the NAEP
scores, the Nation's Report Card, and I want to assure everyone
the NAEP scores are going to continue. The contracts are in
place to take us through the next four or five years. It is
important to have a national report card.
But what we found out in looking at all of the IES
contracts was that we were spending about a billion dollars a
year on programs and contracts and surveys and research that
stayed on the shelves in schools. Teachers didn't use them.
Other superintendents didn't use them.
So we have taken a good, close look at that, and as we
enter into the new contracts, we have cut that by over 40
percent already. So that is one big cost savings.
And those are the kinds of things we are doing. We are
taking a look at what has just been kind of status quo. We can
no longer have status quo.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you for that.
And one quick other point I want to bring up, and I don't
think we have time for a full response.
But under the Biden administration, there were 2,500
antisemitic incidents on college campuses and K-12 schools.
I have a friend who lives here in the Washington, D.C.,
metro area. His daughters were attending a public school. They
are Jewish. They were targeted by other students. The public
school did nothing, and they were forced to remove their
children from that public school and put them in a private
school.
So I hope you will continue to fight, to stand up for our
friends, so that they don't continue to see this antisemitic
rhetoric across the country in schools.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Pocan.
Mr. Pocan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Madam Secretary.
Secretary McMahon. May I just----
Mr. Pocan. No, I think it is my question time, if I can.
They will start the clock. I just don't want to lose my clock.
If we can do short-term answers rather than long-term ones,
too, that would be helpful, just because I have got a lot I
would like to talk about.
Let's talk about waste, fraud, and abuse a little more,
about DOGE.
Secretary McMahon. Some need an explanation.
Mr. Pocan. So you fired 1,300 people; another 600 people
took Elon Musk's deferred resignation offer.
Did you fire the people or did DOGE fire the people? I am
not completely clear on that.
Secretary McMahon. Most of that restructuring happened
under the acting----
Mr. Pocan. Short-term. Did you fire or did DOGE fire?
Secretary McMahon. Well, I am going to tell you who I
fired.
Mr. Pocan. I know. That why I am trying to get short-term
to the questions.
Secretary McMahon. So the short-term is----
Mr. Pocan. One or the other.
Secretary McMahon. Well, you are using our time.
Most of that was done before I came on board. However, the
decisions in the Department--I run the Department. DOGE does
not run the Department.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. Okay. So you didn't answer the question.
Did you fire them or did DOGE? It is real simple.
Secretary McMahon. A good majority of that happened before
I came on board.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. A good majority. Two thirds? Three
quarters?
Secretary McMahon. Yes, I would say.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. Fair. Okay.
And how many times did you meet with Elon Musk about
firings?
Secretary McMahon. I have met with Mr. Musk probably three
to four times now.
Mr. Pocan. Okay.
Secretary McMahon. Not including when I was on the
transition committee and had several opportunities to speak
with him.
Mr. Pocan. Sure. And then, if I understand it right, on
your Department of Education employee roster you have right now
at least there are about 16 DOGE employees, is that correct,
right now working with you?
Secretary McMahon. I can get back to you to the exact
number. I don't think it is that high.
Mr. Pocan. Okay.
Secretary McMahon. But we do have--they are employees.
Those that we have are employees of the Federal Government.
Mr. Pocan. And when you did their background checks to see
how they are qualified about education, how many had
undergraduate degrees and how many had graduate degrees in
education?
Secretary McMahon. I can get back to you on that.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. So you don't know offhand?
Secretary McMahon. No.
Mr. Pocan. Did you ask that question?
Secretary McMahon. No.
Mr. Pocan. No. Okay.
Did you ask if any of them were teachers previously?
Secretary McMahon. I did not interview those people that
are part of the DOGE group.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. And did you ask if any of them worked in
schools? Do you know if----
Secretary McMahon. I had a conversation with one of them
yesterday who did have a background in education, technology
education, and had worked across several different aspects and
was really schooling me a little bit on some of the AI things
that we could bring in.
Mr. Pocan. So one of them had a good background. Good.
Any of them work in universities, that you know of, prior?
Secretary McMahon. I don't know.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. Fair enough.
So part of my concern is I know yesterday there was this
big splash: Elon Musk is stepping back. We call that horse
hockey where I come from. We know it is not real. He is in the
back closet. I understand you guys don't want him front and
center. But he is still in the room and he is still making a
lot of these decisions.
And that is the real problem that I have, is you have got a
bunch of folks that he brought in that you have admitted you
haven't--you didn't hire, you didn't--you don't know their
backgrounds, if they have anything on education, if they are
helping you fire half your employees right now. And I am really
concerned about that.
Do you know if any of them have requested or gained access
to any sensitive data held by the Department, including student
loan borrower data?
Secretary McMahon. Well, as government employees now, they
have been vetted through the same process that any other
government employee would, and so what access would be granted
to other government employees they have.
Mr. Pocan. They would have. Okay. That is fine.
And then do you know the number of people that you have had
to reinstate of those fired?
Secretary McMahon. About--it is about 74.
Mr. Pocan. About 74.
So how did that happen? Because I have been an employer for
37 years. The dumbest thing I could possibly do is fire someone
just to rehire them, because you have given them no job
security. It is like beyond stupid. I am not saying that you,
because you didn't do it. Clearly, it sounds like this is from
Elon Musk.
But how did that happen, that people got fired and no one
thought you might need them in your Department?
Secretary McMahon. Well, some of that did happen when I
returned.
Mr. Pocan. Okay.
Secretary McMahon. Now, I was in the private sector. I have
done restructuring in firms. And it is painful to do that.
Mr. Pocan. Yeah. But fire people to rehire them?
Secretary McMahon. Well, here is the thing. When you are
restructuring a company you hope that you are just cutting fat.
Sometimes you cut a little in the muscle and you realize it as
you are continuing to do programs and you can bring people back
to do that. So that is what we did.
Mr. Pocan. Yeah. Or you can plan ahead and not fire people
to rehire them. That would be another strategy that I think is
more often used. Would you agree?
Secretary McMahon. Well, I am saying that I have been on
both sides of that coin and I have found both to be effective.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. Interesting. We have a different
perspective on that. But maybe the world of all-star wrestling
is different than my world of business-to-business.
You talked about--I agree with you about contracts,
enriching private contractors at public expense.
Does Elon Musk have any contracts with the Department of
Education?
Secretary McMahon. First of all, I just need----
Mr. Pocan. It is a simple question. Please.
Secretary McMahon. Well, not that I know of.
Mr. Pocan. This is my time. I have 38 seconds. Please.
Secretary McMahon. Well, I don't know if he does or not.
Mr. Pocan. You don't know if Elon Musk has any contracts in
your Department and you have met with him multiple times?
Secretary McMahon. Elon Musk doesn't have contracts in my
Department.
Mr. Pocan. So Department of Education, there are no
contracts with any Elon Musk company? That is what I am asking.
Secretary McMahon. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Pocan. Okay. All right. You want to check a blue card
real quick, or are you pretty sure of that?
Secretary McMahon. I said not to my knowledge.
Mr. Pocan. Okay.
Secretary McMahon. If I find out differently, I will be
happy to get back to you.
Mr. Pocan. All right. And just in the last few seconds I
have, just real quick on private schools getting public
dollars.
Just so you know, something like three quarters of the
students that wind up going to those schools already attend
those schools and they are getting tax money. So if we get rid
of the Department of Education, should we put the private
voucher program under Ways and Means because it is really more
of a tax benefit than an education benefit?
Secretary McMahon. Well, I am happy to get back to you on
that as to how we restructure the Department of Education going
forward and how those programs are handled.
Mr. Pocan. Great. Appreciate it. Thank you, Madam
Secretary.
Secretary McMahon. You are welcome.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Moore.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Madam Secretary, for being here.
Typical line of questioning. Someone is a little obsessed
with one guy. That is interesting. It is every hearing now.
So thank you so much for being here.
I did want to just for the committee highlight a program
that I stood up in the State of West Virginia, it is called the
Hope Scholarship program, when I was State treasurer of West
Virginia.
It was actually one of the most expansive ESA programs in
the country. We offered our per pupil student funding formula--
State money, obviously--to children that decided to leave the
public education system. And this has been a tremendous win for
the State of West Virginia.
They can either choose home school or they could choose
some private school institution. And we have seen, just since I
started that program in 2021, our standard--or, pardon me, our
academic achievement in our test scores has increased by 3
percent. So a State like West Virginia, that is a really big
deal.
Now, our State, my State of West Virginia, we are one of
the poorer States in the country. So we receive per capita more
Federal funding than most of the States compared to, say, like
a wealthy State, like Connecticut or New Jersey or
Massachusetts. They are not receiving the same type of money
that we are because we struggle in this.
Now, that said, we spend more per capita on our kids on
education than most States in America, and it has been a
failure. And ever since the Department of Education has been
instituted we have seen academic achievement just plummet year
after year. Every year it gets worse.
Now, one of my questions for you is, as you talk about
national school choice, which I am a huge advocate for, how
would you see the States being able to access those Federal
dollars?
For example, the Hope Scholarship program, which is
obviously a law at the State level, how could we pull down
those Federal dollars to have those students that have elected
for school choice to be able to have access to those as you
start to, God willing, wind down this Department and return
education to its rightful position back to the States?
Secretary McMahon. Well, thank you very much. And I
certainly agree that States should have the opportunity to do
that.
What we are looking at more, and as we discussed a little
bit before, in winding down some of the programs and doing
block-granting to Governors of States, to take a look at some
of the programs that they need to fund. And I have talked to so
many Governors who have said that they would welcome the
opportunity to have funds block-granted to them. Because they
know what is best for their State. They know, working with the
local superintendents, what is needed. So, if the money was
block-granted, with fewer strings, less regulation for those
Governors, they have indicated how successful they believe they
would make their States.
Now, I am the first one to admit, some Governors are going
to do a better job at this than others; some State
superintendents are going to do a better job than others. But
look at some of the programs you have already talked about--the
HOPE Scholarship program, programs in Oklahoma, some of the
programs in other States as well. These are done by innovative
Governors and innovative superintendents. This is not the
Department of Education coming in and saying, ``Hey, you ought
to try this, you ought to do it''--no. It is because these
people in these States look at their programs and look at what
they need and they will allocate that money here.
If a grant comes with strings that say, ``You have to spend
the money here,'' and a Governor says, ``Man, if I just had
that money and I could put it over here, I could have a lot
more effect,'' or that State superintendent, that chief of
education working with the students, I want to give them that
opportunity.
The President wants to make sure that Governors and States
have the opportunity to compete with one another but to service
the people in their State the way that they see best.
Mr. Moore. Well, thank you for that answer. And myself, my
children, we use the HOPE Scholarship. We have elected for
school choice. My kids are in Catholic school, just like
Representative Bice here, as her children are in as well.
But it is not so much about my kids that I want to
highlight, but in the southern coalfields of West Virginia, we
have had children driving with their parents an hour, an hour
and a half, to just be able to access better educational
opportunities and outcomes for their kids.
And the thing that drives me crazy is, so many people are
like, ``Oh, this a giveaway to the rich so they can send their
kids to private school.'' News flash: They are already sending
their kids to private school if they are rich. It is not really
a determinant factor.
This is going to raise a lot of families, to me, out of
poverty and give them choice that they would otherwise not
have.
So, please, anything you can do to help us be able to have
access to those Federal dollars, to these school choice
programs at the State level would be hugely beneficial.
And I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
Ms. Frankel.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you.
Welcome.
I am going to just start by saying--I am going to echo my
ranking member here--how deeply troubling it is that the Trump
administration is dismantling the Department of Education, an
agency that was established by Congress, and you are blatantly
disregarding the funding priorities we set in the 2025 budget
without our consultation or agreement.
I am going to move on.
I speak to you today not just as a Member of Congress but I
am also a mother and a grandmother, and I share the values of
millions of Americans who believe that educating our children
is one of our most sacred responsibilities.
So I have a few questions. I am going to help answer them,
and then I have a big one for you at the end.
So my first question to myself is: Why should we have a
strong public education system?
And the answer to that is because, when we educate our
children, we invest in their future and ours. A quality public
education empowers children with the knowledge, the skills, and
the confidence to pursue their dreams. It opens the doors to
better jobs, higher earnings, and more fulfilling lives. It
fuels economic growth and strengthens our democracy.
Now, let me be clear: I am not opposed to parents using
their own money to send their children to private school. But
it is a strong public school education system that ensures that
every child, no matter their background or ZIP Code, has a fair
shot at success.
So my next question for me is: Should education only be a
State issue.
And I answer ``no.'' Because education is not just a State
issue. It is a national responsibility, one that requires a
shared commitment from local, State, and Federal governments
and from civil society. Federal support helps close the gaps,
enforce civil rights, and ensure all schools have the resources
they need. Without it, those gaps will only grow wider.
And while the States administer education policy and local
control is important, it is the Federal oversight that
guarantees fairness, accountability, and equal opportunity.
From desegregating schools, to supporting students with
disabilities, to protecting children from discrimination based
on race and sex, disability, national origin, or shared
ancestry, the Federal Government has played a vital role.
And that is why I strongly object to this administration's
effort to dilute funding for the Office of Civil Rights, the
very agency tasked with enforcing those protections.
And my next question which I will answer: Is the claim that
public schools are failing our children a false narrative? And
that answer is ``yes.''
A child's ability to learn is shaped by more than what
happens in the classroom. It is shaped by a lot of factors,
including access to early education, food security, healthcare,
family engagement. And this administration, with the
Republicans, are attacking all of it--slashing food assistance,
driving up costs with chaotic tariffs, cutting healthcare, of
course, for our most vulnerable children and families. Can you
believe? Hungry children do not learn, I don't care what school
they are in.
And did you know--or, do I know? Yes, I know--there are
hundreds of thousands--hundreds of thousands of children on
waiting lists to get into Head Start, a proven program that
leads to a child's success in school.
And in my home county, Palm Beach, where the President
lives, millions in education funding in the 2025 budget are
being illegally held, which means our school district is going
to be forced to cut tutoring, after-school summer programs,
social services, college readiness, teacher trainings, and
student aid for college students are going to be gone.
So my next question is: Is the Trump administration
shifting money out of public schools into unregulated, private
institutions? That answer is ``yes.''
You are cutting billions from public schools and pushing a
new scheme, this tax scheme. Here is how it works: Wealthy
donors give money to private scholarship groups, and then that
money gets right back to them through a special tax break. So,
in the end, the taxpayers are paying the bill. There is no
oversight. There is no accountability.
Madam Secretary, 90 percent of our children attend public
schools. So I ask you, is your final mission, to get rid of the
United States Department of Education, cruel and foolish?
Oh, yes, I am going to answer that: Yes, it is cruel and
foolish.
But I have a question for you. If Congress refuses to go
along with your misguided plan to dismantle public education,
will you commit to spending the money we appropriate in the
2026 budget as directed by law?
Secretary McMahon. Well, that was a lot to unpack, but
thinking----
Ms. Frankel. Well, just answer that last question, if you
could, because you have 2 seconds.
Secretary McMahon. We will abide by the law.
Ms. Frankel. Good answer. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Ellzey.
Mr. Ellzey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
Thank you, Madam Secretary, for being here.
Let's go back in history a little bit. The creation of
Department of Education came about after the 1976 election in
which Jimmy Carter got elected and he promised the NEA, the
Nation's largest teachers' union, the Department of Education.
Previously, those roles had been Department of Health and Human
Services and a couple of others. So, in order to get that done
and get the endorsement to win in 1980, we created the
Department of Education.
I am pretty sure that my well-spoken, well-regarded
colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have questioned
you previously, with the exception of one, not one of them got
their public education under this Department of Education on
the Federal level. They were all educated by public education
without having the Department of Education--Health and Human
Services, Department of Justice. They all had different roles,
and then we put it all into one.
So we have spent billions and trillions of dollars, as you
mentioned. Meanwhile, the State of Texas--I checked with my
friend in the legislature--the State of Texas, which is
perfectly capable of taking care of kids in the valley in west
Texas, in the panhandle in north Texas, down on the coast, all
of which have different demographics and different needs--we
are going to spend $100 billion in the State of Texas over the
next 2 years providing for our own public education according
to our standards, because our local school districts know how
to educate their kids.
So, if this is a question of mental health, well, that
belongs at Department of Health and Human Services. If it is
about civil rights, that belongs at the Department of Justice.
Ten percent of the funding that goes to public education in
this country is sent from the States back here, Washington
employs a whole bunch of people, has some strings attached, and
then goes back down.
So this existed prior to 1980. All of my colleagues on the
right--except maybe Steny Hoyer, because he is pretty young--
were educated without the Department of Education.
So, being a Navy pilot, I tend to watch a few movies. One
of my favorites is ``Office Space.'' So let me ask you, what do
you think--as the Secretary of Education, ``What would you say
you do here?'' What would you say the Department of Education
does? And is it accomplishing that mission, Madam Secretary?
Secretary McMahon. Well, thank you very much. You have made
my case quite a bit for me already.
But what I have found in talking with so many people when I
took on this position was the misunderstanding of what the
Department of Education doesn't do. It does not set curriculum.
It doesn't hire teachers. It doesn't specify books. It doesn't
do all of those things. It is actually a pass-through mechanism
for funding that is appropriated by Congress.
And whether the channels of that funding are through HHS or
whether they are funneled through the DOJ or whether they are
funneled through Treasury or SBA or other departments, the work
is going to continue to get done.
So what I have been focusing on, as the Secretary of
Education, is really understanding where these grants are,
where these programs are, how do we make sure that they aren't
wasteful, how do we reevaluate the contracts, as I talked
before. Let's do savings going in, as we are recommending, you
know, our budget cuts. Let's make sure that the programs that
we are putting in place are best serving the students of those
States.
And that is the work that I am focused on every day.
Mr. Ellzey. Thank you.
I want to make it clear to my colleagues that I think there
is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government.
Remember, 1980, Department of Education; 2001, Department of
Homeland Security, which basically just added another level of
bureaucracy and cost to the American taxpayer with a
questionable amount of return on that investment on safety,
because all those agencies underneath already existed, just
like they do in the Department of Education.
I would argue that I don't think that the folks in
Connecticut want somebody like me telling them how to educate
their kids any more than I want anybody from Connecticut
telling me how to educate my kids in the State of Texas. This
is better done at the State level.
There is nothing about education in the Constitution, not
one word. So my case is, if it is not in the Constitution,
let's start with that.
Let's reabsorb the functions of the Department of Education
and the other agencies, just like it was before, and I think we
are going to be just fine, as my well-spoken, highly
intelligent colleagues on the right side, who were not educated
under the guidelines of the Department of Education as it
currently exists, can attest.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Harder.
Mr. Harder. Thank you so much.
And, Secretary McMahon, thank you for being here.
I want to talk about early-childhood education. I probably
think more about early-childhood development than some of my
colleagues because I am still living it every day. I have two
young daughters, Lillian and Karina, ages 3 and 1.
Like millions of parents, I know firsthand how critical
access to early learning is, not just for kids but for working
families and the future of our communities.
Secretary McMahon, do you believe every child deserves
access to a high-quality early-childhood education?
Secretary McMahon. I believe that every child deserves
access to a high-quality--equal access to education.
Mr. Harder. Great. Then I think we agree. I think every
child and every family should be able to enroll their kids in
high-quality, safe preschools.
As you know, research shows that children who attend
preschool are 18 percent more likely to go to college than
those who didn't. We know that early-childhood education shapes
lifelong outcomes. It impacts literacy, graduation rates,
employment, even health and public safety. These are real
facts.
But I am concerned about what is happening with Head Start,
a program that makes preschool a reality for over 800,000
families. I know this technically falls under HHS, but, as
Secretary of Education, I can imagine you would care deeply
about this topic because you are responsible for the future of
every kid in America.
Have you discussed Head Start funding with the
administration in the budget? And what are your views on what
is happening with the current freezes and the challenges with
the Head Start program?
Secretary McMahon. I have not had conversations with the
Department of HHS. And so, no, they are not part of my budget
considerations at this point.
Mr. Harder. Well, do you have a view on whether or not
preschool through Head Start is important as a grounds for a
student's education?
Secretary McMahon. I think the earlier we can start
education, the better it is for every child. I look at mothers
who spend time with their children, you know, reading to them,
when other children may not have that benefit. I think those
children definitely have an advantage, and you would like to
see that.
But I don't think that the Federal Government has the
responsibility for that. I think that that should be looked at
more in State budgets and how States can best set up their
programs.
Mr. Harder. I hear you. I did a lot of reading with my
daughters and continue to do so.
But did I understand that you do not believe that the
Federal Government should be supporting programs like Head
Start, and that should be the job of other organizations and
States and parents?
Secretary McMahon. Well, currently, it is the
responsibility of a different agency, and I am sure that they
are looking at what aspects they are funding as they go through
their budget process.
Mr. Harder. Well, I think this has real implications on the
work that you do. This is a cornerstone of American education.
And I think that what is happening with Head Start is very
concerning. We are seeing these delays, these freezes that
ultimately hurt kids. We have seen Head Start schools close
across the country because they only have 3 days of funding
right now. Every Head Start program in the country has 3 days
of funding. And I think that is going to have an implication on
our kids' ability to read, write, and do math.
And so I would think, as the Secretary of Education, that
you should have a perspective on this and a real goal towards
committing to the parents of Head Start students in my district
and across the country to fight to make sure that this program
is fully funded.
Is that something that you believe in, that this program
should be funded, and pushing back on any attempt to cut it?
Secretary McMahon. I am going to let the Department and the
agencies that are responsible for those parts of the budget do
their job.
Mr. Harder. I think it has an implication for the
Department of Education that is real.
Let me tell you what is at stake. In my district, 1,600
kids rely on Head Start. This is the first type of education
that any student receives. And I think passing it off on some
other department is unacceptable, because we know that Head
Start students are 13 percentage points less likely to commit a
crime, they are more likely to graduate high school, less
likely to experience a teen pregnancy. This is our kids'
futures, and our entire communities are lifted up because of
this program.
So I think that saying that this part of the education
system isn't your responsibility doesn't make a whole lot of
sense to me. I think you should be terrified at the idea of
Head Start being gutted, because it is going to have major
ramifications on our students' ability to have the future that
we want. It is your duty to make sure that programs like this
continue.
And so I hope that you see that our kids aren't line items,
they are not pawns in a political game, they are not
disposable, and that we need to make sure that Head Start is
continuing to be strong and that cuts like the ones we have
seen over the last couple months don't happen if we are going
to be able to make sure that every kid has a quality education
in the United States. I hope you remember that.
And I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here today. I appreciate your
testimony.
And just very, very quickly, for Mr. Pocan's education, is
professional wrestling a business?
Secretary McMahon. Sir, I--it very definitely is a
business.
Mr. Simpson. So you ran a business. Okay.
Just so that you are aware of that.
Anyway, let me ask you a couple of questions.
I don't disagree with what my colleagues on the right have
been saying. I agree with what Mr. Ellzey said. Education--and
I have no problem with trying to move much of this education
back to the States. I had a couple of superintendents tell me a
couple years ago that their problem was that they got 5 percent
of their funding from the Federal Government and 95 percent of
their rules came from the Federal Government.
But there are some successful programs that we want to
maintain.
You said in your statement that you encouraged all of your
children to go to post-secondary school, that they needed to
continue their education to be successful.
You said that you evaluated and looked at these programs
and wanted to get rid of those that were ineffective. And in
the skinny budget, you specifically said, ``TRIO and GEAR UP
are a relic of the past, when financial incentives were needed
to motivate institutions of higher education to engage with
low-income students and increase access.''
I would like to see some of those studies and evaluations,
because every one that I have seen says it is one of the most
effective programs ever.
In fact, when we had Secretary Spellings here 20 years ago,
they tried to put all these programs together and just send
them out to the States. She said they had studies that showed
that they were not a very effective program, and I asked her
for a copy of those studies. It was 20 years ago, and I am
still waiting. Because there are no studies out there that show
that it is ineffective. It is one of the most effective
programs in the Federal Government.
These are for--you know, one of the best programs in the
history of education, and most meaningful, has probably been
the GI Bill. We took veterans from World War II and gave them
opportunities to go to college. This is the GI Bill for low-
income, minority communities. And it is supported by many, many
Members of Congress.
We have about 800,000 low-income, potential first-
generation college graduates. And I don't know if you have ever
gone and talked to any of these students. These are people that
had never thought of going to college because nobody in their
family had and nobody in their community had ever done that.
We got a problem in the Indian Health Service trying to get
doctors and dentists to go out on reservations. The only way
you are going to do that and solve that problem is when Native
American children go to college, go on to medical school, go on
to dental school, and come back to their reservation to serve
their people. That is how you are going to solve it in the long
run.
So can you speak to me on how the Department arrived at
this funding level and how you plan to ensure that TRIO remains
accessible to the students who rely upon it?
Secretary McMahon. Well, thank you very much.
And I understand that there are many services that are
served--I mean, TRIO started out as three programs; it is now
about eight. And it first started when there were first
generation of students who were going to college, you know, for
the first time. And I agree with you, there are a lot of parts
of TRIO that talked about those students and what their
possibilities could be and interested them.
I did see in one example of TRIO recently that one child
was brought on board and talked about going to college but part
of the TRIO program was taking them to Disney World at that
time. So I am not sure that all the expenses in TRIO should be
there.
I think TRIO, you know, those moneys are going to be going
out, you know, for this program for this year.
So we are looking at all of the programs. The need for TRIO
I don't think is nearly as strong, because there are outreaches
from colleges now into local communities. And there should be
more of the universities and secondary-education levels
reaching into those communities. They should be talking to them
about college.
But I think they should also be talking to them about other
ways that they could have skills, that they could support,
whether it is the Tribal Nations that you were talking about or
whether it is their community.
As I mentioned a little earlier--it might have been before
you came in--that I think we need to reimagine and look at
education differently in our country. I think we need more
work-based projects, teaching, in our middle schools and high
schools to prepare people to get into the economy.
I mean, we kind of made--we focus on college and degrees
and we kind of made trade skills, ``Hey, that is something that
you go into if you can't really make it at college.'' We need
this workforce.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, we do.
Secretary McMahon. We need this workforce. So let's train a
lot of those different kind of programs. Let's give them skills
that can make it available for them to go to work right away
and be in the economy. And maybe they will also put themselves
through school.
Mr. Simpson. Before you eliminate TRIO, though----
Secretary McMahon. So I think----
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. I need to see what those programs
are that you are proposing that we are going to change them to.
Because----
Secretary McMahon. I would be happy to get back to you.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. This is the most important
program for the low-income people who had never thought of
any--you know, you gave the example of 1 individual out of
800,000. The program is highly successful. I would like to
see--other government programs could learn from this program,
frankly.
And I would like to know, if we are going to change it, how
it is going to change and how we are still going to have access
to those kids.
And I understand that the Department has not yet released
the continuation awards for the TRIO Upward Bound Program even
though those grants expired on May 31st. Could you tell us
where we are on those awards?
Secretary McMahon. Yeah, I believe that they will be going
out by July 1. I think that is correct. If it is not, I will
get back to you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Mrs. Watson Coleman.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you, Chairman.
And thank you to my colleague who just asked those
questions about important programs to get students ready for
college.
Good morning, and----
Secretary McMahon. Good morning.
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. Thank you for being here.
I am going to ask you a couple of questions that I just
need ``yes'' or ``no.''
Do you believe that there is illegal discrimination against
people who are Black, Brown, and other types of discrimination
in jobs and education in this country? Yes or no?
Secretary McMahon. I think it still exists in some areas.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Then can you tell me why the Office of
Civil Rights in the Department of Education is being decimated?
Secretary McMahon. Well, it isn't being decimated. That----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. What is it being?
Secretary McMahon. We have reduced the size of it.
However----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Do you think----
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. We are taking on a backlog
of cases that were left over from the Biden administration
and----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Then why would you reduce their
resources if you have a backlog in addition to having
confronted those cases that are going to come before you now?
Secretary McMahon. Because we are working more efficiently
in the Department.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Okay. Thank you.
I have real serious questions regarding your commitment to
civil rights, to our students, to our teachers, to our faculty,
and places of that nature.
Do you believe that migrant students should have access to
public education resources?
Secretary McMahon. Well, migrant students do have access at
this point----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Do you believe that they should
continue?
Secretary McMahon. In some instances, yes.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Okay.
Do you believe that the position of this administration, to
reduce the resources and the support to migrant students at the
same time that they have encouraged and perhaps facilitated the
coming to this country of White South Afrikaners----
Secretary McMahon. I am not sure I----
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. Is an issue of favoritism
and prioritization of White over color?
Secretary McMahon. Well, if--I am going to have to take a
couple minutes to answer this.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Well, answer it.
Secretary McMahon. Because this administration--President
Trump has made it very clear that he will not tolerate
discrimination, whether it is antisemitism, whether it is race-
related, at all, on any of our school----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Okay. I am asking you----
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. In any of our schools----
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. I am asking you about
your opinion----
Secretary McMahon. Well, I am going to answer this
question----
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. Because let me just tell
you, I know what the President's position is. He has made it
quite clear.
I am asking you, as the Secretary of Education, how you
perceive this. Yes or no? If this is not an illustration----
Secretary McMahon. I am the Secretary----
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. Of replacement and
favoritism, say, ``No.'' If it is, say, ``Yes.''
Secretary McMahon. I am the Secretary of Education who has
been approved to run this agency by Congress, and I was
appointed by the President, and I serve at his pleasure, under
his mandate. So, therefore, the direction----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. Of his administration----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. Is what I will follow.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Do you recognize the fact that one of
the important reasons that the Federal Government got into
public education was to establish that there would be standards
so that children would be treated equally in pursuing
education? That States had been found to discriminate against
Black students, in particular, in many of the States? And that
to send that responsibility and authority back to the States
would just enhance those disparities again, considering the
environment in which this President continues to foster about
who is important and who is not? Yes or no?
Secretary McMahon. Congresswoman, there are laws on the
books in Title VI that totally----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Laws don't mean anything to this
administration.
I am asking you, do you realize that to send authority back
to the States, to eliminate your oversight, to eliminate your
accountability, to eliminate your determination as to resources
going to schools that are better-teaching, public schools that
are teaching underserved communities----
Secretary McMahon. I----
Mrs. Watson Coleman [continuing]. That this will result in
the very reason that we had to get the involvement of the
Federal Government in this issue?
And that is a ``yes'' or a ``no.'' Either you believe it or
you don't.
Secretary McMahon. It isn't a ``yes'' or ``no,'' but I will
not respond to any question based on the theory that this
administration doesn't care anything about the law and operates
outside it.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. This administration----
Secretary McMahon. So that is a mischaracterization, and I
will not----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Okay. I reclaim my time for 5 seconds.
Because you can say anything you want; your rhetoric means
nothing to me. What means something to me is the actions of
this administration, from the President of the United States
conducting himself in a corrupt manner, to his family enriching
him and himself corruptly.
To determine that this administration can tell you what is
right and what is wrong, what is lawful, what is not, that it
can arrest judges, it can arrest lawyers, it can use its power
to bully people--and I am telling you, the Department of
Education is one of the most important departments in this
country, and you should feel shameful to be engaged with an
administration that doesn't give a damn.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Letlow.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I yield back.
Ms. Letlow. Secretary McMahon, thank you for being here,
and thank you for your dedication towards furthering education
in our country. We are so grateful to have you in that chair.
And I think all my colleagues on this dais and most in
Congress would agree that education is the answer. Education is
the answer to lifting communities out of poverty. If you
educate a child, you give them a future. And I know you believe
that wholeheartedly.
And one thing that we have seen happen across our State of
Louisiana is, when parents don't have a choice, that is a
travesty. And so, for those parents who public education was
failing their students, they had the opportunity to form
charter schools. And what a blessing that has been to
Louisiana.
I would like to give a shout-out to one of my most
impressive charter schools that I have had the opportunity to
tour; it is called the ACE Charter School. It is a group of
concerned parents, especially mamas, mama bears, who came
together and said, we need an option for our autistic children
to be able to have a place where they can grow and thrive and
receive special education directed straight towards them. And
it has been an incredible honor to witness them thrive. They
have a waiting list that blows my mind, how many parents are
eager to get their children into those schools.
And so, while we wait on what the final plan will be for
the Department of Education to send more power back to the
States, I was encouraged that in the skinny budget you plussed
up a bit for charter schools, and would just like to hear your
thoughts on how we move forward with that option for parents.
Secretary McMahon. Well, thanks very much for your
question.
And with the increase in the budget, I think the President
is showing his commitment to wanting to make sure that all
students had the opportunity of choice.
There are about a million students on the waiting list now
for charter schools. And hopefully this plus-up in the budget--
which is not going to cover all of the needs for sure, but--
will give more opportunity for charter schools and other
options, you know, for choice.
I have seen the results, what happened in Louisiana. I know
Cade Brumley----
Ms. Letlow. Yes.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. Who is your chief of
education in the State, and I have talked to Governor Landry
about a lot of the accomplishments that have been--that have
happened.
Ms. Letlow. Yes.
Secretary McMahon. I have toured ACE and spent some time
there----
Ms. Letlow. Oh, that is wonderful.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. And was totally amazed with
those students, who many had said were uneducable----
Ms. Letlow. Right.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. And looking at the things
that they have been able to do because they did have the
opportunity to go to that particular school.
And I am very, very pleased that, actually, the founder of
ACE has come on board with us for a short term at the
Department of Education for her consult. So I am very pleased
about that.
So I do believe that, with more choice, with more
opportunity, we will see our scores go up. Because what has
happened is, there are many children that have been trapped in
failing schools and--well, my esteemed Congresswoman has left.
I was going to say, one of the things that I think is the most
detrimental to underprivileged students or any child that
doesn't have equal access is, they get trapped in a failing
school. And that should not happen. Their parents should have
the ability to say, ``My child should be able to go to this
school over here because they are doing better.'' They can do
better if they have that opportunity. And if we continue to
pigeonhole students in failing schools and not give them that
opportunity, we are failing them.
And, quite frankly, we have failed in education in our
country. When we see these scores continue to decline and the
answer is, ``Well, throw more money, create more programs,
let's do more of this''--it has not worked.
Ms. Letlow. Right.
Secretary McMahon. It has not worked. The scores continue
to go down.
Where we have seen the most successes are in States with
innovation policies. And I have the most ultimate respect for
teachers. I think teaching is one of the most respectful
professions that we have. It should be the most honored. And
when teachers are allowed to teach and be creative and
innovative in their classroom and not spend half of their day
in compliance with regulatory requirements because of the
programs that are there, we will see better outcomes and
results.
And I am a firm believer in that. I am a firm believer that
education is the cornerstone of our country. It is the
cornerstone for developing our economics, our defense, and
every other thing we do. But there does not have to be a
bureaucracy in Washington that is dictating how our students
and our children throughout our country do get educated.
Ms. Letlow. I could not agree with you more. And thank you
for supporting our Governor and superintendent. I think they
are doing a fabulous job. And the numbers prove it----
Secretary McMahon. They did.
Ms. Letlow [continuing]. As our scores continue to climb.
Real quickly, I have a bill that I introduced, H.R. 3453,
the Empower Charter School Educators to Lead Act, that would
provide modest, targeted planning grants, using existing
charter school programs' funds, to help experienced educators
with the early stages of designing a high-quality charter
school.
Do you agree that a small amount of planning funding can
make a big difference in helping strong local applicants get
their innovative charter schools across the finish line?
Secretary McMahon. Well, I do hope that this plus-up with
the President's budget has funds, and it can be used for many
different kinds of programs.
Ms. Letlow. Okay. Thank you for your time.
I yield back.
Mr. Aderholt. Ms. Dean.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member
DeLauro, for holding this hearing.
And I thank you, Secretary McMahon, for being here today.
I want to start with the role of the Department of
Education. I come at this as a mother, as a grandmother, a
former teacher myself, a former State legislator, with two
grandmothers who were public schoolteachers. I have a lot of
experience with the education system in Pennsylvania as well as
the country.
First, the history of the Federal education involvement.
And Mrs. Watson Coleman was getting at some of this that I
would like to build upon.
Federal investments in education began to increase
dramatically in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s in tandem with
the rise of the success of the civil rights movement. Americans
finally began to recognize the vast inequalities in our
education system. Thus, Federal funding was used to improve
education access for students from poor backgrounds or minority
students, for women, for people with disabilities, and other
marginalized groups.
Finally, Congress established the Department of Education
in 1979, replacing the Office of Education.
Secretary McMahon, it is alarming that you and the
President want to turn that clock back. You take us back to a
time before any Federal oversight of education, before many of
the programs that guarantee free and equal access to education
for all Americans. You said as much in your testimony.
After all the Department of Education's work to ensure
equal access to education, you are embarking on the
Department's final mission? You intend to put yourself out of a
job? That is a little jarring to me. If you were a pediatric
oncologist, I would welcome that. Let's get you out of a job--
through cures, through healing, through ending of pediatric
cancer. But ending a department that is supposed to oversee the
education of our very youngest, to guide their future?
Have you taken the time to educate yourself about this
history? I would encourage you, go ask students who attended
school back then--Black students, Brown students, students with
disability, students from poor families--what was access like
for them before the Department of Education?
Frankly, eliminating the Department of Education, to me, is
rather Orwellian. The President and his administration don't
want an educated populace. Why don't we just go back to the
book ``1984,'' if it hasn't been banned? It is clear to me that
you, this administration, wants an uneducated electorate so
that Mr. Trump and his courtiers can control thought, therefore
control votes and control the population.
I will note a secondary measure here that is going on: the
increase in funding for charter schools. We know that charter
schools originally were supposed to be incubators of the best
ideas, great practices, to be brought back into the public
school education system so that every kid had an access to such
things. But this administration and you, who want to put
yourself out of a job, following the playbook, page 319 of
``Project 2025''--first sentence: ``Shutter the Department of
Education''--you are all following that book. Too bad that one
wasn't banned.
And yet privatizing is really the other ambition. An
uneducated electorate, and profit and privatization of our
education system.
Do you promise us that that isn't your ambition?
Secretary McMahon. That clearly is not my ambition. I think
I have stated that very well today.
Ms. Dean. Then why, in God's name, do you want to shutter
it?
Why don't you want to protect kids with disabilities? Why
don't you want to protect kids who have been, every decade,
denied equal access simply because of how much their parents
make, the ZIP Code they live in, the color of their skin?
Why are you shuttering a department that is supposed to
lift up those children?
Secretary McMahon. Because those programs don't have to
flow through the Department of Education, and they----
Ms. Dean. They can flow through the State? I was a State
legislator. That is called ``shift and shaft.'' I have spoken
with the Governor of Pennsylvania. They can't pick up the tab
anymore for education of our students. Not to mention, it would
be inequitable, State by State by State.
Why are you in this job at all if you don't have a
dedication to the future of our children? Why are you in this
job?
Secretary McMahon. I, too, am a mother and a grandmother,
and I want the best for my family going forward----
Ms. Dean. Vouchers.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. For my grandchildren, for
my great-grandchildren. And I hope to leave a legacy that we
have established best practices for education that all the
States can use. That would be a great legacy to be able to
leave, to be able to show States, these are some of the things
that they can do.
I think States have to look at their budgets----
Ms. Dean. Madam Secretary, the legacy you will be leaving
is that ``I shut down the Department of Education.''
How we educate our children determines not just their
future but our own.
Secretary McMahon. The Department----
Ms. Dean. I think it is a sad legacy you will leave.
I yield back.
Secretary McMahon. The Department of Education is----
Ms. Dean. I yielded back.
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. Not educating anyone.
Ms. Dean. I yielded back.
Secretary McMahon. Well, I can say this, and I will.
Mr. Aderholt. Dr. Harris.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much.
Let's pick up where you just left off.
If I read the test results correctly, we are getting worse,
not better, is that right, as a country? Let's----
Secretary McMahon. That is true.
Mr. Harris [continuing]. Take reading, fourth grade.
Secretary McMahon. That is true.
Mr. Harris. Oh, okay. So the Department of Education is
failing. I mean, as it is currently structured, it fails.
Because the purpose of the Department of Education is to
improve America's scoring, our collective American scoring--and
we will talk about reading in the fourth grade in a second--is
to actually improve education, right?
So, when we spend 20 percent more than we did a few years
ago, we would expect, like, a 20-percent improvement in test
scores. A little improvement in test scores? No. We actually
got a decrease in test scores.
I just want to remind people that, kind of, the best
example of American education are our private universities,
right? I mean, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth--go down the
list--they are all private. We are demonizing privatized
education? We are demonizing private education, which is
actually the crown jewel of the American system, are our
private universities. This is a little bizarre.
If we wanted to create an uneducated electorate, we would
juice up the Department of Education, because it is actually
winding down the education. If you look at test scores--I am
just, look, objective.
You know, it has been years since we put the NAEP in place.
Let's just look at the trend lines. If you wanted to create an
uneducated electorate, you would continue doing exactly what we
are doing. Because we have schools in Baltimore City, where we
spend an inordinate amount of money, that have zero reading
proficiency--like, zero.
Oh, but they spend $57,000 on cell phones from the E-S-S-E-
R, the ESSER, funds during the pandemic. So they had money to
buy cell phones for administrators but not to actually improve
scores.
I don't know. I think we have a horrible record in this
country of failing our children.
And, you know, the thing that--``Well, States can't pick up
the tab.'' Oh, no, no, no. The Federal Government can't pick up
the tab, because we are running a $2 trillion deficit. And as I
remind my colleagues frequently--I might sound like a broken
record--we had a Moody's downgrade last week, and they
basically said we have to stop Federal spending largesse.
And I think you pick the department that is an abject
failure, and you go, ``Look, we gotta stop spending. You either
make it better or you stop.'' And I don't care--if you could
block-grant, maybe the States know how to do it better.
Clearly, Washington does not know how to do it better. That is
just my opinion.
Charter schools are great. As you know--and I am sorry I am
late. I missed part of--you know, we are negotiating this
little reconciliation bill, and it does include, for the first
time, a Federal voucher program.
Now, I would advocate that charter schools are okay, but in
some States, like mine, the public school system has a
stranglehold on charter schools, and they look, in the end,
mostly just like public schools and perform only a little bit
better.
But the voucher program, I think--and the gentlelady from
Louisiana is absolutely right--I think that is the answer, is
always competition. That is what makes America great. That is
what makes almost every aspect of America great, is
competition.
I will ask you about the ``Mississippi miracle.'' And I
want you to describe it and how important it is that we
actually convince all the States to do what Mississippi did
because of its tremendous improvement in test results as a
result.
Madam Secretary, if you could explain the ``Mississippi
miracle''? And I am sorry, maybe you did already, but if not--
--
Secretary McMahon. I didn't.
Mr. Harris [continuing]. Please explain it.
Secretary McMahon. And I am happy to.
The ``Mississippi miracle'' was really about their reading
program. What they did was return to basics--what they have
done in Louisiana, what Texas is now looking at, what other
States are looking at too, and that is, the returning to the
science of reading.
I did talk about that a little bit earlier, the science of
reading, which is getting back to phonetics and teaching the
way that students learn to read better in the beginning.
And we are seeing incredible improvements. ``Mississippi
miracle''--I think Mississippi was number three from the bottom
in terms of their proficiency in reading. And through this
program that they launched, they have come up to number 20,
maybe a little higher by now. But that was a huge jump. And
that was just being----
Mr. Harris. And my understanding, Madam Secretary, if I
could just remind everyone, the miracle was, they didn't do
social promotion on reading. You had to learn to read----
Secretary McMahon. Yes.
Mr. Harris [continuing]. When you left the third grade.
Because the studies are pretty clear, the STAR study in
Tennessee, pretty clear: If you don't read by the end of the
third grade, forget it. Everything beyond there requires
reading skill. You will fail in the rest.
And I am sorry I interrupted you. If you want----
Secretary McMahon. No, but that is exactly right. And as I
said earlier, up through third grade, you are learning to read,
and beyond that, you are reading to learn.
Mr. Harris. Yeah.
Secretary McMahon. And you are right; you cannot be
successful if you cannot read.
Mr. Harris. Yeah. And our current policy just condemns,
unfortunately, frequently, inner-city youth to a life that is--
we condemn them to a life where they can't read, and because
they can't read, they won't succeed like everyone else does.
So I congratulate you for your efforts, Madam Secretary.
And I yield back.
Secretary McMahon. Thank you.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Clyde.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Secretary McMahon, for being here in our
committee hearing this morning. You know, I believe we are very
fortunate to have you. And I think President Trump made an
amazing pick when he nominated you.
Secretary McMahon. Thank you.
Mr. Clyde. And I think you will take the Department of
Education to where it needs to be, and that is, supporting the
States, sending education back to the States.
You know, for decades, the Department of Education has
grown far beyond its original intent, imposing mandates,
funding ideological programs, and entangling schools in red
tape that distracts from its core mission of education--but not
education at the Federal level, but education at the State
level. All the while, student performance has declined, as has
been mentioned plenty of times, costs have ballooned, and
bureaucratic overhead has exploded.
President Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget request is a
strong step in the right direction, as it cuts wasteful and
duplicative programs, and it lays the groundwork for an
education system that is more accountable and far more
responsive to students than the one we currently have right
now. This budget would spend less, centralize less, and return
power to where it belongs--to the States, to the parents, and
to the local communities.
But, first, I want to address the radical gender ideology
promoted by the Department of Education during the last 4 years
of the Biden-Harris administration.
In April 2024, the Department finalized a new Title IX
rule, redefining sex-based discrimination to include gender
identity.
Protecting all students is essential for a strong learning
environment, and yet this extreme policy puts female students
at great risk. We have seen the left force female students and
athletes to share spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and
sports with biological males.
They have no interest in protecting young girls or women.
After all, if you cannot define a woman, you cannot defend a
woman. In fact, at last year's budget hearing, former Education
Secretary Cardona repeatedly refused to define what a woman
was, dodging my question three separate times.
So, Secretary McMahon, can your Department of Education now
define for me what a woman is?
Secretary McMahon. Me.
Mr. Clyde. Perfect.
Secretary McMahon. I was born a girl, and I grew to be an
adult woman.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you. Thank you.
It is refreshing to see that the Trump administration and
the Department of Education, with you at the helm, is returning
to commonsense policies grounded in biological reality to
protect young girls in schools.
I was proud to see President Trump, on his first day in
office, sign an executive order to push back against gender
ideology and restore biological truth in Federal policy.
Surrounded by young female athletes, he also signed an
order effectively banning biological males from women's sports
and spaces.
President Trump took swift action to end the left's harmful
agenda that has endangered and devalued women across the
country.
Remarkably, just 1 day after the order was signed, the NCAA
updated its eligibility policies to prohibit biological males
from competing in women's sports.
Secretary McMahon, as you know, President Trump signed an
executive order on March 20, 2025, to dismantle the Department
of Education, and I would like you to clear up some
misconceptions about this executive order.
Can you confirm that the President's budget fully preserves
critical funding for schools, specifically Title I, part A for
low-income districts and special-education funding under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, while also
targeting wasteful bureaucracy but not the essential resources
that students and teachers rely upon?
Secretary McMahon. Yes.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you. Thank you.
Since 1980, taxpayers have spent nearly $3 trillion on
Federal education funding. Per-pupil spending in public schools
has skyrocketed since then. Yet test scores, as has been
mentioned many times, have failed to improve meaningfully.
Reading and math scores have either flatlined or declined,
according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Does streamlining bureaucracy at the Department of
Education mean students and teachers will receive less funding?
Or does it actually mean--does it actually ensure that more of
each dollar reaches the classroom?
Secretary McMahon. More of each dollar will reach the
classroom, because we are eliminating a lot of the bureaucratic
red tape that takes time and money to comply with.
Mr. Clyde. Thank you. Thank you.
My last question: How does this budget begin the long-
overdue work of returning educational control to parents and
local communities? And how does it support school-choice
initiatives that expand parental options and improve academic
outcomes?
Secretary McMahon. Well, thank you, sir, for that question.
As we said, it does protect Title I-A funding and also IDEA
funding, so those streams are going to continue to come to
provide that necessary budget requirements for those students.
But just by--as I have been speaking about, the President
is looking at making sure that no student is imprisoned, if you
will, in a failing school. That should not happen. So he wants
to have more options, more opportunities.
One of those is through increasing the charter school
budget. He doesn't say charter schools are the be-all and end-
all. He is simply saying it is a choice.
Mr. Clyde. Uh-huh.
Secretary McMahon. If the public school is not providing
the kind of education that a student needs and there is an
opportunity for a charter school, or there is an opportunity
for that child to attend a Catholic school, or to be home-
schooled, how can that child, under the supervision of its
parents and working with the local school system, get the best
education possible? It can't happen efficiently from
Washington, D.C. It needs to happen on a local level.
And that is the President's goal and intent: to improve
education in our country. He was absolutely angered and
embarrassed when he saw what the national scores were.
Mr. Clyde. Uh-huh.
Secretary McMahon. And he said openly when he was
campaigning that this cannot stand, that America, in order to
continue to be the superpower and the number-one country in the
world, we have to have the best education in the world. We have
to provide equal access to quality education for every child in
America. And that is his goal.
Mr. Clyde. Well, thank you. That is very refreshing to
hear. And thank you for your strong leadership.
And I yield back.
Mr. Moolenaar [presiding]. Thank you.
We will now move to the second round of questioning. And we
will cut back on the timing a little bit to make sure everyone
gets their questions in, so we will go with a 3-minute round.
And I will start with Ranking Member DeLauro.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to hit back on TRIO for a second.
Your budget justifies the elimination of two bipartisan
college-access programs--there is TRIO and GEAR UP. And you
claim--this is a quote--``access to college is not the obstacle
it was for students of limited means.''
What is your basis for that claim?
Secretary McMahon. Simply because we have more programs
reaching into the communities, and schools are being more
active in recruiting those schools. And if they are not, they
should be. Because it is, I believe, up to schools also to be
reaching in their communities and at the State level.
And so, if we can be helpful in looking at programs that
can help with that, that kind of outreach from the State level,
then that is what we should do.
Ms. DeLauro. Well, let me just--the data is clear. Students
from wealthy families are almost three-and-a-half times more
likely to attend college than students from low-income
families. And 76 percent of students from the upper income
bracket complete college in 6 years, versus 48 percent of
students from the bottom income bracket.
As Secretary of Education, you cannot look away from the
needs of youngsters from low-income backgrounds hoping to get a
college education or a technical education. How can you justify
the elimination of TRIO and GEAR UP when we have so much more
work to do on college access?
And I refer you to a document by the Brookings Institute
that talks about, the college enrollments vary depending on the
socioeconomic status of a student's family.
So TRIO and GEAR UP, which has been a bipartisan effort--I
can still hear the voice of the chair at the time of this
subcommittee, Ralph Regula, who spoke eloquently about the
benefits of TRIO and GEAR UP, and the chairman of the full
committee, with whom I have put bills together over the years,
a mutual support of the issues of TRIO and GEAR UP because of
what kind of access it provides to youngsters from lower-income
families.
And to deny people that opportunity because of some--I
don't know what your decision is based on. What is the study,
what is the scholarship, except some construct that you or the
President or Elon Musk has come up with, that it is not an
obstacle for students of limited means?
Do you have any idea how people live here in this country
today? People are living paycheck to paycheck. Their wages have
not gone up. And they find themselves wanting to figure out how
they can pay their healthcare costs, how they can pay their
housing costs, how they can put the food on the table, and how
they can get their kids educated.
Let us see the studies, as Mr. Simpson pointed out. We just
want to see it and the decision-making. What was this based on,
except someone's whim or idea?
I yield back.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
And I will now recognize myself for 3 minutes.
Madam Secretary, I appreciate your emphasis on reading, and
I think that is really very important. It certainly opens up a
whole opportunity for students.
Another area where there is an opportunity for students
that if they don't make the most of that opportunity it really
limits their capabilities, and that is in middle school math.
And by that, I mean, if someone engages in middle school and
learns math and is competent in math, that opens up doorways
for math, for science at the upper levels. If they don't, they
consider themselves not a math person and disengage, and we
lose a lot of people who could be very strong in the STEM
fields.
I wonder if that is something that you and the Department
could factor in, in terms of innovative partnerships with
States as well as the private sector. Because I do believe math
and science students are going to be vital to compete in the
years to come.
Secretary McMahon. Well, that is--I would like to see more
public-private partnerships especially, clearly, at the State
level.
I have visited a few schools now, and I have seen some of
the private partnerships, where the companies are coming in and
they are bringing, let's say, for instance, one of the ones
that I saw just recently, robots, robotics, into schools. I
went into a school classroom where kids were not very much
engaged in math, and suddenly they had the opportunity now to
work with these robot components and these robot kits. In fact,
I think former Governor Sununu up in New Hampshire actually
activated one of these programs in New Hampshire.
The company provided these kits, and the kids who suddenly
took these kits, they had to have motor skill coordination,
they had to learn what the spatial relationship was to attach
all of the parts. And so then they would have competitions.
And, suddenly, when they had to figure out, oh, I need a 2-inch
piece for this or a 1-1/2-centimeter for that, whatever the
math they were looking at, they suddenly were making that
connection with the math because they were doing something with
hands-on skills.
I think we can just look at how we are teaching things
differently and looking at a lot of those projects that are
being brought in by the private sector. They get great results.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
And I just want to get your thoughts on the activities of
the Chinese Students and Scholars Association in America that
is collectively overseen by the CCP's United Front Work
Department.
According to one academic estimate, the China Scholarship
Council funds around 18 percent of all Chinese national
students in the United States. The CSC is the Chinese
Government-run talent recruitment program, overseen by the
Ministry of Public Security, among other government agencies,
that directs students' research priorities and requires
students to sign loyalty pledges to the CCP.
I am wondering if there are rules and procedures that you
have in place to mitigate the risk posed by the CSC to research
security and student safety and if it is something that we can
strengthen those rules by working with you and the Department.
Secretary McMahon. I would like to work with you on that. I
need to learn more about it. I am not all that familiar with it
at this point. But I would look forward to working with you on
that.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much.
Madam Secretary, in three minutes we can't really do much
in terms of these questions.
Let me say, as somebody who is a strong supporter of
education, Frederick Douglass said, ``It is easier to build
strong children than it is to repair broken men.''
Agnew, Ted Agnew, said, ``The cost of failure far exceeds
the price of progress.''
If we fail in educating our children--let me make sure that
maybe we ought to be a little humble. Many of the countries
that score much better than we do, how is their education
system organized? Now, I know the question is rhetorical. By
nations. Not by this group.
Why did Mississippi do so badly? Because they were poor.
Why did Louisiana do so poorly? Because they were poor. Not
totally. They are getting greater wealth now.
But we ought to be working together, because I can't
believe there is a member of this dais or sitting before us
that doesn't want children to do better. Why? Because we are in
a very competitive world.
And we ought to be humble enough to understand that the
nations we are competing with--you mentioned China. They are
turning out some pretty damn good people. They are competing
very heavily with us in a Federal Government-organized system.
Does that mean we ought to go to that system? Absolutely
not. Do we like our freedom and individual effort and
innovation? We do.
But yelling at one another and pretending that, ``You
Democrats are all for just mediocrity,'' it is absurd, any more
than I would look to the Republican side of the aisle and don't
think they want Frederick Douglass' vision to be realized. We
all do.
But this is not a cooperative administration that says they
want to close down the Department of Education without saying
how we are going to replace it, without doing some study,
without coming to the Congress and saying let's talk about
this.
Let us presume that we do want similar objectives, and that
is a well-educated, healthy country. And so I would urge you to
be part of that conversation, not part of that directive that
we are going to shut down this agency.
I don't think this agency is going to be shut down. I don't
think the will of the people as reflected by the Congress is
going to effect that end.
And I think you have been very articulate. I care deeply
about this, as I told you. There are 86 Judith P. Hoyer Early
Childhood Education Centers in our State. She brought everybody
together, full service, not stovepipe, not you are a teacher,
you are a nurse, you are a social service, you help parents
have housing. She brought them together. We have 86 of those
centers.
We need to bring America together in saying we are not
accomplishing an objective we all know is critically important,
and that is making sure that every one of our children is not a
cost to us, but a contributor to the welfare of our country.
Then America will be great.
Secretary McMahon. Well said. I certainly appreciate that.
The fact is, sir, with all due respect, we have failed with
everything that we have put in place, with programs of the best
of intentions, and working together, and we have not done it
well enough. We have failed our students, to look at these
scores. We have to do something different.
I definitely want to work with Congress, because that is
the only way I think that we can achieve our goals, is working
with Congress, and I look forward to that.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
Representative Bice.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you.
And thank you, Madam Secretary, for staying some additional
time.
I want to circle back on my final question in the earlier
round in regards to the antisemitism we have seen across the
country, not only in colleges and universities, but also in
elementary schools across the country.
I mentioned I have an individual, a friend of mine, whose
daughters were at a public school. They were harassed and the
issues are not addressed, and the parents were forced to take
their children out of a public school and put them into a
private school for their own safety.
And so I would like to--you wanted to, I think, follow up
on that issue and I wanted to give you the opportunity.
Secretary McMahon. Thank you.
Certainly, the President has made it very clear that he
does not condone any kind of discrimination, racial, and
especially, we have seen it, religious, we have seen it across
our college campuses, some of the most elite in the country.
And we took very strong and very decisive action against
those universities who clearly were not protecting Jewish
students against antisemitism, where they were antisemitic,
those that were attacking them.
When you have seen students barricaded in a library and
others pounding on the glass, going, ``Death to Jews, death to
Israel, death to the United States,'' that is unacceptable in
our college campuses.
And we reacted. We reacted to Columbia, who at first did
not. That happened, this incident happened at Columbia.
And I met with the president of Columbia. I have had two
conversations now with the current president of Columbia. We
have talked about things that we need to do at those
universities. We want to be able to be supportive.
But those universities, albeit they are private, do receive
Federal funding. We have leverage to withhold some of that
Federal funding or to cancel some of the grants, and we will do
that unless it can be proven that these colleges and
universities are going to respect all rights and set their
policy in place and enforce them.
And I was complimentary to the acting president now at
Columbia, Claire Shipman, when I talked to her last week, and I
said, ``You reacted just as you said you would to the recent
uprising on campus. You are looking at whether or not you have
suspended students. Are you going to expel them?'' And that is
still what she is looking at.
So we have seen that that kind of action can deliver
results.
Mrs. Bice. And I appreciate that very much. I want to make
sure that we also focus on elementary, K-12, because it is
happening in our public school system as well.
The last thing is I have introduced legislation the last
two Congresses titled the Workforce and Education Partnership
Act, which incentivizes public-private partnerships between
educational institutions and employers to improve workforce
development. You mentioned it earlier in your testimony, that
this is something your agency is looking at. I would love to
work with you on that legislation.
Secretary McMahon. Thank you. I look forward to that.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
I yield.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
Representative Frankel.
Ms. Frankel. Listen, I am not going to ask, myself, any
questions. So you can listen carefully. But thank you. We might
not agree on everything, but thank you so much for being here.
A couple of follow-ups.
First on this discrimination, the antisemitism and so
forth. My understanding is that half of the Office of Civil
Rights is now on what is called a RIF. That means they are
going to be fired in June. Half of your staff are going to be
fired in June. And there is a cut, a proposed cut of $49
million, which is a 35 percent cut.
So what I am asking you to do, if you are sincere about
fighting antisemitism and also all kinds of unlawful
discrimination, that you please take a look at that.
And there are a couple of other things I would like you to
take a look at.
Near and dear to my heart, as the mom of a United States
marine veteran who actually did go to college, but I saw him
when he came back, and I have known other veterans, and I see
the difficulty sometimes they are having transitioning to
everyday life.
He is good. He is fine now. That is not the problem here.
But a lot of veterans come back. They want to go to college.
They haven't been to college. And it is, for lots of them, the
transition is difficult.
So we have a small amount of money set up, these student
veteran centers at colleges around the country, and they are
very, very successful, and they are at risk of being cut. They
are in the current budget.
I would like you to take a look at that and see whether or
not you can fund them, because applications are supposed to go
out now for the grants. Please look at that.
The other thing I would like you to look at, yesterday I
was in a meeting with healthcare professionals, and they are
concerned with this, the limit on the Pell grant eligibility,
the cap on the amount students can borrow, and especially
eliminating the grad PLUS loan program, which helps the
graduate students, including those in medicine and nurses, to
cover the full cost of tuition and living expenses while
exhausting standard loans.
And they were very, very, very concerned, and they said we
have a big shortage--I think we are in a--there is a shortage
of doctors and nurses. And they believe that by eliminating
this PLUS program we are going to lose lots of people from
entering the medical field.
So I would just ask you to please take a look at that. You
can answer, but I really don't have a question, other than
would you please take a look at those items?
Secretary McMahon. Yes, we will, because I do think it is
really incumbent. We do know that we have a shortage of nurses
and doctors.
And I think there are a lot of educational programs that we
can look at to train nurse technicians to get them into the
marketplace faster to service a lot of the needs. And so a lot
of those different kind of programs I would like to discuss
with you.
Ms. Frankel. Okay. And take a look at those loan programs,
because that is what they are worried about. And, again, let's
enforce the discrimination and let's help our veterans.
And with that, I yield back.
Secretary McMahon. Thank you.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
Representative Letlow.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, I know you have addressed it multiple
times today, but just to put my constituents at ease.
I represent a mostly rural district, and I know there has
been a lot of fearmongering out there about Title I funding.
Can you help me put their minds at ease that those dollars
will find a way to get down to the rural districts who don't
always have access to a different option for their children?
Secretary McMahon. Title I funding is--Title 1-A funding is
totally intact.
Ms. Letlow. Wonderful. I will be sure to let them know
that.
Last year I actually questioned Secretary Cardona on his
handling of providing more administrative staff to work on
student loan forgiveness as opposed to the disastrous FAFSA
rollout that we were dealing with.
I come from higher education, so I know how detrimental
that can be for higher ed, and especially for parents and
students trying to figure out what college they are going to go
to.
So can you kind of put our minds at ease, that what is the
Department doing to ensure that the Federal student aid offices
are returning to its focus--to its core mission, which is
serving students, administering aid, and supporting successful
loan repayment, making sure that they are doing their jobs?
Secretary McMahon. Yeah. Well, we have spent quite a bit of
effort with FSA and with the FAFSA program as well. That kind
of went off the rails.
So it is back on. It is up and running and ready. The
current year is proceeding as it should. We are getting the
year after that and year after that ready to be in place. And
we have made great strides in doing that. And so we are back up
and running and functioning fully.
Ms. Letlow. Thank you so much. My universities will be
ecstatic to hear that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
Representative Dean.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary McMahon, I wanted to hit quickly two topics.
Mental health cuts. The administration cut a billion
dollars--well, actually, let's put it this way, just stopped
paying a billion dollars allocated for the Mental Health
Service Professional Demonstration Grant and School-Based
Mental Health Services Grant.
Do you recognize that our schoolchildren are struggling
with mental health, many of our children are struggling with
mental health?
Secretary McMahon. I think mental health is----
Mr. Dean. Do you recognize our students are struggling?
Secretary McMahon. I think it is a critical component
around the country.
Mr. Dean. Our students?
Secretary McMahon. Some students, yes.
Mr. Dean. Yes. It was made worse during the time of COVID.
It is exacerbated by school shootings.
I noted that you said you were going to meet with parents
and children who had struggled and suffered the trauma of
school shootings.
I have done that. Over the years, sadly, I have had the
opportunity to meet with Uvalde parents, with Parkland parents,
with Sandy Hook parents.
Are you meeting with parents and children, students, in
those places?
Secretary McMahon. I have only in Sandy Hook because that
happened in my State of Connecticut. So I have met with some of
those parents shortly after, and I can't imagine a more
horrible tragedy than that.
Mr. Dean. How about the students to see how they are
affected?
Secretary McMahon. I have not talked to many of the
students, no.
Mr. Dean. Do you plan to do that?
Secretary McMahon. Sure. I would enjoy doing that.
Mr. Dean. How soon can you do that? Because you did talk
about doing that on CNN recently.
Secretary McMahon. I am not sure how quickly.
Mr. Dean. You are the Secretary, you could do whatever you
want, because, after all, you are cutting all this funding. You
have got time.
Secretary McMahon. I have got a lot of responsibilities to
do, and we are going to focus on the things that I think are
going to ensure that we are providing equal education for all
of the students in our country.
Mr. Dean. That is great, which is just in contrast to
actually what you have said and what you said the President
cares about. He wants the best-educated students, right? He
wants to make education great again, right?
Secretary McMahon. Yes.
Mr. Dean. I don't understand. It seems like a logic fallacy
to me. You think the Federal Department of Education is not
living up to what it ought to be doing and you cite some
statistics for students who are not doing as well as they ought
to be, and yet you decide that the answer to that is not to
check on these investments and make sure students are
achieving, it is shut the whole doggone thing down.
Secretary McMahon. Well, the fallacy----
Mr. Dean. That doesn't make any sense.
Secretary McMahon. Well, I think the fallacy is the way you
are stating it. And what I have looked at and said from the
very beginning, we have failed. This system we have in place
does not work.
Mr. Dean. So it is your mission to shut it down.
Secretary McMahon. It is to remove that. It is the mission
to shut down the bureaucracy of the Department of Education and
return it to----
Mr. Dean. To shut down the Department of Education.
Secretary McMahon. To shut down the bureaucracy.
Mr. Dean. What is the balance right now----
Secretary McMahon. To shut down the bureaucracy of the
Department of Education.
Mr. Dean. What is the balance right now in the funding for
education? What is the split, the pie chart? How much is
Federal? How much is State and local?
Secretary McMahon. Federal is about 8 to 10 percent.
Mr. Dean. Correct. The rest is State and local. The burden
is already there. And you don't want to come up with the 8
percent to help our kids succeed, to help their mental health,
to help kids with disabilities.
Secretary McMahon. No, you are wrong. You are misstating.
Mr. Dean. It is a logic fallacy.
Secretary McMahon. No, no, no, you are misstating. The
funding, it is not taking away all of this funding. I have
already said Title I-A funding, IDEA funding is still going to
come----
Mr. Dean. How about the mental health funding?
Secretary McMahon. There may be some more of that funding.
If HHS oversees them, the mental funding----
Mr. Dean. But the President has unconstitutionally cut off
that----
Secretary McMahon [continuing]. then, therefore, that
funding may come into those States. So I think we have to see
how the full budget happens.
Mr. Dean. How about students with disabilities?
Secretary McMahon. And I think we have to see what those
programs are that are going to best serve every student and not
just be put by the wayside.
Mr. Dean. As I said, on page 1 of your testimony you said--
--
Mr. Moolenaar. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. Dean [continuing]. The President's vision is to make
education great again. It is a logic fallacy, but I guess we
are not going to teach our kids about logic fallacies.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you.
Secretary McMahon. We haven't yet with the Department of
Education in place the way it has been since 1980. I am on the
record of ruling for change.
Mr. Moolenaar. I now recognize the ranking member for her
closing statement.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Madam Secretary, for being here. I
appreciate your time and your effort.
Let me just repeat, State and local taxes overwhelmingly
pay for education in this country. And what we do know is that
if you block grant current Federal funding and you get it to
the States, there is a cut. There will be programs cut.
What we do not know anything about at the moment is what is
going to be cut. We have no knowledge and we are doing this
hearing about appropriating dollars on a budget that we know
nothing of at the moment.
So given that--but block grants we know are cuts, everybody
at this dais, people who are here and people who are gone. And
more than anything else, the States know that. You talk to any
governor and they will tell you they are going to cut our
funding.
And I dare to say there are not a lot of States today and a
lot of governors who have the resources that they will need in
order to be able to continue these programs.
Let me also say, Madam Secretary, as I said in my remarks,
you have no authority to dismantle the Department of Education.
The President has no authority to dismantle the Department of
Education.
And, yes, the Supreme Court has opined on that, with
Supreme Court Justice Scalia saying there is no inherent
authority. And there are plenty of other cases and court
determinations that it is not there. So you don't have the
authority. You do not have the authority to steal
congressionally appropriated dollars. That is in the United
States Constitution.
I hear people in the administration talking about adhering
to the Constitution. Article I, it is there.
So what you are doing now--we will get to your budget for
2026--what has happened right now is unlawful. It is unlawful.
And you have really unlawfully created and recklessly
canceled grants for mental health, for the professionals in our
schools, psychologists, counselors, social workers. Grants to
support effective educator development. Teacher Quality
Partnership Grants to make sure that more qualified educators
are entering classrooms and relieving local teacher shortages.
The Institute of Education contracts through researchers so
we can learn about what works and what doesn't work, to improve
student literacy, which you care about, reduce chronic
absenteeism, ensure college students complete their degrees so
that they can get a good job.
You have no authority. If children, teachers, principals
benefited from a federally appropriated program in the last
school year, they should benefit from that program this school
year and not be subjected to any unlawful chaos that you seek
to impose on them.
You said right here, and several times this morning, that
you will abide by the law, and I believe that. The law, the
2025 budget, is under a continuing resolution based on the 2024
budget, which has pages of directives as to what can be--what
are the resources for, what the programs are for.
I understand you and your commitment to abide by the law,
which means that we are going to reverse these efforts that
apply to 2025, and we will hold you accountable to that.
I am glad to hear that you will abide by the law. And we
all know what the law is. It was passed in the House. It was
passed in the Senate. Civics 101. And the President signed it.
It is the law of the land. You can't back off it willy-nilly.
Let me mention just I have a copy here of the table, Labor,
Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies,
here, and this is--and most of the 2026 budget. And people need
to know this.
Impact Aid, we have no information about. Comprehensive
Literacy Development Grant, eliminated. Innovative Approaches
to Literacy, eliminated.
We go to School Improvement Programs, most of it to be
determined. We don't know where it is all going here. Indian
Education, no info, to be determined.
Innovation and improvement, basically there is money for
the charter schools, but everything else is to be determined.
Safe Schools and Citizenship Education, no information.
English Language Acquisition, eliminated.
I go back to my father. Couldn't read or write the
language. They laughed at him and he left school. We do have
kids in our schools who need to have English language and to do
it quickly. That is what we talk about here.
Special education. Rehabilitation services--I am sorry,
rehabilitation services and disability research, no info.
Special Institutions for Persons With Disabilities, no info.
Career, Technical, and Adult Education, training, no info.
And we had the Secretary of Labor here just a few days ago and
they have eliminated adult training and youth training in the
WIOA programs here.
Adult education here, eliminated. We don't know what will
happen to Pell grants. That is to be determined. The FSEOG
program, Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant,
eliminated. Student Aid Administration, to be determined.
This is--higher education, eliminated, parts of it, or
there are--or no specifics.
International education in foreign language, no specifics.
Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual
Disabilities, you got Federal Work-Study, you got TRIO and GEAR
UP, eliminated. No specifics.
Teacher Quality Partnership, eliminated. Childcare Access
Means Parents in School, eliminated. Fund for the Improvement
of Postsecondary Education, eliminated. Howard University, no
real specifics in that effort.
Long and the short of it, this is the table that this
committee with appropriations, what we are doing without any
information. Without any information we are being asked to
provide resources and resources that have been cut by 15
percent. The $12 billion, we have no idea where it is coming
from.
So the 18 programs are getting eliminated, replaced with a
block grant that is cutting $4.5 billion, and we have no idea
and no detail of what is on the chopping block. That should say
something to my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee,
because this is our job.
The role of Secretary of Education is an enormous
responsibility. The American people look to the man or woman
who holds this post as someone who performs their
responsibilities with deep knowledge of our public schools and
colleges.
But when you opine about strategies to improve literacy,
how to improve academic achievement, or help people get a
college degree, I struggle to see why the public should look to
you as such an authority.
What experiences, what knowledge that you bring into this
role that should give them any confidence that what you say or
what the administration is saying is credible in terms of the
future of their children.
It is beyond distressing, Madam Secretary, to see public
education decimated. And as I said in my remarks, not on our
watch.
I yield back.
Mr. Moolenaar. Thank you, Ranking Member.
And, Madam Secretary, I want to thank you for being with us
today and for your testimony. I have been very encouraged to
hear about your efforts to make American education great again,
and you are doing it by empowering States to take back the
reins of education from the Federal Government in Washington,
D.C.
Also encouraged by your efforts to put families at the
forefront of their children's education, which is where it
should be, and by emphasizing parental choice, charter schools,
and other education freedom policies.
Nothing is more important to parents than the education of
their children.
Similarly, I am pleased to hear about your efforts to rein
in waste, fraud, and abuse within the Department.
And finally, I would like to thank you for your efforts to
ensure that both K-12 and institutions of higher education
adhere to civil rights laws, especially to address
discrimination.
As you noted in your testimony, every student deserves an
education free from bias, unfair treatment, or ideological
agendas that undermine equal opportunity.
So thank you again, Madam Secretary, for your hard work and
for joining us today, and we look forward to partnering with
you as we consider the Department's budget request.
And with that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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Kennedy, Hon. Robert............................................. 6
Chavez-Deremer, Hon. Lori........................................ 140
McMahon, Hon. Linda.............................................. 302
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