[{"_1":2,"_87":-5,"_88":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,75],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":72,"_74":72},"mediaId",6164627,"mediaKeyId","5427946-314dfce614396d1bc2449d2e076bd5d7","parentId",5427946,"title","House Rules Committee advances Senate amendment to HR 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, amid debate over public broadcasting and foreign-aid cuts","audioSeconds",12007,"startMs",489000,"endMs",12496000,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=5427946-314dfce614396d1bc2449d2e076bd5d7&start=489&end=12496","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5427946-314dfce614396d1bc2449d2e076bd5d7/thumbnail_489000.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6164627/House-Rules-Committee-advances-Senate-amendment-to-HR-4-the-Rescissions-Act-of-2025-amid-debate-over-public-broadcasting-and-foreign-aid-cuts","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6164627-b8a1831622261f0011c40b9d676aef17/orig.mp4?Expires=1771151383&Signature=hL9Br~Oqs5mnO5P-zzz9YJ8mLBaSoHI~R6msH4aVwHOHqJJ-lEviWlIoDyvaGH5ERGyAFUpl4voyX4uR6ucybXxHO6JYgMhg9mUoT-qjKZmmF8sc0l9uWhBSb2OVH7L35ZaL4~Ry334I3UUdsbYRN7HyDYap8qWwucXUFTnlfc~oJ1PmzOyliGVcylute7HiT0laqTcNv7NOq0mfLymb1m-FLYil8GFLtO0iunTRNtoEApnWqFFRLRhcU7puGeRQVTE-iVYZ2wsSHJJyV805NWxogv~FaN14cZ3YwGmha6IwIY6nq6~bhr1u04VLqgHOZTmaF04DFe7o6aL86iDCiA__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","U.S. House Committee on Rules","date","2025-07-18T14:10:00Z","article","The House Committee on Rules on Thursday advanced a rule to send HR 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, back to the House floor with the Senate amendment, setting up final congressional action on a package that would rescind roughly $9,000,000,000 in unobligated federal funds.

The rule cleared the committee after floor managers said the package is a lawful, limited pullback of unspent funds and proponents insisted it is a step toward reining in what they described as waste. \"We're here to get this legislation across the finish line into the president,\" the committee chairwoman said at the meeting's outset. \"The money that we are clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money,\" she added.

Why it matters: The package touches multiple policy areas — including public broadcasting, development assistance and global health — and several members warned the cuts are being proposed without sufficient program-level detail. Committee Democrats and some Republicans questioned whether Office of Management and Budget (OMB) decisions would shift authority over spending away from Congress.

Committee debate and top-line figures

Representative Diaz-Balart, who testified for the appropriations committee, told the Rules Committee the Senate amendment would rescind $9,000,000,000 and argued the package was intended to \"prudently realign\" spending to core national-security priorities. \"The rescission package proposes to pull back $2,500,000,000\" from the development assistance account in fiscal year 2025, he said, and the measure also includes cuts to global health programs, which some members said total about $500,000,000 in the rescission text.

Ranking Member DeLauro and other Democrats sharply disputed the approach. \"This bill rips lifesaving support away from hungry, displaced, and sick people in developing countries and conflict zones,\" DeLauro said, adding that the package \"will shut down rural television and radio stations, cutting off coverage of local news, eliminating emergency information like severe weather alerts.\" DeLauro and other Democrats warned that withholding program-level detail prevents Congress and the public from judging the effects of the rescissions.

Several members noted that the rescission authority invoked traces to the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a statutory process that permits rescinding unobligated balances subject to subsequent congressional approval or disapproval. Representative Diaz-Balart and other supporters pointed to prior rescissions and defended the use of the 1974 process; opponents argued the White House and OMB were effectively selecting which line items to cut without the usual appropriations oversight.

Program-level concerns and examples

Members cited specific programs they said were at risk in the package. Democrats and some Republicans flagged proposed rescissions affecting:
- Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) funding, which members said provides roughly 70% of federal public-media dollars directly to locally owned stations; several Democrats warned that eliminating those federal grants could harm emergency-alert capabilities in rural areas and states such as Alaska.
- Development assistance: witnesses and members referenced the $2.5 billion rescission from the international development assistance account and asked whether cuts would come from education, water and sanitation, or food-security lines.
- Global health: Members noted a referenced $500,000,000 reduction in global-health-related funds, and asked which specific global-health programs (for example PEPFAR or other HIV/AIDS efforts) could be affected.

Representative Diaz-Balart responded that some of these line items were adjusted in subcommittee and that appropriators have continued work on the fiscal year 2026 appropriation bills that they said would provide further detail. \"We're talking about $9,000,000,000,\" he said, and he described the rescission as a step toward ‘‘spending more prudently and in line with national-security priorities.’’

Process, authority and oversight

Multiple members raised constitutional and process questions. DeLauro called the OMB's handling of rescissions \"a spectacular failure,\" saying the agency had not provided the detail necessary to evaluate the proposed cuts. She and others argued the approach risked eroding the Appropriations Committee's role in the power of the purse. Representative McGovern said members on both sides should expect greater transparency about which programs are being targeted.

Supporters said the rescission is a lawful tool and that comparable actions have occurred in past congresses. Representative Roy and others framed the $9,000,000,000 figure relative to total federal outlays, noting it amounts to a small fraction of overall spending, and urged the committee to approve the rule and let the full House act.

Committee action and votes

The committee ultimately agreed to a motion providing that the House consider the Senate amendment to HR 4 and concur. The motion was approved in committee by a recorded vote (9 yeas, 4 nays). During the meeting the committee considered several proposed amendments to the rule that would have struck specific rescissions (for example, proposals to preserve international disaster assistance, bilateral economic assistance, or funding for Corporation for Public Broadcasting); those amendment attempts were defeated by voice votes or recorded votes and did not change the rule reported from committee.

What happens next

Under the rule reported by Rules, the House is scheduled to consider the rescissions package under the terms set by the committee. If the House concurs in the Senate amendment, the bill would go to the president for signature. Several members on both sides pressed for more program-level detail from OMB and for continued oversight by the Appropriations Committee as the rescission authority is exercised.

Ending note

Members on both sides of the aisle said they view federal spending oversight as critically important, even as they sharply disagreed about which programs should be reduced and how much detail the public should see before votes. The Rules Committee's action sends HR 4 back to the House floor with the Senate amendment in place and sets the timetable for a final House vote that would determine whether the rescinded amounts become law.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","Rules Committee Hearing Senate Amendment to H.R. 4","oneSentenceSummary","The House Committee on Rules on Thursday advanced a rule to send HR 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, back to the House floor with the Senate amendment, setting up final congressional action on a package that would rescind roughly $9,000,000,000 in unobligated federal funds.","taxTitle","Rules: House Committee, Standing Committees - House & Senate, Congressional Hearings Compilation, Legislative, Federal","taxId",1984,"location","","headline","shortSummary",{"_33":76,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":77,"_41":78,"_43":79,"_45":80,"_47":81,"_49":82,"_51":83,"_53":84,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":85,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":86,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":72,"_74":72},6164621,"Rules Committee rejects move to replace nonbinding resolution with law to release Epstein files; Democrats press for binding bill",11704,679000,12383000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5427946-314dfce614396d1bc2449d2e076bd5d7&start=679&end=12383","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5427946-314dfce614396d1bc2449d2e076bd5d7/thumbnail_679000.jpg","/articles/6164621/Rules-Committee-rejects-move-to-replace-nonbinding-resolution-with-law-to-release-Epstein-files-Democrats-press-for-binding-bill","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6164621-697e6925b641096336774189d0591543/orig.mp4?Expires=1771151383&Signature=Oxj2Ircg5kruOFtbKwyYErK2EziVITKDAkJSHn-AwEY0LHO5Bud22lIiA0mwM2F2ScI5GN6lcNp5lswH6LxTcsCI4h6DqcvXtsCrVbe3QzjG~wBhO9I7SvLeGs6KFMfkszp0Zf7lIR5v5v2D5IZsti6tmtyGS3WyIa0gfYqmldt6zTkslSaNU5Lh2wBDYQTZS~gBKmO4UKFdBCoLk9rVFhnwhcWCLdX-bz7BYXPS3Z0Xv-8LddKymSgMJBS6fc8KVMQgr-mDYocec9bTYxlLXRKqglqhQtUk2uhguB3i~kEdV5i-maeO1X4J6k~K7gtS28Jlvht61MjvE0cBOM8a1g__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","The House Rules Committee on Thursday heard an extended and often heated debate over how Congress should press for release of records related to Jeffrey Epstein. Democratic members sought an enforceable statute and prompt floor action on a bipartisan bill introduced by Representatives Massey and Ro Khanna (H.R. 4405). Committee Republicans advanced a nonbinding House resolution instead.

Representative McGovern, the Rules Committee ranking member, opened the topic by saying his side had offered language to require the Department of Justice to preserve and release Epstein-related files and that previous attempts to obtain related materials had failed. \"Either there's nothing here and Trump made all this up ... Or there are files and you guys wanna keep them hidden because you're afraid what's in them,\" McGovern said.

Democrats asked the committee to report the bipartisan Massey–Khanna measure for immediate floor action. That bill would direct the attorney general to preserve and release a defined set of records and include privacy protections for victims; sponsors said it would require release within a stated period.

Republicans on the committee advanced a nonbinding resolution instead. Committee debate focused on two related issues: (1) whether a sense-of-Congress resolution would be adequate to secure disclosure, and (2) whether parts of the draft resolution created new exceptions that could be used to withhold material — including grand-jury material and items \"demonstrably false or unauthenticated,\" which some members said risked creating loopholes for concealment.

Representative Scott, managing the majority's motion to adopt the nonbinding resolution, said the draft \"requires the release of credible information, protects whistleblowers and victims of abuse, and finally allows the whole world to review the full details of everyone involved.\" Representative McGovern and other Democrats replied that the nonbinding form is insufficient and that a bill with the force of law would be needed to compel action.

Votes and procedural outcomes

The committee rejected an amendment from Representative McGovern that would have struck the new nonbinding resolution and provided instead for immediate consideration of H.R. 4405 under a closed rule. That amendment failed on a recorded vote (4 yeas, 9 nays). Mr. McGovern later offered a similar motion converting the committee's nonbinding resolution text into a bill; the chair ruled it not germane and the ruling was sustained on appeal (4 yeas, 9 nays on the appeal roll call).

After debate and multiple procedural exchanges, the committee agreed to the majority motion to deem the new nonbinding resolution adopted and to report the rule. The committee recorded that motion in favor by roll call (9 yeas, 4 nays). Committee Republicans said they wanted to work with the administration and stressed protections for victims and whistleblowers; Democrats said only a binding statute would force disclosure and protect victims' privacy consistently.

Context and next steps

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said constituents and the public demanded transparency. Democrats urged a discharge petition and House floor consideration of the bipartisan H.R. 4405; Republicans said that the resolution gives the House a formal statement and that committees would pursue oversight if administration action did not follow.

The committee's adoption of the nonbinding resolution does not itself compel the attorney general to release the files. If the House were to approve a binding statute, it would go to the Senate and, if enacted, would require the attorney general to comply subject to applicable legal protections and exemptions. The transcript shows members pressed for a timetable, but the committee did not set a floor date in the meeting.

Ending note

The committee's action leaves the House with competing paths: a nonbinding statement that could be followed by oversight or a binding bill that would require executive compliance if enacted. The debate underscores persistent partisan disagreement over the proper vehicle and timing to seek disclosure of sensitive records tied to the Epstein investigations.","A partisan fight over how to force release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein played out in the Rules Committee. Democrats sought to convert the committee's nonbinding House resolution into a binding bill (H.R. 4405) for immediate floor consideration; the committee rejected amendments to that effect and approved a nonbinding resolution instead.","actionData","errors"]

Article not found

House Rules Committee advances Senate amendment to HR 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, amid debate over public broadcasting and foreign-aid cuts

Rules Committee rejects move to replace nonbinding resolution with law to release Epstein files; Democrats press for binding bill