Bioeconomy Research and Development Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Members on both sides of the aisle want more transparency and accountability in postsecondary education, but that is not what this amendment accomplishes.

This amendment is a Trojan horse for violating privacy rights of students through colleges and universities.

Many of my colleagues who support this amendment are not completely informed or have not thought through the implications of some of its provisions.

This amendment would direct the Federal Government to create a data system that tracks every college student in America through their adult lives without their consent and without giving them the ability to opt out.

This sounds more like a scheme the Chinese Communist Party would manufacture than a bipartisan amendment to a bill meant to combat Chinese influence.

Don't be fooled. This amendment might use words like ``security,'' but in reality, it puts the privacy of Americans at risk.

Some of these Federal agencies have already been hacked by Russian intelligence and fraudsters. Who is to say it won't happen again?

I don't trust foxes in my henhouse, and I surely don't trust Washington bureaucrats with a database of the personal and private information of my children and grandchildren, or yours.

And what will the Biden administration do with the tax records, Social Security information, and the private data of Americans? The answer is simply, exert more control.

This amendment isn't about transparency or accountability, but about giving Washington bureaucrats the ability to choose winners and losers among institutions of postsecondary education. For example, the Pell grant provisions herd Americans looking for alternative career pathways into the same colleges and universities that failed them in the first place while blocking them from pursuing programs offered by career- focused schools simply based on their tax status--even if these institutions can meet the 11 pages of arbitrary and prescriptive guardrails the amendment puts in place.

This amendment does nothing to improve our broken system of postsecondary education. Instead, it exacerbates our skills gap and labor shortage and forces Americans to concede their privacy to an administration that looks more and more like the authoritarian regime we are supposedly trying to combat.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller).

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller).

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, giving this same administration that weaponized the Federal Government against concerned parents the power to collect sensitive information about all college students, whether they accept financial aid or not is unacceptable.

I am not surprised that Democrats are trying to use this amendment to overhaul postsecondary education without holding a single legislative hearing or markup. Democrats have a track record of bypassing the legislative process when it suits their ends. We must resist the Democrats' egregious power grab.

Madam Speaker, this is a moral issue. I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Levin amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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