Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, children are the Nation's future, but, sadly, the life and bright future of hundreds of thousands of children are threatened each year by abuse and neglect. Mr. Speaker, S. 1147 allows for grants for child sexual abuse prevention programs in schools, equipping educators to recognize and report signs of abuse early. Jenna Quinn's story reminds us of the urgency to act, and this bill ensures that we continue to safeguard vulnerable children from preventable cases of sexual assault. I believe this legislation, in the face of evil, will help prevent child sexual abuse and help identify children who are experiencing these horrible acts to be put on a path towards healing. By passing S. 1147, Congress is taking meaningful steps to prevent additional child abuse and neglect by providing States with the tools necessary to strengthen child abuse prevention services. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 5355) to ensure that the National Advisory Council on Indian Education includes at least 1 member who is the president of a Tribal College or University.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 5355.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 5355, the National Advisory Council on Indian Education Improvement, or NACIE, Act. NACIE is the Department of Education's Tribal advisory group, composed of 15 members who are appointed by the President. NACIE advises the Secretaries of both the Education Department and the Department of the Interior on programs serving Tribes and members. Currently, there is no requirement that a Tribal college or university, TCU, president sit on the board. As a result, the Education Department's Tribal consultation sessions often do not provide the opportunity for TCU leaders, who are the prominent leaders in Tribal post-secondary education, to provide direct input. S. 5355 requires at least one of NACIE's members be the president of a TCU. In doing so, the legislation would give TCUs a seat at the table when discussing Tribal education. Simply put, this bipartisan legislation ensures TCUs have a voice in decisions that directly impact Native-American students. Strengthening our Nation's post-secondary education system means supporting all types of colleges and universities. Today, we can take an important step to strengthen TCUs, which play an important role in serving students and expanding the opportunities for skills and a post- secondary education in communities across America. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, TCUs provide an important doorway to postsecondary education for many American students. TCUs know best what their students and communities need. S. 5355, the National Advisory Council on Indian Education Improvement (NACIE) Act, will give TCUs a seat at the table during the decisionmaking process. This will not only ensure that Native-American students are better served, but it will also ensure that taxpayer resources will be used more efficiently and effectively. TCUs provide an important doorway to postsecondary education for many students. This bipartisan legislation will help strengthen that voice and the voice of the postsecondary education leaders who deserve to share their unique experiences and guidance with the rest of NACIE. Mr. Speaker, before I yield back my time, I will take a few minutes to reflect on my time leading the Education and the Workforce Committee. First, I applaud the committee's ranking member, Bobby Scott. You wouldn't think a Democrat with two Harvard degrees would have much in common with a Republican who grew up without running water or electricity and was the first in her family to go to college, but we are both realists who want to get things done. We are passionate about the committee's issues. It has been a pleasure to work alongside Bobby. Our colleagues have heard us say this before, but we both share the sentiment that you can disagree without being disagreeable. Let me say something about the work of the committee it was my honor to lead for two terms. My family grew up poor, but my parents always believed in the power of education and hard work. My work on the committee has centered on ensuring those who grew up like me can accomplish anything they set their minds to and that education can help them do it. Unfortunately, students and parents have been living through an education nightmare characterized by massive learning loss, attacks on parental rights, a leftist takeover of curricula, and plummeting confidence in our education system. To put our students on a path to success, I have worked with my colleagues to pass the Parents Bill of Rights, fight for school choice, protect women's sports, push for lower college costs and more accountability, and promote strong workforce development programs. The committee has also fought attempts by the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to push all workers into unions and extend the Federal Government's control over the workforce. Additionally, we have worked to protect the retirement savings of workers and retirees, save private insurance and increase healthcare affordability, protect small businesses, allow flexible work arrangements, and expand worker choice. We have been busy, Mr. Speaker. Of course, I can't talk about the committee's work without talking about my passion for accountability. As elected Representatives, it is our duty to hold the Federal Government to the highest standard of accountability so that hardworking taxpayer dollars are used effectively and efficiently. When we push for answers, parents are no longer left in the dark, lawmakers are better informed when it comes time to consider legislation, and American taxpayers see where their hard-earned money is going. None of the work accomplished by the committee was done by me alone. I was bolstered at every turn by the support and efforts of my colleagues. More importantly, I had the incredible talent of a dedicated staff. Mr. Speaker, when I first came to Congress, I heard Members on the floor saying all these fabulous things about their staff, and it was hard for me to envision at the beginning how important the staff could be, but I have certainly come to understand that as the chair of the committee. To all of the staff, I say thank you, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Congressman Scott's comments very much. We have worked together very well. Now I urge my colleagues to vote for S. 5355, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, thank you so much my colleague from Texas and all the people who have come here to praise Dr. Michael Burgess. I join them in recognizing him on his pending retirement. For over two decades, he has more than ably represented the people of the 26th District of Texas, as well as all Americans. Alongside his outstanding service on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Budget Committee, Michael Burgess was selected this year as the chairman of the Rules Committee where he and I served together in years past. Having engaged with him many times this year in the hot seat opposite the dais where he sat, I can attest that he has done a fine job of leading the Rules Committee. Dr. Burgess is a person of strong intellect and wisdom, along with collegiality and good humor. Dr. Burgess, you will be sorely missed for all your wonderful traits. I also want you to know that you and your family are in my prayers. I know you are in the prayers of our entire Conference, as well as many others. Mr. Speaker, I associate myself with the other kind comments and positive comments and true comments that have been made about you tonight. My hope is that God will continue to bless you and keep you and your family in the palm of His hands. We really will miss you, Mike. Thank you for your great service.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 4077) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 180 Steuart Street in San Francisco, California, as the ``Dianne Feinstein Post Office''.

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

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This bill would rename a post office in San Francisco, California, as the Dianne Feinstein Post Office. Feinstein was the longest serving Senator to represent California and the longest serving female Senator in the history of the United States. S. 4077 would honor the memory of Dianne Feinstein. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I have no further comments, and I am ready to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, hiring people based on their unique individual skills is something I have promoted all my life. It is precisely why I introduced the Chance to Compete Act. As the largest employer in the Nation with almost 2.2 million employees, it is time for the Federal Government to base its hiring on verifiable skills instead of degrees or self-evaluation. People should be hired on their ability to do the job. This is a commonsense idea that the private sector figured out a long time ago. It is easy to see that current Federal hiring practices are broken. These hiring practices rely on how many degrees one has and on self- evaluations that allow candidates to grossly inflate their own qualifications. They can claim to be experts on a particular subject, but they are not being evaluated by an objective standard. Hardworking American taxpayers are the ones who are forced to pay for employees who cannot properly perform their own jobs. I have even seen this play out recently while my office has been dealing with FEMA and other Federal agencies in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Fortunately, there is a better way. The Chance to Compete Act allows the Federal Government to retain subject matter experts, those who know what it takes to do a job, who design and administer skills-based assessments to job seekers. This is designed to identify candidates who have the professional wherewithal to complete a job. These assessments also weed out those applicants who merely claim to be experts and have the right degree on paper. The Trump administration recognized this issue with an executive order in 2020 by directing agencies to identify qualified applicants to hire people based on objective standards, such as structured interviews, knowledge, or writing tests. It is good that the Congress will codify this effort by passing this law and the Trump administration will be able to implement it. The Federal Government owes it to taxpayers to hire people based on their ability to do the job. The House recognized this when it passed the House version of the Chance to Compete Act in January of 2023 in a vote of 422 to 2. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass this carefully crafted Senate compromised version, S. 59, today.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, a new report from Parents Defending Education, PDE, revealed that the Biden-Harris administration spent over $1 billion of taxpayer money on so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. DEI is the woke addiction that the Biden-Harris administration simply cannot quit. Instead of becoming a more perfect Union, DEI turns our schools, communities, and cities into cesspools of divisiveness and hate. We know DEI bureaucracies are also notorious drivers of campus anti-Semitism. PDE's new report is jaw-dropping, and it confirms that this administration was more concerned about contorting the minds of America's future leaders rather than educating them. This relentless push to tell students what to think instead of how to think must stop. Fortunately for parents, students, and hardworking taxpayers, President Trump sees DEI for what it is: a cancer that is divisive, excessive, and ineffective.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I also rise to recognize Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is retiring at the end of the 118th Congress. In 2004, the two of us came to the House in the same class, and we have been friends throughout our time here. Cathy has the distinction of being the first woman to give birth three times while in the House. She is a visible and vocal leader within the disabilities community, and her advocacy is inspired by her son, Cole, who was born with Down syndrome. I thank the gentlewoman for her years of service to this great institution, to her constituents in Washington's Fifth Congressional District, and to the American people. May God continue to bless her, her husband, Brian; and Cole, Grace, and Brynn, their three children, as she enters a well-deserved retirement.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Congresswoman Kay Granger of Texas, who will be retiring at the end of the 118th Congress. For close to three decades, the gentlewoman has represented Texas' 12th Congressional District in the people's House, and she made history as the first Republican woman to represent Texas in the people's House. From her staunch support of the military to her defense of border security, Congresswoman Granger has built a reputation as a rock-ribbed conservative and someone who many look up to, especially when she chaired the House Appropriations Committee. Kay Granger's departure is a serious loss to the people's House. I thank the gentlewoman for her years of service to this great institution, to her constituents in Texas' 12th Congressional District, and to the American people. Mr. Speaker, may God continue to bless the gentlewoman and her family as she enjoys a well-deserved retirement.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I am immensely grateful to call Debbie Lesko not only a colleague but also a genuine friend. She is someone I admire. Debbie is one of the kindest and most forgiving people I have ever met in my life. I can attest to that personally because she forgave me in a very big way. She has built a reputation as a rock-ribbed Conservative champion. From her time in the Arizona State Legislature to her service here within the people's House, she never faltered in her work to protect the values and God-given freedoms of her constituents and the American people. Her friendship and collegiality will be sorely missed as we enter into a new Congress, but I know that wherever she goes, she will continue to leave a positive, indelible mark with her work and passion. God bless Debbie, and may He continue to bless her family as she turns the page and enters a new chapter in her life.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, the Biden-Harris Education Department has once again failed America's hardworking taxpayers. For 3 years in a row, the Education Department failed its audit. In other words, the Education Department has been unable to manage effectively, efficiently, or with any sense of accuracy the resources entrusted to it. Accuracy, transparency, and consistency are critical when it comes to managing finances. The Education Department has taken a different approach. Its student loan data was full of errors, and it made up estimates it could not defend to its auditor. Bungling and bad budgeting appear to be the Education Department's blueprint. I can't tell if this is due to general ineptness or deliberate wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars, but I can tell you it is an embarrassment. The American people deserve better.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, on Roll Call No. 479, I mistakenly voted YEA when I intended to vote NAY.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for decades, Americans have been sold the line that a college degree is a prerequisite to success and economic mobility. This can be discouraging to the vast majority of the American workforce without a baccalaureate degree. However, study after study shows that this narrative no longer holds true. In the face of rising college costs, a new model for stability and success is available. It celebrates hands-on job experience. A new study of 65 million American wage earners by The Burning Glass Institute, an independent nonprofit research center, found that by the age of 40, one in five workers with only a high school diploma earned above the median income for college graduates--$70,000--without the drag-down effect of a college degree. Even more impressive is the nonprofit's finding that 5 percent of them, a cool 2 million Americans, earned six-figure salaries. How did they get started on these successful careers? One factor is what Burning Glass calls launchpad jobs. These jobs give high school students and graduates real-world, wage-earning experience that develop skills they can build careers upon. The jobs are widely varied: telemarketer, computer support specialist, software developer, flight attendant, commercial diver, and quarry rock splitter. They all offer this new route to success. A recent New York Times article profiled two young people whose success is indicative of the value of these launchpad jobs. One young man worked a summer internship at a local bank the summer after his high school graduation. This earned him a place as a full- time bank teller and soon a loan officer. Now, at the age of 21, he earns $50,000 a year--with no college debt, mind you. These launchpad jobs are not antithetical to college, either. That 21-year-old bank teller is currently getting his bachelor of arts while working as a loan officer. His job is helping him build the life he wants. One huge problem with college is that it pushes young people to study and choose a major when they have no real-world experience that would guide their choice of what and how to study. These launchpad jobs can address this obstacle. A young woman who participated in a career learning program in her junior year in high school received experience that qualified her for a job at a local pharmacy during her senior year. When she graduated high school, she had a high-earning job that she used to put herself through undergraduate school and beyond, ultimately earning a doctorate in a field she knew from firsthand experience she loved and was good at. At 28 years old, she now earns $100,000 a year as a pharmacy operations manager at a teaching hospital. She credits her success to so-called launchpad programs. She said: I never would have known of the opportunity without the work-study program. If we want to strengthen the American workforce and help young wage earners achieve economic stability and success, we need to stop shunting them into an education model that saddles them with debt and delays their real-world experience. Instead, we need to empower programs that offer high school students experiences that help develop real skills and launch young Americans into successful careers. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Patricia Bradshaw for her upcoming and well-deserved retirement after her distinguished career with the Central Intelligence Agency. Patricia began her career with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1984 as a records clerk, where it quickly became apparent that she would have an excellent career with the Agency. Working up the ranks within the Office of Security from her time as a security clearance investigator and adjudicator, to serving the Agency overseas in physical and technical security, she eventually reached the pinnacle of the Agency as the Director of the Office of Security. Over the course of her career, Patricia exemplified the epitome of the American Dream, even without obtaining a college degree. Her story is undeniable proof that with hard work and dedication to your craft, the limits of your achievements are boundless. All Americans should be immensely grateful to Patricia Bradshaw for her unwavering service and dedication to our Nation. I thank Patricia for her patriotism. On behalf of a grateful Nation, we hope she enjoys her well-earned retirement. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I have good news and bad news to share as we celebrate National Apprenticeship Week. Let's get the bad news out of the way first. The Biden-Harris administration has taken steps that would destroy the apprenticeship model. Just look at the Department of Labor's nearly 800-page proposed apprenticeship rule. This is irresponsible and reckless because we know apprenticeships are a proven strategy in closing the Nation's skills gap. With 8 million open jobs in the U.S., expanding apprenticeships will be critical to keep the American economy growing. Not only does the Department of Labor's proposed apprenticeship rule blatantly circumvent Congress, but more to the point, it sets up a regulatory gauntlet that will limit employer and sponsor participation in apprenticeships. This will effectively close a route into the workforce for Americans seeking an alternative to a baccalaureate degree. Currently, registered apprenticeship programs in the United States constitute only 0.3 percent of the labor force, a significantly lower share than many other developed countries. Further, these apprenticeships have yet to gain a foothold in growing industries like healthcare and information technology. One reason for this is that employers are discouraged from participating, and the NPRM only provides them with more reasons to stay away. Instead of buoying up the sinking ship, the administration's proposed rule smothers an already underutilized system with more red tape and a one-size-fits-all mandate. In fact, even President Biden seems to recognize that the rule will deter sponsors and employers from voluntary participation since he had to issue an executive order directing Federal agencies to coerce job creators to subject their apprenticeship programs to Federal control. What is more, the proposed rule expands Federal control over apprenticeships, injects political ideology and DEI mandates into the apprenticeship system, and imposes significant burdens on apprenticeship sponsors and employers. Here is just one example of the NPRM's expansion of control: It eliminates the competency-based model that currently permits registered apprenticeship programs to measure skill acquisition through the demonstrated attainment of competencies instead of the amount of time spent on the job learning. Competency is increasingly becoming the currency of the labor market as more employers are focusing on the skills a worker possesses, not how long it takes to acquire them. Why would the Department of Labor move apprenticeships in the opposite direction and eliminate the competency-based model, a model that has been referred to as the ``bread and butter'' of apprenticeship expansion? The people most injured by the current administration's regulatory overreach are American workers who are eager to find routes to economic independence that avoid the ballooning costs and depreciating values of a baccalaureate degree. Now it is time for the good news. Under the second Trump administration, Americans can look forward to an apprenticeship liberation that benefits students, workers, and job creators. In his previous administration, President Trump presided over a booming workforce that emphasized on-the-job learning, upskilling and reskilling opportunities for American students and workers. His industry-recognized work program was part of this success. Under the second Trump administration, we look forward to a renewal of this expansion of apprenticeship opportunities, which is so central to maintaining America's economic leadership in the world. Job creators are on the front lines of their respective industries every day, and they understand the exact skills workers need to be successful. We should empower them to provide their workers with tools for success, and we look forward to doing so under the second Trump administration through the expansion of the apprenticeship program.