Dear Friends,

This marks our last scheduled week of work in 2025 with only 5 days left to extend enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act before they expire and cause insurance premiums to skyrocket for millions of Americans.

I’ve spent the past few months raising awareness and sounding the alarm on the consequences of letting the tax credits expire. For the past two weeks, I continued drawing attention to people who could be priced out of their health insurance as I anchored the Congressional Black Caucus Special Order Hour.

I joined the March of Dimes’ Congressional briefing on their 2025 Report Card on the state of infant and maternal health to highlight how the premium tax credit cliff will exacerbate the United States’ already abysmal D+ grade. And I commemorated Human Rights Day by joining Rep. Nikema Williams (GA-05) to introduce a resolution declaring abortion as a human right.

Meanwhile, rather than focusing on addressing the looming health care crisis and lowering costs for the American people, House Republicans spent the last two weeks working to increase energy costs, imposing unfunded mandates on state and local permitting officials, and meaningless burdens on a woefully understaffed Department of Energy, and adopt solutions in search of a problem regarding communist Chinese influence in our public schools.

Keep reading for what you may have missed since my last newsletter.

ENERGY & COMMERCE COMMITTEE UPDATE

Over the past two weeks, House Republicans once again put polluters over people by advancing a series of bills that kneecap clean energy and energy efficiency programs, which are the fastest, cheapest and cleanest ways to affordably meet our growing energy demands. Last week, the House passed H.R. 3628, a bill that attacks affordable clean energy and raises Americans’ power bills, and H.R. 3638 (the Energy Supply Chain Act), a bill that I spoke against as an unnecessary burden on an already woefully understaffed Department of Energy that does nothing to address our energy supply chain.

Earlier this month, Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans advanced out of committee another series of energy bills that will raise energy prices, threaten the stability of our power grid, and hurt our ability to compete with China in the artificial intelligence race. These bills continue Republican efforts to gut energy efficiency programs, make buildings use more energy, and revoke assistance to low and middle income families to pay the upfront cost or more energy efficient appliances. I introduced an amendment to one of the bills to protect the growing energy efficiency sector, which is critical to meeting energy demands and bringing costs down for the American people at a time when affordability is on the top of everyone’s minds. 

I also pointed out the misplaced House Republican priorities favoring permanent tax breaks for millionaires over providing much-needed relief for homeowners who struggle with home upgrade costs that can lower their energy bills.

In a separate Energy Subcommittee Hearing, I also rebutted false Republican claims that clean and renewable energy can’t meet the growing energy demands of data centers by highlighting a Meta data center in Sandston that is 100% powered by clean and renewable energy.

In a bit of good news, the Energy & Commerce Committee also advanced several bipartisan bills to facilitate broadband deployment by updating antiquated federal agency application systems, implementing standard and transparent fee structures across federal agencies, and removing barriers to deploying infrastructure across or near railroad tracks. However, Republicans also advanced a partisan permitting reform bill that imposes burdensome and likely infeasible regulations and requirements on state and local governments, guts the ability for local and tribal communities to protect historic and culturally significant sites, and fails to address significant barriers to broadband deployment identified in prior hearings.

During debate on a proposed amendment to the bill, I spoke against the Trump Administration’s efforts to serve some communities with inferior technology that will fail to meet their needs.

IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE FOR OUR SERVICE MEMBERS, THEIR FAMILIES AND THE SERVICE COMMUNITY

Each year, Congress passes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to set policies and funding levels for the Department of Defense and national security programs. Earlier this year, the House and Senate passed competing versions of the Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) NDAA. After months of negotiations between House and Senate conference committee members, the House passed the final FY26 NDAA last week.

As a former member of the House Armed Services Committee and representing a major U.S. Army training installation for the Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) and home to the U.S. Army Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Transportation Schools, I have prioritized passing an NDAA that improves the quality of life for our service members and their families. 

While the FY26 NDAA is not a perfect bill and contains provisions I oppose, it represents a significant step forward in addressing quality of life issues. It raises pay for service members; strengthens protections for civilian workers against reckless mass layoffs by the Trump Administration; invests in housing and childcare centers for service members and their families; advances scientific research, including tens of millions in funding for research at HBCUs; supports our allies in countries like Ukraine; and more.

Unfortunately, the bill includes provisions that I strongly oppose that reflect the Trump Administration’s efforts to undermine Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives and the work of the Naming Commission; exclude hard-won provisions for collective bargaining rights for civilian employees and funding for in vitro fertilization; and target transgender athletes at military academies. I also share concerns raised by the families of Flight 5342 and the National Transportation Safety Board regarding safety in the airspace surrounding Reagan National Airport and joined my Democratic colleagues in the Virginia delegation to issue a statement on this provision.

Despite these shortcomings, the FY26 NDAA goes a long way to meet the quality of life needs of our service members and families, supports our nation’s military readiness and reasserts some Congressional oversight responsibility over the Department of Defense. I commend my Democratic colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee for their steadfast work to counter actions taken by the Trump Administration that consistently undermine our national security. I’ll continue to work with them and House Democrats to uplift service members and keep attention on the issues that matter to the American people, not culture wars.

A FY26 NDAA final text summary compiled by House Armed Services Committee Democrats can be found here. An FY26 NDAA Highlights three-pager can be found here.

MY BRIGHT SPOT: SUPPORTING OUR STUDENT VETERANS

While November was Veterans Appreciation Month, we should honor our veterans year-round. Far too often, the veterans who stepped up to serve, protect and defend our nation have felt left behind. That has to change. Last month, I introduced the Student Veteran Work Study Modernization Act to provide student veterans with a more flexible work-study program that considers their unique needs. During a recent Member Day hearing, I presented this bill to the Veterans Affairs Committee.

The least we can do to repay our veterans’ service is to ensure that they can transition out of active-duty and back to civilian life with the resources they need to succeed. I’m excited to continue this work and hopeful we can work together in a bipartisan fashion to get this bill across the finish line.

I also joined my colleagues in the New Democrat Coalition to release an Agenda to Support Our Veterans. 

You can read more about our agenda here.

Unsubscribe from future messages.