WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today joined Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) in introducing the bipartisan Fair College Admissions for Students Act. The bill would prohibit higher education institutions from participating in federal student assistance programs if the institution practices legacy admissions. 

“Louisiana’s students work hard for an opportunity to get into their dream college. However, the practice of legacy admissions undermines good academic performance. The Fair College Admissions for Students Act would make sure that higher education institutions make decisions about who can attend their schools based on merit,” said Kennedy.  

“As the first in my family to go to college, I know the struggles facing students whose parents have never been through the process before or don’t have the money for expensive test prep or advisors to help them craft the perfect essay. Children of donors and alumni may be excellent, well-qualified students, but the fact is they are the last people who should get an additional leg up in the complicated and competitive college admissions process. To counter the unfair advantage of money and connections in accessing higher education, Senator Kennedy and I are teaming up to put an end to taxpayer dollars propping up this system that only serves the rich and powerful,” said Merkley. 

According to the National Center for Education Services, during the 2022-2023 academic year, more than 570 institutions admitted to considering legacy status when making admissions decisions.

The Fair College Admissions for Students Act would prevent higher education institutions from participating in federal assistance programs if they use preferential treatment in the admission process to applicants on the basis of their relationships to donors to the institution or alumni of the institution.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) also cosponsored the bill.

Full text of the Fair College Admissions for Students Act is available here.  

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives today passed Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) Congressional Review Act (CRA) joint resolution of disapproval to reverse the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) rule that targeted oil and gas production in the outer continental shelf. The resolution passed with bipartisan support, and it now moves to the president’s desk for signing.

“In waging war on oil and gas producers, the Biden administration drove up prices for families and jeopardized our energy security. I am proud to see that the House passed my resolution to help bring back America’s energy dominance, and I look forward to President Trump signing it into law,” said Kennedy.

Rep. Mike Ezell (R-Miss.) introduced the companion resolution in the House of Representatives. 

"Congress has taken a decisive step to protect American energy independence and support our workers. By overturning Biden's BOEM's overreaching rule, we are unleashing our nation’s vast resources, they tried to handcuff with red tape, driving up costs, stifling innovation, and making us more dependent on foreign energy. I look forward to President Trump taking swift action to sign this resolution into law. Together, we are reaffirming our commitment to an energy policy that prioritizes American jobs, economic growth, and national security,” said Ezell.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) helped introduce the resolution in the Senate.

“House passage of our resolution of disapproval moves us another step forward in overturning Biden’s regulatory assault on oil and gas production in the Gulf.  I look forward to President Trump signing this resolution while we look for other policies we can repeal,” said Hyde-Smith.

Background:

• On Sept. 3, 2024, the Biden administration published a rule requiring all new oil and gas leaseholders on the outer continental shelf to submit an archaeological report to the BOEM before drilling or laying pipelines. The rule burdens lessees with conducting costly surveys for marine archaeological resources, such as shipwrecks or “cultural resources.”  

• This rule replaces BOEM’s long-standing policy of requiring oil and gas operators to conduct archaeological surveys only when there was a “reason to believe” that an archaeological resource may be present.

• The Biden administration admitted that this rule would harm small oil and gas producers most, writing, “100 percent of the increased Gulf of [America] compliance cost . . . would be borne by operators that are small entities.” Small and independent operators account for one-third of all oil production in the Gulf of America.

• On Feb. 4, 2025, Kennedy introduced his CRA joint resolution of disapproval to repeal the rule. This is one of more than 225 harmful regulations that the Biden administration levied against the oil and natural gas industry.

The full resolution is available here.

Watch Kennedy’s comments here.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) detailed the three ways in which Congress can work with the Trump administration to address inflation in a speech on the Senate floor.

Key excerpts of the speech are below:

“I don’t want to dwell on the past, but President Biden’s administration was an inflation machine. . . . What the American people are wondering every single day as they sell blood plasma to go to the grocery store is: when am I going to get some relief from these high prices? And we do need to provide them relief. I want to talk about three ways that we are in the process of trying to reduce those prices that my Democratic colleagues caused.”

. . .

“Number one: reduce spending. You see it every single day from President Trump. He said he was going to audit federal spending, and that is exactly what he is doing.” 

. . .

“Number two: deregulation. The federal government wants to regulate every breath we take. . . . It is just amazing, and each one of these regulations has a cost. The cost of all of our regulations today is in excess of $2 trillion—not billion, not million—$2 trillion.

“What does that mean? That means when a business produces a product or it delivers a service—and it has to comply with a meaningless, gnarly federal regulation which costs money—that extra expense is added to the cost of the product or the service. Duh. I mean, businesses have to stay in business. They can’t eat the cost so they pass it on, and that leads to higher prices.”

. . .

“The third way we are attacking these high prices is by trying to stimulate the economy to increase wages so that we actually can grow out of these high prices so that people will have more money to spend when they buy a car or go to the grocery store. We are not going to do that with tepid GDP growth. . . . We are going to do that through the tax code.

“We have about $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts that we implemented back in 2017 that caused the economy to grow and wages to go up until COVID hit. Those tax cuts are expiring here very shortly, and we are going to extend them.”

. . .

“We are well aware that high prices are gutting the American people like a fish, but by reducing spending, by deregulating the economy, and by designing a tax code that looks like somebody designed it on purpose, we are going to get those high prices down.”

Watch Kennedy’s full speech here.

MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, today joined Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and colleagues in sending a letter to the acting chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mark Uyeda, urging him to conduct a comprehensive review of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). 

The SEC requires brokers to submit investors’ personally identifiable information (PII) to its CAT database. Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s SEC issued an order that exempts certain PII consisting of investors’ names, addresses and years of birth from CAT reporting.

“The Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) has been a highly controversial endeavor that has raised many concerns from Members of Congress . . . We are pleased that you and fellow Commissioner Peirce have repeatedly acknowledged these longstanding concerns and applaud the Commission for its recent steps to protect the financial privacy of American investors,” the lawmakers wrote.

“However, there is more work to be done. The prohibition on collecting investor PII must be formally codified (rather than via rescindable exemptive relief) and already-collected PII must be expunged. Cybersecurity measures for the remaining data must be enhanced. And the CAT’s bloated out-of-control budget must be addressed,” they continued.

“Given these continuing concerns, the Commission should launch a comprehensive review that covers all aspects of the CAT. In doing so, the Commission should take additional steps to pause the CAT’s most controversial elements—not only the collection of customer PII, but also the problematic funding structure that a majority of the current Commission voted against. Further, it would appear appropriate for the Commission to pause and reconsider its position with respect to ongoing litigation related to the CAT, as it has done for other cases commenced during the Biden administration,” the lawmakers concluded. 

Background:

• Earlier this month, Kennedy introduced the Protecting Investors’ Personally Identifiable Information Act.

• Kennedy’s bill would prohibit the SEC from requiring market participants to submit investors’ personally identifiable information to the CAT. 

• The bill would also require the SEC to delete personally identifiable information once the agency resolves the investigation or issue that required that information. 

Sens. John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.), Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) and Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) also joined the letter. 

The full letter is available here.