Overview
- The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which voted on July 30, 2026, advanced S.5046 by a 13-9 vote to send the bill to the full Senate.
- S.5046 would bar the Education Department from transferring programs under four offices — special education and rehabilitative services, elementary and secondary education, postsecondary education, and Indian education — to other federal agencies.
- An amendment that cleared the committee requires the secretary of education to report the costs of each interagency agreement to Congress, a provision intended to give appropriators concrete price data for the transfers.
- Two Republican senators, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, cosponsored the measure while committee chair Bill Cassidy and nine Republicans opposed it, and the bill faces an uncertain path on the Senate floor because it would likely need 60 votes to pass.
- Advocates and former ED officials warn moving OSERS to HHS could disrupt services and shift focus toward a medical model for students with disabilities, and the committee move follows reporting that the department has used interagency agreements to shift about 148 programs to other agencies.