Foreign gift oversight moves from Education to State Department.
H.R. 9602 — Less Bureaucracy, Better International Foreign Gift Transparency Act · Filed by Michael Baumgartner (R-WA) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jul 9, 2026 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill moves oversight of foreign gifts to colleges to the State Department. The Education Department currently does this job. The move happens 6 months after the law passes. Staff, money, and enforcement power all go to State. The rules about reporting foreign gifts stay the same.
Who it affects
Colleges and universities must still report foreign gifts. The State Department will now enforce the rules instead of the Education Department.
One thing to notice
The State Department may have fewer tools to punish colleges that break the rules. This could make colleges less likely to face consequences for not reporting foreign gifts.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Jul 9, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 9, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
- Jul 15, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Jul 15, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 20 - 16”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $155,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 24 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Michael Baumgartner, who sponsored the bill, received $397,900 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Open Space Institute, Inc. — $155,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- foreign gifts — Money or things of value given to U.S. colleges by other countries or foreign groups.
- enforce — Make sure people follow the rules and punish them if they break the rules.
- State Department — The U.S. government agency that handles relations with other countries.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (8,572 characters) on Jul 25, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,522 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-22.
“Foreign gift oversight moves from Education to State Department.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr9602/simple Report an error