Committee on Education and Workforce

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) issued the following statement today after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that during the month of February, the economy added 242,000 jobs: “Today’s job report represents the 72nd consecutive month of private sector job growth with unemployment remaining steady at 4.9 percent. Our economy is steadily growing and more Americans are finding opportunities. However, more work must be done to strengthen our economy and grow working people’s paychecks.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) and House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice Ranking Member Steve Cohen (D-TN) issued a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to follow-up on a request to instruct the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to review and reconsider an opinion issued on June 29, 2007. The opinion has been interpreted to permit federally funded faith-based organizations to use the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to override statutory employment nondiscrimination laws.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) released the following statement today in response to President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2017: “President Obama’s FY 2017 budget makes the necessary investments that will continue our economic recovery by ensuring all America’s students, families and workers share in the gains we have made over the last seven years. “Building on the success of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the President’s budget includes a proposal to provide high-quality universal pre-K, new funding to help more than 1 million youth enter the workforce and gain valuable work experience year-round, and proposals to provide two years of free college and year-round Pell Grants. It also makes investments to reduce child hunger during the summer and provides funding for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention programs to support vulnerable youth in communities across the country.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott of the Committee on Education and the Workforce made the following remarks on the House floor this evening during a Special Order hour on the Flint, Michigan water crisis: “Thank you, Congresswoman Watson Coleman, for your leadership and coordinating this Special Order. And thank you to the Michigan Representatives who've been working so hard to try to respond to this tragedy. “There will be a lot of investigations designed to find out what happened, whose fault it was, whether or not any crimes were committed and how to prevent this from happening in the future. But there's one thing we know and that is that children have been poisoned by lead exposure. As the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, we've begun the process to determine how to appropriately respond because we know that lead poisoning creates severe challenges to the public school system. Children are entitled to equal educational opportunity, and that goes back to the Brown v. Board of Education case, where the Court found 'it is doubtful that any child may be reasonably be expected to succeed in life without an education' and that right – and that opportunity – is 'a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.'

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Obama Administration announced that the President’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget will invest $12 billion over ten years to reduce child hunger during the summer through a permanent Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children (Summer EBT) program to provide supplemental food benefits during the summer months for all families with children eligible for free and reduced price school meals. Full committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott and committee and House Democrats have sought to expand innovative feeding programs that help kids stay healthy year-round as well as increase access to school meals. “The proposal to make permanent and expand the summer EBT program nationwide ensures that an effective option for reducing hunger is available to those in need throughout the country,” said Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03).