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Source: Congress.gov
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The subcommittee will come to order. The chairman recognizes himself for an opening statement. Again, good morning, everyone, and welcome to our markup of the SCORE Act. I'm proud to lead this bipartisan legislation alongside the four committee chairs, of course, Energy and Commerce, Chairman Guthrie, Education and Workforce, and Judiciary, and my other esteemed colleagues, especially Representatives Bynum, Figures, and Frey. This committee has a rich history of thoughtful and bipartisan engagement in college sports and name, image, likeness policy. We've worked across party lines not just to legislate, but to understand what is truly at stake, the health, safety, and future of student athletes. We can all agree. Going back to the 114th Congress, we saw leadership from then-Chair Upton on concussion safety. In the 116th Congress, then-Chair Pallone and Ranking Member Walden jointly sought input on the emerging NIL landscape from stakeholders across the country, grounded in the idea that good policy begins with good listening. And the 118th Congress, then Chair McMorris-Rogers and I continue taking feedback from stakeholders with the intent of creating a national framework to protect our student athletes and create a sustainable future for college sports. Many of these inputs went into our first NIL legislative hearing last year on the draft bill, the Fair College Sports Act. Since then, we've continued that spirit of listening and engagement this Congress. We hosted two subcommittee hearings, convene multiple bipartisan roundtables, and receive input from hundreds of voices across the college sports ecosystem, including from student athletes, coaches, athletic directors,
compliance officials and conference commissioners and legal experts. We've also worked in close coordination with other committees and members on both sides of the aisle to craft a bill that reflects broad consensus. The result of all this work is the SCORE Act, a comprehensive bipartisan solution that upholds the integrity of college sports and strengthens protections for student athletes, who make it all possible. It provides common sense guardrails around the transfer portal and agent disclosure, ensuring students are supported, not exploited, as they navigate life-changing decisions. I'm honored to lead an important, thoughtful, and carefully crafted bill along with Chairman Guthrie. I will be the first to say not everyone is gonna get 100% of what they want in this bill, but time is of the essence, folks. I wanna say it again, time is of the essence. It is long past time that we take action to ensure that we have sustainable future for college sports, especially for women's sports and the Olympic sports that creates predictability and certainty for all student athletes. We must act now to protect and preserve the uniquely American institution of college sports we have all come to know and love. Thank you to my colleagues for their collaboration and commitment to student athletes. So I look forward to continuing our work as we move the SCORE Act forward. So I'll yield back and now I recognize the chairwoman who is the ranking member of the subcommittee, Ms. Schakowsky from the great state of Illinois for five minutes. You're recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be with you and I agree that the most important thing right now is the health and safety of our student athletes. We have to make sure that we prevent them from any harm. And I'm concerned about that. And I don't think this piece of legislation that has been promoted and offered is not the one that will actually do what we need to do to protect our athletes. And so I think we need to review the score act and come up with something that really looks at the athletes. Concerned that we're doing more in the recommendation for the NCAA that we're doing for the athletes themselves. And so I would like to see a real examination of the piece of legislation and focus mostly entirely on how this protects our student athletes. And with that, I'll yield back.
Thank you, Chairman Bilirakis, for your leadership on the SCORE Act, and to all of our colleagues who joined as original colleagues, Reps Bynum, Figures, Wahlberg, Jordan, Frey, Fitzgerald, and McLean. Your commitment to bipartisan collaboration has been essential to crafting this thoughtful and comprehensive legislation. H.R. 4312, the SCORE Act, is a bipartisan product of extensive collaboration across three House committees, Energy and Commerce, Education and Workforce, and the Judiciary.
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