House Committee Advances 10-Bill Package to Permanently Dismantle Department of Education
The Trump administration's campaign to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has achieved a major legislative milestone. On Wednesday, July 15, 2026, the House Education and the Workforce Committee voted along party lines to advance a package of 10 bills—the "Less Bureaucracy, Better Education" package—designed to permanently codify 10 of the administration’s 14 interagency agreements (IAAs) that outsource ED's core responsibilities to other federal agencies.
If passed into law, the legislation would permanently transfer all of the education secretary's responsibilities to other agencies, including final grant policies and regulations. Key components of the package include:
- Transferring the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) entirely to the Department of the Treasury, which would then oversee the entire $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio, Pell Grants, and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
- Shifting the Offices of Postsecondary Education, Career and Technical Education, and Elementary and Secondary Education to the Department of Labor (DOL).
The package advanced with near-unanimous GOP support, save for a single defection on the bill transferring Elementary and Secondary Education to the DOL by Rep. Kevin Kiley (CA), who recently changed his party affiliation from Republican to Independent but remains in the GOP caucus. On the Senate side, HELP Committee Chair Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has pushed back against some aspects of the dismantling, particularly opposing the transfer of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to HHS, promising to hold a vote to block it1.
Meanwhile, the executive implementation of these transfers is already underway. At a July 16, 2026, Senate HELP Committee hearing, President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Labor, Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling, confirmed that on July 1, 2026, at midnight, $1.5 billion in education funds was transferred over to the Department of Labor under the Economy Act and distributed to states by 2:00 AM. Sonderling defended the IAAs, stating that the DOL’s grant systems (Grant Solutions) are more sophisticated than ED’s legacy G-5 system, and that career ED staff have been detailed to the DOL to handle policy decisions. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) strongly opposed the arrangement, arguing it creates massive bureaucratic red tape and that one agreement has already cost taxpayers an extra $1 million.
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An instance of Bipartisan legislative coalitions are the final defensive buffer against unilateral department closures. — The executive's plan to dismantle the education department hit a major roadblock when the Republican committee chair moved to block key programs. ↩︎