US UAP Legislation Tracker

The FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act carried multiple UAP-related sections continuing and expanding the statutory architecture established by FY2022–FY2025 NDAAs. Provisions include continued authorization of AARO with expanded interagency-coordination authority, additional reporting requirements on declassification progress, and language that established the policy footing for the Department of War's PURSUE program (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters), whose disclosure portal launched at war.gov/UFO in May 2026. Section numbers are pending final conference-report confirmation; see the daily refresh task.

Schumer and Rounds reintroduced the full UAP Disclosure Act in the 119th Congress with the eminent-domain and 25-year-sunset provisions that were removed in conference from the 118th Congress version restored. The bill carries forward the nine-member presidential review board with subpoena authority, the controlled-disclosure framework, and the whistleblower protections from S.Amdt.797. As of the last refresh, the bill is in committee with markup pending. Bill ID and exact section numbers will be confirmed against Congress.gov on the next refresh.

The FY2025 NDAA continued AARO's statutory mandate with additional reporting and declassification requirements. UAP-relevant sections include directives on the AARO Annual Report's content, congressional-briefing cadence, and interagency information sharing across the Department of War, ODNI, NASA, FBI, DOE, and Army components.

Section 1842 of the FY2024 NDAA (and adjacent sections) implemented a stripped-down version of the Schumer–Rounds UAP Disclosure Act amendment that the Senate had passed in July 2023. The eminent-domain provisions allowing federal recovery of any privately-held UAP material were removed in conference; the controlled-disclosure framework, the records-review timeline, and the executive-branch reporting mandates survived in modified form. Together with FY2023 NDAA Section 6802, Section 1842 forms the operating statutory base for AARO's records-handling and disclosure work.

The most ambitious single piece of UAP legislation ever to pass either chamber. The Schumer–Rounds amendment proposed a comprehensive disclosure architecture: a nine-member presidential review board with subpoena authority, federal eminent-domain authority over privately-held UAP material and biological evidence, a 25-year sunset on pre-existing classification of UAP records absent specific re-classification justification, controlled disclosure to a public archive at the National Archives, and whistleblower protections. The amendment passed the Senate in July 2023; the House conferees stripped the eminent-domain provisions and shortened the disclosure timeline before the modified text was enacted as part of the FY2024 NDAA conference report. Cosponsors included Sens. Gillibrand (D-NY), Heinrich (D-NM), Young (R-IN), King (I-ME), Reed (D-RI), Cramer (R-ND), Tillis (R-NC), and Booker (D-NJ).

The House-side bipartisan companion to the Schumer–Rounds Senate amendment. Burchett (R-TN), Luna (R-FL), Moskowitz (D-FL), and Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced the bill on the same day the House Oversight subcommittee held its July 26, 2023 UAP whistleblower hearing featuring David Grusch, Ryan Graves, and David Fravor. The bill mirrored the Senate amendment's disclosure-mandate and whistleblower-protection sections but lacked the eminent-domain language. The bill saw no floor action and expired at the end of the 118th Congress; substantive language was carried forward in the FY2024 NDAA conference report by way of the Senate vehicle.

Section 6802 of the FY2023 NDAA replaced the year-old AOIMSG (Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group) with the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), broadening the office's mandate from airborne objects only to UAP across air, sea, space, and trans-medium domains. The section established the office's reporting obligations to the congressional oversight committees, mandated a secure reporting mechanism for current and former military and intelligence-community personnel to submit UAP-related observations, and required an annual public report. AARO's modern statutory architecture dates from this section; subsequent NDAAs have extended and refined it.

The first modern statutory UAP architecture. Section 1683 of the FY2022 NDAA established the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) within the Department of Defense, building on the work of the 2020-established UAP Task Force (UAPTF, an internal Navy / ODNI effort with no statutory grounding) and responding to the June 2021 ODNI Preliminary UAP Assessment. AOIMSG's mandate covered airborne UAP only; the office was replaced by AARO via FY2023 NDAA Section 6802 the following year, with broader cross-domain authority. Section 1683 also required quarterly congressional briefings — the cadence that has continued under AARO.