Today's hearing is an opportunity for this committee to come together, build upon state level efforts and take concrete bipartisan steps toward improving the lives of workers across the country.

With this legislation, the committee has an opportunity to stand united in taking a significant step to uphold workers' rights and improve the lives of workers across the country.

The purchasing power of the Pell Grant has been drastically reduced.

Student debt is a problem for all young people but particularly for low-income students who are predominantly people of color.

As a former educator and somebody who educated primarily first-generation low-income students of color, this is a very personal issue for me.

We need to start keeping our promises.

That is why my colleague, Congresswoman Underwood, and I founded the Black Maternal Health Caucus just a month or so ago.

The attacks on Title X and on the ACA's contraceptive mandate and on ACA's anti-discrimination protections are an attack on the civil rights of millions of Americans.

I am concerned that the Trump Administration's rulemaking which will allow health providers to deny care to pregnant women will only exacerbate the maternal mortality crisis that we are facing.

Many on this committee are too familiar with the alarming statistics on maternal mortality in this country.

If anything, it takes away from freedom from the millions of women who need lifesaving care.

In December, the President signed into law a bipartisan farm bill which many of us here helped to negotiate in good faith.