Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. STEEL. Mr. Chair, I thank the chairwoman, Dr. Foxx, for yielding time.

Actually, this has nothing to do with an anti-Asian bill. This is my bill, and we want to protect our children from this propaganda.

Yesterday, before the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the entire world, leaders of three of our Nation's most prestigious universities failed to demonstrate the most basic levels of humanity when discussing anti-Semitism on campus.

Make no mistake: Their lack of moral clarity shows exactly what happens when we permit hostile foreign actors like Qatar, Iran, and Communist China to buy influence on our college campuses.

When they give money without return, actually, there is no such thing as a free lunch. That is why today I am offering a legislative solution to crack down on this crisis in our higher education system. That is why I rise today to urge support and passage of the DETERRENT Act.

Justice Brandeis once said: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As we saw yesterday, our college campuses are infected.

The DETERRENT Act brings desperately needed sunlight by strengthening transparency and disclosure requirements under section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965.

While the previous administration reinvigorated the use of this tool, the current administration has repeatedly downplayed the threat of foreign actors and failed to take meaningful steps to protect our students, research, and national security. If the President will not act, Congress must.

The DETERRENT Act has three pillars to strengthen section 117. The first pillar brings much-needed transparency.

Foreign adversaries look for any loophole to hide their intentions. This is especially true for states that pose the greatest threats to our Nation, like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

The DETERRENT Act eliminates these loopholes by lowering the foreign gifts reporting threshold from $250,000 to $50,000 for all foreign donors and eliminating the threshold entirely for those from countries of concern.

The bill also requires the disclosures include detailed information about the foreign source, the intent of the gift, and the complete text of any contracts with the concerned entities.

The second pillar of my bill establishes accountability. For too long, schools have adopted a take the money first, ask questions later approach to billions of dollars of foreign funds.

As reporting and congressional oversight revealed in the case of UC Berkeley in my home State of California, these problematic relationships are often discovered years after the fact when the damage has already been done.

Requiring timely transparency for institutions receiving foreign funds means ensuring the penalties for nonreporting are more than a slap on the wrist.

The DETERRENT Act institutes a progressive fine schedule, culminating in the loss of title IV funding for noncompliant universities. The bill also sets up an institutional point of contact so institutions cannot use the faceless bureaucracy to claim ignorance of unreported foreign funds on their campuses.

The third and final pillar of the DETERRENT Act is clarity. The DETERRENT Act streamlines the bureaucratic reporting process and aligns section 117 with other laws. It shifts the reporting schedule from a biannual to an annual basis, using reporting thresholds from existing law to avoid confusion.

It improves communication between the Department of Education and institutions by mandating a point of contact on section 117 for institutions to utilize at the Department. It also requires periodic meetings between the Department and institutions to discuss improvements to online reporting.

Section 117 has not been updated in more than 30 years. These reforms are long overdue.

The DETERRENT Act is a commonsense bill that adds transparency, accountability, and clarity to section 117. That is why it passed the Education and the Workforce Committee in a bipartisan vote.

Let's protect our students from this propaganda. Mr. Chair, I urge every Member of this body to vote ``yes'' on the DETERRENT Act.

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