PUBLIC Lands Act

S1462 — Fix Our Forests Act

A national fireshed management framework would create mapped firesheds, a public Fireshed Registry, and new authorities to speed landscape wildfire projects. It would also establish a joint Wildland Fire Intelligence Center for real‑time science, data, and operational decision support. - Families and communities: A unified grant portal and broadened Community Wildfire Defense program would make it easier to get funding for home hardening, defensible space, and landscape fuels reduction in prioritized firesheds. - Tribes and local governments: Expands tribal contracting and cooperative agreements, funds tribal prescribed‑fire work, and provides liability protections for covered non‑Federal partners working under direct Federal supervision. - Fire managers, contractors, and utilities: Creates faster review paths and higher acreage thresholds for expedited projects (administrative review raised from about 3,000 to 10,000 acres), extends stewardship contracts to 20 years with limited cancellation payments, and requires a local contractor preference where practicable.

S2838 — Protecting Our Democracy Act

This bill would tighten presidential accountability by creating new oversight of pardons and emoluments and by strengthening ethics, disclosure, and enforcement across the Executive Branch. - Presidents, pardon recipients, and former Presidents would face new limits and disclosures. The Attorney General would have to send prosecution materials to congressional committee leaders within 30 days after a pardon for defined "covered offenses", the bill bans a President's self‑pardon, and pardon recipients must disclose gifts from the prior 365 days and file annual gift reports for five years. - Executive branch officials and appointees would face upgraded ethics rules and enforcement. Agencies would require enforceable ethics pledges, the Office of Government Ethics could impose fines and order disgorgement or divestiture, the Executive Office of the President would get an Inspector General appointed within 120 days, and whistleblowers would gain broader protections including new private remedies in the intelligence community. - Elections, Congress, and the public would get stronger transparency and oversight tools. The bill would expand congressional subpoena and budget enforcement, limit emergency powers, require political committees to report certain foreign contacts and platforms to keep ad records, and it would require Presidents and major party candidates to disclose 10 years of tax returns while capping inaugural donations at $50,000.

S2819 — Head Start for America's Children Act

This bill would expand and modernize Head Start to serve more infants and toddlers, require more year‑round and extended‑day options, and strengthen mental‑health, disability, and Native language supports. - Families and children: Would broaden eligibility to include families at or below 60% of the State median income and explicitly cover homeless children, foster care children, and children with disabilities. It would add mental‑health screening during home visits and push many center‑based programs toward full‑calendar‑year operation by Sept. 30, 2027 with defined exemptions. - Early childhood workers and providers: Would expand Early Head Start provider eligibility and prioritize partnerships with Tribal, minority‑serving, and Hispanic‑serving institutions. It would raise staff training expectations, require wage and benefits comparability reporting, and tie a three‑year teaching commitment to certain loan repayment rules. - Native American, Native Hawaiian, and migrant/seasonal programs: Would institutionalize Tribal and Native Hawaiian participation in governance, fund language and cultural preservation, bar non‑Native grantees for Native programs, and exempt these programs from the year‑round requirement while reserving a 4.5% grant pool for them. Would authorize a FY2026 baseline of $144.9 billion and multi‑year targeted reservations including $4.4 billion for extended operations and $300 million for slot conversions, thereby increasing federal spending.

S2823 — FAMILY Act

Creates a national paid family and medical leave insurance program that would pay monthly benefits to people who take caregiving or medical leave. The program centers administration at the Social Security Administration and sets eligibility, benefit formulas, state grant rules, and data-sharing to prevent fraud. - Families: People taking leave for caregiving or a serious health condition would get monthly wage-replacement benefits based on a tiered formula that starts at 85% for low wages and steps down for higher earnings. Initial benefit thresholds in 2026 include $1,257 and $3,500 and the law sets a minimum and maximum monthly benefit. - Workers and applicants: Eligibility would depend on wages or self-employment income over the most recent eight quarters with an initial earnings test of $2,000 in 2026. Benefit periods are measured over a year, applications can request retroactive coverage up to 365 days, and the bill requires certifications and appeals processes. - States, employers, and administration: The bill preserves and coordinates with state leave laws by creating a "legacy State" category and an annual grant program starting in 2027 for qualifying States, with up to 7% allowed for administrative costs. It would create an Office of Paid Family and Medical Leave inside SSA to run the program, share data with federal and state partners, and require periodic GAO reviews.

S2231 — GLOBE Act of 2025

U.S. strategy to protect LGBTQI rights abroad. This bill would create diplomatic tools, funding, and legal measures to document abuses, support civil society, and restrict entry for perpetrators. - For LGBTQI people and defenders: Would establish a Global Equality Fund to provide grants, emergency aid, and technical support and a USAID-led LGBTQI Global Development Partnership to back leadership, entrepreneurship, and exchanges. It would explicitly fund protection from medically unnecessary intersex interventions. - For perpetrators and accountability: Would require the President to publish an unclassified list within 180 days and update it biannually. Persons on the list and their immediate family would be inadmissible to the United States and face visa revocation. - For U.S. policy and programs: Would create a Special Envoy and a permanent USAID Senior LGBTQI Coordinator, require LGBTQI training for PEPFAR partners and U.S.-supported law enforcement academies, and direct annual strategic reviews to prioritize decriminalization and targeted programming.

S51 — Washington, D.C. Admission Act

This bill would admit the District of Columbia as the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, giving its residents full congressional representation. It would also carve out a separate federal 'Capital' around core federal buildings and set a staged transition for courts, services, and federal property. - Residents: District residents would gain two Senators and one Representative immediately upon admission and the current non‑voting Delegate office would be repealed. - Territory and federal limits: A defined Capital area including the Capitol, White House, Supreme Court, and adjacent federal lands would remain under U.S. title or jurisdiction and generally would not be subject to state taxation except where Congress permits. - Courts, justice, and transition supports: The bill would keep federal prosecution support, U.S. Marshals services, pretrial and public defender arrangements, and Bureau of Prisons housing rules during transition; it would provide a temporary Federal Medical Assistance Percentage uplift for five years and establish an 18‑member Statehood Transition Commission to oversee the change.