This week, Congress took a major step toward long-overdue transparency and justice with the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, bipartisan legislation requiring the full release of all Department of Justice records related to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their network. After passing the House with overwhelming support, the bill cleared the Senate and was signed into law by the President.

On the House floor, I urged my colleagues to end years of delay and put survivors first. I emphasized that this is not a partisan fight; it is a matter of basic justice, and I made clear that any attempt to offer clemency or a pardon to Ghislaine Maxwell would undermine accountability and betray the people who were harmed. Survivors have waited far too long for the truth to come out.

After voting for the bill, I spoke with CNN about the importance of releasing the files in full and without loopholes. I raised concerns about efforts to weaken the legislation through expanded redaction authority and stressed that transparency must apply equally, no matter who is implicated. Survivors’ powerful testimony in recent weeks strengthened bipartisan resolve to secure this result, and now the law requires the Department of Justice to begin releasing documents on a rolling basis.

Last week, I led six Illinois lawmakers in calling on EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to immediately release more than $3 billion in federal funding for lead service line replacement that the Trump administration is withholding from multiple states, including Illinois. Our state has over 600,000 lead service lines, among the most in the nation, yet because this funding has been frozen for months, Illinois has only been able to replace about 14,000 lines in five years. At this pace, we would not complete replacements until 2076, long after the federally mandated deadline.

Lead exposure is a serious public-health threat, with more than 500,000 children under the age of five across the country already have unsafe lead levels in their blood, and the CDC has been clear that there is no safe level of exposure. Withholding already-approved funds puts families at risk and delays urgent work meant to protect children and communities. It is past time for the administration to stop playing political games and release this funding.

On Friday, I joined local mayors and union leaders in Elmwood Park to announce my SAFE Taps Act (Safe and Fair Elimination of Taps with Lead Service Lines Act), legislation that would help communities accelerate lead pipe replacement by providing federal EPA grants, not loans, to replace dangerous lead and galvanized service lines and non-lead-free mains. The bill also supports planning, design, service line inventories, and full site restoration, ensuring cities and towns have the resources they need to remove toxic infrastructure and deliver safe drinking water for every family.

You can read more about my letter to the EPA in WBEZ here and watch WCIA’s segment here. You can also watch WGN’s segment on my SAFE Taps Act here.

This week, as Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), I helped lead a bipartisan hearing on how the CCP manipulates global mineral prices to control the supply chains that American families, businesses, and national security depend on. Critical minerals power smartphones, appliances, electric vehicles, and key defense systems like the F-35 and Tomahawk, giving Beijing enormous leverage when it dominates production.

In my opening statement, I outlined the CCP’s strategy: overproduce, dump product below cost, and then weaponize the monopoly once U.S. competitors collapse. Our bipartisan investigation shows this playbook at work in rare earth elements and permanent magnets, where China has repeatedly forced prices below its own cost of production to drive out American firms.

During questioning, I highlighted how this tactic echoes the 1973 oil embargo, using essential resources as geopolitical pressure. We also examined promising solutions, including new U.S. mining capacity and rare earth element-free magnet technologies developed in American labs that could help reduce our dependence on China. You can watch my discussion with the witnesses here.

Critical minerals are essential to affordable consumer goods, strong manufacturing, and national security. I will continue working across the aisle to rebuild secure, American-led supply chains so the CCP can never use these materials against our economy or our country.

The best way to stay up to date on these issues beyond our newsletter is through my social media accounts, which I update multiple times each day. You can follow my Twitter (X) here, my Facebook page here, my Instagram here, my Threads here, and my Bluesky here. Thank you for staying engaged in our community.