Committee Republicans Rubberstamp Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda by Voting for Bills that Undermine Protections for Students, Workers, and Their Families
WASHINGTON – Today, Committee Republicans advanced three education bills, two health care bills, and one labor bill that would limit students’ access to high-quality education, undermine the Affordable Care Act, and prevent workers from investing their retirement savings as they see fit.
“When I am home in my district, I speak with constituents, and they tell me they want better public education for their children, access to affordable, quality health care, and the ability to work and retire with dignity and security. Not only do these bills fail to accomplish those goals, but many take us in the opposite direction,”said Ranking Member Scott.
H.R. 3453, the Empower Charter School Educators to Lead Act, builds upon Republicans’ school choice efforts, such as the voucher scheme included in the “Big Ugly Bill,” by expanding pre-planning grants for charter schools without requiring grantees to have applied to a charter authorizer. This bill would expose students to poor quality education without transparency or accountability.
H.R. 2516, the Accreditation for College Excellence (ACE) Act of 2025, prohibits accreditors from developing standards regarding specific partisan political, ideological viewpoints, or beliefs undermining the accreditation process. Due to its vagueness, this bill would unnecessarily politicize accountability measures for colleges and universities.
H.R. 4054, the Accreditation Choice and Innovation Act, eases the way for low-quality educational programs to evade accountability by “shopping around” for accreditors. In tandem with H.R. 2516, this bill would weaken the accreditation process and expose students to predatory, poor quality educational programs. It also allows religious institutions to bypass accreditation standards for their academic programs of study, which could mislead students about the integrity of their programs at these institutions.
H.R. 2528, the Association Health Plans Act, undermines the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and makes it more difficult for working families to access affordable, quality health care coverage by expanding Association Health Plans. Association Health Plans harm consumers by cherry-picking low-risk individuals to form a pool that charges lower premiums, while other consumers are left to pay higher premiums.
H.R. 2571, the Self-Insurance Protection Act, facilitates the inappropriate use of “stop loss” insurance as a tool to allow self-insured plans to evade critical protections under the ACA and state law. The bill would prevent state and federal regulators from protecting consumers from insurance products that lack necessary guardrails.
H.R. 2988, the Protecting Prudent Investment of Retirement Savings Act, codifies deeply flawed environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and proxy voting rules from the first Trump Administration, effectively ends worthwhile efforts to increase diversity in the asset management industry without sacrificing investment returns, and requires needless disclosure for certain investments. This bill, which underscores Republicans’ misunderstanding of ESG investing, attempts to insert politics into workers’ retirement investment decisions.
Read Ranking Member Scott’s opening statement here.
Read Democratic amendments and letters of opposition to H.R. 3453, H.R. 2516, H.R. 4054, H.R. 2528, H.R. 2571, and H.R. 2988, here.
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