Sponsors (50)
Official title: To establish a Department of Peacebuilding, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 7, 2025 by Ilhan Omar · Last progress February 7, 2025
The bill would expand federal support for domestic peacebuilding, prevention, education, and victim services—potentially improving safety, youth outcomes, and more evidence‑based diplomacy—while requiring new federal offices, higher spending, and trade‑offs around bureaucracy and national security flexibility.
Communities, local governments, and nonprofits would receive federal grants and support to implement and expand domestic violence‑prevention and peacebuilding programs, increasing local safety and services.
Students, teachers, and schools would get expanded peace education, school counseling, peer mediation, and Peace Days that can reduce bullying, school violence, and improve youth outcomes.
Victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, trafficking, and other interpersonal harms would gain expanded trauma‑informed services, counseling, advocacy, and victim support.
Creating a new Department/Secretary, offices, and authorized programs would expand federal bureaucracy and likely raise federal spending paid by taxpayers (authorizes “such sums as may be necessary”).
Shifting emphasis and funds toward domestic peacebuilding and mandating a high domestic share of funds could constrain defense and foreign‑policy flexibility, prompting debates about military readiness and potentially slowing urgent diplomatic or military actions.
Centralizing broad peace and human‑rights authorities risks interagency overlap, duplication, and jurisdictional friction with State, Defense, DOJ, HHS and others, increasing administrative complexity.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Creates a new Department of Peacebuilding to coordinate, fund, and promote nonviolent conflict prevention, research, and victim support domestically and internationally.
Creates a new Executive Department of Peacebuilding led by a Senate‑confirmed Secretary of Peacebuilding to prevent and reduce violence, promote nonviolent conflict resolution, support community- and organization-based violence-prevention programs, and coordinate federal, state, tribal, local, and nongovernmental peacebuilding efforts. The Department will research causes of violence, develop national peace metrics and annual reports, consult with Defense and State on conflict-related matters, convene interagency bodies and advisory councils, and award or administer funding for domestic peace programs, with at least 85% of appropriated funds directed to domestic programming. The Secretary must submit legislative recommendations within a year, encourage public observances (“Peace Days”), and the Act defines key terms and authorizes “such sums as may be necessary” to carry out its purposes. The Department’s duties span personal and community violence prevention, victim services, school and community safety programming, substance use and suicide prevention, gun-violence reduction initiatives, international peacebuilding coordination, and formal consultation requirements before actions likely to cause or escalate violence.