Congressional Testimony
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Brown School of Social Work Professor Font Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Sarah Font, professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs":* * *
Thank you for the invitation to speak to the Committee on a topic of great importance: the adoption of children from foster care.
I have spent my career focused on child welfare, first as a caseworker ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Sarah Font, professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs": * * * Thank you for the invitation to speak to the Committee on a topic of great importance: the adoption of children from foster care. I have spent my career focused on child welfare, first as a caseworkerand then as a researcher and professor. I am currently a Professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, though my testimony today reflects my views and not those of my employer.
For this testimony, I first explain why adoption is an essential option for children and provide an overview of the key barriers to timely and stable adoption. Lastly, I discuss the role of federal funding in improving adoption practice and outcomes and discuss needed changes to current programming, data collection, and evaluation.
1. Why Adoption Matters
All children deserve the opportunity to grow up in a family where they are loved, protected, and supported as they grow into productive and healthy adults. Federal policy has long recognized that prolonged periods of uncertainty impose tremendous psychological harm on children.
Children cannot plan for their futures or build trusting relationships when they do not know where they will be tomorrow.1 Adoption is an essential service for children who cannot safely remain with their families of origin and I am grateful to the Committee for elevating this topic.
2. The Slow Path to Adoption
States have routinely failed to facilitate timely, safe, and stable adoptions for children in need.
Federal data show that children spend a median of 31 months in foster care before exiting to adoption; in several states, the median time exceeds 45 months.2 Given that most children who exit to adoption entered care before their 3rd birthday, many of these children spend substantially more time in foster care than they ever spent with their biological parents.
In 2023, I completed a project comparing states' permanency outcomes - that is, whether and how quickly children exit foster care to reunification, adoption, or guardianship.3 Three years after entering foster care, only 57% of infants who were not reunified had been adopted. But states varied substantially: In Iowa and Arizona, over 85% of infants who were not reunified were adopted within 3 years; in New York, only 28%. Older children faced much worse odds.
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1 E. Susana Mariscal et al., "Exploring the Path from Foster Care to Stable and Lasting Adoption: Perceptions of Foster Care Alumni," Children and Youth Services Review 55 (August 2015): 111-20, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.05.017; Sarah A. Font and Lindsey Palmer, "Timely Permanency for Children in Foster Care: Revisiting Core Assumptions about Children's Options and Outcomes," Court Review 58, no. 1 (2022): 26-32.
2 Based on the AFCARS 2022 6-month file.
3 Sarah Font, How Long Do States Let Children in Foster Care Wait for Permanent Families? Timely Permanency Report Cards (American Enterprise Institute, 2023), https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/how-long-dostates-let-children-in-foster-care-wait-for-permanent-families-timely-permanency-report-cards/.
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For children who entered care at ages 7-10 and were not reunified, fewer than 1 in 4 exited to adoption within 3 years.
3. Barriers to Timely Adoption
Nearly three decades have passed since Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) to prevent children from languishing in foster care indefinitely. Today, the key provisions of ASFA continue to be poorly implemented and unenforced in many jurisdictions.
Consequently, too many children spend too many of their formative years in temporary settings.
a. Dangerous and Inappropriate Reunification Plans
ASFA permits states to bypass reasonable efforts for reunification in cases of aggravated circumstances; however, the use of bypass is not required. Since ASFA was enacted, research suggests little use of the aggravated circumstances provision.4 Thus, states may continue to draw down federal funds to reunify children with parents who sexually abused5 and inflicted severe physical abuse on them6 or caused the death of their sibling.7 Youth also report that reunification plans are sometimes forced on them when they did not want to reunify.8 Even when a parent acknowledges their inability to safely parent and requests voluntary relinquishment, judges may reject such requests and force reunification efforts to continue.9
Even when children are not reunified in these egregious circumstances, it is not harmless to spend years in foster care, often enduring continued visits with their abusers and without the security of a permanent legal family. A child should never have to wonder if they are going to be sent back to the parent who caused their sibling's death or severely abused them.
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4 Jill Duerr Berrick et al., "Reasonable Efforts? Implementation of the Reunification Exception Provisions of ASFA," Child Welfare 87, no. 3 (2008): 163-82; U.S. General Accounting Office, Foster Care: Recent Legislation Helps States Focus on Finding Permanent Homes for Children but Long-Standing Barriers Remain, Report to Congressional Requesters GAO-02-585 Adoption and Safe Families Act (2002), https://www.gao.gov/products/gao02-585.
5 Sarah A. Font and Naomi Schaefer Riley, "Why Are States Putting Child Sex Abuse Victims Back in the Home of Their Abusive Parents?," USA TODAY, 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/12/03/child-sex-abuseparents/8807597002/.
6 Jerry Lambe, "Dad Who 'crushed' 4-Year-Old Son's Skull 'by Hand' Sentenced for Boy's Death," Law & Crime, June 30, 2025, https://lawandcrime.com/crime/dad-who-crushed-4-year-old-sons-skull-by-hand-sentenced-for-boysdeath/; IN RE: N.N. (2024) (Court of Appeals of North Carolina 2024), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/nc-courtof-appeals/116624670.html.
7 "Opinion | New Law Could Make It Harder to Protect Kids from Abuse," accessed February 5, 2026, https://www.startribune.com/indian-child-welfare-act-mn-family-reunification/601438206.
8 Susana Mariscal et al., "Exploring the Path from Foster Care to Stable and Lasting Adoption"; L. Patty Flores, "Noah Cuatro and the Double Standards in Child Welfare," The Imprint, October 23, 2025, https://imprintnews.org/uncategorized/noah-cuatro-and-the-the-double-standards-in-child-welfare/268039.
9 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Freeing Children for Adoption within the Adoption and Safe Families Act Timeline (Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, 2021), https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/freeingchildren-adoption-within-adoption-safe-families-act-timeline.
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b. Long Reunification Timelines
ASFA also implements timelines for termination of parental rights (TPR) to free children for adoption if reunification efforts have failed. This rule, known as the "15 of 22" rule, requires agencies to file for TPR when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the last 22 months, unless certain exceptions apply. However, states face no consequences for failing to comply. In a 2021 study, Illinois child welfare staff reported that federal timelines were "not a priority."10 States may also comply with the letter, but not the spirit, of ASFA timelines. A 2023 lawsuit against the state of Indiana revealed that agencies would file for TPR on time to comply with ASFA, but then immediately withdraw the petition without a hearing.11
Broad exceptions further limit ASFA's application. For example, ASFA timelines do not pertain to a child living with relatives. States have extended the definition of 'relative' to include distant genetic relations who may have never even met the child, persons who "self-identify" as relatives12, and former spouses of relatives13. In some states, a relative is any person with a "familial relationship to a relative of the child",14 meaning they may literally have no relationship with the child at all. As states continue to stretch the definition of kin beyond any reasonable interpretation, ASFA is increasingly obsolete.
Justification for extending ASFA timelines is typically to give parents additional time to meet reunification standards. Many believe such extensions are necessary for parents with substance use problems. However, there is limited empirical evidence that additional time substantially increases safe and stable reunifications. Decades of research demonstrate that reunifications are often followed by recurrent concerns about maltreatment and reentry to foster care.15 Children who reunify also have poorer life outcomes than other children with foster care experience.16 Some timeline extensions reflect workforce issues: court proceedings are frequently delayed due to missing paperwork, unprepared caseworkers, or inadequate efforts to notify one or more parties. States also may require that the adoptive family be identified before TPR can occur.17 Thus, many children are not legally free for adoption while the agency is actively seeking an adoptive family. There is limited information about how "legal risk" affects identification of adoptive families or the success of pre-adoptive placements. However, prospective adoptive parents may avoid legal risk placements out of fear that the child's goal could be changed back to reunification at any time.18
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10 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Freeing Children for Adoption within the Adoption and Safe Families Act Timeline, 7.
11 Annabel B. v. Holcomb Class Action Complaint, Case 3:23-cv-760 (United States District Court For The Northern District Of Indiana South Bend Division, 2023), https://www.classaction.org/media/ab-et-al-v-holcomb-et-al.pdf.
12 Oregan Secretary of State, Department of Human Services. Child Welfare Programs - Chapter 413, Division 70. Substitute Care, Definitions. https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/viewSingleRule.action?ruleVrsnRsn=330833
13 Kinship Guardianship as a Permanency Option - New Mexico. Ann. Stat. Sec. 40-10B-3. From https://www.childwelfare.gov/resources/kinship-guardianship-permanency-option-new-mexico/
14 California Department of Social Services. Kinship Care. https://www.cdss.ca.gov/inforesources/fostercare/kinship-care#:~:text=In%20California's%20foster%20care%20system,%2C%20neighbors%2C%20and%20family%20frien ds
15 Dylan Jones and Melissa Jonson-Reid, "Child Protective Services Reports after Reunification: An Examination of the Risk of Being Rereported to Child Protective Services after Returning Home from Foster Care," Child Maltreatment, October 18, 2023, 10775595231208705, https://doi.org/10.1177/10775595231208705; Lindsey Palmer et al., "Lifetime Rates and Types of Subsequent Child Protection System Contact Following a First Report of Neglect: An Age-Stratified Analysis," PLOS ONE 18, no. 4 (2023): e0283534, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283534; Orion Mowbray et al., "Parental Substance Use and Foster Care Reentry," Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions 17, no. 4 (2017): 352-73, https://doi.org/10.1080/1533256X.2017.1361832; Anthony N. Maluccio and Frank Ainsworth, "Drug Use by Parents: A Challenge for Family Reunification Practice," Children and Youth Services Review 25, no. 7 (2003): 511-33, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0190-7409(03)00042-2; Sara E. Kimberlin et al., "Re-Entering Foster Care: Trends, Evidence, and Implications," Children and Youth Services Review 31, no. 4 (2009): 471-81, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2008.10.003; Jody Brook and Tom McDonald, "The Impact of Parental Substance Abuse on the Stability of Family Reunifications from Foster Care," Children and Youth Services Review 31, no. 2 (2009): 193-98, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2008.07.010.
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c. Finding an Adoptive Family for Each "Waiting" Child
Children's foster parents often pursue adoption if reunification efforts end; thus, for many children, no search for an adoptive family is needed. (Exact statistics on this are unavailable, as existing federal data do not consistently track whether a specific "waiting" child is already residing with their intended adoptive family.)
Yet, when a search for an adoptive family for a specific child is required, current processes are antiquated and ill-suited to the task. Limited research evidence is available to guide effective strategies.19 Typical approaches to identifying adoptive families include posting pictures and brief descriptions of children on the federally funded AdoptUSkids.org or associated state websites; distributing fliers to agencies with this same information; and holding adoption matching events where caseworkers are available to discuss "waiting children" with prospective adoptive parents who are licensed/approved. With all the technology available today, children deserve better.
Why are these approaches inadequate? Thousands of children are listed on these sites. A prospective adoptive family would need to narrow down that list, ask their caseworker to contact the caseworker for each child to obtain additional information, wait to see whether the child's caseworker responds and what information is provided, and then determine whether to follow up with further questions or to request to meet the child.
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16 Heather N. Taussig et al., "Children Who Return Home from Foster Care: A 6-Year Prospective Study of Behavioral Health Outcomes in Adolescence," Pediatrics 108, no. 1 (2001): e10-e10, https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.108.1.e10; Sarah A. Font et al., "Permanency and the Educational and Economic Attainment of Former Foster Children in Early Adulthood," American Sociological Review 83, no. 4 (2018): 716- 43, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418781791; Sarah Font and Lindsey Palmer, "Left behind? Educational Disadvantage, Child Protection, and Foster Care," Child Abuse & Neglect 149 (March 2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106680; Sarah A. Font et al., "Foster Care, Permanency, and Risk of Prison Entry," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 58, no. 6 (2021): 710-54, https://doi.org/10.1177/00224278211001566.
17 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Freeing Children for Adoption within the Adoption and Safe Families Act Timeline.
18 Abbie Goldberg et al., "'When You're Sitting on the Fence, Hope's the Hardest Part': Challenges and Experiences of Heterosexual and Same-Sex Couples Adopting Through the Child Welfare System," Adoption Quarterly 15, no. 4 (2012): 288-315, https://doi.org/10.1080/10926755.2012.731032.
19 Amy Cressman, "Foster Care Adoption Recruitment Methods: A Review of the Literature amid Calls for Reform in the United States," Children and Youth Services Review 166 (November 2024): 107962, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107962.
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But the information provided is far too generic to assess fit, leading to missed match opportunities as well as unsuccessful matches. For example, most prospective adoptive families are unprepared for a child with needs such as sexually acting out or aggression/violence toward caregivers. But this type of information is not - understandably - put on these websites, so caseworkers seeking families for children with substantial needs may be inundated with unproductive inquiries. This is a slow, inefficient process.
An alternative approach has caseworkers - who know the child well and are equipped to assess prospective families for fit - identify and contact suitable families based on their home studies or with the assistance of algorithmic matching tools.20 Other approaches that can be useful, particularly for older children or children with special needs, involves diligent search and recruitment of individuals in the child's life already (including but not limited to relatives).21 Both approaches remove the burden of matching children to families away from the prospective adoptive parents, relying instead on caseworkers. Although these approaches require dedicated staff time (and thus increase initial costs), they could reduce long-term costs by identifying suitable families more quickly, reducing time spent on unproductive inquiries, and reducing the share of families who end their adoption search out of frustration with a slow and poorly communicated process. Cautious experimentation and rigorous evaluation of alternatives to current recruitment and matching strategies is sorely needed.
d. Misuse of Guardianship
Over several decades, Congress has expanded federal funding for "relative guardianships" as an alternative to adoption. The intent - to allow, for example, a grandmother to provide permanent care to her grandchild without taking on the legal title of 'mother' - is reasonable. Guardianship is also faster and less laborious than adoption, because termination of parental rights is not required. Thus, the median time spent in care for children exiting to guardianship is 19 months,22 roughly one-third less than for adoption and far closer to the timelines encouraged by ASFA.
However, guardianship is not equivalent to adoption, legally or in its outcomes.23 As more states apply "kin-specific licensing" requirements24 (which, broadly, subject relatives to fewer standards and limited or no training) and expand the definition of relative to include people unknown to the child, the safety and quality of guardianships will become even less certain.
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20 Ludwig Dierks et al., "Search and Matching for Adoption from Foster Care," arXiv:2103.10145, preprint, arXiv, July 10, 2025, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2103.10145.
21 "Finding Permanent Families: Child-Specific vs. Child-Focused Recruitment," Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, March 28, 2025, https://www.davethomasfoundation.org/resource/child-focused-versus-child-specificrecruitment/.
22 Based on the AFCARS 2022 6-month file.
23 Nancy Rolock and Kevin R. White, "Continuity for Children after Guardianship versus Adoption with Kin: Approximating the Right Counterfactual," Child Abuse & Neglect 72 (October 2017): 32-44, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.07.001; Kierra M. P. Sattler and Sarah A. Font, "Predictors of Adoption and Guardianship Dissolution: The Role of Race, Age, and Gender among Children in Foster Care," Child Maltreatment 26, no. 2 (2021): 216-27, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559520952171; Font et al., "Permanency and the Educational and Economic Attainment of Former Foster Children in Early Adulthood."
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4. Unsafe and Unstable Adoptions
Children in foster care, particularly older children, may have difficulty trusting adults and struggle with mental and behavioral health problems stemming from their traumatic histories.
Some also have profound physical and cognitive disabilities (which may be related to prenatal substance exposure or prior physical abuse) and thus require a high level of care and supervision.
(Notably, however, current federal data do not accurately measure disability prevalence or severity for children in foster care.25) Thus, it is of critical importance that adoption practices (1) prevent unsafe adults from becoming adoptive parents and (2) adequately prepare and support appropriate adults as they enter their new roles.
Yet, studies report that 2-8% of children reenter foster care following the finalization of an adoption and up to 30% of adopted children may reside apart from their adoptive parents prior to adulthood.26 How much stock to put in such estimates is unclear due to differences in studies' samples, measures, time frames, and geographies. Still, for far too long, the federal government has incentivized the finalization of adoptions without taking reasonable steps to promote and monitor quality and stability.
a. Insufficient Federal Data
National data on the maltreatment of children adopted from foster care or dissolution of foster care adoptions are not available. Despite federal data collection on maltreatment (through the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System [NCANDS]), foster care, and adoption (through the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System [AFCARS]), basic descriptive questions cannot be answered.
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24 At least 18 states have approved plans: https://acf.gov/cb/map/state-territories-separate-licensing-standards
25 Lindsey Palmer et al., "Rates of Emotional Disturbance among Children in Foster Care: Comparing Federal Child Welfare Data and Medicaid Records in Two States," Child Maltreatment, August 11, 2022, 10775595221118931, https://doi.org/10.1177/10775595221118931.
26 Kevin R. White, "Placement Discontinuity for Older Children and Adolescents Who Exit Foster Care through Adoption or Guardianship: A Systematic Review," Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 33, no. 4 (2016): 377-94; Sattler and Font, "Predictors of Adoption and Guardianship Dissolution"; Nancy Rolock, "PostPermanency Continuity: What Happens after Adoption and Guardianship from Foster Care?," Journal of Public Child Welfare 9, no. 2 (2015): 153-73; Jesus Palacios et al., "Adoption Breakdown: Concept, Research, and Implications," Research on Social Work Practice 29, no. 2 (2019): 130-42, https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731518783852; Mark F. Testa et al., "Adoption and Guardianship: A Moderated Mediation Analysis of Predictors of Post-Permanency Continuity.," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 85, no. 2 (2015): 107, https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000019; Heather Ringeisen et al., National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) Adoption Follow-Up Study: Findings Report, OPRE Report # 2022-306 (2022), https://acf.gov/opre/report/national-survey-child-and-adolescent-well-being-nscaw-adoption-follow-up-studyfindings.
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In many states, once children are adopted, they do not retain their previous identification number.27 Thus, child A who exits to adoption becomes child B if they return to foster care or are reported as a suspected victim of maltreatment. This inhibits meaningful understanding of where and how adoptions are breaking down. Although unique identifier and linkage problems are pervasive across federal child welfare datasets,28 this problem is far worse for adopted children.
Because child protective services and foster care records are already confidential, privacy concerns do not provide a compelling justification for de-linking records. Absent substantial improvements in current federal data collection and state capacity to conduct research, it is difficult to say how safe or stable adoptions are.
b. Targets for Improving Adoption Outcomes
To date, federal policy has focused on getting children adopted, and far less so on the quality of care children receive through those adoptions. Broadly speaking, there are three areas to focus on when seeking to improve post-adoption outcomes: (1) recruitment and screening of adoptive families; (2) matching of prospective families and children; and (3) preparation and postadoption support. Some of these topics are addressed in earlier sections.
i. Recruiting and Approving Prospective Foster and Adoptive Parents
Many families who begin the approval process for foster care or adoption29 never have a foster or adoptive placement.30 Unresponsive and unsupportive agency practices are commonly cited as reasons:31 prospective families cannot rely on the agency to provide accurate and complete information, return their phone calls, or to help them identify and access appropriate services.
The licensure process is also burdensome and slow; creating substantial barriers for families with employment or other children in the home.32 Orientations and training often focus on the financial aspects of fostering and may depict fostering as a job comprising a series of tasks33 - an approach unlikely to appeal to families who pursue foster care or adoption to care for children.
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27 Office of Planning Research and Evaluation, Understanding Post Adoption and Guardianship Instability Project: Study Design Options, OPRE Report #2020-35 (2020), https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/pagitask7designoptionrptfinal_8_17_20508.pdf.
28 Hyunil Kim et al., "Lifetime Prevalence of Child Maltreatment Reports and Child Protective Services Involvement in Illinois," Child Abuse & Neglect 169, no. Pt 2 (2025): 107756, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107756.
29 Depending on the state, a family may be licensed for foster care, adoption, or both. Generally, these processes have similar, if not identical, standards and thus dual licensure is more efficient (meaning that the orientation and training are also the same).
30 Fred Wulczyn et al., The Dynamics of Foster Home Recruitment and Retention (Chapin Hall; The Center for State Child Welfare Data, 2018), https://www.chapinhall.org/wp-content/uploads/Foster-Home-ReportFinal_FCDA_October2018.pdf.
31 Amy Chanmugam et al., "Agency-Related Barriers Experienced by Families Seeking to Adopt From Foster Care," Adoption Quarterly 20, no. 1 (2017): 25-43, https://doi.org/10.1080/10926755.2015.1121187.
32 Maureen Riley-Behringer and Jamie Cage, "Barriers Experienced by Kinship and Non-Relative Caregivers During the Foster and Adoptive Parent Licensure and Home Study Process," Journal of Public Child Welfare 8, no. 2 (2014): 212-38, https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2014.893223.
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Current processes not only deter appropriate applicants,34 but they also fail to prevent inappropriate adults from becoming state-approved caregivers for our most vulnerable children.
There are very few automatic disqualifications for being a licensed foster or adoptive parent.35 And because the number of recruited families is a metric that may be tracked in performance contracts, few are turned away. Indeed, with the recently announced "Home for Every Child" initiative,36 whereby states are expected to have a surplus of licensed families, the incentives to license low-quality homes may increase.
ii. Pre-Adoption Preparation and Post-Adoption Support Services
For decades, research has highlighted the inadequacy of pre-placement and in-service training for foster parents,37 which is similar to the training provided to adoptive parents. Despite the emergence of evidence-based training programs (such as the KEEP model38) or promising models (such as Together Facing the Challenge39), many agencies continue to use ineffective models that emphasize the rules and regulations of the child welfare system. Effective training focuses on parenting skills, such as behavior management and deescalation, that are essential for maintaining safe placements for children with challenging behaviors. In addition, many agencies exempt relatives from completing any pre-service or ongoing training,40 regardless of whether the relative has any direct experience caring for the child in question, or for children who have experienced maltreatment generally.
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33 Laurie Friedman, "An Exploratory Study of Prospective Foster Parents' Experiences during the Licensing Process," Child Welfare 97, no. 1 (2019): 135-70.
34 Naomi Schaefer Riley, No Way to Treat a Child (2021), https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/No-Way-toTreat-a-Child/Naomi-Schaefer-Riley/9781642936575.
35 Administration for Children and Families, Information Memorandum: National Model Foster Family Home Licensing Standards (ACYF-CB-IM-19-01), IM-19-01 (2019), https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/resource/im1901.
36 https://acf.gov/a-home-for-every-child
37 Andrew S. Benesh and Ming Cui, "Foster Parent Training Programmes for Foster Youth: A Content Review," Child & Family Social Work 22, no. 1 (2017): 548-59, https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12265; Morgan E. Cooley et al., "A Systematic Review of Foster Parent Preservice Training," Children and Youth Services Review 107 (December 2019): 104552, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104552; Trudy Festinger and Amy J. L. Baker, "The Quality of Evaluations of Foster Parent Training: An Empirical Review," Children and Youth Services Review 35, no. 12 (2013): 2147-53, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.10.009; Jane H. Lee and Thomas P. Holland, "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Foster Parent Training," Research on Social Work Practice 1, no. 2 (1991): 162- 74; Richard W. Puddy and Yo Jackson, "The Development of Parenting Skills in Foster Parent Training," Children and Youth Services Review, 2003; Shannon Dorsey et al., "Current Status and Evidence Base of Training for Foster and Treatment Foster Parents," Children and Youth Services Review 30, no. 12 (2008): 1403-16, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2008.04.008.
38 Joseph M. Price et al., "Effects of the KEEP Foster Parent Intervention on Child and Sibling Behavior Problems and Parental Stress during a Randomized Implementation Trial," Prevention Science 16, no. 5 (2015): 685-95, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-014-0532-9.
39 "Together Facing the Challenge," accessed April 16, 2025, https://preventionservices.acf.hhs.gov/programs/738/show.
40 U.S. Children's Bureau, Report to Congress on States' Use of Waivers of Non-Safety Licensing Standards for Relative Foster Family Homes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, 2011), 1-14.
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Children who are older, experienced more foster care placement changes prior to adoption, and have behavioral health problems are at the greatest risk of adoption dissolution.41 Adoptive families may not learn important details of a child's experiences (such as a history of sexual abuse victimization) and complex behaviors (including aggression toward caregivers, destruction of property, and self-harm) until after placement occurs, leaving parents unprepared for the needs of the child and fracturing trust in the agency.42
Post-adoption services to prevent dissolution can be funded through the Family First Prevention Services Act (2018), but states continue to face barriers in utilizing those funds.43 Moreover, there are few post-adoption services that are evidence-based.44
5. Improving the Impact of Federal Funding Related to Adoption
The administration's executive order on foster care45 in November 2025 acknowledges many of the structural problems addressed in this testimony: inadequate data systems, outdated use of technology, and an overburdened workforce. Specific to adoption, we can add agency and court disregard for ASFA timelines; inadequate recruitment, screening, training, and matching strategies; and lack of evidence-based post-adoption supports. Executive action can only go so far, because adoption-related federal spending is not well-situated to address these problems.
a. Title IV-E Adoption Subsidies
Most federal spending on adoption goes toward Title IV-E subsidies. Indeed, federal spending on IV-E adoption subsidies now substantially exceeds (both in number of children and total costs) spending on IV-E foster care maintenance payments.46 Many research studies have found that these subsidies increase the likelihood of adoption, or reduce time to adoption, for children in foster care by removing the disincentive to adopt imposed by loss of the foster care reimbursement payment.47 However, the factors that increase the probability of adoption do not necessarily assure safety, stability and wellbeing in adoptions. Although monetary support may help some adoptive families purchase specific support services, many children who are adopted do not cost much more to care for than a biological child given that health-related expenses are typically covered by Medicaid. Children adopted from foster care may, however, require parents with greater patience, knowledge about trauma and loss, and behavior management skills, but money does not buy these things.
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41 Bonni Goodwin and Elissa Madden, "Factors Associated with Adoption Breakdown Following Implementation of the Fostering Connections Act: A Systematic Review," Children and Youth Services Review 119 (December 2020): 105584, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105584.
42 Palacios et al., "Adoption Breakdown"; Anca Bejenaru et al., "'We Thought We Were Stronger than We Were': Adopters' Narratives about the Adoption Journey and Disruption," Frontiers in Psychology 15 (April 2024), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1381050; Bethany R. Lee et al., "Parent Perspectives on Adoption Preparation: Findings from the Modern Adoptive Families Project," Children and Youth Services Review 85 (January 2018): 63- 71, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.12.007.
43 U.S. Children's Bureau, Title IV-E Programs Expenditure and Caseload Data 2023: FY-2023-Title IV-E Prevention Services Claims and Caseload. (2024), https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/report/programs-expenditurecaseload-data-2023.
44 Joan Zlotnik and Terry Shaw, "The Impact of Targeted Permanency and Post-Permanency Services on Continued Family Stability: An Introduction," Journal of Public Child Welfare 15, no. 1 (2021): 1-5, https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2020.1859065.
45 The White House, Fostering the Future for American Children and Families, Executive Orders (2025), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/fostering-the-future-for-american-children-and-families/.
46 U.S. Children's Bureau. FY2023 Title IV-E Adoption Assistance Claims and Caseload. https://acf.gov/cb/report/programs-expenditure-caseload-data-2023; FY 2023 Title IV-E Foster Care Claims and Caseload. https://acf.gov/cb/report/programs-expenditure-caseload-data-2023
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b. The Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentive Payment Program
The Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentive Payment Program (hereafter, "incentives program") provides a monetary award to states for increasing their rate of adoption, with guardianship incentives added in 2013. The exact formula is somewhat complicated, but the incentives program has distributed over $1B to states since its enactment in 1998.48 I am aware of no studies demonstrating that the incentives program has improved practices related to adoption (or guardianship). One of the only rigorous studies of this program found that federal incentive payments to states are ineffective at increasing adoptions for older children,49 which is where states struggle the most.
This is unsurprising, as it is unclear how the incentives program would meaningfully impact practice. Since the federal match for adoption subsidies is untethered from the income criteria attached to IV-E foster care eligibility, states are already financially incentivized to move children off of their foster care caseloads and into adoption. Yet, much of the work of facilitating adoption falls on contracted (private) agencies that may benefit financially from children remaining in care.50 These same private agencies are often tasked with, and subject to benchmarks for, foster home recruitment. Yet, because foster families often close their licenses following an adoption - and thus are no longer available to foster51 - agencies have little incentive to recruit families interested in adoption.
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47 Kelly C. Bishop and Diana E. Mac Donald, The Effect of Paying Parents to Adopt: Evidence from Minnesota's Foster-Care System, Working Paper nos. 2022-01 (Working Papers, 2022), https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/251298; Mary Eschelbach Hansen, "Using Subsidies to Promote the Adoption of Children from Foster Care," Journal of Family and Economic Issues 28, no. 3 (2007): 377-93, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-007-9067-6; Laura Argys and Brian Duncan, "Economic Incentives and Foster Child Adoption," Demography 50, no. 3 (2013): 933-54; Kasey S. Buckles, "Adoption Subsidies and Placement Outcomes for Children in Foster Care," Journal of Human Resources 48, no. 3 (2013): 596-627, https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.48.3.596.
48 Administration for Children and Families. Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentive Payment Program Earning History by State: FY 1998-FY 2024. (2025): https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/algippearning-history-state.pdf
49 Margaret E. Brehm, "The Effects of Federal Adoption Incentive Awards for Older Children on Adoptions from U.S. Foster Care," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 37, no. 2 (2018): 301-30, https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22040.
50 "How Misaligned Incentives Hinder Foster Care Adoption," Cato Institute, January 27, 2021, https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2021/how-misaligned-incentives-hinder-foster-care-adoption.
51 Jennifer Mullins Geiger et al., "Should I Stay or Should I Go? A Mixed Methods Study Examining the Factors Influencing Foster Parents' Decisions to Continue or Discontinue Providing Foster Care," Children and Youth Services Review 35, no. 9 (2013): 1356-65, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.05.003.
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c. Adoption Opportunities Program
The Adoption Opportunities Program began in 1978 as an effort to reduce adoption barriers for children with special needs,52 and has been reauthorized and expanded multiple times since. The program has spent $323M since 2013, with annual funding ranging from $26M to $29M since 2022.53 This program currently funds various efforts aimed at improving adoption options for older children and children with special needs, as well as improving post-adoption outcomes through enhanced training and support.
A large share of this funding is spent on AdoptUSkids, which includes "managing the Center for Diligent Recruitment, national adoption internet photo-listing service, national adoption recruitment campaign, national adoption and foster care information exchange system, and other adoptive and foster family support activities."54 Many dollars, through AdoptUSkids and other grantees, is spent on "training and technical assistance" or T/TA to states and tribes. Evaluations of T/TA in related areas raise substantial questions about utility and impact.55 In some cases, the federal government spends millions simply to help states and tribes navigate barriers to using other sources of federal funding (often, barriers stemming from federal regulations or staffing/infrastructure gaps within states).56 In this sense, T/TA becomes a workaround, not a solution.
Many of the organizations funded under this program have been continuously funded for decades, but it is difficult to say with confidence what has been achieved for children. To some extent, this reflects problems with the evaluation process. For some programs, evaluations focus on short-term, self-report outcomes related to participant satisfaction or implementation (rather than impact). Some funded projects use randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or apply other rigorous outcome evaluation strategies, but simply conducting an RCT is not enough - effective programs must be refined, scaled, disseminated, and continuously monitored for implementation fidelity and impact. Many social programs that show initial success in an RCT do not scale well: once they are implemented more broadly, the original impact findings cannot be replicated.
Lastly, an RCT is no guarantee of quality, given myriad problems with attrition and nonresponse, and limited use of administrative records to verify findings. On the whole, this grantmaking program would benefit from a long-term strategic plan, focused on refining, sustaining, and disseminating effective interventions.
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52 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform Act of 1978 https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/house-bill/6693
53 Administration for Children and Families. Adoption Opportunities Assistance Listing. (2025): https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/CFDADetail?arg_CFDA_NUM=93652
54 https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDetail?arg_AwardNum=90CO1143&arg_ProgOfficeCode=187
55 Lessons Learned from Evaluating a Complex, Multi-Tiered T/TA System Focused on CCDF Grantees, OPRE Report #2023-141 (Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2022).
56 "GAO-25-107154, FOSTER CARE: HHS Should Help States Fully Use Federal Funds for Programs Serving Youth Transitioning to Adulthood," accessed February 13, 2026, https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-25107154/index.html.
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6. Conclusions
In all areas of social programming, how performance on a given goal or objective is measured and how performance information is used can induce perverse incentives. "The more any
quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."57 In child welfare, there has long been a reliance on crude measures - how many children are in foster care, what share live with relatives, how many exit to adoption, and so forth. In each of these examples, it is possible - likely even - for states to change their numbers on a given metric without improving, and perhaps worsening, the experiences and outcomes of children. Improving the rate, timeliness, and quality of adoptions from foster care starts with recruitment, both of foster families open to adoption and families specifically pursuing adoption. But it is not a numbers game. Many of the youth who ultimately age out of care experience unsuccessful pre-adoptive placements or dissolved adoptions. Signing up more families will not change that, and - if states are recruiting ill-suited families or poorly preparing them - real harm will be done to our most vulnerable children. Instead, we should be focused on (a) supporting and retaining our highest performing foster families; (b) tailoring recruitment for foster care and adoption to target families with the specific traits and skills that align with the needs of children in care; and (c) providing the follow-up and support needed to ensure that "forever family" is more than a slogan.
I respectfully offer the following recommendations:
Recommendation 1. Modernize the process through which children are matched with prospective adoptive families. Adoption Opportunities funding could be redirected toward child-specific recruitment and building integrated cross-state platforms where caseworkers can search for, view, and contact approved families. Public-facing websites that post photos and information about children are antiquated and show little evidence of positive impact.
Recommendation 2. Experiment with new strategies to verify adoption continuity and prevent breakdown. Nearly all families adopting from foster care receive federal subsidies, which can be tens of thousands of dollars annually -- particularly for families adopting sibling groups or children with substantial health care needs. Yet, current monitoring processes fail to even confirm that adopted children are still residing with their parents. Post-adoption support programs rely on adoptive families requesting assistance, but families may be reluctant to reach out for help or unaware of available programs. In the worst-case scenarios, where adoptive families are abusive or neglectful, there are few safeguards in place. Given that existing programs are unlikely to reach the children and parents at greatest risk, The Adoption Opportunities Program grantmaking process could be leveraged to test proactive outreach efforts.
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57 Donald T. Campbell, "Assessing the Impact of Planned Social Change," Evaluation and Program Planning 2, no. 1 (1979): 85, https://doi.org/10.1016/0149-7189(79)90048-X.
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Such efforts may be especially needed with adoptive families of large sibling groups, older children, or children with complex medical or behavioral needs.
Recommendation 3. Improve federal data collection and linkage capacity. States and the federal government need better information on adoption dissolution, maltreatment within adoptive families, and the health and wellbeing of adoptees. This information is needed to improve the screening, training, and matching of prospective adoptive families, as well as the targeting and delivery of post-adoption supports. At a minimum, agencies should retain the same AFCARS ID for all children adopted from foster care through age 18, and the AFCARS ID and the Child ID (from NCANDS) must be linkable and subject to routine quality checks.58 Given that most adoptees retain Medicaid coverage, linkages between federal child welfare data (specifically NCANDS and AFCARS) and the Medicaid Claims database provides the best opportunity to understand the health and wellbeing of adoptees from foster care nationwide.
Incentive funds could be provided to states that provide quality data submissions, or grants from Adoption Opportunities could be used to improve data linkage capacity for states in need of assistance.
Recommendation 4. Disincentivize inappropriate reunification efforts. One motivation for the Adoption and Safe Families Act was a concern that agencies were making unreasonable efforts to reunify families that were families "in name only" and thereby endangering children;59 yet, nearly three decades later, these problems persist. Federal funding should not be used to maintain or reunify children with adults who have sexually abused them, inflicted egregious injury on them, or caused the death or permanent impairment of other children.
Recommendation 5. Prevent the misuse of kin guardianship
Well-intentioned efforts to expand kinship care and kin guardianship have produced ever-expanding definitions of "relative", lower bars for licensure, and quick discharges to permanent legal guardianship with individuals who have received no training and little scrutiny. When the federal government treats adoption and guardianship as equal (though they are not), many states will use guardianship as a first resort - because it is easier for them, not because it is better for children. Federal policy should recognize and address this perverse incentive.
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58 Kim et al., "Lifetime Prevalence of Child Maltreatment Reports and Child Protective Services Involvement in Illinois."
59 Improving the well-being of abused and neglected children: Hearing before the Labor and Human Resources, United States Senate 104th Congress Second Session (1996).
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Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP07/20260326/119093/HHRG-119-AP07-Wstate-FontS-20260326.pdf
Kids to Love Foundation CEO Marshall Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Lee Marshall, CEO and founder of the Kids to Love Foundation, Huntsville, Alabama, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs":* * *
Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro, and distinguished members of Congress-- Good morning. My name is Lee Marshall. I am the Founder and CEO of the Kids to Love Foundation, headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Lee Marshall, CEO and founder of the Kids to Love Foundation, Huntsville, Alabama, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs": * * * Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro, and distinguished members of Congress-- Good morning. My name is Lee Marshall. I am the Founder and CEO of the Kids to Love Foundation, headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama.I hold a Master of Social Work and am a Certified Trauma Therapist. For more than 20 years, I have worked on the front lines of child welfare--serving children in foster care and adoption. This work is not just my profession; it is my life's calling. I also understand personally what it means to have a forever family through adoption.
I am here today to speak to a crisis in our country--one where our youngest and most vulnerable citizens are too often unseen, unheard, and unprotected: children in the child welfare system.
The system is broken.
And while we all agree it must be fixed, we must also be honest about why it is failing.
Historically, the government has carried this responsibility because no one else stepped forward.
But the federal government was never meant to raise children. Caring for vulnerable children should be a shared responsibility--one embraced by families, communities, and yes, our faithbased organizations. It is both a moral obligation and, for many, a spiritual calling.
Until that broader support system fully rises to meet the need, we must act decisively and with urgency.
Today, I am calling on Congress to establish a national task force--a coalition charged with evaluating and auditing our current foster care and adoption systems. Federal dollars must come Lee Marshall, MSW, TS 1
with federal accountability. Right now, federal funding is flowing into state systems that are failing children.
We are seeing systems where children are dying.
Systems where children sleep on office floors because there are no placements.
Systems where children are warehoused in juvenile detention centers--not because they've committed crimes, but because there is nowhere else for them to go.
And behind it all is a level of bureaucracy that is suffocating the very people trying to help--The case managers and social workers on the front lines are facing burnout, high turnover rate leading to constant disruption in the lives of children who have already experienced profound loss.
But there is hope. And there are solutions that work, and Kids to Love is leading the way!
In Alabama, Kids to Love has spent more than two decades serving children in foster care and adoption. We have implemented a privatized foster care model--operating outside the traditional state-run system--and the results are clear: children spend less time in foster care, and permanency is achieved faster.
Because for us, permanency is not just a goal--it is the plan.
Our model is built on four key pillars, with the child always at the center.
The first pillar starts in the court system. With judges who will stand in the gap for our kids. We must have a judiciary that is both informed and courageous. Judges must be empowered and willing to advocate boldly for children--to challenge the status quo and prioritize moving children out of the system and into permanent homes. We have judges who place children with us directly because their expectation is high and they trust we have the kids best interest.
Whether it is a sibling group that we are able to keep together, a teen mom placed in foster home with her baby, or a child who has been victimized by the very system sworn to protect them.
Secondly, our model supports not just the child but the foster families we train and license who step up to care for our kids. By deeply investing in our foster families. We don't just place children--we build relationships. Our families have 24/7 access to case managers and trauma therapists, ensuring they are never alone in the journey. Support is not occasional--it is constant.
The benefit of this level of support. Stability in placements for children and families. Stability allows healing to happen through our trauma focused therapy and care model.
Our third pillar is critical piece in our model of care for our kids and families. We take a traumafocused approach to foster care and adoption. One in four youth in foster care will experience PTSD, and they are twice as likely as war veterans to suffer from its effects. We don't just treat trauma--we work to heal it. That means supporting not only the child, but also the birth family when possible, the foster family, and the entire care team. And critically, we ensure that trauma support continues through the transition into adoption, reducing the risk of disrupted foster and adoptive placements.
Fourth, we address the crisis of aging out. Too often, foster care becomes a pipeline to prison.
Studies show that 75 to 80 percent of individuals in the juvenile or prison system have experienced foster care. We are changing that trajectory.
Through our workforce development program, KTECH, we equip young people with highdemand skills--mechatronics, robotics, soldering, virtual reality, and technical training with industry-grade tools. These are not just skills; they are pathways to stable, meaningful careers.
Combined with our Cottage Community--tiny homes that provide safe housing and independent living support--we are helping young adults transition successfully into adulthood. We are keeping these young people off the streets, reducing homelessness and trafficking that many children aging out of foster care face.
Let me tell you about Willie.
Willie grew up in foster care and lived in 25 different homes. When we met, he had aged out and was living in a homeless shelter. He entered our KTECH program, gained job skills, secured employment, and began to rebuild his life. Today, Willie holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree. He is a homeowner. He has a career. He has broken the cycle of poverty.
He is not just a success story--he is a cycle breaker.
And there are thousands more like him, waiting for the same opportunity.
Every child in foster care deserves a forever family.
Every child in foster care deserves an advocate.
Every child deserves stability, dignity, and hope.
My passion is a personal. This is a calling and mission to me. As a child who was born into foster care and adopted at the age of two. But for the grace of God I could have been any of the kids that come in our doors every day. Adoption and stability matters.
No child should spend a lifetime navigating a system that was meant to protect them.
We have the knowledge.
We have the models that work.
Now, we need the will to act.
Thank you.
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Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP07/20260326/119093/HHRG-119-AP07-Wstate-MarshallL-20260326.pdf
Homeland Security Secretary Nominee Mullin Testifies Before Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released the following testimony by Markwayne Mullin, President Trumps' nominee to be secretary of Homeland Security, from a March 18, 2026, confirmation hearing:* * *
Chairman Paul, Ranking Member Peters, members of the committee--I am truly humbled to accept this nomination.
First, I want to thank my wife, Christie, and our six wonderful children. Christie is the light of my life. We've been married for 28 years. None of this would have been possible without God in our lives, and her by my side. We are ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released the following testimony by Markwayne Mullin, President Trumps' nominee to be secretary of Homeland Security, from a March 18, 2026, confirmation hearing: * * * Chairman Paul, Ranking Member Peters, members of the committee--I am truly humbled to accept this nomination. First, I want to thank my wife, Christie, and our six wonderful children. Christie is the light of my life. We've been married for 28 years. None of this would have been possible without God in our lives, and her by my side. We aretruly blessed to have our six children taking this adventure with us.
We say in our family: we are all one tribe. We take the ups and the downs together but we're always in it together. Our kids have all heard me say-- "you're never going to change anything you're willing to tolerate." It's how we live our lives, AND it's how we approach public life.
The Department of Homeland Security is bigger than any political party. Regardless of whether or not you support me, if I'm confirmed, I'll fight for your family just as I'll fight for mine.
Of course, I want to thank President Donald Trump. In a matter of months, President Trump delivered the most secure border in American history. We're deporting violent criminals, enforcing the law, and putting the American people first. I am deeply grateful for President Trump's trust in me to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It's humbling.
If you were to tell me, years ago, as a kid from Westville--with a speech impediment--that he would one day be called to serve Oklahoma in the U.S. House, then the Senate, then be asked to serve in the president's cabinet-- I never would have believed you. My story has only been possible because we live in America-the greatest nation on Earth--which we are proud to call our home.
Make no mistake, I'm clear-eyed about the challenges ahead of us.
If confirmed, I will support President Trump's mission to safeguard the American people and defend the homeland. The importance of the mission at the Department of Homeland Security in this current moment cannot be overstated. The threat environment is high, and America's adversaries seek to undermine us both at home and abroad. Our law enforcement, preparedness, and intelligence agencies must be operating at the highest level. Thankfully, we have the right Commander in Chief at the helm.
I'll have three areas of focus at DHS: First, I'll protect the homeland for everybody. Second, I will bring a commonsense approach. Third, I'll enforce the law.
Remember: if confirmed, I cannot pick and choose which laws to enforce.
I want to say: the employees across DHS, including the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, ICE, and Border Patrol (just to name a few) - you all do a fantastic job keeping our nation safe.
Unfortunately, DHS is STILL, as we all know, shut down. We owe it to these employees to get DHS funded again.
Right now, 260,000 employees and their families are working without pay. We've heard stories of parents struggling to afford basic needs. I want to speak to the public servants at DHS for a moment: First, thank you for defending our national security and protecting the homeland 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Second, the fact that you continue to show up and do your job without pay says a lot about your character, AND the caliber of people who work alongside you at DHS. My friends in front of me, please end this partisan fight.
To the people we have working for DHS: I'm proud of your hard work during this shutdown. We owe it to the DHS employees and their families to do our jobs and fund the Department of Homeland immediately.
If confirmed, the dedicated men and women who work at all 22 agencies within the Department of Homeland Security will know I'll fight alongside you every day to protect our homeland.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you.
I look forward to answering your questions.
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Original text here: www.hsgac.senate.gov/library/files/prepared-statement-mullin-2026-03-18/prepared-statement-mullin-2026-03-18/
GAO Director Marroni Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government released the following written testimony by David Marroni, director of physical infrastructure at the Government Accountability Office, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "The Government Accountability Office's Assessment of the Federal Buildings Fund":* * *
Chairman Joyce, Ranking Member Hoyer, and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss our work on the federal government's management of its real property portfolio. The federal real property portfolio ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government released the following written testimony by David Marroni, director of physical infrastructure at the Government Accountability Office, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "The Government Accountability Office's Assessment of the Federal Buildings Fund": * * * Chairman Joyce, Ranking Member Hoyer, and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased to be here today to discuss our work on the federal government's management of its real property portfolio. The federal real property portfoliois large and vast, with federal agencies reporting almost 250,000 owned buildings.1 Real property assets can require significant resources to construct, operate, and maintain over the course of their life cycle. The General Services Administration (GSA) is responsible for managing federal real property for many federal agencies, including providing workspace for more than 1 million federal employees. The Federal Buildings Fund (Buildings Fund) was established for real property management and associated activities.2 GSA collects rent from tenant agencies; deposits it into the Buildings Fund; and uses that money to fund its real property acquisition, operation, maintenance, and disposal, subject to the appropriations process.
Since 2003, we have designated federal real property as a high-risk issue in need of reform, due to wide-ranging challenges, including the condition and underuse of federal buildings. Our work has also highlighted the impact of uncertain and limited funding on real property management.3 Historically, the Buildings Fund has not generated sufficient revenues to meet all needs. We have reported that funding uncertainty has contributed to a variety of issues facing federal agencies, including challenges undertaking large construction and renovation projects, and relocating tenants and disposing of properties that agencies no longer need to meet their missions.
This statement discusses the status of the Buildings Fund, the impacts of funding uncertainty on federal real property management, and options to address funding challenges. This statement is primarily based on our prior work on the Buildings Fund and federal real property management.
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1 Reported data are as of fiscal year 2024, the most recent year for which government-wide data are available. These figures are based on data in the General Services Administration's Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) Management dataset. FRPP is a government-wide database the General Services Administration uses to track the federal government's real property assets, which contains data submitted annually by agencies. Assets listed in FRPP include facilities owned by the General Services Administration as well as those owned by other federal agencies.
2 See 40 U.S.C. Sec. 592.
3 GAO, High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness, GAO-25-107743 (Washington, D.C.: Feb 25, 2025).
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More detailed information on the objectives, scope, and methodology for that work can be found in the products referenced in this statement. In addition, for this statement we updated our prior work with information on sources of revenue for the Buildings Fund, tenant occupancy in GSAowned buildings, GSA officials' views on funding uncertainty, and agency requests for new budget authority. To do so, we reviewed GSA real property portfolio and budget documents for fiscal years 2024, 2025 and 2026, and government-wide occupancy data for fiscal year 2024./4 We also reviewed GSA congressional testimony on its budget, and legislative proposals from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), GSA, and the federal judiciary.5 We provided GSA and the judiciary with a draft of this statement. GSA and the judiciary provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.
We conducted the work on which this statement is based in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
The Federal Buildings Fund
While some federal agencies have the authority to own facilities and receive federal appropriations to manage them, many pay rent to and rely on GSA to procure and manage facilities for them. Federal agencies that occupy property controlled by GSA pay rent into the Buildings Fund, which is GSA's sole source of funds to manage those buildings. As of March 2026, the Buildings Fund supports about 8,100 buildings-- including about 1,500 GSA-owned properties and about 6,600 GSA leased properties.6 Four federal agencies and the judiciary accounted for most of the revenue contributed to the Buildings Fund in fiscal year 2025 (see fig. 1).
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4 We used GSA's fiscal year 2025 Agency Financial Report to present data on tenant agency contributions to the Building Fund. This public report describes how GSA used its resources for the year. We also used data from GSA's fiscal year 2024 State of the Portfolio to present data on the amount of rentable space tenant agencies occupy in GSA-owned buildings. The report provides an overview and relevant data for real property assets under GSA's custody and control. According to GSA officials, these data are used to provide annual reports to Congress.
5 The federal judiciary consists of a system of courts that is responsible for ensuring the administration of justice in the United States. Within the judiciary, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts provides a broad range of services including administrative and program support to federal courts and federal defender organizations. For the purposes of this statement, we refer to the judiciary when describing those functions.
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Figure 1: Primary Tenant Agency Contributors to the Federal Buildings Fund, as of Fiscal Year 2025
Notes: The data presented are from GSA's fiscal year 2025 Agency Financial Report. This public report describes how GSA used its resources for the year. Percentages for individual federal agencies do not add up to 100 percent, due to rounding.
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While a portion of revenues deposited into the Buildings Fund is used to pay for leases, those revenues do not increase the fund's balances, since GSA passes these payments to private sector owners. As a result, the balance of the Buildings Fund is primarily driven by agency tenants in GSA's federally owned space.7 Figure 2 shows the tenant agencies occupying the most space in GSA-owned locations, as of fiscal year 2024, the most recent available data.
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6 These figures are based on data in GSA's Inventory of Owned and Leased Properties database, which contains public data on GSA's owned and leased real property assets. This database excludes assets for security reasons, as well as assets that are decommissioned or deemed excess, i.e., no longer needed to meet mission requirements.
7 Deposits to the Buildings Fund also include charges for furnishing space and services, reimbursement for special services, and receipts from carriers and others for loss of, or damage to, property belonging to the Buildings Fund. 40 U.S.C. Sec. 592(b).
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Figure 2: Top Five Tenant Agencies Occupying General Services Administration Owned Buildings, by Rentable Square Feet, as of Fiscal Year 2024
Notes: The data presented are from GSA's fiscal year 2024 State of the Portfolio. This report provides an overview and relevant data for real property assets under GSA's custody and control. According to GSA officials, these data are used to provide annual reports to Congress.
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Congress exercises control over the Buildings Fund through the appropriations process that sets annual limits--which GSA refers to as Obligational Authority--on how much of the fund can be obligated for various activities, such as building construction and repairs. Each year, GSA's congressional budget justification includes a request for New Obligational Authority. As part of annual appropriations legislation, GSA is provided authority to incur obligations and make expenditures from the Buildings Fund. GSA's congressional budget justifications often closely mirror the rent it receives from tenant agencies, which may not reflect capital requirements. For fiscal year 2026, GSA requested $10.5 billion in New Obligational Authority, which is what it anticipates receiving in revenues and collections from its owned and leased properties for that year.
Building repairs and alterations, as well as construction and acquisition projects, that are expected to cost more than a specified dollar threshold--referred to as prospectus-level projects--must be submitted to certain congressional committees for authorization and funding.8 GSA, in its annual budget justification, with approval from OMB, provides Congress with a prospectus for each construction and acquisition project and repair and alteration project estimated to exceed the prospectus-level threshold. The prospectus includes information on the size, cost, location, and other features of the proposed work; a justification for proceeding with the work; and an economic analysis of the alternatives to the requested repairs and alterations.
Since 2011, as part of the appropriations process, Congress has authorized GSA to spend less from the Buildings Fund than the rent it has received from tenant agencies. According to GSA's fiscal year 2026 congressional budget justification, Congress did not provide Obligational Authority for approximately $14.9 billion in revenue and collections from the Buildings Fund that GSA requested from fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2025. Most of the difference between funds requested by GSA--which generally aligned with rents collected--and Obligational Authority appropriated by Congress was for two types of projects: (1) construction and acquisition and (2) repairs and alterations. As of the end of fiscal year 2025, there is a $10.6 billion unavailable balance in the Buildings Fund.9
Funding Impacts on Federal Real Property Management
For more than 20 years, we have designated federal real property as a high-risk issue in need of reform due to challenges related to underused buildings, data reliability, facility security, and building condition.10 Our work has also highlighted the impact of uncertain funding on real property management, including on large capital projects, a large and growing maintenance backlog, and the ability of agencies to manage and dispose of underutilized facilities. We discuss recommendations we have made to address these challenges later in this statement.
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8 For capital and lease projects with an estimated cost above a certain dollar threshold, GSA must submit a proposal (prospectus) to its congressional-authorizing committees-- the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. 40 U.S.C. Sec. 3307. Prospectus-level projects involve major work or acquisitions that are estimated to cost more than a statutorily prescribed amount ($3.961 million for fiscal year 2026 construction projects), which GSA's Administrator is authorized to adjust annually to reflect a percentage increase or decrease in construction costs during the prior calendar year.
9 GSA officials told us that the unavailable balance in the Buildings Fund can fluctuate for a number of reasons, including (1) revenue divergence (rent estimated to be collected does not match the actual amount), (2) instances in which GSA requests a net positive budget, (3) rescissions or direct appropriations, and (4) rent credits given to agencies.
10 GAO-25-107743. Our prior work has found that the federal government maintains large amounts of underused property and faces billions of dollars in annual operations and deferred maintenance costs. For example, we reported that the needed capital for deferred repairs across federal agencies properties increased from $170 billion to $370 billion from fiscal year 2017 through fiscal year 2024.
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* Capital projects. As we reported in September 2021, obtaining upfront funding for large projects--such as constructing, purchasing, or renovating federal buildings--has been a challenge for federal agencies.11 Specifically, obligation limits on the Buildings Fund have particularly constrained real property funding for repairs, alterations, and new construction because, according to GSA officials, available funds are first used to pay leasing, operations and maintenance, and debt costs. As a result, funding for large capital projects is less available, potentially costing more for such projects in the long run.
* Maintenance and repair. As we reported in November 2023, according to agency officials, funding constraints have contributed to tens of billions of dollars in additional deferred maintenance and repair backlogs.12 Agency officials cited large and growing costs associated with maintaining old and deteriorating assets, including for GSA buildings which, on average, are more than 50 years old and are beyond their useful lives. In December 2025, GSA estimated that deferred maintenance and repair costs for its own properties have risen to about $26 billion.13 Deferring maintenance can worsen the condition of agencies' assets and lead to premature replacement, which can be significantly more costly than the repairs, had they not been delayed. For example, according to GSA, 13 out of 17 major repair and alteration projects for GSA buildings included in GSA's fiscal year 2024 congressional budget justification were submitted in prior years.14 Collectively, GSA estimated that those 13 projects combined would cost $300 million more in fiscal year 2024 than in the years in which they were originally submitted.
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11 GAO, Capital Fund Proposal: Upfront Funding Could Benefit Some Projects, but Other Potential Effects Not Clearly Identified, GAO-21-215 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 10, 2021).
12 GAO, Federal Real Property: Agencies Should Provide More Information about Increases in Deferred Maintenance and Repair, GAO-24-105485 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 16, 2023).
13 Cutting Costs, Adding Value: The Future of Federal Property, Before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, 119th Cong. (2025) (statement of Andrew Heller, Acting Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the General Services Administration).
14 Oversight of the Public Buildings Service, General Services Administration, Before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, 118th Cong. (2024) (statement of Elliot Doomes, Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the General Services Administration).
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* Consolidation and disposal. Uncertain upfront funding can hinder agencies' willingness and ability to pursue space reduction efforts. We have previously reported on the need for upfront funding to consolidate federal agency operations, reconfigure spaces, and prepare unneeded properties for disposal.15 In our prior work, agency officials often cited limited access to such funds as a challenge to participate in federal space reduction efforts, such as those created under the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of 2016 (FASTA).
GSA has reported that uncertain funding has resulted in missed opportunities to eliminate leases and consolidate into federally owned space, costing the federal government hundreds of millions of dollars in additional lease payments.16
Options to Address Federal Real Property Funding Challenges
GAO and others have proposed a variety of actions that Congress and federal agencies could take to better manage federal real property and address funding-related challenges we discussed above. These proposals include disposing of underused buildings, considering alternative funding mechanisms and budget structures, and changing the prospectus process.
* Disposal of underused buildings. In April 2025, we testified that reducing the federal government's real property holdings could generate substantial cost savings.17 Federal agencies have long struggled to determine how much space they need to fulfill their missions and to dispose of underused space--challenges exacerbated by increased telework during and following the COVID19 pandemic. Retaining underused space costs millions of dollars and is one of the main reasons that federal real property management has remained on our High Risk List since 2003.
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15 GAO, Federal Real Property: Agencies Need New Benchmarks to Measure and Shed Underutilized Space, GAO-24-107006 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 26, 2023); Federal Real Property: GSA Should Leverage Lessons Learned from New Sale and Transfer Process, GAO-23-104815 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 7, 2022); GAO-21-215; and Federal Real Property: Additional Documentation of Decision Making Could Improve Transparency of New Disposal Process, GAO-21-233 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 29, 2021).
16 Doomes, testimony on Oversight of the Public Buildings Service, General Services Administration.
17 GAO, Federal Real Property: Reducing the Government's Holding Could Generate Substantial Savings, GAO-25-108159 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 8, 2025).
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Congress has taken several actions to address underused buildings.
Specifically, the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act, enacted in January 2025, requires agencies to measure building utilization and GSA and OMB to take steps to reduce underutilized space for tenant agencies that fail to meet the minimum utilization threshold two years in a row.18 Agencies anticipate providing Congress with the first annual report on building utilization by the end of March 2026.19 In addition, FASTA established a temporary process to help the federal government identify and dispose of unneeded federal real property.20 In February 2026, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 appropriated $143 million for FASTA-related disposals.21 As we have previously recommended, OMB and GSA could take additional steps related to these acts, including continuing to assist agencies in monitoring utilization; reducing tenant agencies' underutilized space, as directed by the USE IT Act; and identifying and applying lessons learned from the FASTA process to improve future disposal efforts.22
* Alternate funding mechanisms. In March 2014, we reported on a variety of funding mechanisms federal agencies can use as alternatives to full upfront funding to meet real property needs.23 Funding mechanisms leverage both monetary resources, such as retained fees, and nonmonetary resources (e.g., property exchanged in a land swap). For example, one option may be for agencies to enter into an enhanced use lease in which a portion of a federal property is leased out to the private sector, state, or local entity in exchange for payment or services, such as renovations.24
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18 Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act, Pub. L. No. 118-272 Sec. 2302, 138 Stat. 2992, 3218 (2025). The USE IT Act required agencies to provide the first required report on building utilization by January 2026.
19 Due to the fall 2025 lapse in appropriations, GSA informed Congress those reports would be delayed until March 31, 2026. Heller, testimony on Cutting Costs, Adding Value: The Future of Federal Property.
20 Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-287, 130 Stat. 1463 (codified as amended 40 U.S.C. Sec. 1303 note).
21 Pub. L. No. 119-75, tit. V (2026). GSA's fiscal year 2026 congressional budget justification included approximately $558 million to help reconfigure existing space and to consolidate and dispose of unneeded space, including $193 million to carry out disposals under FASTA and $365 million for a new program to optimize space configurations.
22 In October 2023, we recommended that OMB develop and use benchmarks for measuring building utilization (see GAO-24-107006). OMB agreed with our recommendation, and the USE IT Act established such a benchmark. To fully address our recommendation OMB should continue to assist federal agencies to implement data reporting requirements included in the Act. In October 2022, we recommended that GSA work with stakeholders to develop a process to collect, share, and apply lessons learned from the implementation of FASTA (see GAO-23-104815). GSA agreed with our recommendation and has compiled an initial list of lessons learned for the first round of disposal recommendations. While this is a positive step, to fully address our recommendation GSA should develop lessons learned for the remaining FASTA recommendation rounds.
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Our work has identified considerations when using alternative funding mechanisms:25
* Projects with alternative funding mechanisms involve multiple forms of risk--both implicit and explicit--that must be shared between the agency and any partner or stakeholder. Project decisions should reflect both the likely risk and the organization's tolerance for risk.
* When working with a partner, it is important to actively manage the relationship. Formalizing collaborations between the partners, including documenting dispute resolution processes, can enable productive partner interactions.
* The availability of an appropriate partner--one that brings complementary resources, skills, and financial capacities--and the geographic location of the property may affect the use and success of an alternative funding mechanism.
* Alternative budgetary structures. In March 2014, we also reported on alternative budgetary structures that could change incentives for agencies and, therefore, help Congress and agencies make more prudent, long-term fiscal decisions.26 These alternatives could also promote more complete consideration of the full costs of projects and associated returns over time as well as provide agencies with greater flexibility to manage their real property needs. Such alternatives could include changing existing or introducing new account structures to fund real property projects. For example, Congress could modify the Buildings Fund by (1) making the full balance available or (2) adjusting the pricing structure to exclude certain major renovations (e.g., provide direct appropriations to tenant agencies for certain renovation or construction projects).27
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23 GAO, Capital Financing: Alternative Approaches to Budgeting for Federal Real Property, GAO-14-239 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 12, 2014). Alternative funding mechanisms are not universally available to all agencies. Moreover, even within an agency, legal authorities may differ across agency components.
24 We have reported on agency reported benefits of enhanced use leases, including additional cash rent revenue, but also found that some agencies did not attribute all costs of enhanced use lease costs to their programs in a consistent, appropriate manner. See GAO, Federal Real Property: Improved Cost Reporting Would Help Decision Makers Weigh the Benefits of Enhanced Use Leasing, GAO-13-14 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 19, 2012).
25 GAO-14-239.
26 GAO-14-239.
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Federal agencies and the judiciary have made recent proposals for Congress to grant budgetary authorities for managing real property.
For example:
* OMB and GSA have sought enactment of a Federal Capital Revolving Fund, which would be administered by GSA and could provide upfront funding for certain capital projects. GSA's fiscal year 2026 congressional budget justification included a $1 billion request for this revolving fund to construct and acquire spaces to help GSA consolidate agencies into a smaller real estate footprint.
We have previously reported on the concept of a revolving fund with borrowing authority (e.g., a capital acquisition fund) or a dedicated fund with permanent, indefinite budget authority and noted that such a fund could enable the recognition of costs and returns associated with complex real property projects upfront and over time.28
* In February 2026, the judiciary sought authority to take responsibility from GSA for directly managing certain federally owned and leased properties deemed critical for carrying out its mission. In making this request, the judiciary indicated that GSA had identified $8.3 billion in long-standing maintenance and repair issues and related health and safety concerns.29 Based on our review of this proposal, such authority, if granted, would not provide additional funds. Instead, it would allow Congress to appropriate funds directly to the judiciary to manage their buildings.
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27 See GAO-14-239 for additional details on these options.
28 See GAO-14-239. Borrowing authority is authority granted to a federal entity to borrow funds, then obligate against amounts borrowed. Generally, agencies with borrowing authority are expected to repay the borrowing out of future resources. Permanent, indefinite budget authority refers to budget authority for an unspecified amount made available as the result of previously enacted legislation and is available without further legislative action. Such budget authority can be the result of substantive legislation or appropriation acts.
29 U.S. Courts, Judiciary Says Courthouses Are in Crisis, Seeks Real Property Authority (Feb. 24, 2026), https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/judiciary-news/2026/02/24/judiciarysays-courthouses-are-crisis-seeks-real-property-authority.
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When considering these kinds of options, we have highlighted the inherent tradeoffs in budgeting and noted that while alternative budgeting structures could increase flexibility for agencies in addressing their real property needs, they also could result in less fiscal control and oversight for Congress. Such changes may also affect the Buildings Fund or spending for other discretionary programs competing for mission-critical resources. For example, authorizing additional real property funding mechanisms could divert needed revenue away from the Buildings Fund, eroding its balances, cash flow, and operations funding that GSA must use to fund its portfolio needs. We have identified questions that Congress may wish to consider when contemplating additional authorities, including ensuring that agencies have the necessary expertise to implement and oversee real property management.30
* Prospectus process. In January 2022, we reported that, while the prospectus process provides Congress with important oversight information, it can make it challenging for GSA to effectively manage its assets and could result in increased project costs.31 Since 1988, the GSA Administrator has had the statutory authority to annually adjust the prospectus threshold but is limited to the percentage change in construction costs during the previous calendar year.32 According to GSA officials, the prospectus threshold for certain repair and alteration, construction, and lease projects limits GSA's flexibility in managing its portfolio. Officials characterized the threshold as relatively low, in light of the average costs of such projects, so that projects for ordinary maintenance and repairs--particularly in large buildings or complexes--must go through the prospectus process. As a result, GSA is required to submit a large number of projects which we found take, on average, 19 to 24 months from when the prospectus is submitted until the projects are approved by Congress.33 These timeframes can exacerbate management challenges, result in increased project costs, or require GSA to pursue interim measures, such as entering into a more costly lease extension.
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30 GAO-14-239.
31 GAO, Federal Real Property: GSA Should Fully Assess Its Prospectus Process and Communicate Results to Its Authorizing Committees, GAO-22-104639 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 21, 2022).
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We recommended that GSA fully assess the prospectus process, implement potential improvements to the process identified through the assessment, and communicate its assessment to Congress. We closed these recommendations as implemented after GSA completed an assessment and provided it to its congressional authorizing committees.
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32 The Public Buildings Amendments of 1988 raised the statutory prospectus limit to $1,500,000 and authorized the GSA Administrator to make this annual adjustment and provided that the Department of Commerce's composite index of construction costs determines the percentage change in the previous calendar year's construction costs. Pub. L. No. 100-678, Sec.Sec. 2, 4, 102 Stat. 4049, 4050 (codified as amended at 40 U.S.C. Sec. 3307(a), (h)). However, the Department of Commerce no longer publishes this table. In 2005, GSA began using the Building Cost Index published by McGraw-Hill's Engineering News Record as an alternative index, at the recommendation of Commerce staff. In January 2021, GSA notified its committees that to expand the pool of information it uses to set the threshold, GSA would use the Marshall and Swift Quarterly Index for construction and repair and alterations projects and leasing trend data reported by REIS, CoStar, and CBRE for lease projects.
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In 2024, GSA proposed raising the prospectus threshold for capital and lease projects from around $4 million to $10 million.34 Our work found that such a change could have reduced the number of projects submitted for prospectus approval from fiscal year 2014 through fiscal year 2020 by approximately 20 percent.35 As of February 2026,
Congress has not adopted GSA's proposal and the fiscal year 2026 prospectus threshold for construction and lease projects is $3.961 million.36
Chairman Joyce, Ranking Member Hoyer, and Members of the Subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have at this time.
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GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
If you or your staff have any questions about this testimony, please contact David Marroni, Director, Physical Infrastructure, at MarroniD@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Media Relations may be found on the last page of this statement. GAO staff who made key contributions to this testimony are Matthew Cook (Assistant Director), Michael Sweet (Analyst-in-Charge), and Ben Theuma. In addition, Emily Crofford, Keith Cunningham, Alexandra Edwards, Terence Lam, Kathleen Padulchick, Alicia Wilson, and Elizabeth Wood provided key support.
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33 GAO-22-104639.
34 General Services Administration, FY 2025 Congressional Justification (Mar. 11, 2024).
35 GAO-22-104639.
36 Proposed legislation, if enacted, would temporarily increase the construction and lease threshold to $10 million. Prospectus Modernization Act of 2026, S. 3789, 119th Cong. (2026).
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Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP23/20260326/119084/HHRG-119-AP23-Wstate-MorroniD-20260326.pdf
FERC Office of Energy Projects Director Turpin Testifies Before Senate Energy & Natural Resources Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power released the following written testimony by Terry L. Turpin, director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Office of Energy Projects, from a March 17, 2026, hearing on hydropower permitting and oversight:* * *
Chairman Hoeven, Ranking Member Wyden, and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Terry Turpin and I am the Director of the Office of Energy Projects at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Office is responsible for taking a lead role in carrying out the Commission's responsibilities ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power released the following written testimony by Terry L. Turpin, director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Office of Energy Projects, from a March 17, 2026, hearing on hydropower permitting and oversight: * * * Chairman Hoeven, Ranking Member Wyden, and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Terry Turpin and I am the Director of the Office of Energy Projects at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Office is responsible for taking a lead role in carrying out the Commission's responsibilitiesin reviewing applications for infrastructure projects, including: (1) the licensing, administration, and safety of non-federal hydropower projects; (2) the authorization of interstate natural gas pipelines and storage facilities; and (3) the authorization of liquefied natural gas terminals. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the Commission's role in hydropower permitting and oversight. As a member of the Commission's staff, the views I express in this testimony are my own, and not necessarily those of the Commission or of any individual Commissioner.
In accordance with the Federal Power Act (FPA), the Commission currently regulates over 1,600 non-federal hydropower projects, including over 2,500 dams, representing about 57,000 megawatts of authorized capacity, which is more than half of all developed hydropower in the United States. The Commission's hydropower work generally falls into three categories of activities: (1) licensing, which includes processing applications for original licenses and relicensing existing facilities; (2) administration and compliance, which includes providing regulatory oversight of projects to ensure compliance with license requirements and processing applications to amend, transfer, or surrender licenses; and (3) dam safety, which includes protecting life, health, and property.
I. The Commission's Role in Hydropower Oversight
Under the FPA, non-federal hydropower projects must be licensed by the Commission if they: (1) are located on a navigable waterway; (2) occupy federal land; (3) use surplus water or water power from a federal dam; or (4) are located on non-navigable waters over which Congress has jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause, involve post-1935 construction, and affect interstate or foreign commerce.
The Commission serves as the lead agency in all FPA hydropower proceedings and sets schedules for those proceedings. Prior to issuing a decision on a license application, the Commission conducts reviews of hydropower projects and project works, and as the lead federal agency prepares the documentation required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The Commission has established three licensing processes and procedures, allowing an applicant to request to use the process it believes best suited to its individual situation. Each of the licensing processes is designed to accommodate the stakeholder consultation needed to develop a record on which the Commission can base its licensing decision. The three processes are the:
* Traditional Licensing Process: best for less complex or less controversial projects;
* Integrated Licensing Process: frontloads issue identification and decisions on information needs to the period before an application is filed and is suited to more complex or more controversial cases; and
* Alternative Licensing Process: allows participants significant flexibility to tailor the licensing process in a manner that can work well for particular circumstances.
Currently, the Commission is processing 187 pending applications, of which approximately 90 percent are for relicenses of existing projects and about 10 percent are for original licenses and exemptions./1
Based on the license terms of existing projects, the number of projects that will begin the relicensing process will continue to be high well into the 2030s.
Between fiscal years 2026 and 2036, over 410 projects, representing about 41 percent of the Commission's licensed projects and about 15 percent of licensed capacity under Commission jurisdiction, will begin the pre-filing consultation stages of the relicensing process. Additionally, original license applications may continue to be filed at the historical rate; since fiscal year 2013, the Commission has processed applications for 70 original licenses that involved the construction of new hydropower facilities./2
Once the Commission has issued a license, its role is to provide regulatory oversight of licensed projects during their license term. This post-licensing workload involves ensuring compliance with license requirements, processing requests for extensions of time to comply with these requirements, and processing applications to amend licenses by modifying project facilities and operations. License requirements include environmental and public use provisions resulting from terms and conditions set by the Commission, including measures specified by state and federal resource agencies. Typical examples include requirements establishing minimum flows, reservoir elevations, water quality metrics, fish passage facilities, and recreation measures. Specialized Commission staff review and analyze plans and reports filed pursuant to the license conditions, process engineering and environmental amendment requests, and review complaints and non-compliance allegations. The Commission's post-licensing workload also entails processing requests for license transfers as well as applications to surrender a project license. During fiscal year 2025, the Commission processed 172 extension of time requests, 73 amendments to project facilities and operations, 612 complaints and non-compliance allegations, and 27 license transfers or surrender a project license.
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1 Exemptions are a simpler form of license where the projects are not subject to the licensing requirements of the FPA, such as Sections 4, 10, and 18, and the license does not convey eminent domain authority. The exempted project is subject to mandatory terms and conditions set by federal and state fish and wildlife agencies and by the Commission.
2 Of the 70 original licenses issued beginning fiscal year 2013, eleven projects have been constructed and are operating and one project has commenced, but not yet completed, construction. Of the remainder, the licensees of 41 have not indicated to the Commission whether or when they intend to begin construction and 17 licenses have been terminated or surrendered.
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Under the FPA, the Commission is responsible for ensuring that the water-retaining features of hydropower projects are designed, constructed, operated, and maintained using current engineering standards and meet federal guidelines for dam safety. Commission engineers review designs, plans, and specifications of the facilities and proposed modifications. Through regularly scheduled inspections during construction and operation, Commission engineers verify that dams meet stipulated design criteria and identify necessary remedial modifications or required maintenance. When issues are found, the Commission requires the licensee/exemptee to develop a plan and schedule for addressing the matter and conducting follow-up activities. The Commission incorporates a riskinformed decision-making approach that provides the capability to assess non-traditional failure modes, provides levelized risk across different loading conditions, focuses inspections and surveillance on projects' specific potential failure modes and monitoring programs, and guides remediation projects to provide an overall reduced level of risk to the public. In fiscal year 2025, Commission staff conducted 2,085 inspections related to incident response, construction, and the operation of dams and completed review of more than 11,00 dam safety related filings.
II. Complexity in the Licensing Process
Hydroelectric licensing proceedings under the FPA are multi-faceted and complex, requiring the Commission to consider and balance many competing interests. Section 10(a) of the FPA establishes the comprehensive development standard which each project must meet to be licensed, and which appears to be unique among federal infrastructure permitting requirements. In the Electric Consumers Protection Act of 1986, Congress modified the FPA to require the Commission to give equal consideration to developmental and nondevelopmental values at hydropower projects. Under this standard, a licensed project must be best adapted to a comprehensive plan for improving or developing a waterway for the use or benefit of interstate or foreign commerce--not only for the improvement and utilization of waterpower development, but also for the protection and enhancement of all other beneficial public uses. Typical uses for a waterway, such as power generation, irrigation, flood control, fish and wildlife protection or enhancement, water supply, and recreation, are often in direct competition for the waterway resources associated with a project. To meet the statutory requirement of balancing these competing uses, the Commission must explore all issues relevant to the public interest, including both those associated with waterpower development as well as those related to nondevelopment uses of a waterway.
As the Commission has noted in multiple reports, policy statements, and rulemakings since 2001, it is the complexity of the resource issues and the amount of available information about project impacts that set the stage for whether the regulatory process is short or long, simple or complex./3
The location of a proposed project and its mode of operation may be at least as significant as project size: a small project that alters the natural flow of a river in a sensitive area may present more complex licensing issues than a larger, run-of-river project on a site where there are few environmental issues. The Commission is required to base its decisions on substantial evidence, which generally includes studies performed by applicants, studies put into the record by other parties, and material gathered by Commission staff. Whether an identified effect of a project is or is not a problem, and the extent of the problem, are often matters of perspective, and there are often disagreements between license applicants and other stakeholders concerning the extent to which projects will have negative effects on both developmental and nondevelopmental resources.
The Commission's licensing processes have evolved over the years as the agency has sought to address the issues that participants from every perspective have identified. These processes are designed, within the confines of the existing statutory scheme, to develop a record on which the Commission can reach decisions that are both expeditious and legally durable. In addition to the FPA's statutory requirements, the Commission must also ensure compliance with other statutes that involve a variety of processes ancillary to licensing, such as the Coastal Zone Management Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act. These statutes require various forms of approval from other federal or state agencies, some with differing statutory deadlines for action.
Under the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Commission cannot authorize development of a hydropower project within or affecting a state's coastal zone, unless the state concurs with the applicant's certification of consistency with the state's Coastal Zone Management Act program (approved by the Secretary of Commerce).
The National Historic Preservation Act requires the Commission, before authorizing a project, to consider the project's effects on any site, structure, or object included in, or eligible to be included in, the National Register of Historic Places, and to afford the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment. In practice, this is generally handled through consultation with the State Historic Preservation Officers.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the Commission must ensure that its actions do not jeopardize protected species or adversely modify their habitat and must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service when determining what protection measures to take.
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3 Hydroelectric Licensing Policies, Procedures, and Regulations: Comprehensive Review and Recommendations (May 8, 2001) (FERC Report to Congress); Hydroelectric Licensing under the Federal Power Act, 104 FERC
61,109 (2003) (Order establishing the Integrated Licensing Process); Settlements in Hydropower Licensing Proceedings under Part I of the Federal Power Act, 116 FERC
61,270 (2006) (Policy Statement); Report on the Pilot Two-Year Hydroelectric Licensing Process for Non-Powered Dams and Closed-Loop Pumped Storage Projects and Recommendations Pursuant to Section 6 of the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013, (May 26, 2017) (FERC Report to Congress); Hydroelectric Licensing Regulations Under the America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, 167 FERC
61,050 (2019) (Order establishing expedited process).
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Finally, the Clean Water Act precludes the Commission from licensing a hydroelectric project until the license applicant has first obtained a water quality certification, or a waiver thereof from the relevant certifying authority. The Clean Water Act allows certifying authorities up to one year to act on an applicant's certification request. The Clean Water Act further requires the Commission to adopt all conditions contained in the water quality certification.
In addition, if a project is located on U.S. lands such as a national forest, section 4(e) of the FPA authorizes the federal land managing agency to impose mandatory conditions to protect those lands. Section 18 of the FPA gives authority to the Secretaries of the Departments of the Interior and Commerce to prescribe fishways. With respect to exemptions, section 30(c) of the FPA allows federal and state agencies to impose conditions to protect fish and wildlife resources.
These statutory requirements give other agencies a significant role in establishing the information needed during project review and the requirements that a project must meet to be permitted. Although the Commission incorporates these processes into the project review schedule, their timing is generally outside of the Commission's control.
III. Proposed Legislation
A. S. 3500, Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act
The proposed legislation would amend Part I of the FPA to require that the Commission annually report to Congress on the status of each relicensing or original licensing process for which a notification of intent to file a license application was filed at 3 years prior to the report. Section 15 of the FPA requires that an operator file a relicense application at least 24 months prior to the expiration of the current license and that the operator notify the Commission of its intention to file for relicensing at least 5 years before the expiration of the existing license. Accordingly, the proposed reporting requirement should capture license or relicensing proceedings and the information to be submitted in each report should provide insight into the multitude of actions required of all stakeholders in the licensing process.
B. S. 3518, Fair Licensing for Operations of Water Structures Act
Section 2 of the proposed legislation, entitled "Hydropower Maintenance and Temporary Adjustments," would exempt some post-licensing activities involving maintenance, repair, or replacement of project works or seasonal or temporary adjustments to water flows from needing approval by the Commission.
With respect to post-licensing activities, section 10(b) of the FPA currently allows licensees to make alterations or modifications that are not substantial without the prior approval of the Commission. Under the FPA, Commission approval is required for post-licensing activities that result in substantial changes to the project works or operations, or that conflict with any license conditions related to the approved comprehensive plan for improving or developing a waterway. Post-licensing activities must also comply with any applicable federal laws such as the Endangered Species Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Clean Water Act. The Commission has historically approached the determination of whether a change is substantial or requires documentation of compliance with other federal statutes on a case-by-case basis.
On November 20, 2025, the Commission issued a Notice of Inquiry for "Authorizations for Certain Post-Licensing Activities at Hydroelectric Projects," under Docket No. RM26-3.
In the Notice, the Commission invited comments on opportunities to streamline or improve the process for hydropower licensees to undertake minor modifications and conduct other post-licensing activities at their facilities, potentially without the need for case-specific authorization. The Notice originally included a 60-day comment period, ending on January 26, 2026. In response to a motion filed by the National Hydropower Association, the Commission extended the date for submitting comments to February 10, 2026. The Commission is currently reviewing the comments received in response to the Notice and will be evaluating options for further action in light of the stakeholder input received.
Section 3 of the proposed legislation, entitled "Micro Hydrokinetic Energy Projects," would amend Part I of the FPA to create a licensing process specific to hydrokinetic projects of not more than 5 megawatts. This licensing process would entail a prefiling period of one year (from notification of intent to the actual application filing) and a oneyear period for the Commission to take action on an application once it has been received.
As previously referenced, the Commission cannot authorize development of a hydropower project without the applicant first obtaining certain statutorily required approvals from other federal or state agencies with the Clean Water Act being most relevant to hydrokinetic projects.
For projects reviewed and approved by the Commission, the proposed legislation would set a term of not less than 10, and not more than 20, years for the construction, operation, and maintenance of project works. The Commission's Policy Statement on Establishing License Terms for Hydroelectric Projects sets out its views on the interplay between the length of a license term and the complexity of a project's characteristics./4
Under this policy, the Commission sets a 30-year term where there is little or no authorized redevelopment, new construction, or environmental mitigation and enhancement; a 40-year term for a license involving a moderate amount of these activities; and a 50-year term where there is an extensive amount of such activity.
The hydrokinetic projects covered by the proposed legislation would not include features that impound water to generate electricity and are clearly intended to have a small footprint in the waterway. Those features fit into the characteristics of infrastructure to which the Commission routinely grants 30-or 40-year license terms. I would recommend extending the 20-year license term limitation in the proposed legislation up to a limit of 40 years.
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4 Policy Statement on Establishing License Terms for Hydroelectric Projects, 161 FERC
61,078 (2017).
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IV. Conclusion
As the lead agency for FPA hydropower proceedings, the Commission has developed processes that take into consideration the views, recommendations, and conditions provided by federal and state agencies and other stakeholders while also meeting its own statutory obligation to license projects that are best adapted for improving or developing a waterway.
Commission staff remains committed to working with all agencies, stakeholders, and Congress to ensure the most effective processing of energy infrastructure matters before the Commission. This concludes my remarks. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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Original text here: https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/E4F61289-B8C6-4149-AA65-779E19AEF273
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute Executive Director McLean Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Katherine 'Kate' McLean, executive director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, dated March 10, 2026, for a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs":* * *
Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing and for elevating the importance of adoption ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Katherine 'Kate' McLean, executive director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, dated March 10, 2026, for a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs": * * * Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing and for elevating the importance of adoptionand family permanency in the United States.
My name is Kate McLean, and I am proud to serve as the Executive Director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI). CCAI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 2001 to eliminate barriers that prevent children from experiencing the safety, stability, and permanency of family. Family permanency means a child has the safety and belonging that comes from knowing they are part of a permanent family who will love and support them for a lifetime. Legally, this may include adoption, kinship guardianship, or reunification, but true permanency also requires the relational and emotional stability every child needs to thrive.
For 25 years, CCAI has served as a trusted source of information, expertise, and resources for Members of Congress and the Adoption Caucus, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption (CCA), on family permanency issues both domestically and globally. As the historically largest bipartisan, bicameral caucus in Congress, the Adoption Caucus reflects a strong and enduring commitment to children and families. CCAI extends its sincere appreciation to Chairman Aderholt, Co-Chair of the Caucus, for his leadership, and to Ranking Member DeLauro and Representatives Bice, Letlow, Moolenaar, and Pocan for their longstanding and active membership.
CCAI raises awareness among policymakers by connecting them directly with adoptees, foster youth, foster and adoptive families, and birth parents to ensure legislative decisions reflect real-world experiences. Programs like Angels in Adoption(R) and the Foster Youth Internship Program(R) create opportunities for Congress to meet and learn from these constituents and their important lived experiences firsthand.
Adoption is at the heart of CCAI's mission. It is a vital option when it is not safe or possible to return home; adoptions can include kinship adoption, international adoption, domestic adoption through a private agency or foster care public agency. Adoption offers children the chance to belong, to be cared for and supported throughout life, and to know they will always have family to share holidays, milestones, and everyday moments. CCAI can attest that adoption and the welfare of children have long been a bipartisan priority, and this Committee's ongoing support sends a clear message that Congress recognizes the fundamental principle that children thrive best in safe, nurturing, permanent families, and that every child deserves the opportunity to do so.
Adoption has the power to create lifelong family connections when reunification is not possible, but it should strengthen, not replace, a child's support network. Children eligible for adoption often have experienced disruptions in their "village of support." Effective adoption practice preserves relationships, identity, and belonging while also providing the stability of a permanent family.
Federal adoption incentive programs, including the Adoption Opportunities and the Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentive Payments, help youth in foster care, especially those with complex needs, find permanent families. These programs reward state practices that advance timely, child-centered adoptions and legal guardianships. Children with complex needs - older youth, sibling groups, or those with medical, developmental, or behavioral challenges - often face greater barriers to adoption, and these programs foster policies and opportunities that make lasting permanency possible.
I would like to share some stories that illustrate this impact. A couple from Tennessee in our Angels in Adoption(R) program welcomed five siblings into their home through foster care.
With access to the supports, services, and resources they needed, the family was able to provide stability and care for the children and ultimately adopted all five siblings. This shows how the proper supports can help families meet complex needs and ensure siblings can grow up together.
At the same time, gaps remain. A youth in Pennsylvania who participated in our Foster Youth Internship Program(R) shared that all three of his siblings once lived safely and happily with their grandmother in kinship care. Despite the loving placement, the children were removed and separated because the state required individual bedrooms, even though the siblings had shared rooms their entire lives and cherished it. This story illustrates that keeping sibling groups together is indeed complex and requires stronger, more consistent federal support. Siblings are often separated in care, which can weaken their relationships and hinder their ability to support one another. In this case, the family could have stayed together and avoided serious trauma if housing support had been available, but the agency lacked the resources and flexibility to provide it.
Another youth in our internship program from California shared that adoption could have provided stability, but college-related financial pressures made her feel she had to choose between adoption and higher education. This tension exists because federal programs like the John H.
Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood generally limit supports to youth still in foster care at age 14 or older, or those who exit at age 16 or older for kinship guardianship or adoption. As a result, older youth can lose access to critical resources just when they need them most if moving forward with adoption pushes them outside program eligibility.
Experiences like this underscore the complex needs of older youth, who often face difficult tradeoffs between achieving permanency and accessing the supports necessary for success in adulthood.
These stories show progress while highlighting persistent challenges, especially for older youth, sibling groups, and other complex needs. Because these systems are multifaceted, there is no single solution, and meaningful progress requires coordinated effort. Among many, three key priorities can strengthen outcomes and promote successful adoptions and family permanency: Making Adoption More Accessible and Ethical: To ensure more children eligible for adoption are successfully placed, CCAI promotes increasing accessibility by encouraging the adoption of children with complex needs and removing barriers that might prevent families from providing lasting family permanency. For example, with the story from our California youth, making a deliberate effort to help older youth who want it find permanent families without forcing them to choose between family and critical supports like higher education. It also includes supporting sibling placements, like the family I shared from Tennessee keeping all five siblings together and removing financial or systemic barriers that may prevent adoption, as illustrated by the Pennsylvania youth's story. At the same time, adoption must uphold ethical standards that protect the rights and dignity of youth, birth families, and adoptive families, ensuring the process is transparent, voluntary, and child-centered rather than driven by coercion or profit. By addressing both accessibility and ethics, adoption can better fulfill its promise of lasting family connections.
Ensuring Preparedness and Readiness for Adoption and Guardianship: CCAI recommends ensuring that all parties involved in adoption - adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents - are fully prepared, supported, and have a meaningful voice in the process to promote successful, lasting placements. Inadequate pre- and post-adoption supports may discourage families, increase the risk of disruption, or make adoption feel riskier or less sustainable. In some cases, incentive structures that prioritize finalized numbers over stability, along with policy shifts, eligibility changes, or court backlogs, can affect both the pace and durability of adoptions.
Prospective adoptive families may enter the process with varying expectations or without trauma-informed, adoption-competent training to meet a child's emotional and behavioral needs, while youth often have limited input in placement decisions, which can undermine trust and longterm stability. Further, kinship caregivers are invaluable to permanency efforts, but oftentimes lack adequate financial resources or support, particularly when caring for youth with complex needs.
Strengthening pre- and post-adoption services, adoption-competent training, and supports are all essential to ensure children and families thrive together.
Reducing Barriers and Strengthening the Permanency Workforce: CCAI recommends reducing legal and bureaucratic complexity and fostering a skilled permanency workforce to help children and families achieve permanency efficiently and effectively. Shortages of trained permanency specialists and court personnel delay case movement. Legal and procedural requirements vary widely by state and country, oftentimes creating delays and stress for families navigating adoption. Domestic adoptions may be slowed by prolonged court proceedings, backlogs, or bureaucratic procedural steps, while international adoptions can be disrupted by changes in foreign laws or political shifts. At the same time, recruiting, retaining, and training quality adoption and guardianship permanency specialists is critical to program success, supports youth-centered outcomes, and enables states to implement evidence-based practices. By streamlining processes and building workforce capacity, the system can better protect children while moving them toward permanent, nurturing families without unnecessary delays.
I urge the Subcommittee to prioritize funding for policies and programs that uphold the rights, dignity, and well-being of children and families, expand access to family permanency, support families before and after placement, and invest in a skilled workforce to ensure every child has a safe, nurturing, and permanent family. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of the life-changing impact that adoption and family permanency make possible.
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Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP07/20260326/119093/HHRG-119-AP07-Wstate-McLeanK-20260326.pdf
Center for Adoption Support & Education CEO Riley Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Debbie Riley, CEO and co-founder of the Center for Adoption Support and Education, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs":* * *
Good morning, Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro and members of the subcommittee for this opportunity to thank you for supporting programs that ensure all children have a permanent loving family. It is an honor ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies released the following testimony by Debbie Riley, CEO and co-founder of the Center for Adoption Support and Education, from a March 26, 2026, hearing entitled "Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs": * * * Good morning, Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro and members of the subcommittee for this opportunity to thank you for supporting programs that ensure all children have a permanent loving family. It is an honorto be invited.
My name is Debbie Riley, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) I am a licensed marriage and family therapist of 40 years specializing in child and adolescent mental health. As adoptive parents, my hesitation was grounded in what I had seen in my professional career and in the research. Children adopted, particularly from foster care, were over-represented in higher settings of mental health with unacceptably poor outcomes. My career has been committed to addressing this disparity.
Along my journey I met Kathleen Dugan. She and her husband adopted 8 children from foster care, expanding their family of 4 to 12. 40 years ago, we did not know the impact of trauma on brain development, how children grieve, why they might be aggressive or abusive or do things like set the house on fire, all of which they experienced. Medical professionals advised their children were too damaged and should return to foster care, which they did not. We started C.A.S.E. so that NO adoptive parent would be told to return their children. C.A.S.E is now the national leader on mental health of adoptive, foster and kinship families, serving over 9,000 children and families in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C., building a national network of adoption competent professionals, and transforming policy and practice.
For most children, adoption is an important protective factor, bringing permanency, safety and a nurturing environment. Traumatic life experiences and compromised beginnings - especially for those who experience foster care - elevate risks for developmental, health, emotional, and behavioral challenges which can compromise well-being and family stability. The lack of access to adoption competent mental health services is a significant barrier to foster parent recruitment/retention, child permanency and confident adoptive families who may not otherwise be prepared to meet the challenges of children from early life adversity.
The Cost
There are significant financial and emotional costs associated with the lack of appropriate mental health services. It contributes to interactions with the juvenile justice system (a cost of $100,000500,000 per year/youth) and placements in residential treatment where 25-30% are adoptees.
While most adoptions succeed, 10%-25% disrupt before finalization and some dissolve after finalization. A range of barriers to obtaining quality mental health services include limited availability of providers with specialized training, particularly in rural areas; accessibility issues, such as inconvenient locations and office hours; lack of awareness about existing resources; no mandate or requirement for clinicians serving the foster/adoption population to complete adoption competency training; and no national certification or central registry of trained clinicians. Adoptive parents cite competent mental health services as one of their greatest unmet needs, often reporting practices that are ineffective or even harmful.
Families needed specialized clinical expertise, a framework that did not exist before C.A.S.E.
Doctorate level clinical programs only spent on average 7.59 minutes per semester on adoption.
In 2009, C.A.S.E. began building a training curriculum that would fill this critical gap of knowledge. We partnered with visionary funders - Annie E. Casey Foundation, Dave Thomas 3
Foundation for Adoption, Freddie Mac Foundation, Jockey Being Family Foundation, and others - to test, refine, and build the evidence through rigorous evaluation. We engaged those with lived experience, scholars, researchers, and experts in mental health and child welfare to develop our flagship Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) - the only evidence-based, accredited adoption competency training for licensed mental health professionals. Today, more than 3,000 professionals have completed this rigorous 72-hour training, which is replicated in 21 states.
TAC was the starting point. To address the needs of foster, adoptive and kinship families, in 2014 the Children's Bureau launched the National Adoption Competency Mental Health
Training Initiative (NTI), led by C.A.S.E. NTI developed two advanced, evidence-informed online trainings to improve adoption competency among child welfare and mental health professionals across the country. Eight national child welfare systems and one tribal nation piloted these trainings with 9,000 participants. Findings validated the need. Notably, child welfare staff scored around 50% on the pre-test in understanding loss and grief which can result in serious mental health challenges such as childhood depression, anxiety and self-harming.
Mental health professionals averaging 13 years of clinical practice scored around 30% in attachment and bonding. We learned that untrained child welfare workers were not having essential conversations with children to address their loss and grief, and therapists did not know how to support attachment. It is easy to see why there are so many poor outcomes for children and families! The good news is that after completing NTI training, nearly all participants demonstrated strong proficiency in these areas, improving their ability to address complex mental health issues in children preparing for permanency and supporting their families. These findings reflect what families have been telling us for years - children with complex mental health conditions impacted by profound loss, grief, and trauma were receiving the least skilled treatment. Currently, 34 states use the training to mitigate these outcomes, which has a 95% satisfaction rate among trainees. Over 30,000 professionals have enrolled in NTI.
Scaling NTI revealed a workforce crisis. State systems overwhelmed by underserved children with deep emotional issues had children sleeping in caseworkers' offices or taken to emergency rooms for treatment. In response, in 2023 the Children's Bureau funded a National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services to build bridges between child welfare and mental health systems and enhance the workforce capacity. C.A.S.E leads this Center and provides sitespecific intensive technical assistance to States, Tribes, and Territories to build and improve access to adoption competent mental health services moving it to the gold standard of care.
The Reality Facing Adoptive and Foster Families:
There is a national emergency in children's mental health, with an especially high need among youth in care who experience mental health disorders at rates 3-4 times higher than average. Up to 80% have significant mental health needs, yet only 20-30% receive adequate treatment.
Additionally, one in four youth in care is prescribed psychotropic medication. The American Academy of Pediatrics identifies mental and behavioral health as the greatest unmet mental health need for those in foster care. The mental health and child welfare workforce is shrinking with child welfare turnover averaging 30-40% and one psychiatrist per 9,000 youth.
Barriers to Accessing Adoption-Competent Services
Mental health support is essential for families to thrive and achieve permanency - but adoptioncompetent care remains hard to find. Even when available, families frequently encounter significant obstacles, driving adoption instability and expensive, often preventable, crisis interventions, thereby exacerbating disruption and dissolution of adoptions. A recent national survey of 500 families revealed engagement in mental health services at rates 2.5 to 3 times higher. 86% accessed mental health services - but only 21% rated clinicians as adoption competent. We have an ethical obligation to do better - and we have a solution.
In December 2025, C.A.S.E published the strongest evidence to date that adoption-competent mental health services deliver measurably better outcomes for adoptive families but far too few families can access them. A study of over 300 families showed those engaged with TAC-trained clinicians report stronger therapeutic alliances, greater family engagement, higher satisfaction across all dimensions of treatment, more adoption-relevant care, and improved family outcomes.
Conclusion:
Evidence substantiates that adoption-competent care improves family stability and strengthens permanency. It is not just a niche specialty. It is a necessary standard of care for millions of children, families, and individuals. Consider the Martinez family: After struggling months to find a clinician who understood their adopted daughter's unique needs, they found a TAC-trained professional. "Within weeks, we felt heard and supported. Our daughter made strides in healing, and our family grew stronger together. Adoption-competent care changed our lives."
C.A.S.E. has provided adoption competency training to over 30,000 mental health and child welfare professionals across 43 states and territories, delivering essential assistance and hope to families such as the Martinez family. With continued Congressional support, we can expand access to proven adoption competency training, establish national standards for adoptioncompetent care, enhance cross-system integration, and advance needed research. Both NTI and TAC trainings are positioned for widespread implementation to ensure adoption-competent care is accessible and affordable - regardless of location or background. By investing earlier in mental health access, in caregivers, and in the workforces that hold all of this together, we can shift from funding crisis to preventing it. Thank you for your time and consideration.
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Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP07/20260326/119093/HHRG-119-AP07-Wstate-RileyD-20260326.pdf
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Palumbo Testifies Before Senate Energy & Natural Resources Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power released the following testimony by David Palumbo, deputy commissioner of operations at the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, from a March 17, 2026, hearing on legislation to address drought and promote water security:* * *
Chair Hoeven, Ranking Member Wyden, and members of the Subcommittee, I am David Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) within the Department of the Interior (Department). Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 30 -- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power released the following testimony by David Palumbo, deputy commissioner of operations at the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, from a March 17, 2026, hearing on legislation to address drought and promote water security: * * * Chair Hoeven, Ranking Member Wyden, and members of the Subcommittee, I am David Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) within the Department of the Interior (Department). Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committeeto discuss these bills.
S. 1242, Watershed Results Act
Through its WaterSMART and Cooperative Watershed Management programs, the Bureau of Reclamation provides funding to watershed groups to help address local water management needs. Since 2017, Reclamation has provided cost-shared financial assistance to watershed groups to implement watershed management projects. These on-the-ground projects, collaboratively developed by members of a watershed group, address critical water supply and quality issues, helping water users meet competing demands and avoid conflicts over water.
If enacted, S. 1242 would establish a new Reclamation watershed pilot program to meet specific watershed goals, such as realizing increases in water quantity or improvements to the quality of aquatic habitats. The bill authorizes $17 million in annual appropriations through 2031, which may be used to support up to five pilot projects. Each project would follow a five-year plan that must incorporate watershed analytics and follow a multi-agency funding strategy that utilizes a pay-for-performance contract to incentivize results.
While the Department appreciates the goal of this bill, the desired outcomes are already met through existing programs and opportunities, such as Reclamation's WaterSMART Cooperative Watershed Management Program and Enhanced Water Resources Projects. In addition, S. 1242 includes a 75 percent federal cost share and authorizes additional federal spending.
S. 2437, Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program Reauthorization Act
Reclamation's Snow Water Supply Forecasting Program (SWSFP) was authorized in 2020.
Reclamation implements SWSFP on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior to enhance snow monitoring to improve water supply forecasting for the benefit of water management. The original program achieved this objective in four ways: 1) Demonstrating and/or deploying emerging snow monitoring technologies; 2) Demonstrating and/or deploying improvements to existing snow monitoring technologies; 3) Deploying existing snow monitoring technologies in less covered areas; and 4) Improving the use of snow monitoring data to enhance water supply forecasts. SWSFP has worked with partners on a variety of projects using ground-based technologies, aircraft and satellite-based technologies, and advanced modeling. Recent efforts have included the use of data generated through aerial LiDAR snow surveys. Reclamation has observed that the application of multiple complementary technologies can result in successful outcomes for improving forecasting for water management. For example, advanced modeling can be done across the west, but confidence in results increase dramatically when in-situ and remote measurements are integrated. Airborne LiDAR surveys are known for high accuracy, but measurements are infrequent due to the logistics of deploying aircraft. The value of these surveys is increased when combined with ground or space-based measurements and modeling that provides higher frequency snowpack measurements or estimates. Due to its role in managing water supply reservoirs, hydropower facilities, and water distribution systems, Reclamation has a strong interest in obtaining accurate snow monitoring and forecasting across the West.
S. 2437 would reauthorize and expand, but also could restrict, the program for fiscal years 2027 through 2031. For example, Reclamation now uses commercially available technologies where that is the best way to advance snow water supply forecasting. The bill, as introduced, would direct the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Commissioner of Reclamation, to incorporate "to the greatest extent practicable" the use of information from commercially available technologies including airborne snow surveys and associated modeling when determining water supply forecasts or allocations to Federal water contractors, rather than "emerging technologies" as provided in the original authorization. The bill would also allow for consideration of other technologies as there is continued need for on-the-ground snow measurements, satellite-derived earth observations, and technologies that can integrate a range of different sources of snow measurements in water supply forecasting. The bill would increase the authorized level of appropriations from a total of $15 million for fiscal years 2022 through 2026 to a total of $32.5 million for fiscal years 2027 to 2031, at $6.5 million annually.
The bill would increase the authorized annual level of federal spending by Reclamation, and does not sufficiently account for related efforts undertaken by other Federal agencies.
S. 2753, Urban Canal Modernization Act
At the time of their construction, the canals managed by Reclamation were mostly in relatively unpopulated areas in the western United States. Since then, some of these canals have been surrounded by urban development, and could potentially pose a risk to populated areas in the event of failure. Reclamation currently classifies and monitors approximately 880 miles of such canals in its Urban Canal Hazard Program.
S. 2753 would provide that 35 percent of the cost of extraordinary maintenance on defined reaches of canals are non-reimbursable. This provision applies to extraordinary maintenance work on "urban canals of concern," which are canals Reclamation designates as "urban canal reaches" for its emergency risk management purposes, where there is a population at risk of more than 100 people. The bill does not apply to emergency extraordinary maintenance on the same canal reaches, leaving those instances to the existing emergency extraordinary maintenance reimbursement determinations. This would reduce operating partners' maintenance costs for these urban canals, which could encourage preventative maintenance, by passing on eligible project costs to Reclamation for extraordinary maintenance work that would have otherwise been funded by the project beneficiaries.
Additionally, section 2(e) would allow any reimbursable funds provided under S. 2753 to serve as a non-federal source of funds for the purposes of any cost-sharing requirement for a federal grant. This language may lead to some confusion with water managers. Specifically, this section may limit the amount of funding made available under section 9603 of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (Title XI, Subtitle F, Public Law 111-11) for extraordinary operations and maintenance that could be applied as a non-federal match.
Reclamation works collaboratively with its partners to ensure the safe and exceptional stewardship of our infrastructure, and recognizes the additional risk that canals may pose in populated areas. While some operating partners may face high costs to maintain their canals, it is not apparent that the best way to address this concern would be to expand the non-reimbursable share of the cost of this work.
S. 3409, Lower Yellowstone River Native Fish Conservation Act
Reclamation's Lower Yellowstone Project (LYP) is 58,000-acre irrigation project located in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. The project is operated and maintained by the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation District Board of Control under contract with Reclamation. The Lower Yellowstone Project includes the Intake Diversion Dam, a screened headworks structure, 71 miles of main canal, 225 miles of laterals and 118 miles of drains, three pumping plants on the Main Canal, four supplemental pumps on the Yellowstone River and one supplemental pump on the Missouri River.
Since the early 2000s, Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been working cooperatively as joint lead agencies to address threats to pallid sturgeon associated with Reclamation's LYP in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service).
Entrainment protection was completed in 2012 with the construction of a new screened headworks structure and passage was established with the completion of the Intake Bypass Channel in 2022. The adaptive management and monitoring program (AMMP) kicked off in the spring of 2022, which includes monitoring of established biological and hydraulic criteria.
Monitoring efforts begin May 1st and continue until September 30th each year. Reclamation has agreed to pay for Operations, Maintenance & Replacement (OM&R) for the Intake Bypass Channel for the first eight years of operation during the AMMP period (2022 - 2029). This OM&R funding approach was established primarily because the Intake Bypass Channel is a novel fish passage concept and as a result there are anticipated to be several design iterations which require field refinements, including those related to erosion. It will likely take several more years of adjustments to get the channel stabilized and functioning as required. The intent of the design changes and repairs is to ensure the long-term viability of the Intake Bypass Channel and compliance with Endangered Species Act (ESA) obligations. Ensuring sufficient fish passage enables migration and spawning further upstream, improves survival and supports increased recruitment of the endangered pallid sturgeon.
The Lower Yellowstone Intake Diversion Fish Passage Project was completed at federal expense, with no capital construction obligations on the irrigators, to maintain irrigation deliveries from the Yellowstone River, where ESA-listed sturgeon are present. To ensure continued ability to irrigate from the Lower Yellowstone Project, the bypass feature must be operated and maintained by project beneficiaries consistent with the LYP and bypass channel authorization.
S. 3409 would reaffirm federal ownership and responsibility for the Lower Yellowstone Fish Bypass Channel in perpetuity. The net impact of this provision would be to shift long-term operating responsibility from the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation District to Reclamation and require Reclamation to continue to fund OM&R beyond the currently agreed to AMMP Period concluding in 2029. S. 3409 also prohibits transferring, delegating, or assigning any financial, operational, or maintenance responsibilities for the bypass to any non-federal entity, including the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation District. The bill ensures that Reclamation and the Service would continue to be exclusively responsible for meeting ESA requirements for the bypass channel and pallid sturgeon and that conservation efforts are coordinated with state agencies without burdening non-federal irrigation operations. Finally, the legislation authorizes $1 million annually beginning in FY2026.
Should the Subcommittee advance S. 3409, we would like to work with the Sponsor to ensure funding levels are consistent with the President's budget and to address some technical concerns, including clarifying that the Intake Diversion Dam is not federally operated as the bill currently states. Additionally, the Department does not support a statutory requirement to continue to fund OM&R beyond the currently agreed to AMMP Period concluding in 2029.
S. 3635, Fort Peck Water System Reauthorization Act
The Fort Peck Reservation Rural Water System Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-382) authorized the development of the interconnected Montana Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water System and the Dry Prairie Rural Water System in northeastern Montana. Together, these systems form the Fort Peck Reservation Rural Water System project, which is intended to treat and deliver water from the Missouri River to the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes at Fort Peck Reservation, local communities, and rural customers, and will provide potable water to an estimated population of 27,500 upon completion. Once project assets or segments are constructed, the operation, maintenance, and replacement costs for the non-Tribal portion of the system will be funded by the Dry Prairie Rural Water System without federal assistance. Operation, maintenance, and replacement costs for the Tribal portion of the system will be funded through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Authorization of appropriations has been extended several times and are currently authorized through fiscal year 2026. Although the project is expected to be complete before the end of fiscal year 2026, proponents are seeking an extension of the project's authorization to allow for the full processing of construction-related payments.
S. 3635 would reauthorize the project for an additional two years through 2028. Reclamation is committed to continuing its work with project proponents to define the costs and scope of the project to accurately account for its funding through its completion.
S. 3693, Large-Scale Water Recycling Reauthorization Act
Water recycling is a valuable tool for maximizing the available water supplies in the west.
Authorized in 2021, Reclamation's Large-Scale Water Recycling Program has provided funding to water recycling projects in Reclamation states as part of its WaterSMART Program. Project funding has been provided at a 25 percent federal cost share with no per-project maximum to projects that have a total project cost greater than or equal to $500 million. These large-scale projects play an important role in helping communities develop reliable water supplies by turning unusable water sources into a new sources of water supply that are less vulnerable to drought.
S. 3693 would reauthorize the Large-Scale Water Recycling Program for an additional five years. S. 3693 would provide Reclamation additional time to fully implement this program.
S. 3723, Western South Dakota Water Supply Project Feasibility Study Act
Western South Dakota is currently experiencing rapid growth in population and water needs. Concerns about future water supplies prompted the creation of the Western Dakota Regional Water System (WDRWS) in September 2021 to evaluate and plan for the long-term water needs of western South Dakota. The stated goal of WDRWS is to ensure reliable ongoing access to drinking water in western South Dakota that accounts for future population growth and drought conditions.
S. 3723 authorizes appropriations of $10 million for a feasibility study with a federal share not exceeding 50 percent. The study would evaluate the benefits and costs of options to expand the existing project.
S. 3725, Lewis & Clark Project Rural Water Project Expansion Feasibility Study Act
The Lewis and Clark Regional Water System (LCRWS) is a non-profit entity that provides reliable drinking water to 20 member cities and rural water systems in southeast South Dakota, northwest Iowa, and southwest Minnesota. The LCRWS was incorporated in 1990 and authorized by Congress in 2000. Today, the system draws from the Missouri River aquifer through wells and pipelines to provide water to over 350,000 people, with ongoing expansions and planning efforts for future growth utilizing federal, state, and local funding over several decades.
Future plans for the LCRWS include increasing its original capacity of 23.5 million-gallons-perday (MGD) to 45 MGD by 2028, with a future goal of providing 60 MGD of water throughout the region. Reclamation's involvement with LCRWS includes managing federal funds, providing technical analysis and guidance, and ensuring the project aligns with federal law, making it an example of federal-local partnership for water infrastructure.
S. 3725 authorizes appropriations of $10 million for the feasibility study with a federal share not exceeding 50 percent. The study would evaluate the benefits and costs of options to expand the existing project. Since all 20 city and rural water system members of the LCRWS entity are connected to the project as of October 2024, the study would need to clearly identify the scope and scale of any proposed expansions.
S. 3732, Water Security and Drought Resilience Act
S. 3732 would expand federal funding eligibility for certain water storage projects. The bill also authorizes grant funding for natural water retention and release projects, among other provisions.
Section 2 of the legislation authorizes a specific water storage project in Arizona, the Verde Reservoirs Sediment Mitigation Project, to be eligible for planning, design, and construction funding under the WIIN Act, notwithstanding the WIIN Act's feasibility and construction deadlines. To be eligible for construction funding, certain requirements must be met, including a determination by the Secretary that the recommended project is feasible. While section 2 requires funding to be distributed among projects in multiple Reclamation states, only one project, the Verde Reservoirs Sediment Mitigation Project, meets the bill's funding requirements. Prior funding allocations under Section 4007 of the WIIN Act have already been distributed to other projects in multiple Reclamation states. This project should be viewed as part of a larger legislative package to address drought and promote water security in the Colorado River Basin, while enabling Reclamation to better meet trust obligations to tribes.
Section 3 of the bill reauthorizes and expands the Small Storage Program for an additional five years, and directs the Secretary to distribute grants across multiple Reclamation states. The required distribution of grant awards could run counter to the statutorily required competitive nature of the program. In addition, the program authority and the authorization of appropriations are not aligned in terms of expiration date.
Section 4 of S. 3732 creates a new discretionary grant program for natural water retention and release projects with a federal cost share of up to 90 percent of the total cost of the project. The section also authorizes appropriations of $15 million per year from FY 2027 through FY 2031, for a total of $90 million. It is unclear whether the goal of the bill is consistent with a competitive grant program. This bill's focus on new grant programs would increase federal spending with a limited range of impact.
S. 3736, A bill to require the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of constructing a project to supply municipal, rural, and industrial water to the Dakota Mainstem Regional Water System service area in the States of South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota, and for other purposes
The Dakota Mainstem Regional Water System is a proposed water system that would bring water to South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and the Santee Reservation of the Santee Sioux Tribe, which shares a border with South Dakota. Over 50 independent water providers are currently pursuing this project, which aims to improve community resilience, address health and safety concerns with water scarcity and quality, support new population and economic development, and provide agricultural sustainability for the region.
S. 3736 authorizes appropriations of $10 million for a feasibility study with a federal share not exceeding 50 percent. The study would evaluate the benefits and costs of options to expand the existing project.
S. 3737, GROW SMART Act
S. 3737 amends Title II of the Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1991 (43 U.S.C. 2221) by authorizing Reclamation to fund the development of voluntary agricultural water efficiency projects with a stated goal of keeping agricultural land in production.
Specifically, the bill authorizes $5 million per year in appropriations for fiscal years 2028 through 2034 for Reclamation to fund the projects. In addition, S. 3737 provides for federal cost sharing, not to exceed 75 percent of the cost of project activities, and also authorizes the Secretary to waive the non-Federal share of the cost for Tribal entities.
The Administration appreciates the Sponsor's interest in supporting new efforts to address drought conditions and keeping agricultural land in production. However, the projects and activities specified in S. 3737 are beyond the scope of Reclamation's core mission of developing, managing, and protecting water and related resources in the American west.
S. 3738, MORE WATER Act
S. 3738 reauthorizes several expiring Reclamation programs and authorizes a new program supporting federal and non-federal water conveyance projects. The bill also proposes offsets for the new program and program reauthorizations directed by the bill by extending voluntary repayment of capital debts and establishing a process to deauthorize projects that have not received funding in the past seven years.
Reclamation programs reauthorized by S. 3738 include the Large-Scale Water Recycling program from Section 40905 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the water recycling program from Sec. 4009(c) of the Water Infrastructure Investments for the Nation (WIIN) Act, and environmental restoration from Sec. 4010 of the WIIN Act. The reauthorization of Large-Scale Water Recycling also includes new language giving Reclamation the authority to fund feasibility studies. As currently written, the bureau may still be constrained under this bill by the requirements of section 40905(d) of the IIJA, which requires the Secretary to concur with a feasibility study before providing grants. It is unclear whether this could be interpreted as requiring a feasibility study before Reclamation can fund feasibility studies.
The reauthorization of the water recycling program and environmental restoration program under the bill would extend the WIIN Act authority for water recycling projects eligible under section 4009(c), but not desalination projects eligible under section 4009(a). The reauthorization of the water recycling program also includes a significant increase to the per-project federal funding cap, and requires the cap to be adjusted for inflation on an annual basis.
The new program for federal and non-federal water conveyance projects established by S. 3738 would authorize the issuance of grants for up to 50 percent of project costs, with an authorized appropriations level of $500 million over five years. In addition, section 3(e) of the bill establishes federal cost-share requirements for the new program, determined by the costs of a project. For half of the projects authorized by the program that are under $800 million in costs, all federal funding may be used for the water supply benefit of the project. For the other half of projects costing less than $800 million, and all projects over $800 million in costs, a federal funding share of up to 30 percent of the project cost may be used for water supply benefits, and federal funding of up to 20 percent of the project's costs may be used for environmental benefits.
S. 3738 further prohibits the Secretary from imposing a total dollar cap for the funding of conveyance projects under the section.
Reclamation has traditionally operated under a "beneficiary pays" model, and converting more funding to grants, as directed by the bill, would be a departure from this approach, which would result in federal taxpayers paying for benefits largely limited to beneficiaries in specific localities. The new conveyance program would also overlap with and expand on existing programs, as it grants Reclamation the ability to fund any new conveyance project under $5 billion in a Reclamation state. This would be a significant expansion of Reclamation's portfolio.
The new program would also allow other federal funding, including funds from Reclamation's Aging Infrastructure Account (AIA), to be used towards the non-federal cost share, which would alter existing programs by allowing applicants to use AIA funding to compete for grant funding.
The Department appreciates the Sponsor's interest in Reclamation's work across the west, but cannot support S. 3738, as it would significantly increase the size and scope of Reclamation's responsibilities to the detriment of the American taxpayer. Moving to a grants-based funding approach also runs counter to the "beneficiary pays" framework, since the benefits will be largely focused on the water users in localities served by the project.
S. 3743, A bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior to carry out a feasibility study on a selective water withdrawal system at Glen Canyon Dam, and for other purposes
Glen Canyon Dam, located near the city of Page in northern Arizona, was constructed to harness the power of the Colorado River to provide for the water and power needs of millions of people in the west. At 710 feet in height, Glen Canyon Dam is the second highest concrete-arch dam in the United States, second only to Hoover Dam, which stands at 726 feet. The 25.16 million acrefeet of water storage capacity in Lake Powell, created by Glen Canyon Dam, provides additional water storage for the Colorado River System. This stored water has made it possible to successfully weather extended dry periods by sustaining the needs of cities, industries, and agriculture throughout the region.
Hydroelectric power produced by the dam's eight generators helps meet the electrical needs of the west's rapidly growing population. With a total capacity of 1,320 megawatts, the Glen Canyon Powerplant produces around five billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power annually, which is distributed by the Western Area Power Administration to Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Nebraska. In addition, revenues from production of hydropower help fund many important environmental compliance programs associated with the Glen and Grand Canyons.
S. 3743 would authorize Reclamation to conduct a feasibility study into whether a selective water withdrawal system or other potential options at Glen Canyon Dam could improve hydropower generation during cold water releases, and if the system could help reduce the risk of invasive species entrainment. The bill directs implementation of a preferred solution, if determined to be feasible under existing Reclamation laws, which may - or may not - be the best solution when viewed from a national perspective.
Reclamation notes that under the Glen Canyon Dam Long-Term Experimental and Management Plan, cold water releases from Lake Powell have already been conducted as a proactive measure to disrupt the establishment of nonnative fish that pose a danger to the threatened humpback chub. This option is a short-term tool to use for environmental compliance purposes while Reclamation pursues longer-term solutions, including the slough modification project completed last year.
The Administration supports the goal of S. 3743 to explore opportunities to improve hydropower and reduce invasive species entrainment in the Colorado River Basin, but believes that funds provided for such a study should be fully reimbursable rather than borne by the taxpayers.
S. 3792, Water Project Navigators Act
S. 3792 directs the Secretary to establish a program that funds "navigator" positions at partner non-federal organizations, including state and local governments, Tribes, special districts, and non-governmental organizations, to help develop and implement multi-benefit water projects.
The bill authorizes five years of funding for staffing these positions placed at partner organizations, but does not specify the terms for employment of the navigator positions. Multibenefit projects are defined by the bill as proposals to enhance the overall resilience of water supplies to climate-related impacts and to provide benefits to communities and ecosystems, including conserving or enhancing fish and wildlife habitat and promoting rural economic development.
In addition, S. 3792 grants the Secretary authority to award grants or cooperative agreements to eligible entities to support the creation or continuation of multi-benefit water project navigator positions. The grants or cooperative agreements are limited to a period of three years, but may be extended for an additional two years at the Secretary's discretion. The duties of the navigator positions defined by the bill include grant writing, project management, technical assistance, and any other necessary activities.
S. 3792 also provides that the federal share of the cost of an activity awarded a grant or cooperative agreement under this program shall not exceed 75 percent, but allows the Secretary of the Interior to reduce or waive the non-federal share of the cost in some cases. The bill prioritizes applications from eligible entities that would directly serve Indian Tribes, disadvantaged communities, rural communities, and other eligible entities with limited resources and capacity to develop multi-benefit water projects. In addition, S. 3792 requires the Secretary, within five years of enactment, to submit to Congress a report with an analysis of the multiple benefits advanced under the program. Lastly, the bill authorizes $15 million in funding annually between fiscal years 2027 and 2032.
Congress has already provided the authority to address these issues through the strengthening of the WaterSMART program. As such, the Department encourages the Sponsor to continue working with the Department on increasing the effectiveness of existing programs and expanding the potential applicant pool.
S. 4040, Dakota Water Resources Act Amendments of 2026
The Garrison Diversion Unit originally authorized in 1965, amended in 1986 by the Garrison Reformulation Act, and again in 2000 by the Dakotas Water Resource Act (DWRA), is associated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Garrison Dam of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program. The Garrison Diversion Unit originally focused primarily on irrigation development as part of compensation to the State of North Dakota (State) for the loss of 550,000 acres of Missouri River bottom land due to the construction of Garrison Dam and Oahe Dam, that also included the inundation of a significant amount of land within the Fort Berthold and the Standing Rock Indian Reservations, forcing several Tribal communities to move.
However, the Garrison Diversion Unit faced numerous issues and challenges, resulting in repeated modification of the project, and in 2000, the DWRA deauthorized all but approximately 75,000 acres of the irrigation originally included in the project and increased construction ceilings for Tribal and non-Tribal Municipal, Rural, and Industrial (MR&I) water supplies.
Currently the Garrison Diversion Unit is a multipurpose project principally providing Tribal and non-Tribal MR&I water supply projects along with fish and wildlife, recreation, and flood control benefits in the State of North Dakota.
S. 4040 would authorize additional appropriations for several sections of the Garrison Diversion Unit, primarily to support drinking water systems within the State. The bill would authorize an additional $637 million (indexed) for the State Municipal, Rural and Industrial (MR&I) system for the Northwest Area Water Supply (NAWS) Project, the Eastern North Dakota Alternate Water Supply (ENDAWS) Project, the Southwest Pipeline Project, as well as $63 million for various other North Dakota rural water districts throughout the State. The bill would also authorize $743 million (indexed) for Tribal rural water system construction and for the water systems within the Fort Totten Indian Reservation, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, and the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation. Finally, this Act would further authorize an additional $50 million for the Natural Resources Trust fund.
The Department supports the bill's goal of furthering reliable access to clean water for rural and Tribal communities, but notes that S. 4040 would increase the authorization of appropriations for several parts of the Garrison Diversion Unit, Missouri River Basin project. Should the Subcommittee advance this bill, we would like to work with the Sponsor to address technical issues.
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Original text here: https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/284AC767-BC7B-4FEC-8336-97D45DFCD6F6
Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund President Saenz Testifies Before House Judiciary Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government released the following testimony by Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe":* * *
Good morning. My name is Thomas A. Saenz, and I am president and general counsel of MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), which has for 58 years now, worked to promote the civil rights of all Latinos living in the ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government released the following testimony by Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe": * * * Good morning. My name is Thomas A. Saenz, and I am president and general counsel of MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), which has for 58 years now, worked to promote the civil rights of all Latinos living in theUnited States. MALDEF is headquartered in Los Angeles, with regional offices in Chicago; San Antonio, where MALDEF was founded; Washington, D.C.; and, most recently, Seattle. MALDEF lawyers today are very proud that our predecessors provided legal representation to the plaintiffs in Plyler v. Doe, the lead case in the matter that resulted in the 1982 Supreme Court decision that all children, regardless of immigration status, are entitled to a free public education from Kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Today, almost 44 years after Plyler v. Doe, too many forget or fail to take account of the fact that, while the justices split 5-4 on the constitutionality of the challenged Texas law permitting the exclusion of undocumented children from public schools, they were unanimous in their assessment that the Texas law was very bad public policy. Respected conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger authored the dissenting opinion in Plyler; that dissent begins with the following:
Were it our business to set the Nation's social policy, I would agree without hesitation that It is senseless for an enlightened society to deprive any children - including illegal aliens - of an elementary education. I fully agree that it would be folly - and wrong - to tolerate creation of a segment of society made up of illiterate persons, many having a limited or no command of our language./1
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist, and Byron White joined Burger's dissent in full. Justice Rehnquist, considered to be the most conservative justice on the Court at the time, would soon become the chief justice, elevated by President Ronald Reagan. The conservative credentials of those who joined in the conclusion that the Texas law was "senseless" are beyond question.
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1 Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 242 (1982) (Burger, C.J., dissenting) (emphasis added). "Denying a free education to illegal alien children is not a choice I would make were I a legislator. Apart from compassionate considerations, the long-range costs of excluding any children from the public schools may well outweigh the costs of educating them." Id. at 252.
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It is worth noting that, beyond the dissenters named above, renowned conservative Justice Lewis Powell not only agreed that the Texas law was bad public policy, but also considered it unconstitutional, joining the majority opinion in full. Thus, not only was the Plyler decision joined by a lead early strategist of the conservative movement in the federal courts, some of the most conservative justices of the modern era, even as they dissented from the majority's constitutional judgment, agreed that the challenged Texas law was "folly" as a matter of public policy./2
All of which begs the question why any conservative today would consider enacting some new version of the Texas law challenged successfully in Plyler to be a wise tactic, politically or as a matter of policy. Indeed, the conclusion of Burger's dissenting opinion focused on his view that the justices in the majority were taking on a policymaking endeavor that belonged more appropriately to Congress, not the Court. In Burger's view, the Constitution vested Congress with "primary responsibility" to address the issue of undocumented immigration and to assess and address the social costs of excluding any group of children from public schools./3
Thus, Burger would likely have become more solidly against the Texas law following the Congress's 1996 decision to effectively codify the holding in Plyler./4
This congressional action also counsels deference to the conservative view that Chief Justice Burger voiced in his dissenting opinion.
Nothing has changed in the 44 years since Plyler was decided that should alter the conclusion on public policy that Burger and his conservative colleagues reached. As the majority opinion stated, many of the undocumented children who would be denied an education, if Plyler were not decided as it was, will remain in the United States, and many will also become lawful permanent residents and ultimately naturalized United States citizens. See Plyler, 457 U.S. at 230 (majority). Indeed, one estimate shows that 430,000 students whose access to public school is guaranteed by the Plyler decision have since adjusted status to become citizens or lawful permanent residents./5
The same mechanisms that existed 44 years ago continue to exist today for undocumented immigrants to adjust their status, and many undocumented immigrants, particularly if they have long-term residence and strong community connections -- as those who attended elementary and secondary school in this country are likely to develop -- still have available grounds to suspend removal and to remain in the country long-term or permanently.
Thus, the children who would be denied a basic education absent Plyler will be expected to contribute to our country, and denying them an education will make that impossible and impose a substantial burden on society. The loss to society as a whole dwarfs the loss to each individual recipient of a basic education under the Plyler decision./6
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2 See id. at 242.
3 See id. at 253-54.
4 See 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1643(a)(2).
5 Scott D. Levy and Phillip Connor, The Power of Plyler: The Societal and Economic Gains of Equal Access to Education for Undocumented Children and the Future Losses if It Is Taken Away," FWD.us, Dec. 2025, https://www.fwd.us/news/the-power-of-plyler/.
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Or, as Justice Powell expressly stated: Indeed, the interests relied upon by the State would seem to be insubstantial in
view of the consequences to the State itself of wholly uneducated persons living indefinitely within its borders./7
In addition, of course, there may well be a forthcoming special legislated program that would allow children who came to the United States as minors and have received a higher education or otherwise prepared themselves for significant contributions to our country to adjust status and remain permanently in the country. The DREAM Act and its related subsequent legislation continue to maintain very high levels of bipartisan support./8
Depriving the potential beneficiaries of this legislation of even a K-12 education simply robs the nation of a ready and needed, skilled and educated future workforce. This will only increase the necessity for our nation to bring in through special visa programs skilled workers who were raised and educated in countries other than the United States./9
The Plyler court, both majority and dissent, also focused upon the nature of education and the importance of its availability to all. As Burger noted in his dissent, "[t]he importance of education is beyond dispute."/10
The majority identified as significant "the importance of education in maintaining our basic institutions, and the lasting impact of its deprivation on the life of the child . . . ."/11
In the 44 years since the decision, the importance of education has, if anything, become even more pronounced, as more and more career options require skills and training beyond that available in elementary and secondary education. Indeed, it may well be that an updating of Plyler would require its application beyond K-12 education, not its elimination with respect to elementary and secondary school.
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6 "Lifetime income gains for adult Plyler beneficiaries who are currently living in the U.S. are expected to be $2.7 trillion, or nearly $1 million per beneficiary." Id.
7 Plyler, 457 U.S. at 239 (Powell, J. concurring).
8 Jens Manuel Krogstad, Americans broadly support legal status for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, Pew Research Center, June 17, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/06/17/americans-broadly-support-legal-statusfor-immigrants-brought-to-the-u-s-illegally-as-children/ ("[a]bout three-quarters of U.S. adults say they favor granting permanent legal status to immigrants who came illegally to the United States when they were children"). See also NEW POLL: Overwhelming Majority of U.S. Voters Across Political Spectrum Support Legislation for Dreamers Paired with Border Security, FWD.us, Oct. 27, 2022, https://www.fwd.us/news/new-poll-overwhelming-majority-of-u-svoters-across-political-spectrum-support-legislation-for-dreamers-paired-with-border-security/.
9 "The exclusion of undocumented children from U.S. schools would result in an estimated future loss of 341,000 people working in jobs typically requiring some college education . . . ." Levy and Connor, The Power of Plyler, FWD.us, supra note 5.
10 Plyler, 457 U.S. at 247 (dissent).
11 Id. at 221 (majority).
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Of course, another major consideration in the Plyler case was that the children who would be denied an education played no role in their status as undocumented. They are children who followed the decision of their parents in immigrating to the United States. As the majority opinion stated, "directing the onus of a parent's misconduct against his children does not comport with fundamental conceptions of justice."/12
It was Justice Powell who raised the imperfect but helpful analogy to cases involving illegitimate children, noting that in Plyler, the challenged Texas law punished children who are "innocent" with respect to their immigration status./13
In this regard, too, little has changed in 44 years. It remains "the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility or wrongdoing."/14
While some might assert that the increase in unaccompanied teenagers migrating to the United States in recent years somehow undercuts this notion, the numbers are simply not so significant as to change the fact that the vast majority of those who attend school because of the Plyler holding simply played no role in their immigrating to the United States or staying here in an undocumented status.
In encapsulating his agreement with the majority, renowned and respected conservative jurist, Justice Lewis Powell, put it this way: "I agree with the Court that [these] children should not be left on the streets uneducated."/15
With respect to this aspect of eliminating Plyler, the impacts are severe for the community and for public schools. The simple fact is that children denied entry and enrollment in public school will literally be on the streets and sidewalks of our cities, small and large. The presence of such a group of children is not a desirable consequence for any community. Indeed, their mere presence would be uncomfortable for many residents, including the constituents of many of those who most assiduously seek the overturning of Plyler.
In addition, as many police chiefs would predict (and have predicted in prior post-Plyler litigation), these children are likely to become the victims of criminal activity, including recruitment of older children into participation in crime. More important, children out of school with impunity will have a tendency to draw their peers out of school, even if those peers retain the right to attend. Given the widespread phenomenon of mixed-status families, where younger children may be United States citizens by birth, while older children are undocumented, the first students to follow the excluded students out of class are their siblings. But they will quickly be followed by friends and acquaintances; over time, public schools may lose enough attendance that districts are required to lay off significant staff, including teachers, and to shutter longstanding school campuses.
This threat may be accelerated as children who retain the right to attend public school confront increasing obstacles to thriving in class. For some, these obstacles may come from the looming threat of undifferentiated immigration enforcement leading to detention of their parents.
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12 Id. at 220 (majority).
13 See id. at 238 (Powell, J., concurring).
14 Id. (quoting Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U.S. 164, 175 (1972)).
15 Id.
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For others, the obstacles may stem from the deprivation of adequate nutrition, health care, and stable housing. The cuts to the social safety net, enacted last year by Congress, that are to be implemented this year and in following years are already going to strain public education, as students become preoccupied with hunger, illness, and anxiety. These students will find it more difficult to thrive in school, and may find it easier to avoid school. These phenomena would be exponentially exacerbated if these students have peers who are already out of school because they are categorically barred from attendance if the Plyler decision were overturned.
In short, it is impossible not to recognize that the threat to Plyler is a serious threat - particularly in the current context - to the continued existence of public schooling in large swaths of our nation. Plyler v. Doe is most emphatically not about immigration policy; it is more appropriately about education policy; it is at present an important support to success of the public education system. Threatening or eliminating Plyler would betray the views of the many conservative jurists who saw the Texas law struck down in the case as "folly."
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Original text here: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/saenz-testimony.pdf
House Education & Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Mackenzie Issues Opening Statement at Hearing on Workers' Compensation Programs
WASHINGTON, March 26 -- Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, released the following testimony opening statement from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled ""Strengthening Federal Workers' Compensation Programs: Ensuring Integrity, Efficiency, and Access":* * *
"Today's hearing will examine programs in the Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP). Since its establishment in 1916, OWCP has supported workers who experience an injury on the job or develop an occupational disability or disease.
"Through ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 26 -- Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, released the following testimony opening statement from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled ""Strengthening Federal Workers' Compensation Programs: Ensuring Integrity, Efficiency, and Access": * * * "Today's hearing will examine programs in the Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP). Since its establishment in 1916, OWCP has supported workers who experience an injury on the job or develop an occupational disability or disease. "Throughthese programs, workers and their families may receive wage replacement benefits, medical treatment, vocational rehabilitation, and other assistance.
"As part of its duties, OWCP administers the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) and the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). These programs provide billions of dollars in benefits each year to the hundreds of thousands of workers who depend on them.
"These programs play a critical role in supporting injured employees, which we heard about during our hearing on this subject last year.
"Following that hearing, we received valuable input, observations, and perspectives from stakeholders. Today's hearing gives us the opportunity to build on what we've learned and seek out commonsense improvements to these programs that help injured workers access highquality care and return to their careers.
"H.R. 4122, the Health Care for Energy Workers Act, introduced by Committee Members Allen and McBath, is one example. This bipartisan bill would expand access to qualified providers and reduce delays in care by allowing nurse practitioners and physician assistants to order care in the EEOICPA program. Last year, the Committee unanimously approved a similar bill introduced by Chairman Walberg and Representative Courtney, Improving Access to Workers' Compensation for Injured Federal Workers Act, which amends FECA. Together, these bills cut unnecessary red tape and help to reduce the hurdles that injured workers are forced to jump through in order to receive care. By embracing solutions like these, we can deliver the savings and efficiency that taxpayers deserve while also streamlining the care that injured workers count on.
"In addition to these reforms, we should consider ways to help OWCP run these programs more efficiently. Many state workers' compensation programs have adapted to the evolving technological and health care landscapes. Identifying best practices from those programs could help federal programs improve in terms of efficiency and connecting workers with quality care. From adopting artificial intelligence for assistance in claims processing to strengthening predictive modeling, these practices could help reduce administrative burdens, streamline care, and save money for the American taxpayer.
"I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses about their perspectives and recommendations on how these programs can better serve injured workers while ensuring they run efficiently and operate responsibly."
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Original text here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/mackenzie_opening_statement.pdf
Federation for Immigration Reform Deputy Executive Director O'Brien Testifies Before House Judiciary Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government released the following testimony by Matthew J. O'Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for Immigration Reform, and former assistant chief immigration judge, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe":* * *
We are here today to discuss the Supreme Court's decision in Plyler v. Doe. That decision rewrote--rather than interpreted--the Equal Protection Clause, thereby transforming a Texas funding rule into a national ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government released the following testimony by Matthew J. O'Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for Immigration Reform, and former assistant chief immigration judge, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe": * * * We are here today to discuss the Supreme Court's decision in Plyler v. Doe. That decision rewrote--rather than interpreted--the Equal Protection Clause, thereby transforming a Texas funding rule into a nationalmandate that states must provide free K-12 education to children who have no legal right to be in the United States. The majority reached this result not by applying settled doctrine, but by importing their personal policy preferences (about the costs of illiteracy and hoped-for social outcomes) into constitutional analysis, and by crafting a novel, heightened form of "rational-basis" scrutiny that the Court itself conceded usually does not apply to non-suspect classes or non-fundamental interests. The result is a paradigmatic instance of judicial legislation that: (1) intrudes on Congress's plenary authority over immigration; (2) restricts state discretion to allocate scarce educational resources; and (3) has imposed very substantial fiscal and operational burdens on already underperforming school systems. In plain English, Plyler can only be understood as an egregious example of judicial activism that has damaged public education.
The Constitution of the United States assigns the power to regulate immigration to Congress, with executive authority derived primarily from congressional delegations of authority. From their earliest days, the federal courts have recognized that immigration is a uniquely federal domain, belonging exclusively to the political branches of government. In Fiallo v. Bell, the Court noted that, "Over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over the admission of aliens."/1
That principle does not merely describe the admission of aliens; it broadly encompasses the policy consequences of admission and exclusion decisions, including how government may draw distinctions between aliens and citizens.
Hewing to this principle, the Supreme Court has recognized that, "In exercising its power over immigration, Congress can make laws concerning aliens that would be unconstitutional if applied to citizens."/2
And, in Mathews v. Diaz, the Court explicitly held that, "Congress...has no constitutional duty to provide all aliens with the welfare benefits provided to citizens."/3
Therefore, "when allocating government benefits to a given class of aliens, [government officials] may take into account the character of the relationship between the alien and this country" and "when that relationship is a federally prohibited one, there can, of course, be no presumption that a state has a constitutional duty to include illegal aliens among the recipients of its governmental benefits."/4
In May 1975, Texas passed a statute making it illegal to spend state funds for the education of children who were not legally admitted to the United States and authorizing school districts to deny enrollment to such children./5
And, based on the precedential decisions cited above, that statute was a constitutional exercise of legislative authority allocating publicly funded benefits on the basis of a valid legal distinction that Congress made between those who are lawfully present in the United States and those who are present here in violation of the law.
Still, a group of illegal aliens mounted a constitutional challenge to the statute, claiming it was an instance of invidious discrimination, denying them the equal protection of the laws required under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That challenge made its way to the Supreme Court, where the majority - quite shockingly - ruled in favor of the illegal aliens, not on the basis of law, but solely on the basis of policy concerns that lay well beyond the purview of the Court.
In relevant part, the Fourteenth Amendment states: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."/6
An astute observer will note the conspicuous absence of any reference to free public education in the Fourteenth Amendment or, for that matter, in any portion of the Constitution.
So, how exactly did the American taxpayer become saddled with the responsibility of educating every foreign child who washes up, uninvited, upon our shores? The Supreme Court in deciding Plyler abandoned any pretense of judicial objectivity, usurped the authority of Congress, and legislated from the bench. Rather than delivering an opinion based on the sound application of legal principles, the Plyler majority acted as an unelected supra-legislature and took it upon itself to set the nation's social policy. According to the Court, "'[T]he illegal alien of today may well be the legal alien of tomorrow'...without an education, these undocumented children, 'already disadvantaged as a result of poverty, lack of English-speaking ability, and undeniable racial prejudices...will become permanently locked into the lowest socio-economic class.'"/7 [Internal citations omitted.]
In other words, failure to enforce laws against illegal entry and unlawful employment has created an underclass of illegal aliens who live in the shadows. Should a state choose to protect American students and limited educational resources by denying a free public education to illegal alien children, it is guilty of "promoting the creation and perpetuation of a sub-class of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime." These are legislative policy considerations, not legal constraints mandated by the Constitution's text or history. Nevertheless, in the Plyler Court's estimation, as a matter of social justice, there can be no rational basis for excluding illegal alien children from public schools. Or, put more plainly, the Court reached the paradoxical conclusion that children who have no legal right to be in the United States somehow have a right to a free public education in America's schools.
This conclusion was grossly at odds with the Court's other holdings in similar matters. In Colegrove v. Green, the Court made it clear that the federal judiciary should avoid involvement in matters traditionally left to legislative policy-making. It stated that, "An aspect of government from which the judiciary...has been excluded by the clear intention of the Constitution cannot be entered by the federal courts because Congress may have been in default in exacting from States obedience to its mandate."/8
Furthermore, when it comes to matters involving immigration, the Court, "has repeatedly emphasized that 'over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over' the admission of aliens."/9 [Internal citations omitted.] Even more disturbing than the appropriation of legislative authority, or the departure from precedent, is the extent of the abuse to which the Court subjected the logic of the law in Plyler. The Court clearly acknowledged that "illegal aliens" is not a suspect classification and that education is not a fundamental right. It plainly stated, "Undocumented aliens cannot be treated as a suspect class because their presence in this country in violation of federal law is not a 'constitutional irrelevancy.' Nor is education a fundamental right; a State need not justify by compelling necessity every variation in the manner in which education is provided to its population."/10 [Internal citations omitted.]
Nonetheless, the Plyler majority proceeded to treat illegal aliens as a suspect class, consider education as a fundamental right, and require Texas to justify its decision. In the end, the matter was decided on a bespoke standard of review, created by the Court from whole cloth, specifically to apply to the facts of Plyler.
Ordinarily, in cases where neither a suspect class nor a fundamental right is implicated, rational basis review applies. Under that deferential test, a statute survives if any conceivable legitimate interest rationally supports it. Yet in Plyler, the Court innovated a heightened variant - often described by scholars as "rational basis with bite" - demanding that Texas show the law furthered a substantial goal. In so doing, the majority balanced its own predictive social policy judgments - about the costs of illiteracy and future societal participation - against legislative choices--a textbook example of policy making from the bench.
Ultimately, the decision reached by the Court in Plyler was not constitutional interpretation; it was judicial legislation. And its consequences--federalizing an unfunded mandate that compels states to provide free K-12 education to children lacking lawful presence, while limiting state flexibility to manage scarce resources--have been profound. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, kindergarten through twelfth grade educational expenditures have now become the largest category in the budgets of most states, counties and municipalities throughout the United States./11
As of 2023, there were an estimated 1.2 million illegal alien children, under age eighteen, in the United States./12
According to FAIR's estimates, during the Biden Administration's disastrous embrace of open borders, more than one million additional illegal alien children may have entered the country./13
That means that roughly 2.2 million foreign children, many of whom do not speak English, have been crammed into
American public schools which are already underperforming./14
And U.S. taxpayers spend nearly $80 billion annually educating these children, none of whom have any legal right to be in the United States./15
In sum, Plyler v. Doe stands as a troubling departure from constitutional text, established doctrine, and the proper limits of judicial power. By elevating policy preferences above legal principle, the Court not only intruded on Congress's exclusive authority over immigration and state discretion in allocating educational resources, but also fashioned a novel standard of review untethered from precedent. The resulting mandate has imposed immense financial, administrative, and operational burdens on state and local governments, all while diminishing democratic accountability for decisions of profound national consequence. Far from vindicating the Constitution, Plyler exemplifies the hazards of judicial overreach--substituting the judgment of an unelected Court for that of the political branches and, in the process, inflicting long-term harm on both the integrity of constitutional governance and the effectiveness of public education in the United States.
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Footnotes:
1 Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792 (1977).
2 Demore v. Kim, 538 U.S. 510, 522 (2003).
3 Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 68 (1976).
4 Mathews v. Diaz at 80.
5 Tex. Educ.Code Ann. Sec. 21.031 (Vernon Supp.1981).
6 U.S. Const. amend XIV Sec. 1, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/ 7 Plyler v. Doe, 457 US 202, 207 (1982).
8 Colegrove at 327.
9 Oceanic Navigation Co. V. Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320, 214 U.S. 339 (1909).
10 Plyler at 223.
11 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Where Do Our State Tax Dollars Go?", July 25, 2018, https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-state-tax-dollars-go#:~:text=By%20far%20the%20largest%20areas,low%2Dincome%20families%20has%20declined.
12 Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad, "U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a record 14 Million in 2023," August, 21, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorizedimmigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/
13 Andrew R. Arthur, "Reuters: 500K+ School-Age Migrant Children Have Arrived Since 2022," October 15, 2024, https://cis.org/Arthur/Reuters-500K-SchoolAge-Migrant-Children-Have-Arrived-2022#:~:text=According%20to%20DHS's%20Office%20of,the%20past%20three%20fiscal%20years
14 Kansas University School of Education and Human Sciences, "How USA Education Measures Up Worldwide," May 15, 2023, https://educationonline.ku.edu/community/how-usa-education-measures-up-worldwide
15 Federation for American Immigration Reform, "The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers," March 2023, https://www.fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigrationunited-states-taxpayers-2023
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Original text here: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/o-brien-testimony.pdf
Ex-Organized Crime & Drug Task Force Deputy Director Padden Testifies Before House Judiciary Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight released the following written testimony by Thomas W. Padden, former deputy director of the Organized Crime and Drug Task Force, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "The Legal Basis for Action Against Venezuelan Drug Traffickers":* * *
Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
At the end of last September, I retired from federal service after 47 years of combined military and federal civilian ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight released the following written testimony by Thomas W. Padden, former deputy director of the Organized Crime and Drug Task Force, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "The Legal Basis for Action Against Venezuelan Drug Traffickers": * * * Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. At the end of last September, I retired from federal service after 47 years of combined military and federal civilianservice when the Administration eliminated the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces component of the Department of Justice. I first took the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States when I entered the U.S. Naval Academy in the Carter Administration. Upon graduation from the Naval Academy, I was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, and deployed with infantry battalions to Beirut, Lebanon, and to the Western Pacific. While on active duty, I graduated from law school and served one tour as a Judge Advocate at Marine Corps Base, Quantico. During my tour as a Judge Advocate, in addition to serving as the Military Justice Officer, I served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia prosecuting federal cases in U.S. District Court.
As a career federal prosecutor for over 30 years, I served under five presidents in nine administrations, and ten attorneys general. It was a privilege to work with agents, analysts, paralegals and other staff throughout the Executive Branch to keep Americans safe from the threats posed by international criminal enterprises. It takes an effective and organized network of multi-disciplined professionals to expose and defeat these large, complex criminal organizations. Over more than five decades, each Administration, both Republican and Democrat, made improvements to our ability to focus and coordinate our efforts and resources against the threats posed by criminal network threats. The counter-drug mission is nonpartisan, and Administrations from both parties were dedicated to increasing the depth and breadth or our Nation's capabilities.
Unfortunately, that is not the case today. Over the past 15 months, this Administration eliminated organizations and capabilities integral to the counter-drug mission, and it reduced or diverted mission-focused staffing and resources in this critically important space. This Administration replaced lawful investigations with extrajudicial military targeting of suspected drug traffickers, and pardoned at least one convicted drug trafficker who was also a corrupt foreign leader.
Rebuilding the capabilities that have been lost will take time, and that process should begin now. Until we do so, Americans are measurably less safe from these threats today than we were 15 months ago.
BACKGROUND
My comments based upon 33 years of experience as a federal prosecutor serving the counterdrug and counter transnational organized crime missions. After serving as a line prosecutor in two U.S. Attorney's offices and the Criminal Division's Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section (NDDS), my career focused upon the coordination of multi-agency, multi-jurisdiction drug trafficking investigations and the development and sharing of intelligence among and between federal law enforcement agencies and other agencies within the Executive Branch.
I served as a prosecutor-coordinator and Deputy Chief at the multi-agency Special Operations Division (SOD) and, later, as the Deputy Chief for Litigation at NDDS leading the Bilateral Case Initiative that targeted elements of major South American and Mexican drug cartels. Before leaving NDDS, I was elevated to the Senior Executive Service (SES) serving as the Section's Principal Deputy Chief and Acting Chief. In leadership at NDDS, I oversaw litigating prosecutors conducting complex investigations of priority drug trafficking organizations, coordinating attorneys at SOD, attorneys who represented the Department in the Maritime Operational Threat Response process when drugs were interdicted on the high seas, attorneys who crafted policy documents and draft legislation, and attorneys working on classified programs to develop and share information and to properly support drug investigations.
Following my service at NDDS, I was assigned to the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), where I served as the Assistant Director leading the Intelligence Division and as the Deputy Director of NDIC. From 1992 to 2012, NDIC was the nation's strategic drug intelligence center working with the Intelligence Community, regulatory agencies, and federal and state law enforcement to develop national and regional drug threat assessments. NDIC also provided tactical level intelligence support to drug investigations and task forces through its Document and Media Exploitation (DOMEX) Teams. During my time at NDIC, we expanded the DOMEX Program to provide dedicated teams at prosecutor-led, multi-agency strike forces under the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Tasks Forces (OCDETF) Program.
ORGANIZED CRIME DRUG ENFORCEMENT TASK FORCES (OCDETF)
My final 17 years of federal service were as the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF). Established in 1982, OCDETF was the largest and most successful anti-crime task force in the nation. It served as the centerpiece of the Attorney General's strategy to reduce the supply of illicit and dangerous drugs, receiving bipartisan support for over four decades. OCDETF's mission was to dismantle and disrupt organized crime and drug trafficking networks by conducting complete criminal enterprise investigations that included focus on illicit financial activities. As a component head within the DOJ, the OCDETF Director reported directly to the Deputy Attorney General. Before it was eliminated by this Administration at the end of last year, OCDETF had national reach with thousands of prosecutor-led, case-specific, multi-agency task forces operating across the nation in every federal judicial district. It was the only task force of its kind, merging state and federal investigators with prosecutors expert in targeting complex international conspiracies, and bringing the strengths of the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury, State, Labor, and Defense together under a single joint governance system.
In addition to the 5,000 case-specific task forces, and in partnership with U.S. Attorneys' offices, OCDETF built Strike Forces in nineteen locations that were brick-and-mortar organizations with assigned agency personnel and Assistant United States Attorneys working together on a daily basis. These Strike Forces targeted drug cartel leadership, violent gangs, human smuggling and human trafficking networks, and maritime drug smuggling organizations.
The OCDETF Strike Forces in Tampa, Florida, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and in San Diego, California provided significant support in building effective cases against transnational criminal organizations involved in maritime smuggling.
At OCDETF, I led a team of senior prosecutors, agents, and other multi-disciplinary professionals in coordinating and resourcing nation-wide efforts targeting drug and organized crime networks. As OCDETF Director, I led the Attorney General's Consolidate Priority Organization Target (CPOT) process, a multi-department, multi-agency priority targeting process that designated those criminal organizations presenting the most significant drug and organized crime threats to our nation. Examples of CPOT-listed organizations include those led by Joaquin Guzman (aka El Chapo) and Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (aka, El Mencho).
My OCDETF responsibilities also included oversight of our intelligence and information sharing efforts. The prosecutor-led governance of OCDETF served as the foundation for the establishment of the OCDETF Fusion Center (OFC), an operational intelligence center that brought together case information and intelligence from a wide range of agencies. With more than 670 million records at the time of OCDETF's termination, the Fusion Center's holdings represented the nation's largest repository of federal law enforcement and foreign investigative reporting, including financial data and Bank Secrecy Act information. The OFC was a unique capability that helped task forces in the field identify and illuminate criminal networks and better coordinate their efforts to dismantle them. In the year prior to OCDETF's dismantling, the Fusion Center produced over 40,000 investigative leads to the field. The future of this capability is uncertain, and it is threatened by the elimination of the foundational role of prosecutorial oversight of the sharing process - a process that was endorsed by all OCDETF partner agencies and Attorneys General of both parties over two decades.
In its 43-year history, OCDETF task forces conducted more than 37,200 investigations of criminal networks, and dismantled or significantly disrupted over 21,100 of them. OCDETF investigations led to the conviction of over 321,000 defendants, the seizure of $13.4 billion in cash and property, and the seizure of over 870,000 weapons. It was the largest and most successful law enforcement task force in the nation. Despite this success, this Administration eliminated OCDETF and dismantled it in less than a year.
MARITIME INTERDICTIONS
My service in senior leadership of OCDETF was interrupted from April 2019 through March 2020, when I was called by the first Trump Administration to serve on detail to the Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), as the U.S. Interdiction Coordinator (USIC). The USIC serves as the senior advisor to the Drug Czar on all drug interdiction matters, including maritime interdictions. During my time as USIC, I worked closely with all of our interdiction agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard.
In drafting of the Congressionally mandated National Interdiction Command and Control Plan (NICCP) and the various border interdiction strategies, the sharing the evidence developed from investigations of maritime interdictions was a key element. While seizing drugs is important, drug seizures are not the only tool in dismantling trafficking networks. Interdictions play an important role in supporting and developing additional evidence that is vital to feeding a comprehensive, nation-wide, counter-drug strategy.
The Administration's current posture on maritime drug smuggling fails to serve the mission to eliminate, defeat, and degrade maritime smuggling organizations. Preemptively sinking boats, killing the crews, and sending the evidence to the bottom of the sea is far less effective in the attack on drug cartels than is the seizure of evidence and the arrest of conspirators who invariably have important evidence to be exploited by the United States. Arrested mariners can be interviewed for further information, and their electronic devices can be searched and exploited. Put simply, ZERO additional knowledge can be gleaned if the crewmen are dead and physical evidence is lost to the ocean.
The Administration claims to have taken these kinetic actions on the high-seas to stem the flow of fentanyl to the United States. However, there is no evidence that any maritime interdictions have resulted in fentanyl seizures, or that the kinetic military strikes have stopped fentanyl shipments. Fentanyl arrives in the U.S. predominantly from Mexico, and almost exclusively across the U.S. - Mexico land border. Maritime drug shipments from South America are dominated by cocaine. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of drug boats departing the north coast of Venezuela are headed to cocaine markets in North Africa and Europe. There is absolutely no evidence indicating that sinking suspected drug boats have prevented more cocaine or fentanyl from reaching the United States than the traditional interdiction, arrest, and seizure process employed historically. What is clear is that by killing the mariners on the delivery boats, we lose any opportunity to exploit them, their boats, and their electronics for more information to tackle trafficking groups.
Most importantly, the extrajudicial, preemptive killing of mariners - even those suspected of smuggling drugs, is a violation of international and U.S. law.
PROSECUTORIAL COORDINATION AND OVERSIGHT OF THE MISSION
I believe that coordinating supporting efforts between the law enforcement, military, and intelligence communities is appropriate and necessary. The military and intelligence communities play an important, but supporting, role in the enforcement of criminal law.
Military strikes are not an effective first solution to drug enforcement.
Federal law enforcement's mission must be coordinated and led by the Attorney General, the nation's chief law enforcement officer. After OCDETF was terminated, the Administration established the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) under the umbrella of DHS to focus effort upon immigration enforcement and, in part, to attempt to service the OCDETF mission.
However, the requirements for conducting joint criminal enterprise investigations was removed and the mandate that prosecutors serve as coordinators and integrators was eliminated.
Without prosecutorial oversight, information sharing between law enforcement, the Intelligence Community, and the military is unclear and the potential for mismanagement of the process is increased.
The Reagan Administration understood the importance of the Attorney General's role as the chief federal law enforcement officer, and it established OCDETF to overcome the stovepipes that exist between federal law enforcement and Executive Branch agencies. Combatting drug trafficking and transnational organized crime networks is a joint mission that requires the coordination of the efforts and authorities of dozens of law enforcement agencies No single federal law enforcement agency has the authority to investigate the entire Criminal Code.
However, federal prosecutors do have the authority to investigate and prosecute all federal criminal offenses. Accordingly, law enforcement agencies regularly share information with prosecutors that they do not necessarily share with each other. Thus, the importance of the role of the prosecutor as coordinator.
The OCDETF strategy, developed over four decades, empowered prosecutors, under the authority of the Attorney General, to coordinate the efforts of the dozens of federal law enforcement agencies involved in the organized crime, counter-drug mission. The OCDETF strategy was resourced through its stand-alone appropriations and was empowered to direct those resources across departments and agencies to address gaps and ensure a betterresourced, nationally-focused, mission.
President Reagan also authorized the inclusion of Department of Defense (DOD) capabilities as part of the OCDETF mission. For years, this construct was successfully employed by OCDETF through the multi-agency partnership at OCDETF's Panama Express (PANEX) Strike Force in Tampa, Florida.
UNDERMINING THE MISSION
Since Inauguration Day last year, the Administration has consistently undermined its stated goal of eliminating drug cartels. In addition to removing and diverting resources from the counterdrug mission, it is sending the message that convicted drug traffickers may be rewarded with a presidential pardon. The Administration now employs less-effective methods to defeat criminal organizations, and it is sending the message that even convicted drug traffickers will go free in the end.
The recent presidential pardon of Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former corrupt President of Honduras who was extradited to the United States and convicted of drug trafficking and weapons offenses exemplifies this contradiction. The pardon released Hernandez from prison and sent a morale-crushing message to the agents, prosecutors, analysts, paralegals, and other staff who tirelessly worked to gather the evidence and charge, extradite, and prosecute him.
CONCLUSION
Americans are less safe today than we were 15 months ago. Despite the Administration's rhetoric that the elimination of drug cartels is a national priority, its actions indicate that the opposite is true. They eliminate the largest, most successful joint task force in the nation.
Simultaneously, the counter-drug mission is under-resourced and many of the long-standing law enforcement capabilities have been terminated. Military actions against suspected drug boats are unlawful and do not further the collection of evidence or assist in the exploitation and investigation of criminal networks that threaten the U.S. Of concern, drug prosecutions dropped significantly in 2025.
The Administration can change direction and reestablish the capabilities, staffing, resources, coordination, and oversight necessary to effectively combat drug cartels and transnational criminal networks. It can allow convicted drug traffickers to serve their full sentences. It can be more effective without violating the law. Until it does, Americans will be less safe.
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Original text here: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/padden-testimony.pdf
America First Policy Institute General Counsel D'Andrea Testifies Before House Judiciary Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight released the following testimony by Gina D'Andrea, general counsel of the America First Policy Institute, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "The Legal Basis for Action Against Venezuelan Drug Traffickers":* * *
Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Gina D'Andrea, and I serve as General Counsel of the America First Policy Institute. I am here to address the legal bases for the president's authority to take military action to ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight released the following testimony by Gina D'Andrea, general counsel of the America First Policy Institute, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "The Legal Basis for Action Against Venezuelan Drug Traffickers": * * * Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Gina D'Andrea, and I serve as General Counsel of the America First Policy Institute. I am here to address the legal bases for the president's authority to take military action toprotect the American people from external threats, specifically with respect to recent actions involving Venezuela. As I will explain, the president's authority to take military action in such situations rests on long-accepted constitutional grounds and has, in fact, been exercised by various presidents dating back to the Founding Fathers.
First, I'd like to give a brief recap of what is going on in America's own backyard.
Evidence shows that the United States is confronting a narco-terrorist network that operates within the Venezuelan government itself. First under Hugo Chavez, and now Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has served as a hub for extra-hemispheric actors who are hostile to the United States and has enabled them to traffic drugs and criminals into our homeland. This includes China, Russia, and perhaps now most notably, Iran.
Maduro was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York on charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States.
Neither the United States, under both the Biden and Trump Administrations, nor the European Union recognizes him as a legitimate head of state. In fact, under the prevailing norms of customary international law, even the United Nations would be hard-pressed to recognize Maduro's legitimacy: Maduro lost the 2024 presidential election, refused to cede power, and no principle of international recognition, whether grounded in effective control or democratic legitimacy, can sustain a claim to lawful governance by a leader who holds office in defiance of his own electorate. (See, e.g., U.N. Doc. S/1466 (Mar. 9, 1950); Murphy, Democratic Legitimacy and the Recognition of States and Governments, 48 I.C.L.Q. 545, 566-79 (1999).) He has been named by the Department of State as the official leader the Cartel de los Soles and has used his power to weaponize an illegitimate militia to traffic narcotics into American communities on an industrial scale. He is also alleged to have worked against the United States interests with Iran, including potentially aiding Iranians in entering the United States under the illegal CHNV parole program that operated during the Biden Administration.
The evidence is clear. This is not a foreign policy dispute. This is the protection of the American people and the enforcement of American criminal law.
To start, the authority of the President under Article II of the U.S. Constitution is sufficient to support action to address these threats from America's neighbors. As Commander-in-Chief, the president bears the primary responsibility, and truthfully, obligation, to protect the American people and ensure national security. This authority to address external threats before they reach the homeland has bipartisan recognition dating back to the founding fathers.
The Administration's Executive Order designating the cartel networks as foreign terror organizations recognizes that these are not ordinary criminals and are instead paramilitary entities that pose a direct threat to the United States. This designation bolsters the President's authority to take action in defense of the American people.
In the face of narco-terrorists operating as a foreign government and funneling dangerous drugs and criminals into U.S. territory, the President has both the authority and the duty to take action and protect America from her enemies.
Turn first to the strikes on narcotrafficker vessels. Congress itself designated the Department of War as the lead federal agency for detecting and monitoring the maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States. (10 U.S.C. Sec. 124). Consonantly, the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act vests federal jurisdiction over drug trafficking aboard vessels on the high seas. (46 U.S.C. Sec.Sec. 70501-70507). The strikes were carried out as a result of evidence showing such drug trafficking was taking place. More to the point, the Commander in Chief power has always been understood to encompass the authority to direct military operations against threats to national security. (U.S. Const. art. II, Sec. 2; The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1863)). Striking vessels that evidence shows serve as instrumentalities of narco-terrorism is a lawful exercise of that power.
Turn next to the capture of Maduro. Operation Absolute Resolve was not an act of war. It was a targeted law enforcement operation to execute a federal arrest warrant. And it was not the first time that the United States has engaged in such an operation. In 1989, the United States deployed military forces to apprehend General Noriega, a sitting leader indicted on federal drug-trafficking charges. The courts upheld jurisdiction and rejected his claim of head-of-state immunity. (United States v. Noriega, 746 F. Supp. 1506 (S.D. Fla. 1990), aff'd, 117 F.3d 1206 (11th Cir. 1997)). Importantly, the Supreme Court has long held that the manner of a defendant's apprehension does not divest a court of jurisdiction to try him. (Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 (1886); United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992)). Perhaps most relevant is that Maduro, like Noriega, enjoys no sovereign immunity because the United States does not recognize him as a legitimate head of state.
Both operations draw further support from the President's constitutional authority over foreign affairs. The Executive stands as the Nation's sole organ in international relations. (United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304 (1936)). The President holds the exclusive power to recognize or refuse to recognize foreign governments. (Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 576 U.S. 1 (2015)). Success in foreign relations demands one national voice, and the constitution is clear that the Executive alone carries it. When the evidence showed the President that an indicted narco-terrorist commanding no legitimate authority posed a continuing threat to the American people, he acted squarely within his constitutional power to counteract that threat.
The War Powers Resolution does not foreclose these actions. It expressly preserves the President's independent Article II authority. (50 U.S.C. Sec.Sec. 1541-1548.) The Administration complied with its procedural requirements. The Office of Legal Counsel has maintained, across administrations of both parties, that the President may act without prior congressional authorization when the operation serves important national interests and does not rise to a constitutional war./1
Consonantly, the Supreme Court has recognized that the President retains the authority to act where Congress has imposed no prohibition. (Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635-38 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring)). Congress has not prohibited these actions. To the contrary, Congress appropriated counter-narcotics funds, designated the Department of War as the lead counter-drug agency, and a federal grand jury returned the very indictment this operation enforced.
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1 See also Proposed Deployment of United States Armed Forces into Bosnia, 19 Op. O.L.C. 327 (1995), https://www.justice.gov/d9/olc/opinions/1995/11/31/op-olc-v019-p0327_0.pdf.
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Members of this Committee, the Framers designed a Constitution that balances energy in the Executive with accountability through the Legislature. These operations honored that design. The strikes on narcotrafficker vessels enforced congressionally authorized counter-narcotics authorities under the Commander in Chief's operational direction. The capture of Maduro executed a federal warrant against a man no free nation recognizes as legitimate. Both were targeted, both were limited, and both were grounded in the text of our Constitution and over two centuries of Executive practice.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
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Original text here: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/d-andrea-testimony.pdf
America First Legal Foundation Senior Counsel Rogers Testifies Before House Judiciary Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government released the following testimony by James Rogers, senior counsel of the America First Legal Foundation, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe":* * *
Chairman Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, and Members of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government: Thank you for the invitation to testify on this critical topic.
My expertise on our country's immigration system is multifaceted.
From 2015 to 2021, I served ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 26 -- The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government released the following testimony by James Rogers, senior counsel of the America First Legal Foundation, from a March 18, 2026, hearing entitled "Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe": * * * Chairman Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, and Members of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government: Thank you for the invitation to testify on this critical topic. My expertise on our country's immigration system is multifaceted. From 2015 to 2021, I servedour country as a Foreign Service Officer at the Department of State. From 2017 to 2019, I served as a Consular Officer conducting visa interviews in Brazil. I then spent two years--from 2019 to 2021--as an attorney advisor in the Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Consular Affairs. Since leaving the State Department and returning to the practice of law, a significant part of my practice has been litigating border security and immigration cases.
In 1982, the Supreme Court decided Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), holding by a 5-4 vote that the State of Texas could not deny free public K-12 education to children who were illegally present in the United States. Plyler was wrongly decided from the outset. The majority opinion acknowledged the very legal premises that should have compelled it to uphold the Texas law--yet proceeded to strike it down anyway, using a standard of constitutional review it invented for the occasion, untethered from constitutional text or prior precedent. Chief Justice Burger's dissent, joined by three colleagues, clearly exposed this, and its reasoning has only grown more persuasive with time.
Following the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), the Supreme Court now has both the legal framework and the factual grounds to overrule Plyler. The Dobbs decision articulated a rigorous set of factors for reconsidering prior constitutional decisions, and Plyler fails every one of them.
Moreover, Congress enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, supplying the very "articulable federal policy" that the Plyler majority said was missing.
Finally, even while Plyler remains on the books, states, localities, and the federal government are not without tools. This testimony outlines concrete actions that can be taken today, within Plyler's constraints, to limit the burdens illegal alien enrollment imposes on America's public schools.
I. Plyler v. Doe: Why the Dissent Was Right
A. What Plyler v. Doe Decided
In 1975, the Texas Legislature enacted a statute that withheld state education funding from local school districts for the education of children who were not "legally admitted" to the United States and authorized school districts to deny enrollment to such children or to charge them tuition. In Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, struck that statute down as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The majority opinion, written by Justice Brennan, held that illegal aliens are "persons" within the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause and that states cannot deny children a free public K-12 education on the basis of immigration status unless the state can show that the denial furthers a "substantial state interest."
B. A Primer on Constitutional Standards of Review
To understand why Plyler is legally problematic, it helps to understand the framework courts use to evaluate whether a law violates the Equal Protection Clause. Courts apply different levels of scrutiny depending on who is harmed and what right is affected.
Strict scrutiny is the most demanding standard. It applies when a law discriminates against a "suspect class"--such as a racial minority--or burdens a "fundamental right" such as the right to vote. Under strict scrutiny, the government must show that the law serves a compelling government interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve it. Laws rarely survive this level of review.
Rational basis review is the default, most permissive standard. It applies to ordinary legislation affecting no suspect class and no fundamental right. Under rational basis, a law is presumed constitutional and will be upheld if there is any rational reason a legislature could have had for enacting it. Laws almost always survive this level of review.
The outcome of a constitutional challenge often depends entirely on which standard applies. And the standard is supposed to be determined by the nature of the classification and the nature of the right at stake -- not by the sympathies of the reviewing judges.
C. The Majority's Analytical Problem
The Plyler majority found itself in a difficult position. It acknowledged that its own precedents required it to conclude that neither strict scrutiny nor any heightened standard applied. The Court stated explicitly: "Undocumented aliens cannot be treated as a suspect class because" they are "presen[t] in this country in violation of federal law.... Nor is education a fundamental right; a State need not justify by compelling necessity every variation in the manner in which education is provided to its population." Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 223 (1982).
Having made those admissions, the Court was legally obligated under its own precedents to apply ordinary rational basis review--the permissive standard under which virtually any conceivable government justification suffices. Yet the Court refused to do so. Instead, it invented a novel, intermediate standard of review without any clear constitutional basis, demanding that Texas show a "substantial state interest"--a test that appears nowhere in the Court's prior Equal Protection jurisprudence and that the majority never adequately explained or grounded in the actual text of the Constitution.
Even the majority itself acknowledged the sensitivity of this area, recognizing that "[t]he obvious need for delicate policy judgments has counseled the Judicial Branch to avoid intrusion into this field." Id. at 225.
And yet, having recognized that caution was warranted, the Court proceeded to intrude all the same.
D. The State's Justifications and the Court's Rejection of Them
Texas offered several justifications for its statute, all of which the Court rejected -- in most cases with very little legal analysis.
First, Texas argued that the law served the state's interest in preserving its limited educational resources for lawful residents. The Court dismissed this almost out of hand, stating that "a concern for the preservation of resources standing alone can hardly justify the classification used in allocating those resources." Id. at 227. The Court provided no persuasive explanation for why resource conservation--a plainly legitimate government interest under any rational basis analysis--failed to satisfy even a "substantial interest" test.
Second, Texas argued the law was justified by the State's desire to protect itself from an influx of illegal immigrants and the economic burdens they impose. The Court rejected this as well, finding "no evidence in the record suggesting that illegal entrants impose any significant burden on the State's economy." Id. at 228.
Third, Texas argued that illegal alien children impose special burdens on the State's ability to provide high-quality public education. The Court disagreed because, under an invented standard that it failed to justify, Texas needed to show that "exclusion of undocumented children is likely to improve the overall quality of education in the State." Id. at 229.
Fourth, Texas argued that illegal alien children are appropriately singled out because their unlawful presence makes them less likely to remain in the state and put their education to productive use.
The Court rejected this too, stating that "it is an interest that is most difficult to quantify" and that Texas had no "assurance" whether the illegal alien children would remain or leave the State. Id. at 230.
Finally, and critically, the Court acknowledged that the outcome might have been different, but Congress had not enacted a clear federal policy on point. The majority wrote: "We are reluctant to impute to Congress the intention to withhold from these children, for so long as they are present in this country through no fault of their own, access to a basic education. In other contexts, undocumented status, coupled with some articulable federal policy, might enhance state authority with respect to the treatment of undocumented aliens. But in the area of special constitutional sensitivity presented by these cases, and in the absence of any contrary indication fairly discernible in the present legislative record, we perceive no national policy that supports the State in denying these children an elementary education." Id. at 226. As discussed in Part II below, Congress has since spoken directly on this subject-- removing the very premise upon which the Court rested its decision.
E. Why the Dissent Was Right
Chief Justice Burger, joined by Justices White, Rehnquist, and O'Connor, wrote a dissent that, with the benefit of four decades of hindsight, reads as the more principled and constitutionally sound analysis.
The dissent rested on several powerful arguments.
The Court substituted its own policy preferences for those of the Texas Legislature. As Chief Justice Burger wrote: "The Constitution does not constitute us as 'Platonic Guardians' nor does it vest in this Court the authority to strike down laws because they do not meet our standards of desirable social policy, 'wisdom,' or 'common sense.' We trespass on the assigned function of the political branches under our structure of limited and separated powers when we assume a policymaking role as the Court does today." Id. at 242 (Burger, C.J., dissenting) (cleaned up).
The majority was acting to compensate for congressional failure. The dissent captured, with unusual candor, exactly what the Court was doing: "The Court makes no attempt to disguise that it is acting to make up for Congress' lack of 'effective leadership' in dealing with the serious national problems caused by the influx of uncountable millions of illegal aliens across our borders. The failure of enforcement of the immigration laws over more than a decade and the inherent difficulty and expense of sealing our vast borders have combined to create a grave socioeconomic dilemma. It is a dilemma that has not yet even been fully assessed, let alone addressed. However, it is not the function of the Judiciary to provide 'effective leadership' simply because the political branches of government fail to do so." Id. at 242-43 (cleaned up).
This critique goes to the heart of the separation of powers. Whatever one thinks of the underlying policy, federal immigration law is entrusted by the Constitution to Congress and the Executive, not to the federal judiciary. When courts step in to fill perceived policy gaps left by legislative inaction, they undermine the democratic process and exceed their constitutional role.
The majority distorted the Constitution. Burger was unflinching: "The Court employs, and in my view abuses, the Fourteenth Amendment in an effort to become an omnipotent and omniscient problem solver.
That the motives for doing so are noble and compassionate does not alter the fact that the Court distorts our constitutional function to make amends for the defaults of others." Id. at 243. He added that "the extent to which the Court departs from principled constitutional adjudication is ... disturbing." Id.
The Court invented a standard of review with no constitutional basis. Having conceded that illegal aliens are not a suspect class and that education is not a fundamental right, the majority was required to apply rational basis review. As Burger wrote: "Once it is conceded--as the Court does--that illegal aliens are not a suspect class, and that education is not a fundamental right, our inquiry should focus on and be limited to whether the legislative classification at issue bears a rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose." Id. at 248. The majority's invention of a hybrid, intermediate standard was, as Burger bluntly observed, "a prime example" of a court being "was guilty of an unabashedly result-oriented approach." Id. at 244.
The Equal Protection Clause does not mandate identical treatment of all persons in all circumstances. The dissent correctly noted that "[t]he Equal Protection Clause does not mandate identical treatment of different categories of persons" and that "[t]he distinction the State of Texas has drawn--based not only upon its own legitimate interests but on classifications established by the Federal Government in its immigration laws and policies--is not unconstitutional." Id. at 243-44.
Furthermore, "[t]he Equal Protection Clause guarantees similar treatment of similarly situated persons, but it does not mandate a constitutional hierarchy of governmental services." Id. at 248.
Resource conservation of limited resources is a rational and legitimate state interest. Under ordinary rational basis review--which the Court itself admitted was the appropriate standard--conservation of limited public resources is an entirely legitimate government objective. As Burger wrote: "I assume no Member of this Court would argue that prudent conservation of finite state revenues is per se an illegitimate goal." Id. at 249. The majority's offhand dismissal of Texas's resource-conservation justification thus could not be reconciled with rational basis doctrine.
Illegal aliens are not entitled to the same governmental benefits as lawful residents. This may be the dissent's most commonsense point: "it simply is not 'irrational' for a state to conclude that it does not have the same responsibility to provide benefits for persons whose very presence in the state and this country is illegal as it does to provide for persons lawfully present. By definition, illegal aliens have no right whatever to be here, and the state may reasonably, and constitutionally, elect not to provide them with governmental services at the expense of those who are lawfully in the state." Id. at 250.
The dissent also observed the inconsistency of the Court's position given federal law: "It is significant that the Federal Government has seen fit to exclude illegal aliens from numerous social welfare programs.... Although these exclusions do not conclusively demonstrate the constitutionality of the State's use of the same classification for comparable purposes, at the very least they tend to support the rationality of excluding illegal alien residents of a state from such programs so as to preserve the state's finite revenues for the benefit of lawful residents." Id. at 250-51.
The Chief Justice was careful to note that his conclusion was not a statement of preferred policy: "Denying a free education to illegal alien children is not a choice I would make were I a legislator." Id. at 252. However, he concluded: "The Constitution does not provide a cure for every social ill, nor does it vest judges with a mandate to try to remedy every social problem.... The solution to this seemingly intractable problem is to defer to the political processes, unpalatable as that may be to some." Id. at 253-54 (citation omitted).
II. The Path to Overruling Plyler -- Applying the Dobbs Framework
A. Stare Decisis Is Not an Inexorable Command
The doctrine of stare decisis -- the principle that courts should generally follow their prior decisions -- is an important part of the rule of law.
It promotes stability, predictability, and public confidence in the judiciary.
But it has never been, and must never be, an absolute rule. Some of the Supreme Court's most celebrated decisions were cases where the Court overruled a prior precedent that was demonstrably wrong.
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), the Supreme Court articulated a careful, multi-factor framework for determining when a prior constitutional precedent should be overruled. The Court identified five key factors that bear on whether overruling is appropriate. As shown below, all five factors weigh in favor of overruling Plyler.
B. Applying the Dobbs Factors to Plyler v. Doe
Factor 1: The Nature of the Court's Error. The first Dobbs factor is to examine the nature of the court's error, particularly whether the decision was "egregiously wrong." Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 268. Plyler was wrong from the day it was decided. As the dissent demonstrated, the majority conceded the very legal premises--that illegal aliens are not a suspect class and education is not a fundamental right--that under the Supreme Court's own jurisprudence required application of rational basis review.
Having made those concessions, the majority had no principled basis for invalidating the Texas law. The majority's invention of a novel intermediate standard of review, untethered from constitutional text or precedent, was a product of result-oriented adjudication, not principled constitutional analysis. Like Roe v. Wade, Plyler imposed a judicial policy preference in place of a democratically enacted law, short-circuiting the political process on a question the Constitution entrusted to the states and Congress.
Factor 2: The Quality of the Reasoning. Dobbs instructs that poor legal reasoning--lacking textual, historical, or precedential grounding--weighs in favor of overruling. Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 269-70. Plyler's reasoning is notably thin. The majority never explained the constitutional source of its novel "substantial state interest" standard. It performed no serious engagement with constitutional text or history. It rejected each of Texas's proffered justifications with brief, conclusory responses that would fail under any ordinary rational basis analysis. The majority's analysis more closely resembled a legislative committee's policy assessment-- weighing societal costs and benefits--than a legal opinion grounded in constitutional interpretation. This is precisely the kind of judicial legislating that Dobbs recognized as a basis for overruling prior precedent.
Factor 3: Workability. Dobbs asks whether the rule set forth in a prior decision can be understood and applied consistently and predictably.
Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 280-81. Plyler's "substantial state interest" standard has proven unworkable in at least two respects. First, it has never been clear what makes a state interest "substantial" enough to override the ruling, leading to litigation uncertainty for states and localities. Second, and more significantly, the decision has made it difficult for states to respond to dramatically changed circumstances--including a surge in illegal immigration that dwarfs the numbers the Court considered in 1982. A rule of constitutional law that cannot be coherently applied to changed factual conditions, and whose outer limits remain undefined, is by definition unworkable.
Factor 4: Effect on Other Areas of Law. Dobbs recognized that a
factor weighing in favor of overruling a decision is if it distorts other legal doctrines. Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 286-87. Plyler has had a distorting effect on immigration federalism. By holding that courts must review state distinctions based on immigration status under a heightened (if undefined) standard, the decision has chilled legitimate state policy choices across a range of public benefit programs and has been cited as a barrier to statelevel immigration enforcement. It has also created interpretive confusion about the relationship between federal immigration law and state benefit programs -- confusion that Congress has been unable to fully resolve even through legislation.
Factor 5: Reliance Interests. Dobbs recognizes that strong concrete reliance interests--like those involving property or contract rights-- weigh against overruling. Dobbs, 597 U.S. at 287-88. Plyler does not implicate the kind of concrete, transactional reliance that would make overruling disruptive. Unlike property rights or contract obligations, the expectation of receiving free public education based on illegal presence in the country does not represent the kind of settled reliance interest that the law is designed to protect. The illegal aliens whose children attend public schools under Plyler cannot claim they organized their affairs and made irreversible economic commitments in reliance on the decision in the same way that property owners or contracting parties do. Restoring the rule of law in this area would not unwind decades of commercial transactions; it would return a policy question to the democratic branches, where it has always belonged.
C. Post-1982 Congressional Enactments Remove Plyler's Core Premise
The Plyler majority was candid that its holding rested in part on the absence of a clear federal policy on the subject. As Justice Brennan wrote, "undocumented status, coupled with some articulable federal policy, might enhance state authority with respect to the treatment of undocumented aliens." Plyler, 457 U.S. at 226.
Congress has since supplied precisely that policy. In 1996, Congress enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which declared it "a compelling government interest to remove the incentive for illegal immigration provided by the availability of public benefits," 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1601(6)-(7) and declared that illegal aliens who are not "qualified aliens" are ineligible for federal public benefits. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1611. Congress specifically defined "federal public benefits" to include postsecondary education and other government services. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1611(c)(1)(b). In the same year, Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which barred states from offering in-state postsecondary tuition to illegal aliens unless the same rate is offered to all U.S. citizens regardless of state of residence. 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1623.
These enactments--passed with overwhelming bipartisan support--represent exactly the kind of "articulable federal policy" that the Plyler majority said could change the constitutional calculus. In light of PRWORA, a state can now argue not only that its distinction between lawful and unlawful residents is rational, but that it mirrors an explicit federal policy judgment by Congress. The foundational premise of the Plyler majority--that no federal policy supported the Texas classification--no longer holds.
D. State Challenges Are Already Underway
Multiple states have already moved to create the legal vehicle for the Supreme Court to reconsider Plyler by introducing legislation that would require proof of citizenship or legal immigration status as a condition of enrollment, or that would authorize school districts to charge tuition to illegal alien students. These legislative efforts are deliberate; they are designed to generate litigation that will allow the Supreme Court to reconsider Plyler under the current constitutional framework and in light of changed circumstances.
This strategy mirrors the successful approach taken in the abortion context. Mississippi's Gestational Age Act--the law at issue in Dobbs-- was enacted specifically to create a vehicle for overruling Roe v. Wade. The same strategic logic applies here: a state that enacts a law requiring immigration status verification for school enrollment and charges tuition to unlawfully present students will invite a legal challenge. That challenge, if it reaches the Supreme Court, will allow the Court to reconsider Plyler using the Dobbs framework outlined above.
Congress can accelerate this process by enacting legislation explicitly providing that states are authorized to condition free public K-12 education on lawful presence. Such a statute would not only constitute additional evidence of an "articulable federal policy" under Plyler's own terms, but would also frame the legal question for any reviewing court in the most favorable manner possible.
III. What States and Localities Can Do Right Now
Even under the constraints of Plyler as currently interpreted, states and localities retain meaningful tools to address the burdens illegal alien enrollment places on public schools. The following is a non-exhaustive list of actions permitted under current law.
A. Residency Verification
Plyler prohibits states from denying enrollment based solely on immigration status, but it does not prevent states from defining the threshold concept of residency itself in ways that exclude illegal aliens and nonimmigrant aliens from qualifying as district residents in the first place. That distinction matters enormously. A state that denies enrollment because a child is an illegal alien runs directly into Plyler. A state that denies enrollment because a child is not a resident of the district--applying a carefully crafted, constitutionally grounded definition of residence--raises a fundamentally different legal question.
The legal tools for this approach are well-established. The Supreme Court has recognized that "usual residence" for purposes of the census means more than mere physical presence; it includes "some element of allegiance or enduring tie to a place." Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 804 (1992). An illegal alien, by definition, lacks both. As the Court held in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the reciprocal relationship of protection and allegiance that defines lawful residence depends on the sovereign's permission to reside here. 169 U.S. 649, 694 (1898). Because illegal aliens are present in defiance of federal law, the United States has not consented to their residence; they remain subject to removal at any time, possess no enduring tie to any particular state, and owe their primary political allegiance to a foreign nation--not to the state in which they temporarily find themselves. Aliens present on temporary visas are similarly situated: their authorized stay is, by definition, contingent and time-limited, and it cannot create the durable allegiance and enduring tie that lawful residency requires. States can codify these principles by adopting statutes that only allow residents to attend public schools without paying tuition and including in their definition of "resident" for school enrollment purposes to mean a person who has legal permission to live in the school district--thereby excluding illegal aliens and nonimmigrant visa holders as a matter of residence law, not immigration-status discrimination. The Supreme Court expressly recognized in Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 92 (1966), that states possess the constitutional authority to exclude aliens and other non-permanent residents from their electoral apportionment bases, reflecting the broader principle that state-conferred benefits may rationally be limited to those who share a genuine, lawful connection to the community.
B. Data Collection and Fiscal Reporting
Nothing in Plyler prevents states from requiring school districts to collect and publicly report aggregate data on the number of enrolled students who cannot demonstrate lawful presence, the associated per-pupil costs, and the total fiscal burden on the state's public school system. This kind of fiscal transparency is valuable for two reasons: it provides an honest accounting of the costs that the public is bearing; and it builds the evidentiary record that may be needed to support future litigation or legislation.
C. Restricting Benefits Beyond Basic K-12 Education
Plyler protects access to "basic education"--the core K-12 curriculum. It does not guarantee every supplemental program, enrichment activity, or government benefit offered by a school or district. States can adopt policies restricting illegal alien students' access to, for example, specialized gifted and talented programs that involve additional state funding, dual-enrollment college tuition subsidies, extracurricular travel, and similar optional programs that go beyond the baseline Plyler requires.
These distinctions must be applied carefully and not used as a pretext for wholesale exclusion, but legitimate distinctions between "basic education" and "supplemental benefits" are constitutionally defensible.
D. Withholding State Funding for Postsecondary Education
States have clear authority to deny in-state tuition and state financial aid to illegal alien students in postsecondary education. As discussed above, PRWORA explicitly recognizes this, and IIRIRA bars states from offering discounted in-state tuition to illegal aliens unless the same rate is offered to all U.S. citizens. Any state that currently offers in-state tuition to illegal aliens in defiance of IIRIRA should reconsider that practice, and Congress should vigorously enforce the IIRIRA prohibition.
E. Federal Program Eligibility Verification
While Plyler constrains states regarding basic K-12 enrollment, it does not control eligibility for federally funded programs administered through schools. In 2025, the Department of Education issued interpretive guidance concluding that federally funded career and technical education programs under the Perkins Act, adult education programs under WIOA, and other federal workforce education grants are "federal public benefits" subject to PRWORA's citizenship-verification requirements. Clarification of Federal Public Benefits Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, 90 Fed. Reg. 30,896 (Jul. 11, 2025). Under the guidance, schools receiving federal funds must verify eligibility for such programs and exclude ineligible illegal aliens accordingly. Head Start and federally funded preschool programs are similarly subject to federal eligibility verification and are not protected by Plyler.
Conclusion
Plyler v. Doe was a decision driven by judicial sympathy for children in a difficult situation -- a sympathy that is entirely understandable on a human level. But as Chief Justice Burger correctly observed, "the Constitution does not provide a cure for every social ill, nor does it vest judges with a mandate to try to remedy every social problem." Plyler, 457 U.S. at 253-54 (Burger, C.J., dissenting). The Court's role is to interpret the Constitution, not to serve as a policymaking body filling in the gaps left by legislative inaction. Where the Constitution's text, history, and precedent all point in the same direction--and where the Court's own analytical concessions compel application of a standard under which the challenged law would clearly survive--the Court must follow the law, not its own policy preferences.
Plyler failed that test in 1982. The Dobbs framework gives the Court a principled path to correct that error now.
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Original text here: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/rogers-testimony_0.pdf
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rogers Issues Opening Remarks at Hearing on Military Posture, National Security Challenges in Europe
WASHINGTON, March 25 -- Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, released the following opening remarks from a March 18, 2025, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in Europe":* * *
Today, we continue our posture hearings with EUCOM.
We meet at a critical moment.
Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine continues.
The U.S. military is actively degrading Iran's military capabilities and preventing the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
And the Department remains laser-focused on defending the homeland and deterring China.
Managing ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 25 -- Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, released the following opening remarks from a March 18, 2025, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in Europe": * * * Today, we continue our posture hearings with EUCOM. We meet at a critical moment. Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine continues. The U.S. military is actively degrading Iran's military capabilities and preventing the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And the Department remains laser-focused on defending the homeland and deterring China. Managingthese threats simultaneously will require a stronger NATO.
Fortunately, thanks to the leadership of President Trump, our Allies are beginning to step up.
And their commitment to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035 shows they are serious about assuming greater responsibility for their own defense.
But Europe's rearmament will take time.
Fixing manpower shortages and restoring readiness will take time.
Building out the transatlantic defense industrial base will take time.
And developing or purchasing capabilities that today only the United States can provide will take time.
Yet, despite this reality, some within the Department are advocating for a premature and unwise reduction of U.S. forces in Europe and from NATO defense plans.
More troubling still, those same voices have not provided a credible roadmap for how such a transition would occur.
Nor have they defined what "critical but more limited" U.S. support actually means.
That is not a strategy for a stronger, more credible NATO.
It is a risk we should not take.
That is why last year's NDAA mandates consultation with Congress before making any significant reduction in U.S. forces in Europe.
Because the overwhelming bipartisan and bicameral assessment is that a premature drawdown would create a dangerous deterrence gap and invite further Russian aggression.
In particular, as Europe rearms, the two rotational U.S. armored brigades in Poland remain a cornerstone of NATO's conventional defense.
President Trump has been clear about the importance of maintaining that presence, even suggesting the United States could further bolster our posture there.
He's right that those brigades must remain in place.
And I believe it is past time that we seriously consider permanently stationing them in Poland as well.
Moreover, those in the Department advocating for a premature reduction of U.S. forces in Europe are also ignoring that our posture there is about much more than defending Europe.
It helps defend the homeland forward.
And it gives the President more options to project combat power into other theaters, including CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and the Arctic.
Operations like MIDNIGHT HAMMER, and now EPIC FURY, make that clear.
Both are enabled by our presence in Europe and by the access, basing, and overflight permissions provided by our allies.
Just look at Romania.
Romania is allowing the United States to use two of its bases to support operations in the Middle East.
Think about that.
Even after we withdrew a U.S. brigade last year, Romania continues to open its facilities to American forces.
And they are not just providing access.
Romania has invested well over $2 billion to improve those bases and runways for American use.
This is exactly the kind of ally we should be deepening our engagement with, not prematurely stepping away from.
We also should not prematurely step away from Ukraine.
It is in the U.S. interest that a strong, well-armed, and independent Ukraine emerges from this war.
In fact, its innovative and battle-hardened forces are already degrading the threat Russia's military poses to Europe's conventional defense.
Kyiv is also demonstrating that this partnership is not a one-way street.
Ukrainian counter-drone teams and technology are now helping protect U.S. forces and partners in the Middle East from Iranian attacks.
Russia, meanwhile, is doing the exact opposite.
It is helping Iran refine its drone tactics and reportedly providing targeting intelligence to strike American troops.
It's clear Putin is not our friend.
He is an adversary.
The temporary easing of Russian energy sanctions must indeed be temporary, as Secretary Bessent has pledged.
And if Putin continues to refuse to negotiate with President Trump in good faith, pressure on the Russian dictator must increase, including through the additional sanctions now being considered in Congress.
History has taught us this lesson again and again.
Vladimir Putin interprets a lack of American resolve as an opportunity.
We should not give him one--neither in Ukraine, nor in NATO.
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Original text here: https://armedservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=6433
GAO Director Love-Grayer Testifies Before House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Intelligence released the following written testimony by Latesha Love-Grayer, director of international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Foreign Assistance: Lessons Learned and Charting a Path Forward":* * *
Chairman Mills, Ranking Member Moskowitz, and Members of the Subcommittee:
I appreciate the opportunity to discuss fraud, waste, and abuse and the work GAO has done regarding fraud risk management in foreign assistance.
Foreign ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Intelligence released the following written testimony by Latesha Love-Grayer, director of international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Foreign Assistance: Lessons Learned and Charting a Path Forward": * * * Chairman Mills, Ranking Member Moskowitz, and Members of the Subcommittee: I appreciate the opportunity to discuss fraud, waste, and abuse and the work GAO has done regarding fraud risk management in foreign assistance. Foreignassistance supports U.S foreign policy goals by providing resources to countries that policymakers have deemed to be strategically important, countries in conflict, and populations in need. Congress has appropriated approximately $50 billion in 2026 for the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies and programs, including foreign assistance. Most U.S. foreign assistance prior to 2025 was administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); the U.S. Departments of State (State), Agriculture, Health and Human Services, the Treasury, and Defense; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The current Administration has made changes to the U.S. government entities administering foreign assistance, including ceasing USAID's administration of ongoing foreign aid as of July 1, 2025. State is now poised to be the lead U.S. foreign assistance provider, having assumed certain former USAID functions.
Foreign assistance is often delivered in complex environments with inherent risks, such as fraud, waste, and abuse.1 These risks must be managed effectively to ensure assistance delivery and taxpayer dollars are safeguarded. While most federal spending, including foreign assistance, is not lost to fraud, every dollar or resource that is diverted to fraudsters damages the federal government's ability to achieve its goals.
Direct financial losses from fraud place an increased burden on the government's financial outlook. Additionally, non-financial impacts and losses erode public trust in government and hinder agencies' efforts to execute their missions effectively and efficiently.2
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1 Fraud involves obtaining a thing of value through willful misrepresentation. Willful misrepresentation can be characterized by making material false statements of fact based on actual knowledge, deliberate ignorance, or reckless disregard of falsity. Fraud risk exists when individuals have an opportunity to engage in fraudulent activity. Waste is squandering money or resources, even if not explicitly illegal, and abuse is behaving improperly or unreasonably or misusing one's position or authority.
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While it is impossible to eliminate fraud completely, agencies can manage the risk more effectively by leveraging our recommendations, guidance, and resources for fraud prevention. And prevention is key. Prosecuting individuals and entities after they have committed fraud addresses only a small fraction of identified fraudulent activity, requires significant time and resources, and often recovers only a portion, if anything, of what was lost.
The tactics of those who commit fraud are constantly evolving and so should the U.S. government's approach to subverting them. To be clear, managing fraud risk is never finished. The goal is to continuously improve anti-fraud efforts to better prevent fraud before it occurs, detect it sooner when it happens, and respond more effectively than we have in the past.
This statement focuses on (1) specific risks and examples of fraud, waste, and abuse associated with foreign assistance and (2) useful practices and weaknesses in fraud risk management in foreign assistance identified through past GAO work.
This statement is based on a body of work of selected reports we published from July 2015 to January 2026 addressing fraud risk management in foreign assistance. More detailed information on the scope and methodology of our prior work can be found within the specific reports on which this statement is based. These reports are listed on the Related GAO Products page at the end of this statement. We conducted the work on which this statement is based in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
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2 We have previously reported that the federal government faces an unsustainable longterm fiscal future. GAO, The Nation's Fiscal Health: Strategy Needed as Debt Levels Accelerate, GAO-25-107714 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 5, 2025). Improved efforts to combat fraud, with an emphasis on prevention, can reduce the loss of federal dollars and improve the federal government's fiscal outlook.
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Foreign Assistance Has Heightened Risks for Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
No area of the federal government is immune to fraud, waste, or abuse (see fig. 1). We estimate that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, based on 2018-2022 data.3 Fraud can come from within or from outside an organization. For example, an employee, manager or executive within an organization may commit fraud by deceiving their own organization through embezzling funds or accepting bribes. Outside entities may also commit fraud against an organization. For example, vendors may lie about the work they performed, or grantees may claim reimbursement for activities they did not perform.
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Figure 1: Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Definitions and Examples
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Delivering Foreign Assistance Presents Increased Risks
The delivery of foreign assistance can present some specific challenges that increase fraud, waste, and abuse risks.
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3 GAO, Fraud Risk Management: 2018-2022 Data Show Federal Government Loses an Estimated $233 Billion to $521 Billion Annually to Fraud, Based on Various Risk Environments, GAO-24-105833 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 16, 2024).
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These include:
Reliance on Implementing Partners for Delivering Assistance. U.S. foreign assistance is often delivered through award agreements with partnering organizations that implement the assistance. These implementing partners may enter into a sub-award agreement that provides funds to sub-partner organizations to carry out the work.4 During the delivery of assistance, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) generally relied on partners' own controls to prevent risks, including fraud. As such, implementing partners and sub-partners play an important role in the delivery and safeguarding of foreign assistance.
Therefore, the potential for fraud and other risks is greater if federal agencies, implementing partners, and sub-partners do not have strong controls. See the text box for examples of inadequate internal controls that could increase vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, or abuse.
Examples of Inadequate Internal Controls that Could Increase the Risk of Fraud, Waste, or Abuse
* Inadequate separation of duties.
* Lack of or limited monitoring visits or inspection requirements.
* Lack of or limited policies and guidance for award selection and management.
* Limited or no requirements for awardees to monitor or report on sub awardee data or information.
* Weak or limited counter fraud or antiterrorism clauses in delivery partner agreements and contracts.
* Limited verification of beneficiary data.
* Limited tracking and oversight of asset management or inventory systems.
* Limited or no antifraud control environment (e.g. limited or no fraud training, fraud reporting mechanism, or regularly communicated antifraud tone at all organizational levels).
* Limited internal or compliance audits.
Source: GAO analysis of prior GAO reports. | GAO-26-108945
Countries Experiencing Conflict. Many factors complicate the delivery of assistance to people living in conflict zones. For example, a dangerous operating environment can limit access to certain geographic areas for U.S. agency personnel and implementing partners, which can result in managing U.S. assistance remotely. Lack of in-person oversight increases the risk that assistance will be misused or diverted through fraud or other means. For example, USAID officials who provided assistance to Syria explained that implementing partners were unable to consistently access project sites due to factors such as ongoing fighting, bombing raids, and border closures. This limited partners' ability to obtain and verify progress.5 Similarly, we found that USAID was often unable to conduct regular site visits in conflict-affected areas, including Ukraine, Nigeria, and Somalia, instead relying at times on other methods to detect risks, such as reviewing partner's financial information in regular reports and additional communication with its partners. However, we also found that partners in these countries also said they were often unable to safely access some of their own implementation sites.6
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4 Implementing partners and sub-partners may be nongovernmental organizations (NGO), government entities, or international organizations, which are typically composed of multiple member states.
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Urgency of Humanitarian Assistance and Life-saving Aid. Disasters and public emergencies present an additional challenge to combating fraud. The need for urgent assistance can hinder the implementation of effective controls to combat fraud. Agencies may need to develop new programs or significantly expand existing ones, which can involve increased risks. Further, both our work and that of the USAID Office of Inspector General (OIG) have found that crisis environments, such as war zones in Ukraine, Gaza, and Syria, are by their very nature unstable and insecure. Substantial uncertainty and inaccessibility, coupled with the rapid flow of large amounts of money, create prime opportunities for fraud and diversion--risks that have intensified with the growing scale and duration of humanitarian responses.
Use of Local Organizations. USAID set goals to work directly with local partners to implement assistance in some countries. While working with local organizations can improve the effectiveness and sustainability of foreign assistance, it also potentially raises risks, including the risk of fraud. Many local organizations are smaller than traditional development organizations and may not have the capacity to implement large scale programs, oversee and track substantial funding, and may have limited experience in implementing financial controls or reporting requirements Further, fraud risks can be greater in countries with high levels of corruption.
Presence of Terrorists or Other Sanctioned Entities. Various U.S. laws, regulations. and executive orders provide for U.S. sanctions on specified groups, such as drug traffickers and terrorists. The risk of providing assistance to sanctioned entities in violation of these laws, regulations, and executive orders may be higher in conflict zones because of the presence of terrorists or sanctioned entities contributing to the conflict. This type of risk may require increased oversight of assistance provided.
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5 GAO, Syria Humanitarian Assistance: Some Risks of Providing Aid inside Syria Assessed, but U.S. Agencies Could Improve Fraud Oversight. GAO-16-629. Washington, D.C.: July 14, 2016.
6 GAO, Foreign Assistance: USAID Should Strengthen Risk Management in Conflict Zones, GAO-24-106192 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 30, 2024).
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GAO Work has Highlighted Examples of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
During our work examining foreign assistance programs of multiple agencies, including USAID, State, and U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF), we have identified or reported on various instances of fraud, waste, or abuse or potential fraud under investigation.
U.S. African Development Foundation. We reported in 2025 that USADF has faced allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse originating from former staff.7 These allegations included reports on the misuse of official funds, fraudulent spending, conflicts of interest, and inappropriate, abusive, and discriminatory management practices. According to a Department of Justice press release, on January 30, 2026, the Director of Financial Management of the USADF was charged and agreed to plead guilty to accepting payments from a USADF contractor and lying to federal law enforcement officers about those payments. According to the Department of Justice, the USADF employee directed USADF funds to the contractor for little to no work and arranged for USADF to pay vendors and contractors through a Kenyan-based company that was owned by the USADF contractor. The USADF employee and contractor had allegedly known each other for over 20 years.
Post-Delivery Food Aid Diversion in Somalia. We reported that in July 2023, a United Nations assessment in Somalia found widespread and systemic diversion of food aid, primarily cash assistance.8 For example, internally displaced beneficiaries reported being required or coerced into paying the people managing the camps for the displaced, or other individuals a significant portion--usually in cash--of the aid they had received.
Potential Fraud Under the Merida Initiative. We reported on several potential fraud cases identified by State and USAID under the Merida Initiative, a partnership created to help reduce violence in Mexico and mitigate effects of the drug trade.9 Both State and USAID officials told us about cases of potential fraud involving Merida funds in 2018 that involved grantees overstating labor costs on invoices submitted for repayment. We also reported on another case of potential fraud reported to USAID in 2018 that involved a contractor who had awarded a subcontract to an employee's immediate relative without disclosure, in violation of conflict-of-interest reporting requirements.
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7 GAO, U.S. African Development Foundation: Strategic Approach Needed to Mitigate Fraud Risks, GAO-25-107574 (Washington, D.C.: Sep. 15, 2025).
8 GAO-24-106192
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Examples of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Afghanistan. In a 2021 report, we highlighted multiple examples of fraud, waste, and abuse identified in Afghanistan.10
These included:
* In 2009 we reported USAID-funded United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) grants were associated with findings of alleged criminal actions and mismanaged funds, leaving USAID's programs vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. A UN Procurement Task Force in 2008 found instances of fraud, embezzlement, conversion of public funds, conflict of interest, and severe mismanagement of USAIDfunded UNOPS projects in Afghanistan, including a $365.8 million project to rehabilitate secondary roads. According to the allegations, a UNOPS official diverted reconstruction funds for personal use, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in USAID funds for rent, a home renovation, and luxury items. The investigation found that the UNOPS official repeatedly violated rules and regulations by severely misappropriating project funds and by engaging in fraudulent and unlawful acts.
* In 2012, we reported on waste in construction of facilities used by U.S. and Afghan troops. Some contracting officers' representatives did not have the technical expertise necessary to monitor contract performance for the contracts they were assigned to oversee. As a result, some newly constructed buildings had to be repaired or rebuilt before troops could use them, resulting in wasted resources, low morale, and risks to personnel safety.
* In 2009 we reported on alleged fraud involving Afghan government and police personnel. U.S. contractors validated the status of almost 47,400 Afghan Ministry of Interior and Afghan National Police personnel but were unable to validate the status of almost 29,400 personnel--who were paid in part by $230 million in U.S. contributions to a UN trust fund--because of a lack of cooperation from some police commanders. During a 2-month period in 2008, U.S. civilian police mentors reported a variety of financial irregularities and alleged fraud.
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9 GAO, U.S. Assistance to Mexico: State and USAID Should Strengthen Risk Management for Programs under the Merida Initiative, GAO-21-335 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2021).
10 GAO, Afghanistan Reconstruction: GAO Work since 2002 Shows Systematic Internal Control Weaknesses that Increased the Risk of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, GAO-21-32R (Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, 2021).
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* In 2009 we reported on abuse by the Afghan National Police, including an Afghan Border Police battalion commander in Khost province who allegedly sold weapons to anti-coalition forces. In a March 2008 report, a U.S. contractor working with the Afghan National Police noted that despite repeated requests, the police chief logistical officer for Paktika province would not produce a list of serial numbers for weapons on hand. The contractor suggested that this reluctance to share information could be part of an attempt to conceal inventory discrepancies.
Lessons from Useful Practices and Weaknesses in Managing Fraud Risk
Federal law enacted in 2016 required the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to establish guidelines for agencies to create controls to identify and assess fraud risks and to design and implement antifraud control activities.11 In its 2016 Circular No. A-123 guidelines, OMB directed agencies to adhere to leading practices in our A Framework for Managing Fraud Risk in Federal Programs (Fraud Risk Framework).12 The Fraud Risk Framework's comprehensive leading practices, organized into four components, are designed to help program managers combat fraud in a strategic, risk-based manner. The four components are (1) committing to combat fraud by creating an organizational culture, (2) planning and conducting risk assessments, (3) designing and implementing a strategy with specific control activities, and (4) evaluating and adapting fraud risk management activities (see figure 2).
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11 Fraud Reduction and Data Analytics Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114-186, 130 Stat. 546 (2016). The Fraud Reduction and Data Analytics Act of 2015 was replaced in March 2020 by the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019. Pub. L. No. 116-117, Sec. 2(a), 134 Stat. 113, 131-132 (2020), codified at 31 U.S.C. Sec. 3357.
12 Office of Management and Budget, Management's Responsibility for Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Control, OMB Circular No. A-123 (Washington, D.C.: July 15, 2016) and GAO, A Framework for Managing Fraud Risks in Federal Programs, GAO-15-593SP (Washington, D.C.: July 28, 2015).
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Figure 2: The Fraud Risk Management Framework
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Our work has found that agencies have some practices and controls in place to manage fraud risks in foreign assistance, consistent with GAO's Fraud Risk Framework. However, we have also identified systematic weaknesses in agencies' efforts to prevent, detect, and properly respond to fraud risks in foreign assistance and made numerous recommendations to address these weaknesses. While agencies have taken some steps to address these weaknesses, the remaining yet to be implemented recommendations can guide agencies seeking to enhance their risk management for foreign assistance. Some of these recommendations are to USAID and USADF, which have respectively ceased administration of aid and reduced functions; however, the practices underlying the recommendations for these agencies may be applicable to the agencies that will continue to administer foreign assistance.
Lessons from Useful Practices and Weakness in Agencies' Efforts
Our prior work identified both useful practices and weaknesses in agencies' fraud risk management related to (1) internal controls, (2) fraud risk assessments, (3) fraud awareness training, (4) oversight of implementing partners, (4) third-party monitoring, (5) use of data analytics to manage fraud risks, and (6) responding and adapting to risks.
Internal Controls
Our prior work has found that agencies have some policies and procedures to mitigate fraud and other risks. For example, in a 2024 review, we found that USAID maintained internal policies and procedures that guided award type decisions and outlined roles and responsibilities for award management.13 However, agencies' policies may be insufficient or not systematically implemented in line with leading practices for managing fraud risks.
For example, we found in a 2025 review that USADF had inadequate policies, procedures, and practices to ensure the appropriate use of federal award funds.14 As one of many systematic internal control weaknesses described in our report, we found that USADF had insufficient internal policies and procedures to guide contract award decisions and management. Treasury officials that supported USADF's contracting process told us that USADF procurement officials engaged in questionable practices when making awards. USADF's Director of Financial Management was later criminally charged by the Department of Justice. We reported concerns with USADF practices such as steering contracts to former USADF contractual employees, cancelling solicitations when desired prior contract employees did not win the contract, and directing Department of Treasury officials on who to hire and what to pay their former contractual employees. Treasury officials noted that these practices all went against Federal Acquisition Regulation provisions related to procurement integrity. We reported that these practices could be a sign of potential procurement fraud and abuse schemes, such as bid rigging and unjustified sole source awards. These practices may have proliferated because of the lack of procedures and oversight controls.
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13 GAO-24-106192.
14 GAO-25-107574.
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Among other things, we recommended that the USADF (1) implement specific effective internal control policies and processes and (2) ensure that it has appropriate personnel in place to establish and update internal control policies, assess and mitigate fraud, ensure appropriate separation of duties, and manage procurements. Our recommendations are not yet implemented.
Fraud Risk Assessments
We noted in a 2024 review of assistance provided in conflict zones that USAID had an Enterprise Risk Management structure that included teams within bureaus and missions to assess and document risks, including fraud.15 Under this structure, USAID bureaus and missions were required to develop annual risk profiles to identify, analyze, and manage risks and communicate these risks to leadership, as outlined in USAID's Enterprise Risk Management guidance and Anti-Fraud Plan.
While these risk assessments have the potential to be useful tools, we found weaknesses in USAID's and State's approach to assessing fraud risks for their programs. Specifically, the agencies' assessments were not tailored to program-specific fraud risks, in accordance with the leading practices identified in the Fraud Risk Framework. For example, in 2021, we found that State and USAID had not fully assessed the potential risks of fraud in their Merida programs.16 In 2024, we again found that USAID's fraud risk assessments for El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nigeria, Somalia, and Ukraine did not examine program-specific fraud risks.17 Without completing fraud risk assessments that are tailored to individual programs, State's and USAID's programs were more vulnerable to those risks.
We made one recommendation to State and seven recommendations to USAID to assess fraud risks in their programs. Subsequently, State and USAID completed fraud risk assessments for their Merida programs, and USAID created a requirement for regular fraud risk assessments for its programs agencywide in 2024. As of July 2025, when USAID transferred its remaining programmatic functions to State, USAID had not implemented five of these recommendations.
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15 GAO-24-106192.
16 GAO-21-335
17 GAO-24-106192. GAO, Central America: USAID Should Strengthen Staffing and Fraud Risk Management for Initiative Addressing Migration to the U.S., GAO-24-106232 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2024).
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Fraud Awareness Training Oversight of Implementing Partners
Fraud risk training also enables agencies to identify and mitigate these risks. In a 2024 review, we found that while USAID offered fraud awareness training, attendance was not always mandated or tracked because USAID did not require these steps agencywide.18 We likewise found in 2021 that State also did not require fraud awareness training.19 Without mandatory training, State and USAID lacked assurance that its staff and partners knew how to identify and mitigate key fraud risks and vulnerabilities for its programs.
We made three recommendations to State and USAID to update their policies and guidance to require fraud awareness training. State and USAID implemented these recommendations.
Agencies employed some useful processes to oversee implementing partners and their sub-partners throughout the award process that can be useful for identifying and assessing fraud risks. For example:
* Reviewing past performance. Our July 2024 review of State's and USAID's use of implementing partners in Ukraine found that State and USAID had standard processes for considering past performance when selecting some prime implementing partners for awards (e.g. contracts or grants), which our review of a sample of 28 awards indicated that they followed. USAID also routinely monitored its NGO implementing partners' screening of their sub-partners for past performance, as of July 2024./20
* Award provisions and due diligence. Our April 2024 review of USAID assistance in conflict zones found that prior to implementing awards, USAID used award provisions (i.e. contractual or legal terms in the award) to outline control requirements related to fiduciary risks, including provisions on fraud disclosure, whistleblower protections, and conflicts of interest.21 Likewise, USAID had policies to conduct due diligence and partner vetting and included provisions in awards to ensure assistance did not benefit terrorists or sanctioned entities.22
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18 GAO-24-106192. GAO-24-106232.
19 GAO-21-335
20 GAO, Ukraine: State and USAID Should Improve Processes for Ensuring Partners Can Perform Required Work, GAO-24-106751 (Washington, D.C.: Jul. 31, 2024).
21 GAO-24-106192.
22 GAO-24-106192.
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* Improving internal controls. We found USAID had several strategies to oversee implementing partners' internal controls and address any deficiencies. For example, as of April 2024, USAID's missions in Nigeria and Ukraine conducted financial reviews of awards to oversee and detect fiduciary risks, including fraud. For example, a financial review might look at a partner's accounting and record keeping; internal control procedures; or compliance with the award agreement. The Nigeria mission also required certain local partners to hire a compliance officer to help build an internal compliance system, as local partners may not have had the same level of capacity and controls as international implementing partners.
Our work has also found weaknesses in State's and USAID's oversight of implementing partners and their sub-partners that increased vulnerabilities to financial risks, such as fraud, and the risk of providing assistance to entities or individuals associated with terrorism. In general, we noted additional weaknesses with State and USAID's oversight of awards with international organizations compared to nongovernmental organizations. Specifically,
* Past performance of international organizations. We found weaknesses with State's review of potential partners' past performance during our 2024 review of State and USAID's oversight of partners in Ukraine.23 Specifically, State did not screen for past performance for letters of agreement, a type of award with certain international organizations, as its policy did not require this screening.
Without screening all types of implementing partners, State had a higher risk of selecting implementing partners that may have been excluded from federal awards or may not have performed well. In addition, across all award types, State did not document detailed information about applicants' past performance because its policies did not require it. Detailed documentation would help other State officials understand the risks of using these partners to implement assistance under current and potential future awards.
* Past performance of sub-partners. We also found weaknesses with how State and USAID monitored their partners' screening of their subpartners for past performance, based on the sample of awards we reviewed. While USAID routinely monitored how its NGO implementing partners screened sub-partners for past performance, it did not monitor its international organization partners, such as United Nations agencies. State did not perform this monitoring for either type of partner. Without periodic monitoring, the agencies increased the risk that partners may not have effectively screened sub-partners.
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23 GAO-24-106751
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* Sub-partner vetting and provisions. A March 2021 review of USAID funding to the West Bank and Gaza found that, for fiscal years 2015 through 2019, USAID fully complied with requirements for partner vetting, antiterrorism certificates, and mandatory provisions.24 However, our analysis of a sample of subawards showed that partners were not consistently vetting subawardees and certain mandatory anti-terrorism provisions were not included in contracts, as required. Weaknesses in USAID's subaward monitoring may have increased the risk of providing assistance to entities or individuals associated with terrorism.
In these reports, we made seven recommendations to State and USAID to ensure proper screening of partners and sub-partners. State and USAID implemented six of these recommendations by establishing requirements for officials to document past performance information and periodically monitor partners' screening on sub-partners, among other things. One recommendation to State is yet to be implemented and relates to screening international organizations.
Third-Party Monitoring
Conducting in-person site visits for assistance programs is an important oversight tool. However, the presence of conflict limits agencies' direct oversight of their partners. In these environments, agencies can use thirdparty monitoring to manage this limitation. Specifically, our 2016 review of USAID's humanitarian assistance to Syria and our 2024 review of USAID's assistance in conflict zones found that USAID used third-party monitors to improve oversight and verify progress of its programs.25 However, this third-party monitoring focused on performance management and was not designed explicitly for fraud risk detection. As a result, there were inconsistencies in whether these monitors checked for indications of potential fraud. For example, we reviewed site visit questionnaires for the third-party monitoring contracts in Nigeria, Somalia, and Ukraine and found examples of questions that could be used to detect possible instances of fraud and other risks. Some questionnaires asked beneficiaries whether anyone had demanded payment for assistance, and others had questions on practices to manage fiduciary risk, such as how partners select beneficiaries and whether they maintained distribution registers. However, we did not see similar practices consistently across countries. Improved training and guidance for third-party monitoring would allow these monitors to be used to help assess and identify potential risks.
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24 GAO, West Bank and Gaza Aid: Should Funding Resume, Increased Oversight of Subawardee Compliance with USAID's Antiterrorism Policies and Procedures May Reduce Risks, GAO-21-332 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29, 2021).
25 GAO, Syria Humanitarian Assistance: Some Risks of Providing Aid Inside Syria Assessed, but U.S. Agencies Could Improve Fraud Oversight, GAO-16-629 (Washington, D.C.: Jul. 14, 2016). GAO-24-106192.
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We made three recommendations to USAID to enhance the use of thirdparty monitoring to detect potential fraud. One recommendation related to USAID's programs in Syria is implemented, as USAID revised site visit templates for third-party monitors to indicate potential fraud incidents during site visits. As of July 2025, USAID had not implemented two recommendations related to updating agencywide guidance on using third-party monitoring for potential fraud detection.
Data analytics can help agencies prevent and detect potential fraud. For example, our 2024 review of USAID assistance in conflict zones described how USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs maintained a central tracker of all reported allegations, including fraud, across all its awards.26 The bureau used this information to identify trends and support staff in overseeing awards.
We also noted weaknesses in the use of data analytics for fraud risk management. In September 2025, we found that USAID did not regularly verify or use all available data to inform its oversight of direct budget support to Ukraine.27 Specifically, USAID did not review Ukraine's detailed expenditure data received from the World Bank. We analyzed a subset of this data and identified 161 unusual increases out of 5,121 expenditure changes. For example, one large increase was a 2,474 percent increase (equal to $1,067,542) between April and June 2023 for salaries to non-security government employees working at the Ukraine Supreme Court. Although non-security government employees typically receive bonuses in June, this percentage increase was an outlier for June 2023 and merited further examination. Reviewing all available expenditure data would help identify data anomalies, determine the cause, and help ensure Ukraine's use of U.S. direct budget support funding was appropriate.
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26 GAO-24-106192.
27 GAO, Ukraine: State Should Build on USAID's Oversight of Direct Budget Support, GAO-25-107057 (Washington, D.C.: Sep. 24, 2025).
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We made one recommendation to State, which assumed oversight responsibility for the direct budget support to Ukraine from USAID in July 2025, to review expenditure data to enhance oversight of direct budget support funding. This recommendation is yet to be implemented.
Responding and Adapting to Risks
Beyond preventing and detecting risks, agencies must also effectively respond and adapt to them. Response can include investigating potential fraud and taking corrective actions. For example, during our 2024 review of assistance in conflict zones we found that USAID required its awardees to report all violations of criminal law involving fraud or other certain prohibited conduct potentially affecting the award to the USAID OIG. We found multiple instances when implementing partners in Ukraine reported instances of conflicts of interest to the OIG for investigation. Our review also found that after a Somalia mission partner reported and confirmed instances of fraudulent invoices, the mission requested that the partner revise its plan for conducting due diligence to address related internal control gaps.
We found that, at times, agencies could improve actions to address fraud and other risks in federal contracts, grants, or other awards. For example, in a 2021 review, we noted that USAID's compliance review process found numerous instances of partners not complying with requirements for vetting and inclusion of mandatory anti-terrorism provisions in subawards for the West Bank Gaza program.28 However, we found this compliance review process did not always occur in time to enforce remedies for awardee's noncompliance before awards ended, such as withholding cash payments pending correction of the deficiency or withholding approval of further awards. We recommended USAID conduct compliance reviews and take appropriate actions before awards end, which USAID implemented.
Even if entities take corrective actions or remedy the harm caused by fraud or other violations, it is essential for agencies to have strong controls to prevent and detect future violations. In particular, reporting award violations and other information related to contractor performance in federal systems used to inform contracting decisions is also essential.
However, we have found that contracting officials sometimes failed to report contractor violations, such as human trafficking violations in federal contracts or terminations of contracts due to the fault of the contractor, in required federal procurement databases. Because other contracting officials rely on these databases to review contractors' performance histories before making new awards, incomplete reporting increases the risk that agencies will unknowingly work with contractors with a history of violating award provisions, thereby putting taxpayer dollars at risk. We are particularly concerned about this incomplete reporting because we are aware of instances when agencies have continued to work with implementing partners or sub-partners on other ongoing or new awards after those partners have entered into settlement agreements with the Department of Justice for fraud or related violations. We recommended that agencies improve their reporting of violations. For example, we made one recommendation to the Secretary of the Army to clarify guidance regarding reporting requirements for human trafficking violations, which it implemented. We also made a recommendation to the Department of Defense on reporting information such as contract terminations in these databases, which is not yet implemented.
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28 GAO-21-332.
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Agencies should also continually adapt their risk management activities by applying lessons learned. However, USAID could not show us how they have used such lessons to develop better prevention and detection controls--a leading practice in fraud risk management. For example, while USAID mission staff in Nigeria, Somalia, and Ukraine reported some sharing of risk related lessons, we found that USAID lacks a dedicated mechanism for its missions to systematically share lessons learned about managing risk in conflict zones. In response, we made a recommendation to USAID to develop a mechanism for systematically sharing lessons learned among conflict-affected missions related to the management of risks that are common across conflict zones, including fraud. As of July 2025, USAID had not implemented this recommendation.
Recommendations to Better Manage Fraud Risks
Over the last ten years, we have made dozens of recommendations to agencies on how they can better manage fraud and other risks in their foreign assistance programs, including those cited above. We have also identified actions Congress can take to improve agencies' efforts.
Recommendations to agencies
From July 2016 through September 2025, we made at least 51 recommendations to improve and support the management of fraud and other risks for agencies delivering foreign assistance. These included 14 recommendations to State, 25 recommendations to USAID, four recommendations to USADF, and eight recommendations to other agencies and offices including Treasury, the Department of Energy, and the Office of Management and Budget.
As of February 2026, these agencies collectively had taken actions to fully implement 22 of these recommendations but had yet to fully implement the remaining 29. Specifically, State had eight implemented recommendations and six not yet implemented; USAID had implemented recommendations and 12 not implemented; USADF had four recommendations not yet implemented; and the remaining agencies had one implemented recommendation and seven not yet implemented.29 With the cessation of USAID's administration of aid and reduction of USADF's functions, the practices underlying the recommendations for these agencies may be applicable to State and other agencies that will continue to administer foreign assistance.
Matters for Congressional Consideration
Congressional action is also part of the solution, and we have identified actions that Congress could take to help agencies combat fraud.30 For example:
* Reinstating the requirement for agencies to report on their antifraud controls and fraud risk management efforts in agency financial reports. In March 2022, GAO recommended that Congress amend the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 to reinstate certain reporting requirements.31 Requiring agencies to report annually on their antifraud controls and fraud risk management efforts would support congressional oversight and focus agency attention on strategic fraud risk management and help align their efforts with leading practices.
In conclusion, combating fraud requires continuous learning, oversight, and improvement. Addressing the weaknesses we have identified and implementing related recommendations and matters will help the federal government to manage fraud risks in foreign assistance. Moreover, as agencies adapt and undertake new programs and challenges, GAO's fraud risk management resources, in addition to the OIGs' and our findings and recommendations, can guide agencies' continued growth in fraud management.32 In particular, to help State transition into its new role as the lead U.S. foreign assistance provider, it can look to incorporate the useful practices into current and future assistance programs and avoid the weaknesses our work has identified.
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29 We follow up on recommendations we have made and update the status at least once per year. Experience has shown that it takes time for some recommendations to be implemented.
30 GAO, Fraud Risk Management: Key Areas for Federal Agency and Congressional Action, GAO-23-106567 (Washington D.C.: Apr. 13, 2023).
31 GAO, Emergency Relief Funds: Significant Improvements Are Needed to Ensure Transparency and Accountability for COVID-19 and Beyond, GAO-22-105715 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 17, 2022).
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Chairman Mills, Ranking Member Moskowitz, and Members of the Subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have at this time.
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32 For example, USAID OIG published several reports with lessons for the future of foreign assistance. U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General, Humanitarian Assistance: Lessons for the Future (Washington, D.C.: Jul 16, 2025). U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General, Public International Organizations: Lessons for the Future (Washington, D.C.: Jul 23, 2025). U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General, Global Health: Lessons for the Future (Washington, D.C.: Jul 30, 2025).
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Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA17/20260317/118979/HHRG-119-FA17-Wstate-Love-GrayerL-20260317.pdf
Assistant Secretary of War Kadlec Testifies Before House Armed Services Committee
WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary of War for nuclear deterrence, chemical and biological defense policy and programs, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture & National Security Challenges in the Western Hemisphere":* * *
Chairman DesJarlais, Ranking Member Moulton, members of the subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify on our nation's strategic posture.
U.S. strategy is at a critical inflection point, driven by a confluence of stark realities. First and foremost, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary of War for nuclear deterrence, chemical and biological defense policy and programs, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture & National Security Challenges in the Western Hemisphere": * * * Chairman DesJarlais, Ranking Member Moulton, members of the subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify on our nation's strategic posture. U.S. strategy is at a critical inflection point, driven by a confluence of stark realities. First and foremost,China's strategic nuclear breakout means we now face the unprecedented challenge of deterring two nuclear peers, China and Russia, simultaneously. This is not a distant problem; it is the central, organizing challenge for our defense strategy today. Compounding this external pressure are two other factors: the immense budgetary, industrial, and programmatic strains of modernizing all three legs of our nuclear triad and its command and control at once, and the expiration of the New START Treaty this past February.
The 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) correctly identifies this new, more dangerous environment. My purpose today is to outline how our nuclear posture must be adapted to support that strategy. The reality is that our nuclear forces, while foundational, are not a panacea. They are a necessary but insufficient component of a defense strategy focused on denial. Our primary goal must be to convince adversaries--first and foremost the People's Republic of China (China)--that they cannot succeed in using military force to achieve their objectives. Our nuclear posture must be a credible backstop to that denial strategy, not a substitute for it.
We must be rigorously clear-eyed about the threats we face. China represents the most significant and comprehensive challenge to U.S. national security. China is engaged in the most rapid and opaque nuclear expansion in history. In 2020, the Department assessed China's stockpile of operational nuclear warheads as being in the low 200s. Today it exceeds 600, and is on track to surpass 1,000 by 2030, with capabilities enabling the majority ng to reach the U.S. Homeland.
This nuclear buildup is coupled with a massive investment in theater-range delivery systems, like the DF-26, designed to hold U.S. forces and allies and partners at risk in the Indo-Pacific region.
The purpose of this expansion is clear: to create a strategic shield behind which the People's Liberation Army can conduct regional aggression, particularly against Taiwan. A force of this size and sophistication provides China with a spectrum of nuclear options to try to deter U.S. intervention and coerce a resolution to a conflict on China's terms.
Russia remains a formidable nuclear power with the world's largest arsenal and a doctrine that explicitly integrates nuclear weapons for regional coercion. Its ongoing modernization and development of novel systems, like Poseidon and Burevestnik, underscore its continued reliance on nuclear forces to offset conventional weaknesses. While the primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe must rest with our wealthy and capable European allies, the U.S. nuclear extended deterrence provides a critical backstop. This cannot, however, be the primary solution for European security. A credible deterrent in Europe requires a robust, in-theater conventional denial force, fielded overwhelmingly by the Europeans themselves.
We must now plan for the concrete possibility of coordinated or opportunistic aggression across multiple theaters. An American focus on a crisis in the Indo-Pacific region could be seen by Russia as an opportunity in Europe, just as a crisis in Europe could be seen as an opportunity for China. Our force structure, posture, and nuclear strategy must be robust enough to deter both peers simultaneously, even if we were to be engaged in a major conventional conflict with one.
This does not mean we must match their combined arsenals warhead for warhead. It means we require a nuclear force sufficient to inflict unacceptable costs on both adversaries under any contingency, ensuring neither believes they can exploit a crisis elsewhere for their own gain.
We must never be left vulnerable to nuclear blackmail. It is the Department's responsibility to provide the President with a credible nuclear strategy to defend our vital interests and the forces to support it. This means we require a strong and effective nuclear arsenal adapted to the nation's overall defense strategy. This arsenal must enable a strategy to deter nuclear and non-nuclear strategic attacks on the American homeland. This is important not only for deterring aggression but also to provide the President options to favorably manage escalation and achieve other objectives in the event of a conflict across the globe. For too long, America's nuclear strategy has been considered a separate, almost theological, enterprise. Now, our nuclear strategy must be coherently and rigorously integrated into our overall defense strategy.
Our nuclear strategy, therefore, must be subordinate to and supportive of our overall defense strategy. The NDS rightly prioritizes defending the Homeland and deterring China. The most effective way to do so is through a strategy of denial--convincing an adversary that their military aggression will fail to achieve its objectives. In the Indo-Pacific, this means fielding a conventional force, alongside our allies and partners, capable of deterring a conflict in the region, ideally by preserving military overmatch. The role of our nuclear arsenal in this context is not to fight and win a nuclear war, but to deter China from escalating to the nuclear level in the first place, or from believing it can use its nuclear arsenal to coerce us into accepting a fait accompli.
Our nuclear forces must provide the President with credible options to manage escalation, demonstrating that any nuclear use will be met with a response that leaves the adversary worse off. This requires a flexible and modern nuclear posture.
A solvent defense strategy also requires our allies and partners to carry their fair share of the conventional burden. U.S. nuclear extended deterrence is a powerful enabler of this, providing our allies in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific region the security backstop they need to invest in their own conventional denial capabilities. But it must be a backstop, not a crutch. In the IndoPacific region, allies like the Republic of Korea and Japan must take the lead in building the conventional forces needed to deny regional aggression. Our nuclear umbrella makes it possible for them to do so without pursuing their own nuclear arsenals, but it does not absolve them of the primary responsibility for their own defense.
President Trump's "Golden Dome for America" initiative is a vital complement to our deterrent posture. It is not a replacement for our offensive nuclear forces. By strengthening our defense against missile attack, we demonstrate that coercion will fail, strengthening the President's hand in a crisis. Deterrence by denial (through missile defense) and deterrence by punishment (through nuclear response) are two sides of the same coin.
To execute our strategy, modernization programs are not optional; they are an urgent necessity.
The transition from our legacy systems to a modernized triad occurs during a period of maximum geopolitical risk. There is no room for error. We must accelerate the Sentinel ICBM, the COLUMBIA-class submarine, and the B-21 bomber with its LRSO cruise missile. Critically, we must also field flexible, theater-range nuclear options. The SLCM-N is essential. It provides a persistent, survivable, and non-strategic nuclear presence in key regions, reducing reliance on land-based assets and providing the President with a credible deterrent against limited nuclear use. It is a vital tool for managing escalation in a conflict with a peer competitor.
We are entering a new, more dangerous era. The luxury of assuming a single major adversary is gone. The NDS provides a sound framework for this new reality, but a strategy is only as good as the will and resources committed to its execution. The cost of modernizing our nuclear deterrent and fielding the conventional forces to support a denial strategy is significant. But the cost of failing to do so is incalculably greater. Congress's continued support is essential to ensuring we have the deterrent we need to protect our nation and its interests.
Thank you.
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Original text here: https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/aswnd-cbdcongressional_posture_statement_-_kadlec.pdf
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Berkowitz Testifies Before House Armed Services Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces released the following testimony by Marc Berkowitz, assistant secretary of Defense for space policy, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "FY27 Strategic Forces Posture Hearing":* * *
Chairman DesJarlais, Ranking Member Moulton, and distinguished members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the Department of War's space and missile defense posture. It is an honor to appear with my colleagues, Assistant Secretary Robert Kadlec, Admiral Richard Correll, General Stephan Whiting, and General ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces released the following testimony by Marc Berkowitz, assistant secretary of Defense for space policy, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "FY27 Strategic Forces Posture Hearing": * * * Chairman DesJarlais, Ranking Member Moulton, and distinguished members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the Department of War's space and missile defense posture. It is an honor to appear with my colleagues, Assistant Secretary Robert Kadlec, Admiral Richard Correll, General Stephan Whiting, and GeneralGregory Guillot.
The United States is facing intensifying strategic competition in the security environment. Competitors have fielded and operate sophisticated space, counterspace, missile, and integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) systems. They view space as a warfighting domain and seek the ability to deny us freedom of access to and use of the domain, jeopardize our military forces, and hold our Homeland at risk.
The pace and scale of the threat is unprecedented. Consequently, fielding and operating the space and missile defense forces necessary to ensure U.S. freedom of action in space, deny adversaries its hostile use, and defend the Homeland and our military forces is a strategic imperative. The Department is therefore focusing investment on maintaining our technological edge and operating modern systems that enhance the capability and survivability of our forces.
Outer space is an increasingly complex and contested warfighting domain.
Adversaries are employing space systems for command and control, targeting, and precision strike while simultaneously developing and operating a variety of space control capabilities--from cyber and electronic warfare to kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles and orbital weapons--to counter U.S. advantages.
Concurrently, rivals are expanding their arsenals of ballistic, hypersonic, and advanced cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial threats. They are integrating offensive strike capabilities and IAMD systems into joint operations to strengthen their ability to deny access and impose costs. The risk is compounded by the prospect of simultaneous conflicts, where adversaries could act in coordination or opportunistically across multiple theaters.
China is our pacing competitor. Its military modernization is rapid and comprehensive, spanning space, counterspace, cyber, nuclear, and conventional strike capabilities. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) sees space as vital for future conflicts, essential for denying our ability to sense and communicate, targeting U.S. forces, and enabling long-range strikes. China's satellite constellations have expanded significantly, and their networked systems are designed to track and engage our mobile forces in the Indo-Pacific region. It is fielding a broad range of kinetic and non-kinetic space control weapons to hold U.S. space assets at risk.
Furthermore, China is expanding its nuclear and missile forces, developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with nuclear and conventional payloads, hypersonic glide vehicles, and other advanced systems that can threaten the U.S. Homeland from multiple vectors. This offensive buildup is paired with a sophisticated, layered IAMD system to protect critical targets. The PLA is diligently applying lessons from modern conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, to improve its warfighting concepts.
Russia possesses significant space, counterspace, missile, and IAMD capabilities. Russia's space program has faced setbacks, but it continues to invest in an array of weapons designed to counter space capabilities. This includes cyber and electronic warfare against satellite systems as seen in Ukraine. Russia's primary strategic threat remains its large and diverse nuclear arsenal which is central to its military strategy. Russia's use of advanced conventional missiles in Ukraine provides a real-world testbed for its capabilities.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea poses a direct and growing threat to our Homeland, forces, and allies with its expanding nuclear missile and electromagnetic warfare capabilities. Its arsenal of theater-range missiles holds U.S., South Korean, and Japanese territory at risk, and its ICBMs are capable of striking America.
Iran's development and proliferation of missiles and unmanned aerial systems to its proxies and state actors like Russia underscore its threat to regional stability. Its air and missile attacks against U.S. forces, allies, and partners demonstrate this threat. The decisive military actions conducted under President Trump through Operations MIDNIGHT HAMMER and EPIC FURY are necessary to address the threat from Iran's nuclear ambitions and its malign activities.
As articulated in the 2025 National Security Strategy, our approach is to restore American strength to secure peace. The President directed the Department to secure our vital interests by ensuring American space superiority as well as defend the Homeland with the Golden Dome for America (GDA). The 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) builds on this principle, prioritizing a commonsense, America-First approach to peace through strength. Space and missile defense forces are central to U.S. strategy.
The Department's highest priority, as directed by the President and the NDS, is the defense of the U.S. Homeland. Access to and use of space is a vital national interest because of its overriding importance to our security and economic prosperity. U.S. space systems enable nuclear deterrence. They enhance domain awareness, including access to denied and hostile territory, and provide strategic and tactical indications and warning, launch detection, nuclear detonation detection, attack assessment, and nuclear command, control, and communications.
Consistent with the President's direction to ensure space superiority, the Department is focused on normalizing space as a warfighting domain. Space systems contribute to all elements of America's national power. We will secure and defend our interests to, in, and from space.
The President's GDA initiative is the cornerstone of our Homeland defense posture. It is an essential and pragmatic response to the growing threat posed by ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missile and other next-generation aerial weapons. Combined with the prospect of U.S. retaliation, GDA will strengthen deterrence by denying adversaries the ability to achieve their objectives through coercion or aggression. Our competitors have been modernizing their offensive and defensive forces for years. A comprehensive Homeland missile defense will contribute to deterrence by protecting our nation, citizens, critical infrastructure, and retaliatory capabilities against the most catastrophic threats while reducing the utility of opponents' air and missile arsenals as well as an incentive for an adversary to strike first in a crisis or escalate during a conflict.
At present, our Homeland missile defense is limited, and its effectiveness is eroding against increasingly advanced threats. It offers no defense against hypersonic weapons, advanced cruise missiles, or major ballistic missile attacks.
GDA aims to rectify this by creating a comprehensive, layered defense-in-depth of the United States. It will perform multiple missions including ballistic missile defense, hypersonic missile defense, and cruise missile defense. GDA will leverage both existing technologies and next-generation systems such as spacebased sensors and interceptors. It will integrate sensors and effectors across multiple domains, managed by an artificial intelligence-enabled battle management and command and control system. By providing multiple engagement
opportunities across a wider range of threats, GDA will be more effective than our current limited system. The cost of GDA, while significant, is a necessary investment to protect assets of incalculable value--the lives of our citizens and the territorial integrity of our nation. The cost of failing to defend the Homeland would be infinitely greater.
In the Indo-Pacific region, a denial defense along the First Island Chain is critical. Space capabilities are essential to this effort, enabling the intelligence, command and control, and other warfighting functions needed to project power effectively across the vast distances of the region. U.S. Space Command and U.S. Space Forces-Indo-Pacific are integrating space capabilities into joint and combined operations to maintain a credible deterrent. Our regional missile defense posture, centered on Aegis destroyers, as well as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot systems, provides a forward-deployed, layered network to defend our forces and allies.
Our global alliances will remain a strategic advantage if our allies and partners invest properly in defense. We require capable allies with the military strength and political will to take primary responsibility for their own regional security. This allows the United States to focus its finite resources on the most pressing challenges.
The Department is pursuing robust space and missile defense cooperation with key allies and partners. We have agreements in place with numerous countries for a variety of such cooperative activities. In addition, the Combined Space Operations initiative and Multi-National Force Operation OLYMPIC DEFENDER enable the protection of common U.S. and allied interests in space.
The Department also has agreements with numerous countries for missile defense.
We are working with allies and partners across the world to transform disparate IAMD systems into cohesive regional defense networks.
The final pillar of the NDS is supercharging our Defense Industrial Base. To maintain our military edge, we must move faster than our rivals. This requires cutting bureaucratic red tape, empowering program leaders to take risks, and embracing a "commercial-first" mindset where appropriate to leverage private sector innovation. We must accelerate the development, acquisition, and fielding of critical space and missile defense capabilities at scale.
Our investments in space and missile defense are aligned with these strategic priorities. These investment priorities are focused on resilient satellite control, advanced tracking of aerial threats, secure data networks, space domain surveillance, and modernizing command and control to operate at the speed of conflict. We are also acquiring the necessary warfighting capabilities to protect and defend U.S. interests in space.
We are building GDA to provide a comprehensive, layered, and defense-indepth of the United States. Key investments include the Next Generation Interceptor; the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor; the Glide Phase Interceptor, and Space-Based Interceptors.
We are also expanding and enhancing regional missile defenses by delivering additional THAAD batteries, significantly increasing production of PAC-3 interceptors, expanding inventories of other key interceptors, and continuing development of a comprehensive IAMD system for Guam.
In closing, the Department of War is posturing its space and missile defense forces to achieve peace through strength. With the continued support of Congress, we will field the modern space and missile defense forces required to deter aggression, defend the Homeland, and protect U.S. national interests.
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Original text here: https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/aswsp_hon_berkowitz_march_17_hasc_posture_statement.pdf
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Zimmerman Testifies Before House Armed Services Committee
WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Daniel Zimmerman, assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs, from a March 18, 2025, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in Europe":* * *
Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you on our defense policy in the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) area of responsibility in my capacity as Assistant Secretary of War for International Security Affairs. It is ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Daniel Zimmerman, assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs, from a March 18, 2025, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in Europe": * * * Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you on our defense policy in the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) area of responsibility in my capacity as Assistant Secretary of War for International Security Affairs. It ismy honor to appear alongside USEUCOM Commander, General Alexus Grynkewich.
In today's testimony, I will highlight how our approach to Europe nests within the recently released National Defense Strategy, particularly in the areas of homeland defense, burden sharing with our European allies and partners, and super-charging the defense industrial base.
Our Approach to Europe
In line with the National Security Strategy, the Department's National Defense Strategy calls for a courageous realignment of our resources and priorities in line with the interests of everyday citizens of the United States of America - an "America First" approach. The world that shaped our habits, assumptions, and force posture in Europe post-Cold War no longer exists. The National Defense Strategy is based on a clear-eyed, flexible realism - a pragmatic approach focused on peace through strength that we have been advancing since President Trump took office last January, in four succinct lines of effort. First, we will defend the U.S. Homeland in line with our national interest. Second, we will deter China in the Indo-Pacific; third, we must increase burden-sharing with our allies and partners. Finally, to achieve all of this, we must supercharge the U.S. defense industrial base, which will operationalize that burden-sharing and help field combat-credible capabilities on both sides of the Atlantic. My testimony will focus on our commonsense approach in Europe across the first, third, and fourth NDS lines of effort.
Relevant to today's hearing, the National Defense Strategy recognizes the threats that Russia poses to the U.S. Homeland and, most acutely, to eastern Europe. Under Secretary of War for Policy, Elbridge Colby, underscored to NATO Defense Ministers on February 12, 2026, that we must be prepared for the possibility of potential opponents across theaters to act simultaneously.
We do not consider this inevitable, but as a Department, we must plan for the worst-case scenario, and ensure our allies and partners are planning for this as well. Operation EPIC FURY in Iran has underscored the importance of prudent planning across adjacent theaters, and only reinforces the need for a reformed NATO, a defensive military alliance focused on the European continent, what Under Secretary Colby has called "NATO 3.0."
This requires being honest and clear with our allies and partners that they must do more, rapidly, not as a favor to us, but for their own interests. These realities compel us to think clearly, soberly, and realistically about how we defend ourselves--and how we do so together sustainably, sensibly, and credibly.
The core strategic reality is this: while the United States remains committed to NATO - via our extended nuclear deterrent and other, critical, but more limited, operational support - Europe must step up to assume primary responsibility for its own conventional defense.
We have worked hard to communicate this necessity to our allies. We have and we will continue to engage in an open, forthright dialogue as befits allies.
To underscore a simple but essential point: the Department remains committed to NATO and our common defense. We hold this commitment with the conviction that fundamental to having a strong alliance is that all members do their part. Experience teaches us that alliances are strongest when responsibilities are appropriately shared among allies to reflect comparative advantages in underlying capabilities and interests. This is not an abandonment of NATO, nor a strategy of isolation. Rather, we are looking to our allies and partners to stand on equal footing in true partnership, rather than enabling dependence. We fundamentally believe this is in both their interest and ours - because when a burden-sharing balance among allies becomes misaligned or spread too thin, the alliance will weaken, not from ill will, but from structural strain.
Defend the U.S. Homeland--Mitigating Threats from the USEUCOM Area of Responsibility
The United States must and will prioritize those theaters and challenges with the greatest consequence for American interests and where only American power can play a decisive role-- most notably, in the Western Hemisphere as we defend the U.S. Homeland. By leveraging our respective strengths and specializing in areas we are best positioned to act, our alliances will be more balanced, effective, and resilient.
Arctic Security & Greenland
The Department is addressing the President's top priority of defense of the homeland. In the past year, the President approved a change to move Greenland from the USEUCOM area of responsibility to U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), in recognition of the importance of Greenland to U.S. homeland defense. Greenland is strategically significant for the security and defense of the U.S. Homeland and interests in the Arctic region. However, there remains tremendous equity for USEUCOM around Greenland and the broader Arctic region. Greenland constitutes one border of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom, or GIUK, Gap, which is a strategic corridor for Russia's naval operations between the Arctic and North Atlantic. As we work to ensure guaranteed U.S. military and commercial access to Greenland, the Department fully supports the diplomatic trilateral talks led by Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio with Greenland and Denmark. Separately, General Grynkewich, in his Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) capacity, recently initiated an enhanced Vigilance Activity (eVA) Arctic Sentry to enhance broader Arctic security efforts and align NATO and select allied national activities in the Arctic.
Russia
Russia still retains deep reservoirs of military and industrial power, and the national resolve required to sustain a protracted war, as the ongoing war in Ukraine shows. Moreover, Russia possesses the world's largest nuclear arsenal and continues to modify and diversify its nuclear forces and equipment. Russia invests in undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the U.S. Homeland, or which could be used in a coercive manner short of nuclear confrontation. The Department assesses that Russia will remain a persistent but manageable threat to NATO's eastern front for the foreseeable future. Conventional, nuclear and cyber capabilities and threats are understood through our defense intelligence and national intelligence enterprises, which are in turn enabled by the use of FISA Section 702, an invaluable source of intelligence collection.
The threat is real, complex, and growing. Adversaries are actively developing and fielding a new generation of advanced weapons. We face a spectrum of dangers, from sophisticated ballistic and hypersonic missiles to advanced cruise missiles to other aerial systems, that put the U.S. Homeland at risk, which underscores the President's push for a Golden Dome for America to protect the American people from such threats.
Given these realities, the National Defense Strategy notes we will ensure U.S. forces are prepared to defend against these threats to the U.S. Homeland, while also making clear that our European allies and partners will take primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe against a potential Russian threat. European NATO dwarfs Russia in economic scale, population, and potential military power. However, we cannot take our deterrence posture for granted; allies must move urgently to meet NATO defense spending commitments and capability targets.
The Department is open to fostering mil-mil dialogues with the Russian Federation, including in support of State Department-led talks in the wake of New START's expiration and the high-level mil-mil dialogue announced last month by General Grynkewich. In any case, our goal will remain ensuring that America's interests are upheld and defended, especially as we consider the future of nuclear arms control. Additionally, the United States remains interested in strategic stability and maintaining channels for military deconfliction and de-escalation with Russia, which have for decades reduced the chances of miscalculation between our militaries.
Increase Burden-Sharing
America's alliances have an essential role to play, and our strategy is one of focused, realistic, interests-based engagement. As such, a burden-sharing approach with NATO allies and nonNATO partners is essential, especially to address persistent threats to our allies and partners but are less severe for the United States.
NATO
The Department is committed to NATO. We believe that the best way to meet that commitment is an approach that validates and returns to NATO's founding purpose.
NATO was established to provide strong, credible, and equitable defense of the North Atlantic area. Since its founding, the alliance has adapted to meet the security challenges it faced. NATO 1.0, from 1949 through 1989, was focused on deterring an attack on NATO territory and was fully ready to fight and win if deterrence failed. This era was defined by a hard-nosed, realistic, clear-eyed approach to deterrence and defense in which all allies were expected to pull their weight. This model deterred the USSR in part by persuading the Soviet Union that military action was not a viable strategy.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and dismantlement of the USSR and Iron Curtain, NATO transformed into "NATO 2.0". This version of the Alliance was typified by a shift of effort and focus away from Europe's defense toward "out of area" operations and substantial disarmament on the continent, as well as a change in frame from the hard-nosed, flexible realism of the Cold War "NATO 1.0" to much more of a liberal internationalist mindset of the "rules-based international order." It is clear, however, that this approach of "NATO 2.0" is no longer fit for purpose, neither for the United States nor our allies. The times are changing, and we must adapt - in terms of how we think about the world and the Alliance's role in it and how we posture to meet it in practical terms.
The Department is calling for NATO 3.0: something closer to NATO 1.0 than the approach of the last thirty-five years. We want the Alliance refocused on its original purpose as a defensive military alliance focused on the European continent. "NATO 3.0" will require much greater effort by our allies to step up and assume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe. To President Trump's great credit and to the great credit of the allies, the alliance took historic, momentous steps to chart a new course in line with this needed shift, most notably committing to 5% defense spending, with 3.5% on core defense - the new global standard for our allies around the world. We are beginning to see a promising start in meeting 5% spending, and reforming procurement and readiness systems that have long been neglected. The past year was a year to reframe and reorient - the turning of the tide has happened. We must now, in collaboration with our allies, deliver balanced, credible, and durable results.
We will continue to provide critical capabilities that underpin NATO's deterrence. We will continue to train, exercise, and plan alongside our allies. We are committed to Article 5. Yet we believe Europe can and must do more. Increasingly, Europe believes this too. We will all be stronger and safer as a result.
Last year, I briefed both professional staff members and members from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on the Department's decision to redeploy a brigade combat team (BCT) stationed in Romania. Following consultations with General Grynkewich and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary Hegseth opted not to backfill this BCT, which had been forward deployed to Europe since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I want to highlight this decision was rooted in the progress our European NATO allies have made to improve their military capabilities and take on greater responsibility for their defense. Since 2022, our allies have taken on increased responsibility on NATO's eastern flank, including through the NATO Forward Land Forces battlegroups stationed in these countries. These increased capabilities enabled the United States to graduate its BCT, not as a disengagement from Europe, but as a demonstration of allied progress.
Ultimately, this progress and Europe's resources must result in ready forces and capabilities, so the United States is seeking allied progress on the issue of military readiness. Readiness is a culture, involving personnel, doctrine, training, logistics, budgeting, and several other things and we will be encouraging a holistic look at readiness within allied militaries, to ensure forces are effectively ready to fight and defend European NATO. Given Europe's wealth, industrial capacity and technological advances, and proximity to Russia, it stands to reason that Europe can and must field the preponderance of the conventional forces required to deter and, if necessary, defeat, aggression against Europe. In doing so, our allies can ensure NATO's ability to provide for the effective defense of the continent, even in a scenario of simultaneous contingencies worldwide.
As we work with NATO to accelerate the transition to a Europe-led NATO, we have pledged to be as transparent as possible in our approach, working through NATO processes wherever possible to meet the Secretary's commitment to "no surprises" to the allies. Through the use of these processes, we will continue to make clear our expectation that allies must do more, focusing on real war-fighting requirements.
In these ways, this approach will allow us - working closely with our allies - to ensure that NATO remains strong, relevant, sustainable, and positioned to succeed for decades to come.
"Model Allies"
Following The Hague NATO summit last year, some of our allies and partners have stepped up in a special way to meet the moment and set the example for others. These model allies are spending at levels that resource and prioritize their national defense and the defense of Europe.
Poland, for example, is a preeminent example of a model ally, spending 4.5% for 2025 and has pledged 5% for 2026. Others are increasingly stepping up. Germany, at our request but also in its own interest, has accelerated investments in its defense industrial base to become the powerhouse that drives Europe toward meeting its Article 3 obligations. Finland, after NATO accession in 2023, continually hones its capabilities through development of its air defenses and investment in whole of society military capabilities, representing a significant contribution to the alliance. These model allies are partners, not dependents, and the Department will prioritize cooperation, engagement, arms sales, defense industry collaboration, and intelligence sharing with those countries who share our sense of urgency to step up on defense.
We recognize threat perceptions can differ across the alliance depending on history, geography, and politics - we will work with countries where they are and encourage our allies and partners to focus on where their resolve is. Nevertheless, we will urge our allies toward progress on meeting spending commitments, delivering on NATO Capability Targets, enhancing their readiness, and increasing commitments to NATO missions and the NATO force model from all our allies - east and west, north and south, and new and old.
Ukraine
Turning to Ukraine, President Trump has stated, the war in Ukraine must come to an end. It is in the interest of the United States, Europe, and Ukraine to secure a lasting and durable peace. A durable, sustainable peace in Ukraine can only be achieved and maintained through strength: a strong Europe, and a strong Ukraine. As Ukraine defends its territory, it is important that allies act with urgency to provide the necessary resources for Ukraine's defense. While negotiations play out, the National Defense Strategy plainly underscores the need for Europe to take the lead in supporting Ukraine's defense, as well as the role it would have to sustain a future peace deal through reconstruction.
Credible deterrence and defense measures are essential prerequisites for any enduring settlement, but equally critical is ensuring that Ukraine's Armed Forces are sufficiently capable to serve as the foundation of deterrence. To that end, on July 14, 2025, President Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte publicly announced the United States would continue to provide critical materiel to Ukraine funded with financial contributions from NATO allies. This has culminated into the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative. The PURL initiative has become one of the alliance's most effective mechanisms for coordinating support and aligning allies behind a common understanding of validated Ukrainian battlefield requirements. Over 20 European nations have pledged more than $4.3 billion to this effort, and the United States will continue to encourage our allies and partners to sustain their contributions to the PURL initiative to meet Ukraine's validated battlefield requirements. The PURL initiative is enhancing Ukraine's defense capabilities, supporting peace efforts, and enabling Europe to take the lead in its own defense.
On negotiations, the Department continues to be regularly engaged with the U.S. negotiating team as it seeks to secure peace in Ukraine. Though negotiations are ongoing, the United States and Coalition of the Willing (CoTW) have made substantial progress on both security protocols and a post-conflict deterrence framework, including ceasefire monitoring.
At the same time, the Department is paying attention to lessons learned from the battlefield and delivering those insights to U.S. warfighters. This is especially true regarding the role of drones, along with the expertise and cutting-edge technology to deploy them. Beyond technology, the Department is changing its own ecosystem by incorporating adaptable, modular, and rapidimprovement processes to stay relevant in future fights in other theaters.
Other Non-NATO Partners
We also recognize that keeping our European allies laser-focused on strengthening our deterrence through burden-sharing means mitigating any new or resurgent conflicts on the continent that could distract from our core NATO 3.0 priority. Toward that end, we remain engaged, with European allies and partners increasingly in the lead, in preventing any resurgence of conflict in the Western Balkans.
Last year, President Trump facilitated a historic agreement to cease hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, creating new opportunities to collaborate with our two partners in the Caucasus.
Our priority remains focused on resolving the conflict, finalizing the peace process, and ensuring that enduring peace is maintained between the two nations.
We are collaborating with both nations to expand cooperation with their respective State Partners--the Kansas and Oklahoma National Guards. Our efforts include modernizing our partners' armed forces through foreign military sales and enhancing their exercise programs to improve interoperability with U.S. Armed Forces.
Supercharging the Defense Industrial Base on Both Sides of the Atlantic
Expanding transatlantic defense industrial capacity is the most important step NATO allies can take to operationalize the 5% defense spending commitment and invest in real, combat-credible forces and capabilities. We need to get the defense industrial base healthy on both sides of the Atlantic.
Per our National Defense Strategy, the Department will partner broadly to restore our industrial capacity and reinvigorate our nation's ingenuity, because our fighting force's readiness, lethality, and military options depend on it. This effort is a "call to industrial arms," and putting American industry on a wartime footing, a national mobilization rivaling those that powered America--and our allies--to victory in the World Wars and the Cold War.
We issue the same call to our European allies and partners to make a parallel effort. This will require a commonsense, non-exclusionary approach to defense industrial base expansion that focuses on building capacity, aggregating demand to sustain that additional capacity, expanding multinational procurement, utilizing NATO standardization agreements, and addressing supply chain vulnerabilities.
We recognize this approach should allow Europeans the flexibility to invest in their industries and build comparative advantages, while still enabling U.S. firms to compete. Protectionist measures that exclude U.S. industry and isolate our respective industrial bases only serve to deprive the alliance from meetings its goals without delay. The need for rapidly increased defense industrial production is too acute for us to toy with exclusions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Department of War is clear-eyed about the threats associated with the USEUCOM AOR and, as always, will address them from a peace-through-strength position that prioritizes the interests and security of American citizens. We are committed to NATO and seek to strengthen it even further - in a way that is balanced, credible, sustainable, and positions the alliance to succeed for the long term. I am honored to be working with this committee, General Grynkewich and his team at U.S. European Command, and our valued allies and partners on this inspired vision from the President.
Thank you.
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Original text here: https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/eucom_posture_hearing_testimony_as_amended_v2.pdf
Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense & Americas Security Affairs Humire Testifies Before House Armed Services Committee
WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Joseph Humire, performing the duties of the assistant secretary of War for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture & National Security Challenges in the Western Hemisphere":* * *
Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs (HD&ASA).
I ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, March 25 -- The House Armed Services Committee released the following testimony by Joseph Humire, performing the duties of the assistant secretary of War for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, from a March 17, 2026, hearing entitled "U.S. Military Posture & National Security Challenges in the Western Hemisphere": * * * Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs (HD&ASA). Iam here to outline the Department of War's (DoW) strategy and policy for defending the U.S. Homeland and securing American interests in the Western Hemisphere. Our efforts are a cornerstone of President Trump's 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS), which mandates that we prioritize the nation's security by putting the American homeland and hemisphere first.
The 2026 NDS structurally redefines U.S. defense priorities around the security of American territory and people. To that end, the Department has made several major achievements over the last year in support of this objective, including: sealing the U.S. southern border to stop illegal mass migration and drug trafficking; repelling drone incursions on the homeland; deterring designated terrorist organizations and cartels from trafficking deadly drugs into America through the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific; and advancing U.S. interests in key hemispheric terrain, to include the Panama Canal, the Gulf of America, and the Arctic. These achievements are detailed in this written statement, and I look forward to discussing DoW's vital mission with the Committee.
Sealing the U.S. Southern Border
The United States faces a persistent and complex threat along its southern border, characterized by the unprecedented flow of unlawful migration, sophisticated narcotics and human trafficking operations, and the corrosive influence of transnational criminal organizations. These activities not only undermine U.S. sovereignty but also fuel a humanitarian crisis and risks public safety while also straining national resources and directly endangering American communities. As directed in the 2026 NDS the Department has prioritized sealing U.S. borders and repel any form of invasion.
Transnational criminal organizations exploit specific, high-traffic corridors along the border where rugged terrain and vast distances stretch civilian law enforcement assets to their limits. To secure our borders, DoW has established targeted and effective tools for securing the most vulnerable sectors of our border, permitting our troops to apprehend trespassers on our military installations. These trespassers are then handed over to appropriate law enforcement personnel for potential prosecution, adding another layer of consequence for those who violate our borders.
The Department maintains Service members postured along the southern land border to provide critical support, guard static observation posts, conduct ground and aerial patrols, and perform real-time detection and monitoring analysis. This presence furthers DoW's mission to ensure territorial integrity, while also enabling our partners at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to interdict threats to border security more effectively. In addition, the Department supports DHS operations using DoW's unique surveillance and patrol capabilities to ensure DHS maintains full awareness of activities along the border. Such support has helped DHS disrupt established trafficking routes and funnel illicit activity into areas where law enforcement can more effectively interdict it.
January 2026 marked the fourth consecutive month of decline in Border Patrol apprehensions, with figures 93% below the historic average. Critically, this also marks the ninth straight month with zero administrative releases of apprehended individuals into the country's interior.
Furthermore, the DoW is actively hardening our physical defenses through the construction of 15 miles of border barrier at the Barry M. Goldwater Range in Arizona.
However, it is not just about DoW personnel patrolling the borders. DoW modernizing the border security mission rapidly. DoW is investing more than $150M in affordable and effective test beds to evaluate means to transform how we secure the border. DoW is investing in several cutting-edge technologies to extend and augment the reach of manned waterborne patrols, counter-unmanned aerial systems to deny cartels the ability to threaten Service members on patrol, and airborne platforms to understand cartel and illegal alien habits to increase the likelihood of detection. Each of these missions offers powerful lessons for DoW in other theaters.
Sealing the U.S. southwest border is a critical mission to defend the U.S. Homeland. As President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated, "border security is national security." Under their leadership, the Department leaned into our mission and, in concert with our federal law enforcement partners, have achieved unprecedented success. As the U.S. southern land border has become increasingly secure, the Department added an additional focus on the maritime environment and the flow of illicit narcotics from South America to the United States through the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America.
Making America's Cities Safer Through Support to Law Enforcement
The Department's success in securing the U.S. Homeland by minimizing threats originating in the Western Hemisphere is coupled with significant reduction in violent crime in America's major cities by supporting federal law enforcement partners.
Violent crime and the proliferation of organized criminal networks in major U.S. cities represent a significant threat to domestic stability and the safety of the American people. Local and federal law enforcement agencies often lack the personnel and logistical capacity to effectively track and apprehend the sheer volume of violent fugitives, gang members, and arms traffickers operating within their jurisdictions. This resource gap allows criminal elements to flourish, eroding public safety.
The 2026 NDS emphasizes the imperative to build a resilient and ready Joint Force capable of responding to crises both abroad and at home. The National Guard is the cornerstone of domestic operations, providing a flexible and scalable force that can surge to support civilian authorities. By ensuring National Guard capabilities are available when needed to support law enforcement, the Department provides an enduring advantage that underwrites domestic security and reinforces stability.
The DoW's model is one of support, not supplementation. Local and federal law enforcement partners handle all traditional policing functions: they conduct the patrols, they make the arrests, and they engage with the community. DoW and National Guard forces enable law enforcement to do their job by establishing joint command posts and providing critical analytical, logistical, and personnel support. The success of this force-multiplier effect is quantifiable: the deployments of National Guard members and U.S. Marshals to major U.S. cities in support of law enforcement has resulted in the arrest of 37 known gang members and more than 6,150 violent fugitives, including 16 for homicide, 958 for narcotics, 461 for weapons offenses, and 28 for sex offenses, and the seizure of 600 illegally possessed firearms. Credit for the success of this model is also due to U.S. Northern Command, which has adapted to this mission in a professional and efficient manner. The ability to rapidly mobilize and integrate these highly disciplined units provides a critical backstop for our law enforcement partners that cannot be replicated.
Degrading Narco-terrorists through Decisive Action
Building on successes on the U.S. southern border, Secretary Hegseth announced Operation Southern Spear (OSS) in November 2025 as a key DoW effort to defend the homeland from within the Western Hemisphere. The primary focus of OSS is to restore deterrence against the narco-terrorist cartels that profit from poisoning Americans and destabilizing our neighbors.
OSS's maritime interdiction operations, conducted with interagency partners, send a clear message that the Western Hemisphere is not a permissive environment for illicit actors. This posture was solidified in September 2025 when, at the President's direction, the Department conducted its first lethal kinetic strike in international waters against a narco-trafficking vessel tied to the Designated Terrorist Organization, Tren de Aragua. As of March 10, 2026, the Department has carried out 45 total kinetic strikes, which killed 157 members or affiliates of those narco-terrorist organizations, destroying 47 narco-trafficking vessels and placing all narcoterrorists in the Western Hemisphere on notice.
The effects have been significant and profound. Since the first September strike, there has been a 20% reduction of movements of drug vessels in the Caribbean and an additional 25% reduction in the Eastern Pacific. These two maritime corridors are the origin source for follow-on flow into the U.S. Homeland. In January 2026, DoW went 23 days without a significant strike against a narco-trafficking vessel in the Eastern Caribbean, primarily because movements shifted eastward through Venezuela and Guyana into Suriname. The balloon effect has raised the costs to narco-terrorist organizations in the Eastern Caribbean, in both blood and treasure.
The success of OSS combined with our National Defense Areas on the U.S. southern border has diminished the flow of fentanyl--a weapon of mass destruction--down 56% since the same period last year. As early as September 2025, the Administration had also achieved a nearly 20% drop in deadly drug overdoses in the United States compared to the previous year. We have successfully deterred cartels from exploiting key maritime routes, leading to a more than 20 percent reduction in cocaine flow. This proactive and aggressive stance under OSS has degraded adversary capabilities and created new opportunities for decisive action by partner nations throughout the Americas.
Bolstering Partnerships to Secure the Americas
In early March 2026, Secretary Hegseth hosted the inaugural Americas Counter-Cartel Conference at U.S. Southern Command Headquarters in Doral, Florida. During and after the conference, 17 partner-nations from the Western Hemisphere signed a Joint Security Declaration signaling their intent to combine efforts to deter, degrade, and destroy cartel operations while strengthening border security. Select partner nations pledged to enhance their defense posture toward partner-led, deterrence-focused bi-lateral and multi-lateral operations against cartels and terrorist organizations in the region. This commitment marks the establishment of a first-of-itskind hemispheric counter-cartel coalition and will increase partner burden sharing in this hemisphere.
President Trump formally announced this coalition at the Shield of the Americas Summit on March 7, 2026, launching the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition, a combined military and law enforcement approach to deter, degrade, and ultimately destroy narcotics and terrorist-related threats in the hemisphere, including those that threaten the U.S. Homeland. On March 3, the DoW supported, at the request of Ecuador, bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border. The joint effort, named "Operation Total Extermination," is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S., setting the pace for regional, deterrence-focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
As these conferences and Ecuador's leadership in land-based strikes against cartels demonstrate, our partners across Latin America are inspired by the bold and decisive action by President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, who have renewed use of military and law enforcement action to complement interdiction as a prominent counternarcotics tool. This new focus translates into strengthening security cooperation partnerships, increasing engagements and intelligence sharing, and enhancing maritime and border security, all of which deepen defense ties and increase U.S. influence throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Operation Absolute Resolve: Resetting the Region
The United States' strategic pressure, enhanced access and placement in the Caribbean, and intelligence dominance established under OSS paved the way for the January 2026 Operation Absolute Resolve (OAR) in Venezuela. In support of the Department of Justice's indictment of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, the DoW conducted OAR to support the Department of Justice secure the arrest of these indicted individuals and fugitives of U.S. law. A culmination of months of planning, OAR was a discreet and precise law enforcement support operation conducted by the DoW during the darkest hours on January 3, 2026, with significant aerial superiority and support from the intelligence community. Thanks to our brave warfighters and precise military planners of the Joint Force, OAR was a resounding success that sent a strong signal of America's military superiority around the world.
Following OAR, DoW is supporting the State Department-led three phase approach in Venezuela: Stabilization, Recovery, and Transition, with a DoW focus on the first phase.
Stabilization is centered on not allowing an economic or societal collapse of Venezuela, while ensuring there are still pressure mechanisms in place and providing augmented security to the Department of State as it considers how best to resurrect the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. DoW supports the U.S. Government policy on Venezuela to leverage the private sector, which minimizes risk to U.S. forces, while DoW is establishing persistent military-to-military engagement to improve security and stability.
OAR's success has had multiple reciprocal effects in the region, including U.S. high-level talks with Cuba, gaining compliance from Nicaragua, and shifting the Caribbean in a favorable direction toward U.S. interests.
Advancing Enduring Presence on the Panama Canal
President Trump has rightly identified the United States' immediate security perimeter and a new strategic map, from Greenland to the Gulf of America to the Panama Canal and surrounding countries. Our hemispheric approach will reflect that geographic prioritization to secure key hemispheric terrain and infrastructure, which are critical for the security, sovereignty, and prosperity of all Americans.
As outlined in the 2025 NSS and 2026 NDS, ensuring unrestricted U.S. access to the Panama Canal is vital for protecting the homeland against actors who seek to do us harm. Previous administrations neglected this critical chokepoint, allowing it to become a playground for U.S. competitors, particularly China. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have been clear-eyed in the U.S. government's pursuit of curbing Chinese influence from the Canal Area.
Enabled by a Memorandum of Understanding concerning Cooperative Security Activities in Panama, signed by Secretary Hegseth last April, the United States is working by, with, and through the Government of Panama to enhance U.S. military presence and harden the Canal's security against the most likely threats. On the Pacific side, the Department has established a Joint Security Cooperation Group (JSCG) to improve interoperability with Panamanian security forces to combat shared threats. On the Atlantic side, the Department established a Jungle Operations Training Course (JOTC), bringing together U.S. Service members and Panamanian forces to train side-by-side in jungle environments. These initiatives, like others in Panama, aim to accomplish one goal: to fully secure the Canal and guarantee U.S. access to this strategic chokepoint and vital national asset.
In addition to advancing these security initiatives, Secretary Hegseth secured priority access to the Panama Canal through the Joint Declaration Concerning Security and Operation of the Panama Canal, which provides cost-neutral transit for U.S. war and auxiliary vessels.
Over the last year, Panama has withdrawn from China's Belt and Road Initiative, diversified away from Chinese contractors, and expelled the China-based CK Hutchison from the ports at the Pacific and Atlantic openings of the Canal. Today, U.S. subsidiaries operate these ports, representing a major victory for unfettered U.S. commerce and a strategic win for the United States.
Hardening U.S. Homeland Defense Through the Arctic
In the same way the Panama Canal enables U.S. power projection and Naval force flows to the Indo-Pacific region, use of Greenland and Alaska are essential for U.S. power projection through the Arctic. U.S. adversaries are increasingly active in the Arctic to signal their ability to hold the U.S. Homeland at risk. Receding ice and technological innovations are enabling greater maritime access to the region, which provides increasing commercial opportunities but also poses significant risks, threats, and challenges to U.S. trade and national security interests.
Alaska makes the United States an Arctic nation. The 2026 NDS directs the Department to ensure access to key terrain, and Alaska is critical to homeland defense. Additionally, the state is vital for ensuring the flow of forces to the Indo-Pacific and other regions in times of crisis and conflict. The Department has placed and invested considerable resources in Alaska, including infrastructure, fifth-generation fighters, and the 11th Airborne "Arctic Angels." Going forward, DoW will continue to ensure we have the force posture, infrastructure, and readiness in Alaska to carry out NDS objectives.
Similarly, Greenland is key terrain for the defense of our nation and hemisphere. The island's location on the eastern side of the North American continent is strategically vital for air defense, strategic waterways, domain awareness, and power projection, particularly as it hosts our Pituffik Space Base. Overall, Greenland's strategic geography is critical to fulfilling the homeland missile defense mission and securing northern approaches to the United States. DoW is working with the Kingdom of Denmark and the other NATO Allies to ensure that our interests are protected and that they step up in terms of defense contributions.
Aerospace Missile Defense and Counter-UAS Advancements
Potential U.S. adversaries are pouring resources into rapidly advancing their long-range military capabilities and delivery platforms. Simultaneously, they increase their own air and missile defense capabilities. Their intent is clear, to hold the U.S. Homeland increasingly at risk while advancing their own security agenda at the expense of American interests.
Aerospace and maritime early warning and control against all manner of threats remain critical elements of safeguarding the homeland. The first critical element of safeguarding the American people is the ability to detect threats by land, sea, and air from traditional and emerging approaches. In this vein, NORAD remains a critical facet of North American defense. DoW must continue driving modernization of the assets tasked with the defense of our skies.
Relatedly, the 2026 NDS emphasizes that "the Department will prioritize efforts to develop President Trump's Golden Dome for America, with a specific focus on options to costeffectively defeat large missile barrages and other advanced aerial attacks." DoW is moving swiftly to bolster our missile defenses and ensure the safety and security of the American people from missile threats. The Department continues to refine the array of sensors, command and control systems, and effectors that we will deploy as key elements of Golden Dome for America.
Missile defense is a necessary component of deterrence as it complicates our adversaries' attack planning by increasing uncertainty as to whether a missile attack will achieve the intended effects. Effective, layered and defense-in-depth missile defenses complement the Joint Force by maintaining the burden of escalation on our adversaries so that if deterrence fails, the Joint Force can sufficiently safeguard the American people while providing leadership time and capability to respond appropriately.
DoW is acting decisively, as the 2026 NDS states, "defend our nation's skies through a renewed focus on countering unmanned aerial threats." We have repeatedly seen how these systems threaten our security and degrade the safety of the American people. As these technologies proliferate among foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations that attempt to bring illicit material into the Homeland, the DoW continues to act decisively to counter this threat. In response to the Administration's actions to secure our land borders, unmanned aerial systems have increasingly become a critical vector for these organizations to bring illicit goods across our borders. Furthermore, the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the Russia-Ukraine conflict demonstrates how UAS have revolutionized the modern battlefield. We can ill afford to leave ourselves vulnerable to something like Operation SpiderWeb occurring on American Soil.
As a result, the Department has driven significant investments in capabilities and systems to defend against unmanned aerial threats, especially along the Southern land border. The Department has also implemented policy and process changes to make full use of the authorities we have. The Secretary is prioritizing counter-UAS (C-UAS), particularly in the U.S. homeland.
Mid-last year, we streamlined the process for obtaining the coordination required under section 130i of title 10 of the U.S. Code ("section 130i"), reducing the administrative burden to the Department by over 80%. Recently, the Department consolidated and updated guidance for CUAS detection and mitigation in the Homeland. The Department is actively implementing this guidance to ensure the Department, and most importantly commanders, understand their authority and ability to act.
DoW has taken steps to extend section 130i coverage to the NDAs along the southern border, and we have extended coverage to cover nearly 100 additional critical sites across the U.S. homeland in just the last year. We have established a first of its kind C-UAS Joint Task Force in JIATF-401 and are also implementing the designation of USNORTHCOM and USINDOPACOM as the C-UAS operations synchronizers in the Homeland. In parallel, the Department is leveraging all agencies and agile acquisition authorities at our disposal, to include efforts from the Defense Innovation Unit, to develop and deploy effective, low-cost C-UAS systems. Following implementation and education, we still face capability gaps. While we have dedicated more money than ever before to C-UAS critical site defense, we need Congress' continued support to ensure the development and deployment of capable systems across the U.S. homeland and to meet the policy goals of this Administration.
President Trump and Secretary Hegseth understand and recognize today's threats and the need to protect the Homeland while balancing the need to defend our ability to project forward. Golden Dome for America is a next-generation defensive shield that will afford America with that protection. Its purpose, paired with Departments historical investments in C-UAS capabilities and NORAD's modernization efforts, will deter attacks and defend the American people against the full spectrum of modern missile threats, to include aerial systems. As we move with urgency to build this, the threat demands we move quicker.
Improving Burden Sharing Throughout the Americas
As touched upon earlier regarding partner-led efforts to counter cartels in Latin America, effective burden-sharing is a crucial element of the NDS for safeguarding the U.S. Homeland and the Western Hemisphere. When allies and partners invest properly in their own defense, they create a strong defensive perimeter in key geographic regions. This forward-deployed strength deters potential adversaries from initiating conflicts that could otherwise escalate and threaten the United States directly. By having capable partners manage regional security, the United States can better preserve its own military resources and strategic focus for the direct defense of the Homeland and U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere, our neighborhood.
Canada and NATO: The United States has achieved significant success in encouraging Canada to shoulder its fair share as a security provider in the Western Hemisphere and Euro-Atlantic theaters. In June 2025, Canada announced that it would reach 2% of GDP in defense spending that fiscal year, a dramatic shift after lagging behind most NATO allies. Canada subsequently committed to reach President Trump's proposal at the NATO Hague summit to spend 5% of GDP on defense and security, including 3.5% on core defense spending. If fulfilled, these pledges will begin to address decades of underinvestment and create new opportunities for defense partnership in the alliance on NORAD modernization and Arctic security.
Argentina: Our success in fostering security partnerships extends far beyond the Arctic, reaching deep into South America as well. For instance, Argentina's acquisition of 24 F-16 aircraft, with Department of State approval of a third party-transfer from Denmark, not only signals Buenos Aires's close defense policy alignment with the United States but enhances burden-sharing in the defense of the Southern Cone. By generating greater interoperability with U.S. forces and enhancing its own training, maintenance, and doctrine, Argentina can improve its air domain awareness and border security. We have also been working closely with Peru on its potential acquisition of F-16s, which would replace its aged fixed-wing fleet and demonstrate its strong commitment to partnering with the United States.
Increasing Regional Access in Latin America and the Caribbean: Underpinning these strategic partnerships is a broader effort to formalize and expand our security cooperation with our partners throughout the Western Hemisphere. Since November 2025, the Department of War has obtained bilateral commitments from Argentina, the Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago expressing our shared intent to cooperate regarding border security, countering narco-terrorism, and securing critical infrastructure and assets from malign control. Consistent with these efforts, the Department signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Paraguay in December 2025 (that's recently been ratified by Paraguay's Congress), and DoW is actively engaging these and other regional partners to identify opportunities to expand our access, basing, and overflight.
Conclusion
From the Arctic to the southernmost tip of the Americas, the defense of the U.S. Homeland and the security of the Western Hemisphere are one and the same. In every domain, the DoW stands ready to ensure our nation is defended, operating on the principle of peace through strength. Our actions demonstrate a clear resolve to protect American interests and enforce the modern application of the NSS "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine.
Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished Members of the Committee:
Thank you for your continued support and leadership and for the opportunity to testify before you today.
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Original text here: https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ptdo_asw_hdasa_writen_posture_statement.pdf