Congressional Digest — January 2025: 13 Bills That Moved Past Committee
Starting something new today: the Congressional Digest. Congress moves hundreds of bills past committee every year, and almost none of them make the news — so I am going back through the record, period by period, starting from the beginning of 2025 and working forward until we are current. First up: January 2025 (including late 2024), when 13 bills cleared committee, including 1 signed into law. Each one below gets a plain-language summary with the complete neutral breakdown linked.
Signed into law
S 5 — Laken Riley Act. The Laken Riley Act requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain non-U.S. nationals who are unlawfully present and have been arrested for or charged with crimes including burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, assault of a law enforcement officer, or any crime causing death or serious bodily injury.
Passed the House
HR 21 — Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. This bill requires health care practitioners to provide the same level of medical care to a child born alive after an abortion or attempted abortion as would be given to any other newborn at the same gestational age, and to immediately admit the child to a hospital.
Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act
HR 23 — Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act. This bill would impose sanctions on foreign individuals and entities that help the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Americans or citizens of certain allied nations. It also rescinds all U.S. funding for the ICC and bars future U.S.
Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act
HR 28 — Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025. This bill would make it a violation of Title IX for federally funded school athletic programs to allow individuals whose biological sex at birth was male to participate in sports programs designated for women or girls. Sex is defined under the bill as based on reproductive biology and genetics at birth.
Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025
HR 30 — Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act. This bill expands U.S. immigration law to make non-citizens who have committed or admitted to certain crimes inadmissible or deportable. It adds stalking, child abuse, sex offenses, and expanded definitions of domestic violence as grounds to bar entry or remove non-citizens from the country.
Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act
HR 33 — To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide special rules for the taxation of certain residents of Taiwan with income from sources within the United States. This bill would amend the Internal Revenue Code to create special tax rules for certain residents of Taiwan who earn income from U.S. sources, establishing specific exceptions and thresholds for how that income is taxed.
HR 144 — Tennessee Valley Authority Salary Transparency Act. This bill would require the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal government corporation providing electricity and other services across Tennessee and nearby states, to resume filing an annual financial report with Congress each March.
Tennessee Valley Authority Salary Transparency Act
HR 152 — Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act. This bill requires FEMA to reduce paperwork burdens on disaster assistance applicants, improve how federal disaster aid data is collected and reported, and form a working group to find ways to streamline preliminary damage assessments after disasters.
Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act
HR 153 — Post-Disaster Assistance Online Accountability Act. This bill requires federal agencies that provide disaster assistance, including the Small Business Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to publish detailed spending information in a centralized public location.
Post-Disaster Assistance Online Accountability Act
HR 189 — Securities and Exchange Commission Real Estate Leasing Authority Revocation Act. This bill removes the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to lease its own office space, transferring that responsibility to the General Services Administration. Existing leases signed before the bill's enactment would not be affected.
Securities and Exchange Commission Real Estate Leasing Authority Revocation Act
HR 192 — Amtrak Executive Bonus Disclosure Act. This bill requires Amtrak to publicly disclose the annual base pay and bonus compensation for each member of its executive leadership team in its annual report to Congress. The report must also explain the criteria and metrics used to determine bonuses, and must be posted on Amtrak's public website.
Amtrak Executive Bonus Disclosure Act
HR 375 — Continued Rapid Ohia Death Response Act of 2025. This bill directs multiple federal agencies to research and combat Rapid Ohia Death, a fungal disease threatening the native Hawaiian tree Metrosideros polymorpha. It requires the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S.
Continued Rapid Ohia Death Response Act of 2025
HR 1398 — Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act of 2024. This bill reestablishes within the Department of Justice's National Security Division a program—renamed the CCP Initiative—that was ended in 2022, focusing on countering threats from China's government. It directs the initiative to combat spying on U.S.
Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act of 2024
That is the complete record for January 2025 (including late 2024). Every linked page has the full neutral breakdown — stated purpose, who is affected, the arguments on both sides, and the recorded votes. Follow the bills you care about and NewsClear will track what happens next.
NewsClear — neutral news & congressional tracking · Bill of the Week