CAREERS Act

HR4669 — FEMA Act of 2025

FEMA becomes an independent, cabinet-level agency with a clarified all-hazards mission and consolidated federal leadership for preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation, and interoperable communications. The bill also rewrites large parts of the Stafford Act to speed repairs, expand assistance, strengthen mitigation, and publish new public dashboards for disaster spending and individual aid metrics. - Families and disaster survivors: Expands housing help with a FEMA Emergency Home Repair program, authorizes direct repair assistance, and extends some temporary assistance periods from 18 to 24 months. Noncongregate sheltering can be provided without a fixed address and states cannot require a credit card for hoteling. - State, Tribal, and local governments and utilities: Creates expedited Section 409 grants for repairing public and qualifying nonprofit facilities with a Federal share floor of 75% and incentives up to 85% for resilience. Offers small-disaster block grants equal to 80% of the estimated Federal public assistance share and sets a Tribal hazard-mitigation minimum of $75.0 million per year. - Private nonprofits and houses of worship: Treats private nonprofits and houses of worship as eligible for assistance without regard to religious character and expands nonprofit closeout and eligibility parity with governments.

HR3151 — SHIPS for America Act of 2025

Rebuild U.S. commercial shipbuilding and a U.S.-flag strategic fleet by pairing new tax credits, grants, and operating payments with stronger cargo-preference rules and workforce and innovation programs to restore domestic capacity and sealift readiness. It centralizes maritime strategy in a White House advisor and a Maritime Security Board and funds a broad set of industrial, port, and training programs to favor U.S.-built, U.S.-crewed vessels.

HR4206 — CONNECT for Health Act of 2025

Expands Medicare telehealth access by removing geographic limits and ending an in-person requirement for telemental health. It would also change payment rules for clinics and require more oversight, training, and data reporting. - Medicare beneficiaries would be able to receive telehealth across geographies beginning October 1, 2025. Telemental health would no longer require a six-month in-person visit and tribal and Native Hawaiian facilities would be exempt from originating-site rules starting January 1, 2026. - Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics would be paid for telehealth under outpatient or prospective payment methods and telehealth costs as distant-site care would count as allowable PPS costs. The HHS Secretary could waive limits on which practitioner types may furnish telehealth starting October 1, 2025 with annual public comment and a three-year reassessment requirement. - The bill would strengthen program integrity funding for telehealth, require CMS to post quarterly telehealth data, and add telehealth to quality-measure reviews within 180 days. It also mandates a beneficiary engagement study and a Government Accountability Office report on hospice recertification within three years.

HR2548 — Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025

Automatic, recurring sanctions on the Russian government and its affiliates. This bill would create a multi-layered sanctions regime that forces mandatory measures within 15 days of a covered determination and requires reassessment every 90 days. - U.S. financial institutions and investors: Banks, brokers, and U.S. investment funds would be barred from processing transfers to the Russian Federation, buying Russian sovereign debt, or making monetary investments in entities owned or controlled by the Russian government. Many prohibitions would take effect within 15 days of a covered determination and recur every 90 days. - Energy, trade, and commodities: The bill would ban U.S. exports of energy to Russia, bar investments in the Russian energy sector, and prohibit imports of uranium sourced from Russia or Rosatom. It would also raise duties on imports from Russia to not less than 500 percent and allow similar duties on third countries trading in Russian-origin energy commodities. - Individuals, exchanges, and payment networks: High‑ranking Russian officials, oligarchs, and sector actors would face property blocks and visa ineligibility under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The SEC would be directed to bar listing or trading of Russian‑affiliated issuers and global financial messaging providers could be sanctioned for continuing service to designated banks.

HR1262 — Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act

Speeds and strengthens pediatric cancer drug development. It expands which cancer products companies must study in children, reshapes organ transplant network governance and fees, and adds new FDA international and transparency steps. - Children with cancer and researchers: Requires pediatric studies that produce clinically meaningful data on dosing, safety, and early effectiveness and widens the kinds of drug combinations studied. It also sets aside $25 million for pediatric drug studies in each of fiscal years 2026, 2027, and 2028. - Transplant patients and transplant network members: Changes Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network governance and financing by allowing quarterly registration fees, requiring those fees fund OPTN operations, improving electronic health record integration, and calling for a GAO review within two years. - FDA partners and drug makers: Creates an Abraham Accords Office to boost regulatory coordination and technical assistance abroad, and forces more transparency during generic (ANDA) reviews about whether generics are qualitatively and quantitatively the same as listed drugs. It also raises the Medicare Improvement Fund amount from $1.4 billion to $2.6 billion. Increases federal outlays by roughly $1.3 billion, driven by a $1.2 billion boost to the Medicare Improvement Fund and $75 million for pediatric studies, adding to federal spending.

HR2853 — Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025

This bill creates a centralized Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center to unify federal, state, local, Tribal, and private-sector efforts. It also strengthens federal criminal tools by expanding forfeiture predicates, adding covered financial instruments, and setting $5,000 aggregate thresholds for certain stolen-goods offenses. - Retailers and supply-chain businesses get a federal hub for intelligence sharing and loss-prevention help. The bill cites a 93% rise in larceny incidents and a 90% rise in average dollar loss from 2019 to 2023. - Prosecutors and investigators gain broader forfeiture and money-laundering authority by adding sections 659, 2314, and 2315 as predicate offenses and by including money orders, general-use prepaid cards, gift certificates, and store gift cards as covered instruments. It also adds a $5,000 aggregate value threshold to those stolen-goods crimes. - The Department of Homeland Security must stand up the Center within 90 days and staff it with federal and state detailees. The law requires evaluations and follow-up reports on grant and training needs and sunsets the Center after 7 years.