Congressional Testimony
Congressional Testimony
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Tennessee Sports Wagering Council Executive Director Thomas Testifies Before Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee
WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released the following written testimony by Mary Beth Thomas, executive director of the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council, from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America":* * *
Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Subcommittee: My name is Mary Beth Thomas, and I serve as Executive Director of the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify before you about how the State of Tennessee has structured the regulation of sports ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released the following written testimony by Mary Beth Thomas, executive director of the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council, from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America": * * * Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Subcommittee: My name is Mary Beth Thomas, and I serve as Executive Director of the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify before you about how the State of Tennessee has structured the regulation of sportsbetting and how the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council works to ensure the integrity of sport.
A. Gambling in Tennessee
The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, known as PASPA, effectively outlawed sports betting nationwide with only a few exclusions. PASPA was judicially overturned in 2018 when the Supreme Court held that it infringed on state power in violation of the anti-commandeering doctrine enshrined in the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Since PASPA was overturned, state legislatures have considered whether to prohibit or permit sports betting in their own states, and if permitted, the terms under which sports betting would be allowed. Today, 39 states and the District of Columbia allow retail sports betting, online sports betting, or both.
Tennessee has a unique history with respect to gambling and games of chance.
Importantly, the Constitution of the State of Tennessee provides that the Legislature has no power to authorize lotteries for any purpose, other than a state lottery to provide financial assistance to Tennesseans to attend post-secondary educational institutions. The Legislature may not authorize games of chance associated with casinos, including, but not limited to, slot machines, roulette wheels, and the like.
The Legislature has traditionally adopted a restrictive policy approach in authorizing even those games where chance is an element but skill is the dominant factor, in part due to the long shadow cast by Operation Rocky Top. Operation Rocky Top was an FBI and TBI undercover investigation in the late 1980s into corruption related to charity bingo, which led to over 50 convictions on assorted bribery and corruption charges. The Tennessee Legislature subsequently passed legislation creating the Tennessee Gambling Act, which provides that "gambling" is "contrary to the public policy of this state and means risking anything of value for a profit whose return is to any degree contingent on chance." The Tennessee Gambling Act criminalizes both gambling and gambling promotion. Accordingly, apart from the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation and until fantasy sports contests and sports betting were authorized as games where skill is the dominant factor and statutorily removed from the definition of "gambling," there has been no other commercial gaming in Tennessee-no racetracks, no online casinos or brick and mortar casinos, and no other retail gambling locations.
B. The Tennessee Sports Gaming Act
Given that history, the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act, effective July 1, 2019, has provisions that are unique to Tennessee and address concerns and priorities specific to our State. As presently enacted, the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act creates our nine-member council called the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council, which is authorized to hire an Executive Director and other staff to carry out the day-to-day responsibilities of licensing, compliance, investigation, and other obligations under the statute. In Tennessee, it is a taxable privilege to offer sports wagering pursuant to a license issued by the Council.
Accordingly, I may refer to licensed Tennessee sportsbooks as Licensees or Operators. The Tennessee Sports Gaming Act permits only online sports betting. There are no brick-andmortar locations where wagers may be placed, and there are no wagering kiosks permitted in the State.
The provisions of the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act emphasize an effort to protect consumers from the predatory illegal market and to put previously unlicensed wagering activity under formal oversight. To that end, the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act empowers the Council with the authority to investigate unlicensed sportsbooks and issue fines against persons or entities accepting wagers without a license. Additionally, the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act requires the Council, Licensees, and registered Vendors to cooperate with investigations conducted by sports governing bodies and law enforcement agencies, including providing account-level betting information and data files relating to persons placing wagers.
As some of you may well know, the University of Tennessee Volunteers are a prominent and successful sports program in the SEC conference, and Nashville has historically been called the "Athens of the South" because of its number of colleges and universities. In line with our State's proud emphasis on college education and college sports, the state Legislature prohibited any wagers on individual player prop bets for any college sports at any time and also prohibited live or in-game team prop bets for any college sports.
Other types of wagers prohibited by statute are wagers on injuries, penalties, or elements of chance in any sport. Recognizing the need for additional prohibitions could arise that should not be delayed by the legislative calendar or the rulemaking process, the Tennessee Sports 3
Gaming Act provides that a Licensee, sports team, sports league or association, or institution of higher education may submit to the Council in writing a request to prohibit a type or form of wagering or to prohibit a category of persons from wagering as contrary to public policy, unfair to consumers, or as affecting the integrity of a particular sport or the sports betting industry. The Council will grant a request with good cause.
Speaking of prohibited persons, our Sports Gaming Act provides that sports betting is only available to persons who are 21 and up. The Sports Gaming Act also lists persons and categories of persons who are ineligible to directly or indirectly wager or bet on a sporting event in Tennessee. This includes members and employees of the Sports Wagering Council, certain persons associated with Licensees or Vendors, and any persons prohibited by the rules of a governing body of a collegiate sports team, league, or association, among others.
Violation of this ineligible person statute is a misdemeanor crime.
Our statute also provides for a voluntary state-wide self-exclusion list, which is managed by the Council and shared with all Licensees. A person who places their name on this list must be treated by Tennessee sportsbooks as a prohibited participant. Their account must be suspended, and the self-excluded person may not receive marketing or advertising.
All Licensees must also make available to players a licensee-specific self-exclusion list and provide players with options for limits on time spent betting and on amounts wagered.
Another protection within the Sports Gaming Act is that it is a misdemeanor crime for a licensed sportsbook to offer, accept, or extend credit to a bettor. A bettor may only fund their account through a method that it initiated with cash, such as electronic bank transfer or debit cards. Sportsbooks are prohibited from accepting credit cards in Tennessee.
Before I end our discussion on the framework of Tennessee's statutory environment, I'd like to discuss how the State of Tennessee taxes Operators and how that funding is used.
In Tennessee, we tax 1.85% of an Operator's handle, which means a percentage of the value of all wagers placed. We are unique in the country by taxing handle but have found that it eases financial auditing requirements because of its straightforward calculation. The handle tax includes promotional wagers so free play offered by an Operator to players does not reduce an Operators state tax liability. In addition, the State's revenue stream does not rise or fall with betting outcomes like it would with a revenue tax. In this way, the State of Tennessee does not succeed when players lose.
The majority of taxes from sports betting in Tennessee support various educational programs; however, since the original enactment of the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act, 5% of the tax supports the State of Tennessee's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse for Services to oversee grant programs with organizations to provide treatment services for individuals to address problem gaming and gambling disorders and to establish prevention initiatives to reduce the number of individuals with problem gambling or gambling disorders. These grants have supported The Gambling Clinic, which is the oldest gambling-focused treatment center in the United States and is operated by the Tennessee Institute for Gambling Education and Research (TIGER) at the University of Memphis.
Collected taxes support research that continues to build the reputation of Tennessee as a national and international leader in the science related to preventing and treating gambling harms. The amount available to the Department of Mental Health to fund these grant programs from life to date is over $22 million.
C. Rules of the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council
The Tennessee Sports Gaming Act also provides the Council with authority to promulgate rules. We have issued three sets of permanent rules over the last four years with a goal of strengthening and streamlining our rules over time to effectively protect consumers, promote responsible gaming, and safeguard integrity. A uniform requirement for minimum internal controls, operational standards, and security protections provides a consistent regulatory framework for all our Operators, providing an even playing field for offering sports betting within the State.
Some of the revisions to our rules have included updating identity verification and account security requirements. We have detailed "Know Your Customer (KYC)" requirements so that there is no anonymous account activity. We have added and strengthened requirements for secondary authentication of identification requirements to prevent identity theft and the creation of proxy accounts. Multifactor authentication is required to login with a new device, or every two weeks with a known device, and also when a debit card is added, which works to prevent account takeovers by bad actors.
In addition, our staff reviews and approves operator minimum internal controls, which address risk management procedures, event offerings, technology requirements, and segregation of duties. For example, a requirement in our most recently revised rules is for Operators to segregate internal trading and risk management functions from their marketing team functions.
Within their minimum internal controls, Operators must have procedures for ensuring that wagers are only offered on sporting events approved by the Council. Under our rules, any entity may petition for a new sporting event. After Council staff receive a complete and detailed description of the sporting event, evidence of that sport's governing body rules and regulations, or its independent integrity monitoring information, our staff assesses several factors, including whether wagers on that sporting event are compatible with the public interest. Our staff also discusses certain proposed sporting events with other regulators and participants in the industry to consider issues that others may have encountered.
An Operator's approved minimum internal controls must also have procedures to prevent wagering by prohibited participants. All Operators must require players to acknowledge that they are not a prohibited participant during account creation and must provide further specifics on how the State of Tennessee defines prohibited participants in their Terms and Conditions or House Rules. To prevent minors from wagering, Operators are required to suspend accounts when they have actual knowledge that a payment method linked to an account belongs to a person under 21. Account suspension is also required when a sportsbook identifies a prohibited participant wagering in violation of the Sports Gaming Act. Each Operator has different procedures to identify wagering by prohibited participants. Some Operators have relationships with the leagues and regularly check the athlete and employee information they provide. Other Operators use services from integrity monitoring providers, such as IC360's ProhiBet product.
Last, Operator internal controls must have procedures to immediately notify the Council, either directly or through an integrity monitoring provider, of unusual or suspicious wagering activity. Unusual wagering activity and suspicious wagering activity are defined in our rules and include wagering indicative of match-fixing, event manipulation, or the misuse of inside sports information or other prohibited activity. Operators and their required integrity monitors watch for spikes in the total amount of wagers placed on a market, the volume of wagers placed, unusual geolocation changes between logins, rapid wager placement, the creation of new accounts that immediately place specific wagers, or large prop bets. Our staff has access to the real-time back office for each licensed sportsbook so that our staff can conduct our own analysis of wagering activity when unusual or suspicious wagering activity is flagged. Licensed Operators must also report this information to the relevant sports governing body.
D. Regulatory Compliance in Tennessee
The regulatory framework established by the Tennessee legislature, and the rules promulgated by the SWC, create a multi-pronged system of checks and balances to ensure that Operators are set up to detect, report and address a wide range of issues. Rather than a self-certification process, it is one of collaboration, discussion and ultimately, approval or disapproval of an Operator's license on the merits of its application, followed by ongoing review and auditing of an Operator's compliance with the law.
Prior to licensure, Tennessee Sports Wagering Council staff conduct an extensive review of documents submitted by prospective Operators. These include extensive background checks of key personnel; a review of player-facing legal documents, like terms and conditions and house rules; a review of internal controls; and a review of annual thirdparty testing of operational and security systems to ensure those controls work as stated.
During the licensing process and before a license is deemed complete, we correspond with Operators about remediating issues identified by our staff. Because an app-based onlineonly sportsbook includes a stack of technological processes which operate together, our staff also confirm that the components of this technology stack are filled by vendors who are separately registered with the Council, particularly for sensitive components like player account management, geolocation, and know-your-customer services. We closely examine and analyze the substance and the merit of these filings.
. The state's regulatory function does not end with the approval of an Operator's license. Rather, our team proactively identifies any gaps in Operator compliance with multiple checks on Operators during the term of their license. We require all Operators to have an internal audit plan, with resulting reports submitted to our staff to review. Our staff regularly reviews required numerical reporting, incident reports, and player complaints to identify potential compliance issues. We conduct monthly audits within our office on various financial requirements and player-facing technical components. We review any amendments to internal controls, terms and conditions, and house rules. We review suspicious activity reports, not only to investigate and refer identified crimes, but also to identify gaps in identity verification and geolocation, which may have allowed a bad actor to carry out that suspicious wagering activity. We review wagering catalogues and conduct random audits of offered markets during high volume times to see whether impermissible markets are offered. Where we identify any compliance issues, we work together with our licensed Operators to remediate that issue and issue letters of warnings or fines where appropriate.
Tennessee Sports Wagering Council staff also serve as a resource for education and outreach to the public. We have traveled to colleges and universities and talked to their athletic coordinators. When an Operator identifies a minor is using a parent's information to create an account and place wagers, we send a letter to that parent alerting them to the account use and providing responsible gaming information, as well as the information for The Gambling Clinic. We have received responses from many parents who expressed gratitude for being made aware that their children were gambling without their knowledge and for providing resources that they could discuss with their children.
Although not the explicit topic of this hearing today, it is important to note that our team conducts extensive investigations into illegal sportsbooks, which have limited identity verification, no or different age requirements, and allow the use of credit, among other harms to consumers. We have made significant efforts to identify illegal sportsbooks, demand that they cease and desist operations in Tennessee, and issue fines where operations continue. The Tennessee Sports Wagering Council has issued over $800,000 in fines against illegal sportsbooks. Seven illegal sportsbooks have left our state. In addition, we have taken steps to stop these illegal sportsbooks from mailing print publications into Tennessee, advertising on Tennessee-based podcasts or radio stations, or otherwise promoting illegal gambling within Tennessee. Those illegal sportsbooks are ultimately a black hole of information where accounts cannot be monitored and unusual and suspicious wagering activity that can identify integrity issues cannot be detected.
E. Integrity Investigations in Tennessee
Specific to gaming integrity investigations, our licensed Operators have requirements for reporting unusual and suspicious wagering activity to the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council and suspending accounts as I described above. We also receive alerts directly from integrity monitoring providers, law enforcement, and the leagues. Over the last four years, we have received hundreds of these reports from integrity monitoring providers We will occasionally receive subpoenas or requests for information from law enforcement with respect to integrity issues, which our statute requires us to assist with by providing account data and wager-level information.
As of May 14, 2026, the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council has investigated 35 potential prohibited participant cases, with 10 of those cases referred to a local District Attorney or other law enforcement for their own assessment of criminal prosecution. When a case is not criminally referred by our office, it is typically because our investigation team found that the athlete or employee information checked by the Operator was stale, meaning that an athlete or member of athletic staff had been released from a team, graduated, or changed jobs and was no longer under restrictions by a league or governing body at the time a wager was placed. Our office makes that determination after discussion with the league or school.
As of May 14, 2026, the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council has investigated 25 potential integrity cases where suspicious wagering activity occurred in Tennessee that could indicate the use of inside sports information. While a few cases are currently pending, 17 are closed and have been referred to the sports governing body or law enforcement, including 13 that were referred to the FBI. Where an integrity matter is not criminally referred, it is sometimes because sharp (or "expert") wagering action has been flagged as a potential integrity issue. In other words, a patron has placed a wager on what would otherwise be an obscure betting line, but investigation indicates the player has made that wager using their own analytics of a sport on which they tend to place wagers.
In reviewing newsworthy integrity matters in preparation for this hearing, I noted that many of these matters were initially identified as potential proxy wagering or unlawful information sharing matters by licensed sportsbooks and integrity monitoring providers long before the media learned of the investigations. In many matters, suspicious wagering activity was identified prior to a game, and accounts were immediately suspended or suspended after the result was known. These suspicious wagers were then reported to the leagues, sports governing bodies, and law enforcement for investigation.
F. Conclusion
Although it may seem that there has been an increase in cases of athlete manipulation or unlawful information sharing, our experience is that legal and regulated sports betting has increased the volume of data available, leading to a higher number of incidents reported and acted upon. This subcommittee may support our office and fellow state regulators in investigating and prosecuting illegal sportsbooks. From my perspective, that would have the greatest impact on ensuring the integrity of sport by removing avenues for anonymous betting, betting without locational information, and betting without analytics to identify proxy wagering. Any criminal behavior can be difficult to wholly prevent, but it can be detected, identified, and enforced.
With the grants of authority given to our Council by the Sports Gaming Act, our rules, which we continue to strengthen, the efforts of our staff, and our strong partnerships with law enforcement, I believe that Tennessee's current framework amply addresses attempts by bad actors to rig outcomes on sporting events which may be wagered on in Tennessee. I welcome your questions.
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Original text here: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/meetings/bddea854-94c8-5ba9-aca1-3920c8e1742b/Submitted-Testimony-Mary-Beth-THomas_37ab0dfe-3a90-4536-80b9-247e6dffedc5-1.pdf
Integrity Compliance 360 CEO Sadin Testifies Before Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee
WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released the following written testimony by Scott Sadin, CEO and co-founder of Integrity Compliance 360 Inc., from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America":* * *
I. Introduction
Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Cantwell, Chair Blackburn and Ranking Member Hickenlooper, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Scott Sadin and I serve as Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Integrity Compliance 360 Inc., ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released the following written testimony by Scott Sadin, CEO and co-founder of Integrity Compliance 360 Inc., from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America": * * * I. Introduction Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Cantwell, Chair Blackburn and Ranking Member Hickenlooper, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Scott Sadin and I serve as Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Integrity Compliance 360 Inc.,known as IC360, a global regulatory technology and compliance firm specializing in comprehensive integrity solutions for participants in sports, sports betting and daily fantasy, gaming, iGaming, and prediction markets. As an independent sports integrity firm, we work with professional leagues, collegiate conferences and member institutions, state regulators, licensed sports betting operators, event contract platforms and other stakeholders across the integrity ecosystem.
I am grateful to the Subcommittee for its sustained attention to this important set of issues and for the opportunity to be here on behalf of IC360. The legalization and expansion of regulated sports betting and event contracts on sports in the United States has created meaningful opportunities and new challenges for those of us focused on the integrity of competition. My intent today is to describe who IC360 is, the participants in the integrity ecosystem with whom we work, and the products and services through which we contribute to protecting the integrity of sport.
The views expressed in this statement are my own and reflect my experience through my tenure at IC360. They do not represent the views of any leagues, regulators, operators, or institutions with whom we work. I welcome the Subcommittee's questions and the opportunity to provide any additional information that may be useful as it continues its work on these issues.
II. My Background
I serve as Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of IC360. I have had the privilege of building IC360 from an early-stage company into what it is today - one of the most extensive independent integrity, compliance, and regulatory technology firms operating in the U.S. sports and gaming space. IC360 offers over a dozen products and services and has more than two hundred partner organizations globally.
My path to this work began in financial services. Earlier in my career, I held compliance and surveillance roles at registered investment advisers and alternative investment managers, including Apollo Global Management and MSD & BDT Partners. The discipline of trade surveillance -- building systems that detect anomalous patterns across vast data sets in real-time and investigating those patterns with care and consequence -- translated directly to the work of monitoring legal sports betting markets when that opportunity emerged.
What has kept me in this field, and what I hope comes through in these remarks, is a personal conviction about the importance of our commitment to this work. I have been on the front lines of dozens of sports integrity investigations over the years -- matters that have touched professional and collegiate athletes, officials, coaches, and at times the broader public -- and I have seen, at close range, the value IC360 has brought in both identifying and investigating integrity-related circumstances. I am personally committed to ensuring that the integrity infrastructure protecting competitions and events keeps pace with the market that has matured around it, and that commitment is the lens through which I offer the observations that follow.
III. Core Concepts
Before I provide detail about IC360's products, I felt it important to emphasize the following two core concepts with respect to the integrity monitoring ecosystem:
1. In the years since the Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Murphy v. NCAA, a functioning and comprehensive framework has developed across sports leagues, regulators, licensed operators, and independent integrity providers. That framework has identified, investigated, and resolved a meaningful number of integrity matters -- from suspicious wagering patterns and the misuse of insider information to active match-fixing inquiries -- and has done so in ongoing coordination with state and federal authorities, and law enforcement where appropriate. The infrastructure exists and it has been effective. The conversation before the Subcommittee today, in my view, should be framed not as a question of whether such an infrastructure should exist, but as a question of how it should continue to mature, evolve and improve.
2. One core principle has remained constant throughout the evolution of regulated sports betting: no singular sports league, sportsbook operator, regulatory body, or supplier can successfully tackle the complex and nuanced sports integrity landscape alone. It requires strong engagement, collaboration and transparency across those differentiated stakeholders to combat bad actor innovation. Any improvement to the existing sports integrity framework should focus on increasing the connective tissue between those market participants.
Everything we do at IC360 is informed by these core principles. We recognize that the work of maintaining proactive monitoring requires sustained investment in new detection capabilities, new data sources, new analytical methods, and new forms of cross-stakeholder coordination. That is a permanent and evolving feature of this work, not a phase of it.
IV. About IC360 -- Who We Are, Whom We Serve, and Why This Work Matters
At IC360, our mission is direct and durable: to assist the successful maturation of the regulated sports betting and sports event contract ecosystem through products and services that protect the integrity of sport.
Everything we do is in service of that mission.
We work with more than 200 organizations globally. Our client base includes each of the seven major United States professional sports leagues, a growing list of emerging professional properties, and 12 Division I collegiate conferences, including each of the Power 4 conferences. We also work with more than 125 licensed sports betting and daily fantasy sports operators, 14 prediction-market exchanges, and numerous regulators and law enforcement agencies across the United States and abroad.
The breadth of that client base is, in our view, the precondition for credible integrity work -- and it confers a particular vantage point on the issues before this Subcommittee. We see, on a regular basis, the specific and often unique integrity challenges that each category of stakeholders are facing. That cross-stakeholder visibility, handled with care, allows us to identify patterns, risks and emerging vulnerabilities. One of our central responsibilities is to bring those insights back to the stakeholders best positioned to act on them. Our positioning as an independent integrity provider affords us the opportunity and responsibility to assemble a picture from across the ecosystem, route the right information to the right party, and assist in converting the resulting signals into action.
A key differentiator for IC360 is that we operate conflict-free. IC360 does not offer trading, odds creation, risk management, or any product whose interests could be affected by the outcome of an integrity matter we are monitoring. Our products exclusively work to enhance the compliance and integrity ecosystem. That posture matters not because the operators, leagues, and regulators with whom we work are anything less than fully committed to integrity -- they are, and many invest substantial resources of their own in these endeavors -- but because the credibility of the picture we produce depends on the absence of competing interests in producing it.
This approach allows us to function as the connective tissue across the integrity ecosystem. We often sit between leagues and operators on credible suspicious-betting alerting. We work closely with governance bodies and operators on prohibited bettor and trader identification. We collaborate with regulators and licensed platforms when circumstances warrant further investigation. The strength of the integrity infrastructure in this country is a function of how well that connective tissue holds -- how much information flows through it, how reliably, and how comprehensively. The more engagement, collaboration, and transparency among leagues, operators, integrity providers, regulators and law enforcement, the more protected the integrity of competition is.
V. IC360's Products and the Value They Bring
With that framing in mind, I want to briefly describe the three principal lines of work through which IC360 contributes to the connective tissue I have described.
A. Integrity Monitoring
Integrity monitoring refers to the twenty-four-hour-a-day surveillance of regulated betting markets globally for indications that something has occurred, or is occurring, outside the normal patterns of wagering, event contracts and competition. It is the work most often associated with our category, and it is the work that has produced many of the integrity outcomes the public has come to expect of a well-functioning regulated market.
The picture we build rests on four principal categories of data, and our analytical method rests on identifying correlated anomalies and emerging trends across them.
1. Market odds and pricing. Movements in betting odds and event contracts are the most immediately legible signal that something in a market may warrant further investigation.
Significant, unexplained movement -- particularly in directions inconsistent with publicly available information -- can often be the first indication that an alert is appropriate.
2. Bet-level detail. IC360 ingests bet-level data directly from a meaningful subset of licensed sportsbooks covering wagering activity on their platforms. This level of detail is essential to identifying coordinated activity, repeat patterns, and platform-specific anomalies that aggregate market odds and price data alone cannot reveal.
3. Availability information. We track news and other open-source data related to the availability of impactful athletes and coaches -- injuries, absences, and other status changes. Significant market movement in advance of the public release of availability information on an impactful figure can indicate the misuse of inside information, a circumstance that warrants close investigation.
4. Officiating statistics. We collect publicly available data on officiating performance and use it to develop behavioral profile patterns on as many officials as we can. A meaningful deviation from their established behavioral norm is an analytical signal -- and one that is often cross-referenced against the other categories of data above.
Anomalies, of course, occur constantly across each of these categories in isolation. What our analytical work looks for is the correlated abnormality -- the situation in which signals across several of these categories cluster around a single event, market, or actor -- and the trend formation in which a series of such clusters point toward a potentially sustained vulnerability.
Alerts on our platform are generated through three principal pathways:
1. IC360's own identification of circumstances warranting further investigation, derived from the cross-category analysis described above.
2. Operator-initiated reporting of suspicious activity observed on the operator's own platform, which the operator routes to its independent third-party integrity monitor for further analysis and dissemination across the ecosystem. These notifications are critical since IC360 is ultimately limited to what data it is afforded. We consistently recommend our operator partners be overly inclusive in reporting.
3. Regulatory or other governing-body identification of potentially suspicious activity.
When an alert is generated, IC360 distributes the relevant details and a structured survey to operators across the ecosystem. The survey asks, among other questions, the following:
* Whether the market in question was offered on the platform;
* Whether the volume in that market was outsized relative to expectations;
* Whether previously dormant accounts were transacting in the market in question;
* Whether new account openings appeared to target the market in question; and
* Whether any flagged or marked patrons were transacting in the market in question.
The IC360 system parses the responses into a consolidated report that gives the relevant stakeholders -- typically the affected league or governance body, and, where appropriate, regulators and law enforcement -- a comprehensive and holistic view of the matter, including whether the suspicious activity appears isolated to one operator or one market or, instead, is widespread across the ecosystem. Both the willingness of operators to report suspicious activity to their independent monitors in the first instance, and their complete and timely responsiveness to surveys when alerts are circulated, are of paramount importance to the integrity of regulated competition. The work is collaborative, and the quality of the resulting picture is a direct function of how fully participants engage.
B. ProhiBet
Prohibited patrons across U.S. sport often refers to persons who should be prohibited from betting or trading on certain events who, by virtue of their role, have regular access to non-public information about a competition, or who have the consistent ability to exert undue influence over its outcome. These include, in most sports, athletes -- both professional and collegiate -- coaches, referees, athletic trainers, administrators, and certain associated individuals. Each governing body, league, and member institution maintains its own designation of prohibited patrons, and those designations are foundational to the integrity rules of the relevant sport.
IC360's ProhiBet platform is the secure technology infrastructure through which prohibited-patron information moves from a list manager -- typically a sports governing body -- to a platform on which such individuals could otherwise transact, including sportsbooks, prediction markets, and daily fantasy sports platforms. The information exchanged between those parties through the ProhiBet platform is cryptographically hashed, so that the personal identifying information of designated individuals never leaves the list manager's environment.
With that infrastructure in place, operators can proactively permission the accounts of prohibited patrons before any wager or prohibited transaction is placed -- ensuring that those individuals are not able to transact in markets where they may possess inside information, exert undue influence or are regulatorily prohibited from doing so. Engagement with this technology solution enables a preemptive form of permissions that is, in our experience, among the most consequential single contributions a stakeholder can make to proactive integrity monitoring.
The ProhiBet platform today supports more than 150 stakeholders, has performed close to one billion account checks, and has surfaced more than sixty thousand alerts. Each of those metrics reflect a category of harm that did not occur because the infrastructure to prevent it was in place.
C. Education
IC360 recognizes the importance of education and awareness training for stakeholders across the sports betting, daily fantasy sports and event contract ecosystems. The availability of high-quality onsite and digital education resources to sports property stakeholders -- athletes, coaches, officials, administrators, and support personnel -- is, in our experience, among the most valuable interventions in preventing bad actors from compromising competition integrity.
Our curriculum covers, among other topics, integrity-related case studies, bad-actor profiles, and emerging vulnerabilities. We have delivered hundreds of presentations and have reached hundreds of thousands of athletes, coaches, and administrators, through both in-person training and our digital learning platform. The curriculum is regularly refreshed -- for the reasons I described earlier about the pace at which the threat environment evolves -- and is delivered in close partnership with conference compliance offices, league integrity teams, and individual member institutions. It is, like the other lines of work I have described, fundamentally a collaboration.
D. The Centrality of Collaboration
I want to close this section on the same note with which I opened it; each of these three lines of work depends on collaboration. Integrity monitoring works because operators report information, leagues share intelligence, and regulators share casework. ProhiBet works because governing bodies designate, operators screen, and the infrastructure between them is trusted. Education works because leagues and institutions invest the time and attention of the people closest to competition. The value we believe IC360 brings is, in the end, the role we play in making the collaborative work of integrity possible at the scale and speed that the contemporary market requires.
VI. Conclusion
I want to thank the Subcommittee again for its attention to these issues and for the opportunity to share these perspectives on behalf of IC360. The work of protecting the integrity of competition in an environment of rapidly expanding legal sports betting and sports event contracts, in our experience, is neither glamorous nor easily reducible to a single intervention. It is instead the steadfast commitment to ensuring that the right information moves to the right party at the right time, that the rules of every sport remain enforceable in complex markets, and that the people closest to competition have the awareness and the tools to surface concerns when they arise.
That work depends on leagues, operators, regulators, and independent integrity providers continuing to invest in collaboration with one another. I am thankful for the cooperation and collaboration we receive from our stakeholder partners across the sports betting and sports event contract ecosystems and for their willingness to adapt as these industries evolve. We are committed, for our part, to playing the role we are positioned to play. I welcome the Subcommittee's questions and look forward to supporting its continued attention to these issues in whatever way is most useful.
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Original text here: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/meetings/bddea854-94c8-5ba9-aca1-3920c8e1742b/Written-Statement-of-Scott-Sadin-IC360_51c4522c-dc89-4cb6-b7b5-e23628fc153c-1.pdf
Fla. End-of-Life Doula Testifies Before Senate Special Committee on Aging
WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Special Committee on Aging released the following written testimony by Meghan Maher, end-of-life doula and family caregiver in Windermere, Florida, from a May 13, 2026, hearing entitled "Caught in the Middle: Supporting Families in the Sandwich Generation":* * *
I. Who I Am -- and Why I'm Here
Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Gillibrand, and distinguished members of the Committee -- thank you for your leadership in advancing legislation that recognizes and supports family caregivers.
This work, and your commitment to it, matters deeply to millions of Americans.
My ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Special Committee on Aging released the following written testimony by Meghan Maher, end-of-life doula and family caregiver in Windermere, Florida, from a May 13, 2026, hearing entitled "Caught in the Middle: Supporting Families in the Sandwich Generation": * * * I. Who I Am -- and Why I'm Here Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Gillibrand, and distinguished members of the Committee -- thank you for your leadership in advancing legislation that recognizes and supports family caregivers. This work, and your commitment to it, matters deeply to millions of Americans. Myname is Meghan Maher and I live in Orange County, Florida. I am an only child.
I want to start there, because it is the fact that shapes everything else. There is no sibling to call. No one to trade off with. No family group chat where someone else can take the next appointment, make the next decision, carry the next piece of worry. Whatever needs to happen -- I am the one.
I am also a wife, a mother, a hospice volunteer, and a practicing end-of-life doula. Before this work, I spent nearly fifteen years in oncology clinical research. I know the language of medicine. I know how to read a chart, navigate a healthcare system, and advocate in a room full of clinicians. I know what questions to ask and how to ask them.
I care for my family because I love them. That love is not a burden -- it is the reason. Everything I share with The Committee flows from that.
I am here today because of two organizations that have built their work around seeing and supporting the people quietly holding their families together -- Daughterhood, founded by Anne Tumlinson, and the National Alliance for Caregiving. I am grateful for what both organizations do every day for caregivers across this country, and for the opportunity they have given me to add my voice to this conversation.
My story is not unusual. That is exactly the problem.
II. The Sandwich -- What It Actually Looks Like
My sandwich caregiving began in June of 2013, seven weeks after my older son was born, when my mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
I have never known motherhood without also being a caregiver. There was no uncomplicated season of new parenthood -- no period of just finding my footing as a mother before something larger arrived. From seven weeks in, both were true at once.
What caregiving looked like in those early years was coordination, and holding. I attended oncology appointments with my mother, sat with her through infusion, held her medical history and her fears.
There was a particular weight to it -- my mother received her care at the cancer center where I worked.
The professional world I had built over nearly fifteen years in oncology clinical research became, without warning, entirely personal. The language I had learned in service of research became the language I used to advocate for my own mother.
That is the first unexpected cost of sandwich caregiving -- the way it arrives before you are ready, reshapes what you thought you knew, and asks everything of you anyway.
By fall of 2016, my mother's health had declined significantly and my parents moved in with us. My older son was three. My younger son was one. I was doing hands-on care for my mother -- managing her comfort, her medications, her appointments, her fear -- while nursing an infant and raising a toddler. That is what the sandwich looks like at its most literal: a dying parent in one room, a baby in another, and I'm in the hallway between them.
My mother died in March of 2017.
Three months later, my father became critically ill. I went from grief directly into an acute medical crisis for him. There was no pause. No exhale. Caregiving does not observe a mourning period.
My father survived, and I am grateful every day for that. He is, by many measures, doing well physically. And today, nine years later, I am still his caregiver -- though the nature of that care has changed entirely.
My father is in the early stages of cognitive decline. He is remarried, which adds a layer of relational and logistical complexity that I navigate carefully. He and his wife split their time between Florida and South Carolina, which means that my role as his medical advocate has to work across distance and across state lines -- by phone when I cannot be there in person, in the room when I can. This is not occasional. This is every appointment, without exception.
My role extends well beyond medical advocacy. When technology confounds, when financial or legal questions arise, when something simply requires someone who knows him and loves him -- I am the one who gets the call.
I carry his medical history. I track the changes. I am the thread of continuity in his care -- regardless of where he is.
My two sons are now in middle school and upper elementary. They are not care recipients in a clinical sense. They are children who need a present mother.
The hardest part isn't any single role. It's that every role deserves all of me. There is no version of sandwich caregiving where everyone gets enough of me. That is the reality of a life lived at the intersection of two generations who both need you.
III. The Labor of Love
One type of family caregiving is hands-on care -- helping someone bathe, dress, move through the world. That is real caregiving, and it is hard. But it is not the whole picture. And for many sandwich generation caregivers, it is not even the primary one.
My caregiving is coordination. It is holding -- holding the medical history, holding the relationships, holding the decisions, holding the worry. It runs in the background of every single day, regardless of what else is on my calendar. No one has built a framework for it. But it is constant.
I think about the support that exists for new parents -- the classes, the resources, the community, the acknowledgment that this is hard and that help is available. Elder care has none of that infrastructure.
Families are largely expected to figure it out on their own, and most of us do -- by instinct and persistence. But instinct and persistence are not a system.
I didn't know what I didn't know. For years, I navigated my family's caregiving needs without any awareness that there were services and supports that might have been available to us -- some of them not even tied to income. No one told me. Nothing in the systems I moved through -- the hospitals, the doctors' offices, the discharge planners -- ever said: here is what exists for families like yours. Here is where to look. I found my way the way most caregivers do. And that is not enough.
63 million Americans are currently providing unpaid care to an adult or child with a disability or serious medical condition -- up from 44 million in 2015. Nearly one in three of those caregivers are sandwich generation caregivers, simultaneously caring for both a child and an older adult. And care coordination -- the invisible work I am describing -- is becoming harder, not easier. Only six in ten caregivers report that coordinating care with health professionals is easy, a figure that has declined steadily since 2015./1
We are not a niche population. We are 21 million people. And most of us are doing this largely alone, largely without support, and largely without anyone in the systems around us acknowledging that we are there.
IV. The Intermittent Care Problem -- A Structural Gap
Many caregiver support structures are built around care needs that are ongoing, predictable, and enrollable. A set number of hours per week. A recurring schedule. A program you apply for and receive.
Often, that is not what sandwich caregiving looks like.
What it looks like is a phone call on a Tuesday morning telling you your father has a procedure on Thursday. It looks like a school pickup that cannot be moved, a work commitment that cannot be canceled, and a suddenly urgent need for someone trustworthy to be with your children while you are far from home. It looks like needing care not every day, but on the days that matter most -- and those days arrive without warning.
When my sons were young and my caregiving responsibilities were at their most acute, finding childcare for a single appointment -- a one-off, an unexpected need -- was one of the most difficult experiences of those years. I want to name something important here: this is not a criticism of care providers. Caregiving is their livelihood, and they need consistency and reliability just as much as families do. The mismatch isn't between families and providers -- it's between both of us and a system that hasn't been designed to support either side of that relationship.
When we eventually found the right childcare provider for our family, she became one of my dearest friends and remains close to us today. We kept her on for more hours each week than we strictly needed -- because in the absence of reliable infrastructure for intermittent care, when you find someone you trust, you hold on. That decision made sense for our family. But it also illustrates something important: families are solving, on their own, a problem the system was never designed to address.
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1 AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the US 2025. Washington, D.C.: AARP. July 2025. Available at: https://www.caregivingintheus.org
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I had financial means that many caregivers do not have. And even so, securing reliable intermittent care was extraordinarily difficult -- not because of cost, but because of design. The infrastructure simply does not exist in a form that families can actually use.
Nearly four in ten caregivers report that respite services would be helpful -- but only thirteen percent actually use them./2
The barriers are not only financial. They include inflexible program design, a shortage of trained providers, and enrollment processes that were not built for urgency. The Alleviating Barriers for Caregivers Act is a meaningful step toward changing that.
V. The Economic Architecture of Caregiving
Caregiving reshapes work. It reshaped mine. I am self-employed as an end-of-life doula, and I want to name what that actually means in the context of caregiving. I built my work around my family because the alternative -- a traditional job with fixed hours and little flexibility -- was not compatible with what my family needs from me. That is an economic decision. It is a choice I made deliberately, and it came with real financial consequences.
Many caregivers do not have that option. Traditional employment -- with its fixed hours, its inflexibility, its lack of accommodation for the Tuesday call about the Thursday procedure -- does not bend easily around the reality of sandwich caregiving. The caregivers who cannot build their own structure often face something far more visible and far more costly: leaving the workforce entirely, reducing hours, or watching their careers contract around the edges of what caregiving demands.
I have intentionally limited the number of clients I support, because my family -- both ends of the generational spectrum -- is my first priority. Everything else, including my work, fits within that. It is a values choice, and it is also a financial one.
The Multigenerational Home Caregiver Credit Act recognizes that caregiving carries real economic costs -- and that families who open their homes to aging relatives deserve meaningful financial relief. I am grateful this committee is working to make that a reality.
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2 AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the US 2025. Washington, D.C.: AARP. July 2025. Available at: https://www.caregivingintheus.org
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VI. What This Costs
I am, by most measures, someone who is managing. I am present. I am functional. I show up.
And I want to be honest about what that costs.
Caregiving at this level -- sustained, multi-generational, and largely solitary -- lives in the body. It lives in the quality of sleep, in the moments of joy that get crowded out, in the medical appointments of my own that get deferred because there is always something more urgent. It lives in the particular exhaustion of being the person who holds everything together while also being the person who never gets to put it down.
There is something that does not get talked about enough: the isolation. Nearly one in four caregivers report feeling alone -- a figure that has increased since 2020./3
I understand that statistic not as a data point but as a lived experience. There is a particular kind of aloneness that comes from being the person who holds the full picture -- who carries it all and cannot fully set it down, even in the company of people who love you. Caregiving can be an isolating experience even when you are not alone.
And yet -- caregiving has given me something. It has deepened my understanding of what it means to love someone across time and across difficulty. It has made me a better doula, a more present mother, and a more compassionate human being. Meaning and exhaustion are not opposites. For many caregivers, they live side by side, every single day.
VIII. Closing
I said at the beginning that I am an only child. That there is no sibling to call.
What I have learned, over nearly a decade of sandwich caregiving, is that this should not mean doing it alone. Not because love isn't enough -- it is. But because love is not a policy. And the people who are showing up every day for both generations of their family deserve more than admiration. They deserve support.
I am grateful to this committee for the opportunity to be heard. I am grateful to Daughterhood -- to Anne Tumlinson and the community she built -- and to the National Alliance for Caregiving, for the work both organizations do on behalf of caregivers across this country.
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3 AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the US 2025. Washington, D.C.: AARP. July 2025. Available at: https://www.caregivingintheus.org
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I am here for every sandwich caregiver who is managing, but just barely. Who is present, but depleted.
Who loves their family deeply and needs their country to meet them there.
Thank you.
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Original text here: https://www.aging.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/1700c9da-f856-cb5f-e566-45c85f206176/Testimony_Maher%2005.13.26.pdf
American Gaming Association CEO Miller Testifies Before Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee
WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released the following written testimony by American Gaming Association President and CEO Bill Miller from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America":* * *
Chairman Blackburn, Ranking Member Hickenlooper, and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the American Gaming Association. As the national trade association representing the legal, state- and tribal-regulated gaming industry, our members include commercial and tribal ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 28 -- The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee released the following written testimony by American Gaming Association President and CEO Bill Miller from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America": * * * Chairman Blackburn, Ranking Member Hickenlooper, and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the American Gaming Association. As the national trade association representing the legal, state- and tribal-regulated gaming industry, our members include commercial and tribalgaming operators, suppliers, and stakeholders committed to maintaining safe, transparent, and responsible gaming environments across the United States.
The legal gaming industry supports 1.8 million jobs nationwide - more than the populations of Denver and Nashville combined. The industry directly employs more than 700,000 Americans and generates $104 billion in wages.
Since the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018, states and tribal governments have thoughtfully built legal sports betting frameworks grounded in consumer protection, integrity monitoring, robust geolocation compliance controls, responsible gaming, and regulatory accountability.
Today, the $329 billion legal gaming industry exists because states and tribal governments made intentional policy decisions on whether and how to legalize and regulate this activity within their jurisdictions.
While the state- and tribal-regulated framework has long been challenged by competition from illegal and unregulated forms of gambling - both offshore and domestic - it is now also being severely eroded by prediction market platforms offering sports event contracts nationwide under the "authority" of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
These products function as sports betting in every meaningful sense. Consumers are betting money on the outcome of sporting events and player performances. Sports betting is being repackaged as a financial product bypassing the consumer protections, responsible gaming standards, and the state and tribal regulatory systems established after PASPA.
In 2024, sports-related activity on Kalshi represented just $227,000 in volume. Today, sports betting accounts for approximately 86 percent of their business, and has already generated more than $47 billion in trading volume this year alone. At the same time, crypto, traditional financial, agriculture, and economic contracts - the types of markets the CFTC was actually created to oversee - have collapsed from more than 93 percent of their volume in 2023 to less than 1 percent today.
Even the companies offering these products have marketed them as sports betting. Kalshi launched its national marketing campaign last year boasting "sports betting legal in all 50 states" through its platform. The public agrees, with recent polling finding that 81 percent of Americans say betting on sports through prediction markets is gambling.
Forty-one bipartisan state attorneys general from across the country have challenged sports event contracts, and Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Mike Dreitzer recently said it best: "make whatever word salad they want, but it's gambling."
The Right Regulatory Framework
Following the repeal of PASPA, 39 states plus DC have taken a deliberate and thoughtful approach to building sports betting frameworks centered on consumer protection, integrity, accountability, and law enforcement cooperation.
Legislatures, regulators, law enforcement, tribes, leagues, public health experts, and operators spent years building systems designed to balance consumer demand with strong protections and accountability. Today, more than 8,400 state and tribal gaming regulators across the country oversee legal gaming operations and enforce those standards every day.
Over the last eight years, states have established rigorous regulatory systems governing virtually every aspect of legal sports betting, including:
* Licensing, suitability reviews, and reporting requirements,
* age and identity verification,
* anti-money laundering compliance,
* geolocation requirements,
* integrity monitoring and suspicious activity reporting,
* responsible gaming protections,
* advertising and marketing standards, and
* ongoing regulatory oversight and enforcement.
Importantly, not every state has chosen to legalize sports betting. Some have made the intentional decision not to offer it at all, while others have adopted in-person wagers only, limits on types of bets, strict advertising standards, and other decisions they believe are right for their jurisdictions.
That is exactly how the system is designed to function. States should retain the right to determine for themselves whether sports betting is permitted within their borders and, if so, under what terms, protections, and regulatory safeguards.
The legal market has generated meaningful economic benefits for states and local communities.
Since PASPA's repeal, legal sports betting has generated more than $12 billion in state tax revenue supporting critical priorities like education, infrastructure, economic development, and responsible gaming programs. Those revenues are the direct result of legal operators participating in transparent, regulated systems subject to state oversight and taxation.
Furthermore, the current sports betting framework supports tribal sovereignty under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. For decades, tribal governments have negotiated compacts and built gaming frameworks designed to reflect the priorities and needs of their own communities. Those systems are intentionally structured to protect their people, preserve regulatory authority, and ensure gaming revenues support essential tribal government services, economic development, healthcare, education, and long-term self-determination.
For many tribal governments, gaming revenue is a critical source of funding. In 2025, tribal gaming operations provided more than $16 billion to support tribal governmental programs and investments, helping address gaps in federal funding for Indian programs.
That framework is now being undermined by prediction market platforms attempting to use federal commodities law to offer what are functionally sports bets across all 50 states, including in jurisdictions that expressly chose not to legalize sports betting. These platforms are also bypassing the taxes and regulatory obligations legal sports betting operators abide by, potentially depriving states of an estimated $1 billion of sports betting tax revenue.
Congress never intended for federal financial market regulation to override federal and state law, tribal sovereignty, or the carefully constructed gaming frameworks built over decades. Those state-specific frameworks also ensure compliance with the Wire Act prohibition on interstate sports wagering. Prediction market operators are doing the complete opposite: offering interstate sports wagering under the guise of a futures trade.
The success of the legal market should be measured by the consumer protections, integrity safeguards, responsible gaming investments, and transparency that now exist - protections that were absent in the illegal market prior to PASPA's repeal and that don't exist in the commodities markets today.
Responsible Gaming is Central
The legal state- and tribal-regulated gaming industry understands that with legalization comes responsibility.
Responsible gaming is foundational to maintaining consumer trust and the long-term sustainability of sports betting in the United States. Legal sportsbooks operate under extensive responsible gaming requirements established by state regulators and reinforced by industry standards. These protections include self-exclusion programs, deposit and time limits, employee training, age and identity verification, responsible gaming messaging, and ongoing monitoring designed to identify potentially problematic behavior.
The gaming industry also invests more than $500 million annually into responsible gaming programs, consumer education, research, employee training. More than $123 million of state gaming tax revenue is devoted to state problem gambling intervention and treatment programs.
In addition, the AGA's Responsible Marketing Code for Sports Wagering establishes standards around advertising content, target audiences, and promotional activity. In 2023, the industry strengthened those standards further by prohibiting sportsbook partnerships with colleges and universities that promote sports wagering activity and banning NIL agreements with amateur and college athletes.
These are concrete standards adopted by a regulated industry that recognizes the unique responsibilities associated with offering legal sports betting.
In 2025, the AGA launched Play Smart from the Start, a research-backed responsible gaming initiative designed to make responsible gaming messages relevant to all players and remind them that gambling is entertainment. The campaign is promoted by legal operators, sports leagues, and industry partners nationwide to encourage informed play and reinforce the industry's commitment to responsibility.
Prediction market platforms operate outside many of these same safeguards. Most states require customers to be at least 21 years old. Prediction market platforms permit participation by 18year-olds nationwide while offering products that are functionally indistinguishable from sports betting. Recent polling found that 81 percent of Americans view sports betting on prediction markets as gambling, while 77 percent expressed concern that allowing 18-year-olds to bet on sports through prediction markets could increase gambling-related harm among young adults, compared with sportsbooks that require users to be 21.
These platforms are aggressively marketing sports event contracts using language that blurs the line between investing and gambling - promoting concepts like "building generational wealth," "paying rent," or "sports betting legal in all 50 states."
Legal sports betting advertising volume has decreased 27 percent across all channels since its peak in 2021, while prediction market sports advertising has exploded in the early months of 2026. Nearly half of all digital sports betting ads impressions now come from prediction markets - none of which include responsible gaming messaging required of legal operators.
These findings reinforce the predatory nature, consumer confusion, and underlying risks associated with what they call "sports event contracts."
Integrity and Consumer Protection Depend on the Legal Market
Protecting the integrity of sports is fundamental to the success of the legal gaming industry.
Legal sportsbooks actively monitor betting activity, share information with regulators and leagues, and utilize sophisticated analytics to identify suspicious wagering patterns and potential misconduct. Those safeguards exist because integrity threats are taken seriously throughout the regulated market.
Legal sports betting gives consumers clear recourse. If something goes wrong, state and tribal gaming regulators can investigate complaints, enforce rules, and hold licensed operators accountable. Prediction markets blur that accountability. Seventy-eight percent of sports event contract bettors incorrectly believe state gaming regulators can help resolve disputes involving these products - when in reality, consumers have nowhere to go. If a prediction market bettor has a concern, there is no comparable state regulatory structure to turn to.
Recent investigations involving athletes, coaches, and suspicious betting activity are concerning and should worry everyone in the room. But they also demonstrate why the legal market not only matters, but is working. In these high-profile cases, suspicious activity was identified because regulated operators were monitoring the market, flagging irregular wagering patterns, and coordinating with leagues, regulators, and law enforcement. The activity occurred within transparent and accountable regulatory frameworks.
The contrast with illegal and unregulated markets is stark. Illegal and offshore sportsbooks continue to pose serious risks to consumers and competition integrity. Operating entirely outside of U.S. law, these companies evade taxes, ignore responsible gaming requirements, and provide no consumer protections. Americans currently wager nearly $700 billion annually with illegal and unregulated operators, and some analysts estimate prediction markets alone could ultimately approach $1 trillion in annual trading volume.
The case involving Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter illustrates exactly what happens when gambling activity takes place outside regulated systems. Thousands of wagers were placed over an extended period through an illegal bookmaker because there were no meaningful safeguards, reporting obligations, or oversight mechanisms in place. Competition integrity is foundational to the legal gaming market's existence. Consumers will only participate in sports betting if they trust the games themselves are fair. That is why legal operators invest heavily in integrity monitoring systems, compliance programs, anti-money laundering controls, and partnerships with leagues and independent integrity monitors.
Prediction market platforms pose many of the same integrity risks associated with sports betting while operating outside the regulatory frameworks specifically designed to identify suspicious activity, protect consumers, and preserve confidence in competition. We have already seen the serious risk in other markets: a U.S. soldier charged with using classified information to profit from prediction market bets tied to the operation targeting Nicolas Maduro, and suspiciously timed trades linked to the Iran conflict and military action markets. Given that more than 90 percent of the volume is sports, a match fixing case on prediction markets is just a matter of time.
The CFTC is allowing operators to self-certify and police themselves through rushed, voluntary guardrails that do not come close to the state- and tribal-regulated framework built for sports betting.
Don't just take it from me, earlier this year CFTC Chairman Michael Selig stated: "The CFTC is not a merit-based regulator - we do not decide what people should be able to trade. Nor are we going to regulate through enforcement."
Conclusion
The legal state- and-tribal regulated sports betting market has created robust consumer protections, rigorous responsible gaming safeguards, strong integrity oversight, and real regulatory accountability - and states, tribes, regulators, operators, leagues, and law enforcement continue to work together every day to strengthen those systems and address emerging challenges responsibly.
Congress can help further strengthen this system by considering the following actions:
* Reaffirming the longstanding principle that sports wagering is subject to state and tribal gaming law. Recent bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Schiff and Curtis - the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act - to prohibit sports event contracts reinforces that principle and would help prevent the continued illegal expansion of sports betting through federal financial markets.
* Working with the Administration to ensure the Department of Justice and other federal agencies prioritize enforcement against illegal and offshore operators attempting to evade U.S. law while avoiding consumer protections and regulatory safeguards legal markets provide.
* Revisiting outdated policies like the federal excise tax on legal sports wagering, which continues to disadvantage regulated operators competing against illegal and untaxed markets.
* Strengthening federal penalties for match-fixing as an added deterrent to protect the integrity of sports.
Sports betting must occur within the transparent, accountable state- and tribal-regulated systems specifically designed to oversee it responsibly. Backdoor betting operations undermine the work and expertise of 8,400 industry regulators, consumer protections embedded in state and tribal law, and the will of voters across the country.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to your questions.
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Original text here: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/meetings/bddea854-94c8-5ba9-aca1-3920c8e1742b/Bill-Miller-Written-Testimony-Senate-Commerce-Committee.-docx88_58dcc0fb-c533-4a0a-976b-d126a47ece92-1.pdf
Author of 'Black Faces, Black Interests' Testifies Before House Judiciary Committee
WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The House Judiciary Committee released the following testimony by Carol M. Swain, author of the 1993 book, "Black Faces, Black Interests", and former professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate":* * *
Chairman, Ranking Member, and distinguished Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
I am Dr. Carol M. Swain, a former tenured professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University. I am a woman who rose from rural poverty ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The House Judiciary Committee released the following testimony by Carol M. Swain, author of the 1993 book, "Black Faces, Black Interests", and former professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, from a May 20, 2026, hearing entitled "The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate": * * * Chairman, Ranking Member, and distinguished Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am Dr. Carol M. Swain, a former tenured professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University. I am a woman who rose from rural povertyin southwest Virginia, earned five degrees, and built a career as a scholar of race, politics, and representation. My 1993 book Black Faces, Black Interests won national awards and was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet, starting in 2009, I became the target of a sustained smear campaign by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) -- an organization once respected for fighting real hate but which I believe has become a weapon against conservatives, Christians, and dissenting voices.
In September 2009, I found myself in the SPLC's crosshairs after I published an article in the Huffington Post titled "Mission Creep and the Southern Poverty Law Center's Misguided Focus."
I argued that the SPLC had drifted from its original mission of monitoring genuine hate groups -- such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis -- toward targeting mainstream conservatives, immigration reformers, and anyone challenging progressive orthodoxy on race and immigration. I specifically criticized the SPLC's attacks on figures like Lou Dobbs and organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies. I concluded: "Rather than monitoring hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center has become one."
Retaliation: The Smear Campaign
Within weeks of my article, the SPLC retaliated. In October 2009, SPLC spokesman Mark Potok publicly labeled me an "apologist for white supremacists." This stemmed from my endorsement of the documentary A Conversation About Race (directed by Craig Bodeker), which I recommended for classroom use because it offered perspectives rarely heard on university campuses and could spark productive debate. My photo appeared on the front page of The Tennessean with Potok's quote. Potok's justification for attacking me was based on racist comments that Mr. Bodeker had allegedly made at some point in his life.
The story went viral.
The attack on me was not an isolated incident. The SPLC has used guilt by association, cherry-picked quotes, and fabrications to damage reputations and organizations.
Crucial Early Support
At a time when I had very few resources to fight back and mainstream outlets were silent, James Taranto's October 26, 2009, Wall Street Journal article "In Defense of Carol Swain" was one of the first major pieces to present my side of the story. Taranto directly challenged the SPLC's smear tactics and helped bring national attention to its unfair attack on a prominent black scholar. Taranto's piece was a lifeline that allowed my perspective to reach a broader audience when institutional power was stacked against me.
Long-Term Professional Harm
In my September 11, 2017, Wall Street Journal op-ed, "What It's Like to Be Smeared by the Southern Poverty Law Center," I detailed the real-world consequences. Offers from other universities dried up. Speaking opportunities declined. I became "kryptonite" in certain academic and media circles. Being called an apologist for white supremacy was particularly damaging -- it undermined my credibility on race issues and isolated me from institutions that might otherwise have valued my perspective.
The SPLC seems to focus its arrows on groups and individuals who are outspoken advocates of traditional family values as well as the rule of law. My experiences with them have exposed how a powerful, tax-exempt organization with enormous influence over media, corporations, law enforcement, and government can chill free speech and academic freedom without any meaningful accountability for its actions. Hopefully, that will change.
Broader Implications
The SPLC's tactics -- mission creep, guilt by association, and weaponized "hate" labels -- have broader consequences. They distort public discourse and equate policy disagreements with bigotry. They influence tech companies, public and private schools, and federal agencies in ways that marginalize conservative and religious voices. Their smear tactics undermine individuals and organizations that are fighting for the public good.
Individual targets have included Dr. Benjamin Carson and Dr. Charles Murray, among others. Targeted organizations include Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, Focus on the Family, D. James Kennedy Ministries, and many others.
The SPLC smears institutions and individuals with the label of hate group that are not aligned with its progressive agenda. Its mission creep has now been dramatically exposed.
Decades ago, the SPLC could have declared victory after having helped stamp out the virulent hate groups it once targeted -- such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations.
However, it became a victim of its own success. Its continued existence and massive fundraising apparatus required an endless number of new bogeymen. Legitimate mainstream groups were smeared. We are here today because of the revelation that the SPLC secretly financed leaders of the kinds of groups it once sought to dismantle.
I urge this Committee to examine the SPLC's practices, its financial operations, its influence on government partnerships, and the lack of transparency and accountability surrounding its "hate group" designations. Real civil rights work requires truth-telling, not retaliation against scholars who challenge orthodoxies -- and certainly not the alleged financing of the hate the organization claims to fight. I hope Congress will deal with the SPLC appropriately, using all available means to hold accountable this once-vital institution.
Thank you for your time. I stand ready to answer questions and provide any additional information.
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Citations / Sources
1. Carol M. Swain, "Mission Creep and the Southern Poverty Law Center's Misguided Focus," Huffington Post, September 10, 2009. (PDF archive: https://splcexposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Swain_SPLC-and-Mission-Creep_Huffington-Post_2009.08.10.pdf)
2. Carol M. Swain, "Guilt by Association: The Southern Poverty Law Center Hurls a Punch," Huffington Post, March 18, 2010.
3. Mark Potok (SPLC), quoted in The Tennessean, October 17, 2009 (front-page story labeling Dr. Swain an "apologist for white supremacists").
4. James Taranto, "In Defense of Carol Swain," The Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2009. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405274870433590457449625062271902
5. Carol M. Swain, "What It's Like to Be Smeared by the Southern Poverty Law Center," The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2017. https://www.wsj.com/articles/whatits-like-to-be-smeared-by-the-southern-poverty-law-center-1505171221
6. Mark Potok, "After Debate With SPLC, a Professor Offers a Bizarre Take," SPLC Hatewatch, February 24, 2012.
7. U.S. Department of Justice, "Federal Grand Jury Charges Southern Poverty Law Center for Wire Fraud, False Statements, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering," April 21, 2026. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jurycharges-southern-poverty-law-center-wire-fraud-false-statements-and
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Original text here: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/swain-testimony_0.pdf
Assistant Secretary of War for International Security Affairs Zimmerman Testifies Before House Armed Services Committee
WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Daniel Zimmerman, Assistant Secretary of War for International Security Affairs in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Policy, from a May 19, 2026, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in the Greater Middle East and Africa":* * *
Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the posture of our forces and strategic priorities within the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) and U.S. ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Daniel Zimmerman, Assistant Secretary of War for International Security Affairs in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Policy, from a May 19, 2026, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in the Greater Middle East and Africa": * * * Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the posture of our forces and strategic priorities within the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) and U.S.Africa Command (USAFRICOM) areas of responsibility (AORs). It is my honor to appear alongside Commander, USCENTCOM Admiral Brad Cooper and Commander, USAFRICOM General Dagvin R.M. Anderson.
My remarks today will focus on the Department's approach to posture and strategy in these two theaters and how that is guided by the principles in our 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS).
The NDS is based on the principles of Peace through Strength and America First foreign policy - flowing from the conviction that a government's first duty is to its own citizens. Our strategy has four succinct lines of effort. First, we will defend the U.S. homeland. Second, we will deter China in the Indo-Pacific region, through strength not confrontation. Third, we must increase burden sharing with our allies and partners, especially in those areas where they have direct national security interests. Finally, to achieve all of this, we must supercharge the U.S. defense industrial base.
Our strategy is America first. The United States must and will prioritize theaters and challenges with the greatest consequence for American interests and where only American power can play a decisive role. Our adversaries must understand, without doubt, that the United States possesses both the capability and the political will to use decisive force to protect its vital interests and to safeguard the security and prosperity of the American people.
As the NDS lays out, we aim to work with and support our allies and partners around the world to deter threats, set conditions for peace, and to pursue mutual security interests.
Regarding the Middle East, President Trump has made clear that the United States seeks a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East, one defined by commerce and not chaos. This needs to be a Middle East where our allies and partners step up and lead in taking responsibility for their own security.
Operation EPIC FURY is an example of this strategy in action. The President initiated Operation EPIC FURY in direct response to the Iranian regime that waged a one-sided war against America for 47 years that threatened allies and partners and caused thousands of American casualties.
Across every domain--land, air, sea, and cyber--the U.S. Joint Force delivered synchronized and layered effects to disrupt, degrade, and destroy Iran's ability to conduct and sustain combat operations. The Secretary has noted that although Operation EPIC FURY was historic for its complexity, lethality, and precision, it also had a laser-focused mission - scoped to our interests and the defense of our people and our allies.
President Trump also seeks to redefine the United States' relationship with Africa, transitioning from an aid-focused relationship to a trade- and investment-focused relationship favoring partnerships with capable, reliable states intent on achieving common interests. Our Department will take a resource sustainable approach to counterterrorism and stand ready to take direct action against Islamic terrorists in Africa who are both capable of and intent on striking the U.S. homeland, while empowering African and other partners to lead efforts to degrade and destroy terrorist organizations throughout Africa.
The remainder of my testimony will demonstrate how our approach to the Middle East and Africa is a direct and integrated execution of the four lines of effort from the NDS.
U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND (USCENTCOM)
The Department's strategy in the USCENTCOM AOR is rooted in flexible realism, empowering regional partners to take the lead in their own defense while the United States serves as a security integrator, provides critical support in certain areas, and maintains the ability to act decisively to protect our interests.
Confronting Iran and its Proxies
Iran has been the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Despite the success of Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER, the Iranian regime continued to rapidly build out its missile and drone stockpiles as a conventional shield for its nuclear ambitions. Iran's array of ballistic, cruise, antiship, and other missiles posed a direct threat to and were used to attack U.S. forces, commercial vessels, and civilians, as well as those of our allies and partners. On February 28, under the direction of President Trump, DoW launched Operation EPIC FURY to eliminate these threats to core U.S. national interests from the Iranian regime. Our Gulf and Arab partners were critical to this effort, providing access, basing, and overflight permissions that were necessary to U.S. operations to disrupt, degrade, deny, and destroy Iran's ability to conduct and sustain combat operations. In Yemen, despite President Trump compelling the Houthis to a truce via Operation ROUGH RIDER, the Houthis maintain strike capabilities. We continue to work with partners to monitor and sustain pressure on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In Lebanon, DoW continues to press the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to accelerate their work to disarm Hezbollah.
Israel
Israel has long demonstrated that it is both willing and able to defend itself. It is a model ally, and we have an opportunity now to further empower Israel to defend itself and promote our shared interests, building on President Trump's historic efforts to secure peace in the Middle East, like the Abraham Accords. For example, through Israel's Operation ROARING LION, Israel executed thousands of sorties against Iranian targets.
Gaza
In Gaza, the Department is leaning in to support the momentum from the President's historic 20point peace plan. USCENTCOM moved with historic speed to establish the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) to enable partner contributions to the Gaza effort, to include the International Stabilization Force, without deploying U.S. military personnel into Gaza.
Egypt and the Levant
Egypt plays an integral role in preserving U.S. freedom of movement through the Suez Canal and is an inaugural member of the Board of Peace. Jordan remains a vital partner in defeating terrorist organizations and is also supporting the President's 20-point peace plan for Gaza. DoW is building the capability of the LAF to degrade Hezbollah, and in September 2025, approved a Presidential Drawdown Authority package of $14.2 million to provide the LAF with key capabilities.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
Across the Gulf, our partners are increasingly shouldering more of the burden for their own defense by acquiring and fielding U.S. defense equipment. The Department is placing a strategic focus on enhancing their air and missile defense capabilities to advance a regional integrated architecture. Following the 12-Day War, the Department established combined command posts and a Middle Eastern Air Defense - Combined Defense Operations Cell to improve partner coordination. Our Gulf partners also serve as key enablers for U.S. operations by providing access, basing, and overflight permissions, and are generously funding the Board of Peace.
As Iran indiscriminately targeted its neighbors in response to Operation EPIC FURY, our Gulf partners stepped up to lead in their own defense and help defend U.S. civilians and military personnel in the region. Gulf partners demonstrated significant air defense capabilities in response to Iranian attacks, collectively intercepting thousands of Iranian missiles and UAVs.
U.S. forces embedded in partner air operations centers across the region supported coordination, deconfliction, and synchronization of air defense efforts. Our efforts, enabled by decades of partner investment in foreign military sales, joint training and exercises, and information-sharing, highlight how the Department is empowering Gulf partners' sovereign defense to counter Iranian attacks and safeguard regional stability.
Robust foreign military sales, training, exercises, and regional integration efforts with our Gulf partners are also allowing us to outcompete China and counter the expansion of China's influence in the region. The U.S.-Saudi Strategic Defense Agreement, signed in November 2025, reinforces our longstanding partnership and ensures the United States remains the partner of choice for Saudi Arabia as it modernizes its military. Our intent is to ensure the United States remains the partner of choice in the defense realm and that our partners' engagement with Beijing does not negatively infringe on our interoperability or strategic alignment.
Iraq and Syria
Both Iraq and Syria are at pivotal moments. The ISIS threat has been successfully reduced to a level that Iraqi and Syrian forces can manage with scoped and targeted U.S. assistance. After over a decade of excellent work by the Coalition, Iraq can lead the fight against ISIS in Iraq, and the Department of War has transitioned to a bilateral security relationship with Baghdad.
In February, Iraq took custody of thousands of ISIS detainees for detention and prosecution.
However, the dominance of Iran-backed Shia militias in Iraqi politics and society continues to be a major source of concern. Syria has exited from a long civil war and, thanks to President Trump's leadership, has the option to pursue peace and reconstruction. The new Syrian government has demonstrated some level of willingness and capability to address ISIS threats, although more remains to be seen on this front. As the Department adjusts its posture in the region, we continue to monitor and destroy ISIS remnants and ensure that ISIS can never use Syria as a platform from which to launch operations against the U.S. Homeland.
Central Asia and Afghanistan:
The Department's counterterrorism cooperation with Central Asian States neutralizes threats before they reach the U.S. homeland. This is critical, as demonstrated by the arrests of ISISaffiliated Tajik nationals in the United States. Exercises like USCENTCOM's "Regional Cooperation" build our partners' collective capacity to defeat these threats. The Department also continues to prevent terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan to protect the U.S. homeland by engaging in counterterrorism operations through Operation ENDURING SENTINEL. This Administration has streamlined the process for conducting direct action against terrorist targets, enabling the Department to conduct decisive counterterrorism action that addresses the threats in real time. The Department also works closely with its partners to maintain pressure on these terrorist groups and counteract terrorist recruitment efforts.
The Department's targeted investments enhance our partners' territorial defense. With Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan emerging as regional leaders, our partners are increasingly eager to cooperate with the United States to generate regional security and contribute to international missions.
Defense Industrial Base:
The success of our flexible realism doctrine depends on the innovation and growing capacity of our defense industrial partners. The recent operations in USCENTCOM are a powerful case study. The speed and precision of Operation EPIC FURY, Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER, and Operation ROUGH RIDER were enabled by the advanced capabilities developed by our industrial base. We will continue to look for opportunities to partner broadly across the USCENTCOM AOR to leverage partner capital investments through foreign military sales and bilateral armaments cooperation to expand our production capacity in ways that further U.S. interests.
U.S. AFRICA COMMAND (USAFRICOM)
The same philosophy of flexible realism and partner-enabled security also directs our efficientfootprint approach in the USAFRICOM AOR. Our model relies on African forces leading security efforts on the ground, with targeted U.S. support. As the center of Islamic terrorism has shifted from the Middle East to Africa, this partner-centric approach is critical to our first line of effort: defending the U.S. homeland by confronting dangerous regional affiliates of global terrorist organizations at their source.
East Africa
In East Africa, the Department of War has sustained its counterterrorism operations. In Northern Somalia, without committing ground forces, DoW has provided key enablers and air support to the Puntland Defense Forces. The result of this approach is a significantly degraded ISISSomalia with reduced ability to plan external operations, including against the United States. In Southern Somalia, the Department showcases our third line of effort of burden sharing. Our longstanding operations in the region are an opportunity to apply this concept with operationally independent partners like Turkey, Ethiopia, and Kenya. These nations confront the threat of al Shabaab for their own national security interests, and DoW investments concentrate on these proven partnerships, providing unique enablers and logistical support to extend their operational reach.
West Africa and the Sahel
The Department seeks to replicate this partner-leveraged model in West Africa and the Sahel.
There, DoW is working closely with capable partners to address intelligence gaps, facilitate information sharing, and degrade the capabilities of terrorists. To advance burden sharing, DoW will work with African partners such as Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, and Cameroon.
The Department, in accordance with the President's directive and in partnership with Nigeria, is targeting terrorist groups associated with attacks on Nigeria's Christian and vulnerable populations and is working to strengthen the Nigerian armed forces so they can better protect their citizens and lead regional counter-terror efforts. We will enable these partners to act as security exporters who can independently deliver regional stability and advance shared interests.
North Africa
In North Africa, we also emphasize burden sharing, expecting our European allies and capable African partners to take on a greater role in ensuring the stability of North and West Africa.
Major Non-NATO Allies Morocco and Tunisia are among our most capable partners on the continent, demonstrating both the will and capability to address the shared threat of Islamic terrorism emanating from the Sahel.
Across Africa
Our activities across Africa are fundamental to deterring China through strength, not confrontation. DoW prioritizes countering Chinese activities that have a direct impact on U.S. forces' ability to execute a denial defense along the first island chain. China is pursuing a global logistics and basing network to project military power and is actively considering additional facilities in multiple African countries. The PLA Support Base in Djibouti, for example, has enabled a persistent regional presence, and intelligence collection from any additional PLA logistics network would support China's situational awareness of U.S. and allied activities. Our intent is to ensure the United States remains a preferred defense partner to African nations and that Chinese engagements do not negatively impact DoW interests. We will not achieve this goal by chasing China's overtures across the continent in a bidding war for influence. Rather, DoW offers African partners a superior value proposition; a real partnership, which protects U.S. interests and improves our partners' regional security.
Finally, none of these efforts are possible without supercharging the U.S. defense industrial base. In support of this mission, we will support interagency efforts across Africa to increase U.S. access to the critical minerals and other natural resources necessary for the revitalization of our defense industrial base.
Conclusion: A Confident and Forward-Looking Strategy
In conclusion, the Department of War's posture in the USCENTCOM and USAFRICOM AORs is a coherent and integrated execution of our National Defense Strategy. Guided by the philosophy of flexible realism, we are defending the homeland, deterring China, fostering partner-led security, and facilitating the industrial base build-out necessary to do it all.
The Department of War is confident in this strategy, in our superb service members, and in our ability to defend this nation.
Thank you.
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Editor's note: President Trump, by executive order on Sept. 5, 2025, said he wanted to call the Department of Defense the Department of War. However, only an act of Congress can change the name of the agency, and Congress has not acted. Targeted News Service will use the designations presented on the agency website going forward.
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Original text here: https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2026-05-19_zimmerman_testimony.pdf
Acting Labor Secretary Sonderling Testifies Before Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling from a May 19, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request:* * *
Chairwoman Capito, Ranking Member Baldwin, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify today. I am pleased to appear before this Subcommittee on behalf of President Trump and the hardworking men and women of the Department of Labor, reporting to you on the progress we have made for American workers ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling from a May 19, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request: * * * Chairwoman Capito, Ranking Member Baldwin, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify today. I am pleased to appear before this Subcommittee on behalf of President Trump and the hardworking men and women of the Department of Labor, reporting to you on the progress we have made for American workersas we also look ahead to Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 and beyond.
The President has put forth a responsible and well-reasoned budget for FY 2027 that reflects the Administration's priorities to put American Workers First. The FY 2027 President's Budget for the Department of Labor is $10.7 billion in discretionary budget authority and 10,740 FTE, with additional mandatory funding. This is a decrease of approximately $2.6 billion from FY 2026 enacted levels. The FY 2027 Budget reflects the Trump Administration's commitment to workforce development, fair trade, and fiscal responsibility. The Administration's proposal focuses the Department on its highest priority functions and disinvests in programs that are wasteful, duplicative, unproven, non-essential, or ineffective. The funding levels reflect the reforms necessary to enable agencies to fulfill their statutory responsibilities in the most costeffective manner possible. Since the start of this Administration, the Department of Labor has proven its ability to do more with less and maximize the value of taxpayer dollars. The Budget promotes sound management and an efficiency-driven approach to protecting and supporting American workers and retirees.
Overview
The dedication, ingenuity, and innovation of our American workforce--the greatest in the world--is unparalleled. From serving in the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division during the first Trump Administration, to my tenure as a Commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, then as both Deputy Secretary and now Acting Secretary of Labor, I have had the pleasure to engage directly with American workers and employers across the country over the last decade. I can assure you that no one works harder than the men and women of our nation who farm, mine, make, build, transport, innovate, design, create, serve, and engage with other Americans to make our lives healthier, safer, easier, more productive, and more affordable.
President Trump's vision for the Department of Labor is straightforward: to restore government efficiency while putting American workers first to deliver a new Golden Age of American prosperity. The first year of the second Trump Administration was marked by economic growth and increased opportunity for the American workforce. I am pleased to report on just a few notable milestones:
* Private sector wages grew 3.9 percent during the first three months of this year. Factory workers' wages improved from an $830 loss under the Biden Administration to an impressive $2,400 gain under this Trump Administration, easily surpassing inflation.
* Federal employment is at its lowest level in almost sixty years, more than 700,000 private sector jobs have been added since President Trump took office, and initial jobless claims plunged to their lowest level since 1969 at the end of April.
* Since January of last year, the Department has registered over 3,500 new apprenticeship programs and added more than 400,000 new apprentices - providing debt-free paths to giving workers the critical skills to find mortgage-paying jobs.
* The Department launched a modern open data portal at data.dol.gov, making it more transparent and efficient for users to access data related to the American workforce. The portal helps bring the Department into alignment with the OPEN Government Data Act of 2019 and the Federal Data Strategy established during President Trump's first administration.
* Over the course of the past 12 months, the Department returned over $4.4 billion in unspent and unusable COVID-era funding to the U.S. Department of the Treasury's General Fund, supporting President Trump's promise to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars.
* Our Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recently announced that injury rates fell to an all-time low in 2025, as the total recordable injury rate was 1.74 per 200,000 hours, down from 1.82 the previous year. The Trump Administration is ensuring that as we increase domestic mineral production, we are also achieving the highest possible safety standards to keep American miners safe on the job.
* To support job creators by promoting compliance alongside enforcement, the Department rolled out efforts to encourage employers to comply with the law in the least burdensome ways possible. Our enforcement agencies issued their opinion letter and self-audit programs to better help employers succeed and ensure all workers have access to fair pay, safe working conditions, and a secure retirement.
The investments that President Trump made in the workforce and our economy, like the historic Working Families Tax Cut Act, are paying off. I look forward to continuing to work with Congress as we carry out the Department's mission.
Making America Skilled Again
The Make America Skilled Again (MASA) grant program gives states and localities flexibility to spend workforce dollars in the way that makes the most sense for their areas by simplifying the structures through which workforce dollars are delivered.
President Trump's Executive Order 14278: Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future outlines the President's dedication to modernizing American workforce programs. The current mix of federal training programs is difficult for state and local governments to manage, often resulting in overlapping efforts and high administrative costs. To streamline operations and boost results, the President's Budget proposes merging 12 of the Department of Labor's workforce development grant programs into a single MASA grant program.
This $3.4 billion investment, a net savings of $1.2 billion over the disparate programs MASA consolidates, will reduce bureaucracy, lighten administrative tasks, and enhance the quality of worker training. This grant program will let states and localities respond flexibly to workforce demands and support positive employment outcomes. MASA will support the successful Registered Apprenticeship model by requiring grantees to spend at least 10 percent of their funds on apprenticeship activities. An additional 3 percent set aside will be dedicated to targeted federal investments in apprenticeships--such as contracts, outreach, and technology upgrades-- and 0.75 percent will go toward performance tracking, maintaining program integrity, and providing technical assistance. The Department remains committed to reaching and surpassing the President's goal of one million active apprentices nationwide.
In addition to MASA, the President's Budget includes $1.45 billion in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs funded under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, as amended, in the Training and Employment Services budget within the Employment and Training Administration (ETA). Since the foundation of the Department of Labor's partnership with the Department of Education in FY 2025, ETA has demonstrated that it can streamline administration of CTE programs to better serve students, families, educators, and skilled workers. This proposal will create a stronger talent pipeline for the nation's workforce and give states a central point of contact within the federal government, reducing duplication of effort, conflicting directives, and feedback from different federal agencies.
Protecting American Workers
American workers deserve fair, safe, and healthful workplaces. The Department is committed to delivering on President Trump's deregulatory agenda by removing unnecessary, burdensome regulations that hamstring businesses and by providing accessible compliance tools that lower or remove the barriers for businesses to meet remaining regulatory obligations.
The President's Budget provides $1.6 billion in discretionary resources to protect workers' health and safety, wages, and retirement. With these resources, the Department's worker protection agencies will promote compliance assistance to help keep American workers safe and employed while cutting ineffective spending. Through its enforcement efforts, the Department will also strategically target the most egregious and persistent violators and use establishmentlevel data to focus on the highest hazard industries and workplaces.
President Trump's Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring MeritBased Opportunity, provided a clear message to federal contractors that illegal DEI practices will not be tolerated. The President's Budget eliminates the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which has no statutory foundation and was responsible for enforcing these misaligned and misguided activities, and transfers its remaining statutory program areas to the newly created Office of Civil Rights.
The President's Budget includes $50.1 million in funding for the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) to maintain its effective oversight of unions' compliance with their statutory reporting requirements. This increase of $1.6 million over the FY 2026 enacted level will strengthen protections for union members and is essential for OLMS to accurately assess unions' compliance with the civil and criminal provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act by supporting audits and investigations to uncover flawed officer elections, fraud, and embezzlement. The additional funding builds on OLMS' latest efforts to improve transparency and accountability in reporting processes, as it recently launched a brand-new data visualization tool for Form LM-2 disclosures.
President Trump knows that most job creators want to do the right thing and keep their workers safe and healthy on the job. That is why, in alignment with the Trump Administration's priorities, the Department will assist businesses in complying with workplace safety standards by shifting additional resources in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) budget into compliance assistance activities. The President's Budget proposes shifting $7.3 million and 39 FTE from Federal Enforcement activities to Federal Compliance Assistance activities to allow OSHA representatives to provide one-on-one worksite assistance to employers pursuant to every inspection, as well as an additional $5.8 million and 21 FTE to augment the agency's targeted outreach to employers and workers. To streamline OSHA's work and improve whistleblower case processing time, the President's Budget shifts responsibility for the nonOccupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act whistleblower investigations out of OSHA and into the Office of Civil Rights.
The President's Budget includes requests for OSHA and MSHA that will modernize the Department's use of data to create more efficiently managed agencies. OSHA's budget request includes an increase of $6.5 million and 5 FTE for the Safety and Health Statistics budget activity to enhance the agency's artificial intelligence and data analytics capabilities. The request will allow OSHA to modernize how it manages and uses its data, enabling more efficient targeting of outreach and resources, earlier identification of emerging hazards, and improved voluntary engagement. By making better use of the data it already collects, OSHA can enhance operational efficiency while helping employers prevent injuries and save lives. MSHA proposes to streamline the agency's budget activities, in part by creating new consolidated Education & Training and Regulatory & Data Analysis activities. The new Regulatory & Data Analysis budget activity will support the development of standards and regulations that protect the safety and health of miners and the expansion and enhancement of open data initiatives to improve data usability and transparency.
Finally, the President's Budget includes $181 million for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to continue its work ensuring the security of the retirement, health, and other workplace related benefits of America's workers and their families. The Wage and Hour Division's (WHD) Budget of $235 million funds the agency to ensure American workers receive wages earned as required by law and provides resources and assistance to workers and employers to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards. The President's Budget requests that EBSA and WHD align funding with current staff levels with an enhanced focus on compliance assistance.
As part of the Administration's effort to reduce burdens on job creators, the Department has proposed a rule that would revise the Department's standard for determining employee or independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, providing important clarity for employers and workers. The proposed rule would protect independent contractors' entrepreneurial spirit and simplify compliance. To further clarify arrangements between businesses and workers, the Department recently proposed a rule that lays out a uniform analysis for assessing joint employer status under those same three laws. The Administration is also addressing the influence of pharmacy benefit management services, creating a more competitive and transparent prescription drug market that lowers costs across the health-care system. In the retirement space, the Department is leveling the playing field so all Americans have access to the same investment choices that were once reserved for the wealthy and large pension funds. With its proposed rule to democratize access to alternative investments in 401(k) plans, the Department's days of picking winners and losers are over.
Restoring Government Efficiency
The President's Budget takes additional steps to improve efficiency.
The President's Budget reorganizes the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the Department of Commerce under the policy direction of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs. This proposal will leverage data collection and analysis synergies, increase cost-effectiveness, improve data quality, and reduce respondent burden, while prioritizing data accuracy and timeliness.
The President's Budget includes $35.4 million in resources to establish a new Office of Civil Rights. This new office will consolidate existing Civil Rights Center functions, absorb OFCCP's remaining responsibilities for Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act and Rehabilitation Act Section 503 enforcement, and manage the non-OSH Act whistleblower statute enforcement work that is currently assigned to OSHA. Centralizing the non-occupational safety and health whistleblower cases will streamline processing and create efficiencies.
The President's Budget includes $86.8 million to reorganize the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) into an independent DOL agency rather than an office within ETA. This new organizational structure will enable the Department to administer immigration and migration policies, regulations, and programs in a manner that optimizes performance, maintains the continuity of customer-centered operations, and ensures the hiring of foreign workers does not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of American workers comparably employed. In addition to OFLC's existing duties, this reformation of OFLC as an independent agency within DOL will also include absorbing the Department's U and T visa work currently delegated to OSHA and the Department's immigration and migration policy coordination function currently managed by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB).
Consistent with our efforts to put America First, the President's Budget streamlines ILAB, reorienting it to focus on its core work of helping ensure our trading partners fulfill their laborrelated trade commitments. This Budget ensures American workers and businesses benefit from international trade and are not undermined by other countries' artificial cost advantages due to lax labor protections or exploitative working conditions. The President's Budget provides $70 million to ILAB, including $38 million in grant funding, and will allow the agency to support the President's America First Trade Policy, shape international labor standards to benefit US workers, combat unfair labor practices, and improve American competitiveness through technical assistance.
Conclusion
In closing, I hope my statement today makes clear the range and impact of the Department's accomplishments this past year, as well as President Trump's vision for building on this progress in the coming fiscal year. The Department is hard at work supporting Americans' efforts to obtain and excel in good, safe, family-sustaining jobs and ensuring the American economy remains the greatest in the world. From cutting red tape to defending our workers and preparing them for the jobs of the future, this Administration is keeping its promise to build a Golden Age of prosperity for all Americans.
We look forward to working with Congress on these important goals.
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Original text here: https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/sonderling_testimony_fy27.pdf
Acting Labor Secretary Sonderling Testifies Before Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling from a May 19, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request:* * *
Chairwoman Capito, Ranking Member Baldwin, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify today. I am pleased to appear before this Subcommittee on behalf of President Trump and the hardworking men and women of the Department of Labor, reporting to you on the progress we have made for American workers ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling from a May 19, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request: * * * Chairwoman Capito, Ranking Member Baldwin, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify today. I am pleased to appear before this Subcommittee on behalf of President Trump and the hardworking men and women of the Department of Labor, reporting to you on the progress we have made for American workersas we also look ahead to Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 and beyond.
The President has put forth a responsible and well-reasoned budget for FY 2027 that reflects the Administration's priorities to put American Workers First. The FY 2027 President's Budget for the Department of Labor is $10.7 billion in discretionary budget authority and 10,740 FTE, with additional mandatory funding. This is a decrease of approximately $2.6 billion from FY 2026 enacted levels. The FY 2027 Budget reflects the Trump Administration's commitment to workforce development, fair trade, and fiscal responsibility. The Administration's proposal focuses the Department on its highest priority functions and disinvests in programs that are wasteful, duplicative, unproven, non-essential, or ineffective. The funding levels reflect the reforms necessary to enable agencies to fulfill their statutory responsibilities in the most costeffective manner possible. Since the start of this Administration, the Department of Labor has proven its ability to do more with less and maximize the value of taxpayer dollars. The Budget promotes sound management and an efficiency-driven approach to protecting and supporting American workers and retirees.
Overview
The dedication, ingenuity, and innovation of our American workforce--the greatest in the world--is unparalleled. From serving in the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division during the first Trump Administration, to my tenure as a Commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, then as both Deputy Secretary and now Acting Secretary of Labor, I have had the pleasure to engage directly with American workers and employers across the country over the last decade. I can assure you that no one works harder than the men and women of our nation who farm, mine, make, build, transport, innovate, design, create, serve, and engage with other Americans to make our lives healthier, safer, easier, more productive, and more affordable.
President Trump's vision for the Department of Labor is straightforward: to restore government efficiency while putting American workers first to deliver a new Golden Age of American prosperity. The first year of the second Trump Administration was marked by economic growth and increased opportunity for the American workforce. I am pleased to report on just a few notable milestones:
* Private sector wages grew 3.9 percent during the first three months of this year. Factory workers' wages improved from an $830 loss under the Biden Administration to an impressive $2,400 gain under this Trump Administration, easily surpassing inflation.
* Federal employment is at its lowest level in almost sixty years, more than 700,000 private sector jobs have been added since President Trump took office, and initial jobless claims plunged to their lowest level since 1969 at the end of April.
* Since January of last year, the Department has registered over 3,500 new apprenticeship programs and added more than 400,000 new apprentices - providing debt-free paths to giving workers the critical skills to find mortgage-paying jobs.
* The Department launched a modern open data portal at data.dol.gov, making it more transparent and efficient for users to access data related to the American workforce. The portal helps bring the Department into alignment with the OPEN Government Data Act of 2019 and the Federal Data Strategy established during President Trump's first administration.
* Over the course of the past 12 months, the Department returned over $4.4 billion in unspent and unusable COVID-era funding to the U.S. Department of the Treasury's General Fund, supporting President Trump's promise to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars.
* Our Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recently announced that injury rates fell to an all-time low in 2025, as the total recordable injury rate was 1.74 per 200,000 hours, down from 1.82 the previous year. The Trump Administration is ensuring that as we increase domestic mineral production, we are also achieving the highest possible safety standards to keep American miners safe on the job.
* To support job creators by promoting compliance alongside enforcement, the Department rolled out efforts to encourage employers to comply with the law in the least burdensome ways possible. Our enforcement agencies issued their opinion letter and self-audit programs to better help employers succeed and ensure all workers have access to fair pay, safe working conditions, and a secure retirement.
The investments that President Trump made in the workforce and our economy, like the historic Working Families Tax Cut Act, are paying off. I look forward to continuing to work with Congress as we carry out the Department's mission.
Making America Skilled Again
The Make America Skilled Again (MASA) grant program gives states and localities flexibility to spend workforce dollars in the way that makes the most sense for their areas by simplifying the structures through which workforce dollars are delivered.
President Trump's Executive Order 14278: Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future outlines the President's dedication to modernizing American workforce programs. The current mix of federal training programs is difficult for state and local governments to manage, often resulting in overlapping efforts and high administrative costs. To streamline operations and boost results, the President's Budget proposes merging 12 of the Department of Labor's workforce development grant programs into a single MASA grant program.
This $3.4 billion investment, a net savings of $1.2 billion over the disparate programs MASA consolidates, will reduce bureaucracy, lighten administrative tasks, and enhance the quality of worker training. This grant program will let states and localities respond flexibly to workforce demands and support positive employment outcomes. MASA will support the successful Registered Apprenticeship model by requiring grantees to spend at least 10 percent of their funds on apprenticeship activities. An additional 3 percent set aside will be dedicated to targeted federal investments in apprenticeships--such as contracts, outreach, and technology upgrades-- and 0.75 percent will go toward performance tracking, maintaining program integrity, and providing technical assistance. The Department remains committed to reaching and surpassing the President's goal of one million active apprentices nationwide.
In addition to MASA, the President's Budget includes $1.45 billion in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs funded under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, as amended, in the Training and Employment Services budget within the Employment and Training Administration (ETA). Since the foundation of the Department of Labor's partnership with the Department of Education in FY 2025, ETA has demonstrated that it can streamline administration of CTE programs to better serve students, families, educators, and skilled workers. This proposal will create a stronger talent pipeline for the nation's workforce and give states a central point of contact within the federal government, reducing duplication of effort, conflicting directives, and feedback from different federal agencies.
Protecting American Workers
American workers deserve fair, safe, and healthful workplaces. The Department is committed to delivering on President Trump's deregulatory agenda by removing unnecessary, burdensome regulations that hamstring businesses and by providing accessible compliance tools that lower or remove the barriers for businesses to meet remaining regulatory obligations.
The President's Budget provides $1.6 billion in discretionary resources to protect workers' health and safety, wages, and retirement. With these resources, the Department's worker protection agencies will promote compliance assistance to help keep American workers safe and employed while cutting ineffective spending. Through its enforcement efforts, the Department will also strategically target the most egregious and persistent violators and use establishmentlevel data to focus on the highest hazard industries and workplaces.
President Trump's Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring MeritBased Opportunity, provided a clear message to federal contractors that illegal DEI practices will not be tolerated. The President's Budget eliminates the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which has no statutory foundation and was responsible for enforcing these misaligned and misguided activities, and transfers its remaining statutory program areas to the newly created Office of Civil Rights.
The President's Budget includes $50.1 million in funding for the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) to maintain its effective oversight of unions' compliance with their statutory reporting requirements. This increase of $1.6 million over the FY 2026 enacted level will strengthen protections for union members and is essential for OLMS to accurately assess unions' compliance with the civil and criminal provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act by supporting audits and investigations to uncover flawed officer elections, fraud, and embezzlement. The additional funding builds on OLMS' latest efforts to improve transparency and accountability in reporting processes, as it recently launched a brand-new data visualization tool for Form LM-2 disclosures.
President Trump knows that most job creators want to do the right thing and keep their workers safe and healthy on the job. That is why, in alignment with the Trump Administration's priorities, the Department will assist businesses in complying with workplace safety standards by shifting additional resources in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) budget into compliance assistance activities. The President's Budget proposes shifting $7.3 million and 39 FTE from Federal Enforcement activities to Federal Compliance Assistance activities to allow OSHA representatives to provide one-on-one worksite assistance to employers pursuant to every inspection, as well as an additional $5.8 million and 21 FTE to augment the agency's targeted outreach to employers and workers. To streamline OSHA's work and improve whistleblower case processing time, the President's Budget shifts responsibility for the nonOccupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act whistleblower investigations out of OSHA and into the Office of Civil Rights.
The President's Budget includes requests for OSHA and MSHA that will modernize the Department's use of data to create more efficiently managed agencies. OSHA's budget request includes an increase of $6.5 million and 5 FTE for the Safety and Health Statistics budget activity to enhance the agency's artificial intelligence and data analytics capabilities. The request will allow OSHA to modernize how it manages and uses its data, enabling more efficient targeting of outreach and resources, earlier identification of emerging hazards, and improved voluntary engagement. By making better use of the data it already collects, OSHA can enhance operational efficiency while helping employers prevent injuries and save lives. MSHA proposes to streamline the agency's budget activities, in part by creating new consolidated Education & Training and Regulatory & Data Analysis activities. The new Regulatory & Data Analysis budget activity will support the development of standards and regulations that protect the safety and health of miners and the expansion and enhancement of open data initiatives to improve data usability and transparency.
Finally, the President's Budget includes $181 million for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to continue its work ensuring the security of the retirement, health, and other workplace related benefits of America's workers and their families. The Wage and Hour Division's (WHD) Budget of $235 million funds the agency to ensure American workers receive wages earned as required by law and provides resources and assistance to workers and employers to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards. The President's Budget requests that EBSA and WHD align funding with current staff levels with an enhanced focus on compliance assistance.
As part of the Administration's effort to reduce burdens on job creators, the Department has proposed a rule that would revise the Department's standard for determining employee or independent contractor status under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, providing important clarity for employers and workers. The proposed rule would protect independent contractors' entrepreneurial spirit and simplify compliance. To further clarify arrangements between businesses and workers, the Department recently proposed a rule that lays out a uniform analysis for assessing joint employer status under those same three laws. The Administration is also addressing the influence of pharmacy benefit management services, creating a more competitive and transparent prescription drug market that lowers costs across the health-care system. In the retirement space, the Department is leveling the playing field so all Americans have access to the same investment choices that were once reserved for the wealthy and large pension funds. With its proposed rule to democratize access to alternative investments in 401(k) plans, the Department's days of picking winners and losers are over.
Restoring Government Efficiency
The President's Budget takes additional steps to improve efficiency.
The President's Budget reorganizes the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the Department of Commerce under the policy direction of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs. This proposal will leverage data collection and analysis synergies, increase cost-effectiveness, improve data quality, and reduce respondent burden, while prioritizing data accuracy and timeliness.
The President's Budget includes $35.4 million in resources to establish a new Office of Civil Rights. This new office will consolidate existing Civil Rights Center functions, absorb OFCCP's remaining responsibilities for Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act and Rehabilitation Act Section 503 enforcement, and manage the non-OSH Act whistleblower statute enforcement work that is currently assigned to OSHA. Centralizing the non-occupational safety and health whistleblower cases will streamline processing and create efficiencies.
The President's Budget includes $86.8 million to reorganize the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) into an independent DOL agency rather than an office within ETA. This new organizational structure will enable the Department to administer immigration and migration policies, regulations, and programs in a manner that optimizes performance, maintains the continuity of customer-centered operations, and ensures the hiring of foreign workers does not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of American workers comparably employed. In addition to OFLC's existing duties, this reformation of OFLC as an independent agency within DOL will also include absorbing the Department's U and T visa work currently delegated to OSHA and the Department's immigration and migration policy coordination function currently managed by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB).
Consistent with our efforts to put America First, the President's Budget streamlines ILAB, reorienting it to focus on its core work of helping ensure our trading partners fulfill their laborrelated trade commitments. This Budget ensures American workers and businesses benefit from international trade and are not undermined by other countries' artificial cost advantages due to lax labor protections or exploitative working conditions. The President's Budget provides $70 million to ILAB, including $38 million in grant funding, and will allow the agency to support the President's America First Trade Policy, shape international labor standards to benefit US workers, combat unfair labor practices, and improve American competitiveness through technical assistance.
Conclusion
In closing, I hope my statement today makes clear the range and impact of the Department's accomplishments this past year, as well as President Trump's vision for building on this progress in the coming fiscal year. The Department is hard at work supporting Americans' efforts to obtain and excel in good, safe, family-sustaining jobs and ensuring the American economy remains the greatest in the world. From cutting red tape to defending our workers and preparing them for the jobs of the future, this Administration is keeping its promise to build a Golden Age of prosperity for all Americans.
We look forward to working with Congress on these important goals.
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Original text here: https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/sonderling_testimony_fy27.pdf
Acting A.G. Blanche Testifies Before Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from a May 19, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request:* * *
Good morning, Chairman Moran, Ranking Member Van Hollen, and other distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I am honored to appear before you today to present President Trump's Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget for the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ). I look forward to working with you to ensure continued support for the Department of ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from a May 19, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request: * * * Good morning, Chairman Moran, Ranking Member Van Hollen, and other distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I am honored to appear before you today to present President Trump's Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget for the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ). I look forward to working with you to ensure continued support for the Department ofJustice and its many critical missions.
President Trump's FY 2027 Budget for the Department of Justice totals $41.2 billion, a 13 percent increase over FY 2026. This request reflects the President's commitment to reduce crime and target drug traffickers, enforce our Nation's immigration laws, counter fraud, and modernize the Department.
FY 2027 Budget Highlights
First, the Department of Justice is working hard every day to combat violent crime. Since January 20, 2025, the Department has federally indicted over 260 members of Tren de Aragua (TdA). TdA is a terrorist cartel that exploits our borders to bring murder, drugs, and chaos into American communities. We are crushing their leadership, dismantling their networks, and cutting off their money across the United States. To continue our successes, the President's Budget includes $22.2 billion for our law enforcement components and the U.S. Attorney's Offices, a 16 percent increase over FY 2026. This significant investment reflects the President's and my commitment to further the mission of the DOJ. These funds will enable the Department to dismantle the worst criminal organizations and continue to target the most violent offenders domestically and abroad.
Second, the Department of Justice is dedicated to enforcing the nation's immigration laws.
Over the past year, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has made significant progress in reducing the immigration case backlog. Since President Trump entered office, we have driven down the case backlog by over 400,000 cases. To further these efforts, the President's Budget includes $899 million for EOIR. These resources restore positions cut in FY 2026 and invest in critical information technology modernization efforts. Combined with the resources provided by Congress in the Working Families Tax Cut Act (WFTCA) to hire more immigration judges, the President's Budget will ensure an effective immigration court system that efficiently processes claims. Additionally, the Department will devote nearly $4 billion across all of its components toward enforcing our immigration laws through criminal prosecutions and affirmative civil enforcement efforts.
Third, the Department created the National Fraud Enforcement Division (FRD). This new division will form the nexus of the Federal government's efforts to combat fraud. In April, I directed a review of the Department's resources devoted to combatting fraud with the goal of efficiently consolidating criminal fraud resources within the new Fraud Division. Once that review is finished, the Department will provide full details to this subcommittee. Also, the President's Budget for FY 2027 requests an additional $30 million to hire 100 more attorneys for the FRD and to build out a data analytics infrastructure that will enable the FRD to more effectively combat fraud targeting government programs and the American public. I look forward to working with you in further developing the Department's capacity to lead the effort to combat fraud.
Fourth, the Department is consolidating its three grantmaking organizations into one component to reduce bureaucracy and provide more funding and support to grantees. By consolidating the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), and Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) into the new Bureau of Justice Grants, we will create administrative efficiencies that result in grantees having greater, and simpler, access to the full universe of DOJ grant funds. DOJ will centralize duplicative administrative functions and each office will maintain their unique brand and statutory responsibilities.
Streamlining administrative operations will reduce bureaucracy and enable the three organizations to better serve their vital constituencies, increase the flow of resources to grantees, and reduce administrative delays in making awards. This consolidation plan is already showing results: COPS, OJP, and OVW are implementing a single Notice of Funding Opportunity template for FY 2026, and for the first time they are working towards a uniform grant review and administration framework.
Fifth, the Department is investing heavily in our Federal prison system to ensure it is a safe and humane environment, and supports our men and women in correctional positions. The President's Budget requests over $10 billion for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), providing historic support to increase and retain correctional staff and putting permanent solutions in place to ensure correctional officers are paid adequately and competitively.
The Department is also investing in home confinement and residential reentry centers for qualifying inmates, eliminating barriers to inmates' returning to communities and leading productive lives. Finally, the President's Budget begins the redevelopment of Alcatraz as a world class prison facility to house our most dangerous criminals. These and other investments will ensure BOP can make the necessary staffing and infrastructure investments to run safe and secure prison facilities.
Challenges
The Department greatly appreciates the resources included in the President's Budget, but I would be remiss in not highlighting some of our current challenges. FY 2026 is a challenging year for DOJ. This is the second year in which we are operating with a flat budget overall, with some components operating with fairly significant cuts. The President's Budget request provides significant investments across the Department to ensure the safety and security of the American people.
Conclusion
Chairman Moran, Ranking Member Van Hollen, it is my pleasure to highlight our efforts to be good stewards of the resources and authorities bestowed on us as we strengthen the Department's ability to ensure safety, security, and justice for all Americans.
As Acting Attorney General, I am committed to making the Department of Justice run as efficiently and effectively as possible. Thank you for your continued support of the Department's financial needs, and for the opportunity to present our FY 2027 budget request. I look forward to working with you through the upcoming fiscal year to ensure that the Department of Justice remains on solid financial footing and can accomplish its mission of keeping Americans safe. Thank you.
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Original text here: https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/blanche_testimony_fy27.pdf