Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1049, the Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act, the TRACE Act. This bill suffers from many of the same shortcomings in the earlier bill we just discussed. This bill, H.R. 1049, would require schools to allow parents to access certain information if it was paid for by a foreign entity of concern. It doesn't say ``China.'' It says ``foreign entity of concern.''

This includes all teachers' and administrators' professional development material and salary information, as well as the school districts' contracts and records for all materials purchased from or paid for by a foreign entity of concern. While this is not currently required by law, parents now already have access to their children's records, including their curriculum, under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, or PPRA.

It is worth noting that there is no evidence that foreign entities of concern are contributing to public schools at any scale. We have already noted that there are five Confucius Institutes throughout the United States, throughout 15,000 school systems.

H.R. 1049 would impose new layers of reporting, auditing, and bureaucracy on every school district in the Nation. Yet, once again, this is without allocating a single dollar to support these added responsibilities.

For years, my Republican colleagues have warned against unfunded mandates. They have rightly criticized Federal actions that impose requirements on States and local communities that cannot afford to implement those policies.

Yet, H.R. 1049 is precisely that, another unfunded mandate wrapped around rhetoric but lacking in substance. At a time when our schools need smaller class sizes, they need to pay teachers more, and they need more academic support for students, the last thing they need is a new stack of new Federal compliance paperwork.

That would include the professional development to inform every school official what a foreign entity of concern is and where they can get the most recent list.

Let me underscore the broader point though. At the same time as congressional Republicans are creating additional bureaucratic hurdles for K-12, the Trump administration is actively dismantling the Department of Education.

Who is going to enforce these mandates anyway?

I challenge my colleagues, many of whom privately acknowledge that abolishing the Department of Education is a mistake, to actually oppose those actions publicly. Our schools need stability and support, not disarray and mixed messages.

Mr. Speaker, again, I oppose the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, if there was real evidence of influence, I think we would have heard specifically what that evidence is. We haven't.

My colleagues keep talking about China, about the Confucius Institute. At last count, there were only five active programs in 15,000 school divisions. There used to be more. There are only about five now.

This bill is going to be hard to manage. It is difficult, if not impossible, to easily access the most recent list of foreign entities of concern.

As we have pointed out, this bill doesn't talk about China. It talks about foreign entities of concern. That list can change without notice. In fact, the most recent list from the Department of State has 91 listings, 12 added since Labor Day of this year. Good luck to those 15,000 superintendents who have to keep up with that list, with the added problem that the Departments of Energy and the Treasury also keep separate lists. Those 15,000 superintendents have to keep up with those lists, too.

At its core, this is just another unfunded mandate, where you have to train 15,000 superintendents and unlimited numbers of principals so they will know what a foreign entity of concern is and how to deal with it with this new legislation. It burdens our already overstretched schools with new reporting requirements, new paperwork, and new bureaucratic hurdles, all without adding a single dollar to help them meet their obligations. Our educators deserve meaningful support, not legislative gestures that create more problems than they solve.

For these reasons, I will be voting ``no'' and urge my colleagues to reject this measure and refocus our efforts on policies that will actually strengthen our public schools.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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