Transcript
UAP Disclosure Act
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I see my friend Senator Rounds is on the floor and ask him to engage in a colloquy on an important set of provisions in the NDAA that deals with transparency, trust, and government oversight--the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act that he and I co-sponsored, and portions of which we will pass in the NDAA.
I say to my friend that unidentified anomalous phenomena are of immense interest and curiosity to the American people, but with that curiosity comes the risk of confusion, disinformation, and mistrust, especially if the government isn't prepared to be transparent.
The U.S. Government has gathered a great deal of information about UAPs over many decades but has refused to share it with the American people. That is wrong, and, additionally, it breeds mistrust.
We have also been notified by multiple credible sources that information on UAPs has also been withheld from Congress, which, if true, is a violation of the laws requiring full notification to the legislative branch, especially as it relates to the four congressional leaders, Defense Committees, and the Intelligence Committee.
So the bill I worked on with Senator Rounds offers a commonsense solution. Let's increase transparency on UAPs by using a model that works, by following what the Federal Government did 30 years ago with the J.F.K. Assassination Records Collection Act. They established a Presidentially appointed board to review and release these records, and it was a huge success. We should do the same here with UAPs.
I will yield to the Senator from South Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Democratic leader, for the opportunity to speak to this particular issue today.
This is an issue that I think has caught the attention of the American people, and, most certainly, the lack of transparency on the matter, which is of real interest to a lot of the folks who have watched from the outside. It brings together, I think, a notable parallel in the withholding of information about items that are in the government's possession regarding, in this particular case, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
That same approach by government in terms of the possible withholding of information brings more questions and more attention to the issue of the assassination. We wanted to take that same approach with regard to how we could dispel myths and misinformation about UAPs--about unidentified flying objects, unidentified objects that simply have come to the attention of the American people.
Congress did pass legislation 30 years ago requiring the review and release of all records relating to that historic tragedy--the assassination of John Kennedy--which has led to the release of a great deal of information.
The UAP Disclosure Act was closely modeled on the J.F.K. records act.
Mr. SCHUMER. Now, I say to my colleague from South Dakota, who has worked with his great team on this issue--and on many other issues, I might add--that it is beyond disappointing that the House refused to work with us on all of the important elements of the UAP Disclosure Act during the NDAA conference.
But, nevertheless, we did make important progress. For the first time, the National Archives will gather records from across the Federal Government on UAPs and have a legal mandate to release those records to the public, if appropriate. This is a major, major win for government transparency on UAPs, and it gives us a strong foundation for more action in the future.
Mr. ROUNDS. I would agree, sir, and I think one of the most significant shortcomings that I think we need to disavow as well--the shortcomings of the conference committee agreement that are now being voted on--was the rejection, first of all, of a government-wide review board composed of expert citizens, Presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed, to control the process of reviewing the records and recommending to the President what records should be released immediately or postponed; and a requirement, as a transparency measure, for the government to retain any recovered UAP material or biological remains that may have been provided to private entities in the past and thereby hidden from Congress and the American people.
We are lacking oversight opportunities, and we are not fulfilling our responsibilities.
Mr. SCHUMER. Well, I would like to echo what my friend Senator Rounds has said today and on many occasions. It is essential that we keep working on the proposal to create an independent, Presidentially appointed review board that can oversee UAP classified records and create a system for releasing them, where appropriate, to the public. Again, as the Senator has said, it is the same method used for the J.F.K. records, and it continues to work to this very day.
It is really an outrage that the House didn't work with us on adopting our proposal for a review board, which, by definition, needs bipartisan consent. Now it means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades.
We will keep working. I want to assure the American people that Senator Rounds and I will keep working to change the status quo.
Before I yield finally to him, I would just like to acknowledge my dear friend, the late Harry Reid, a mentor, who cared about this issue a great deal. So he is looking down and smiling on us, but he is also importuning us to get the rest of this done, which we will do everything we can to make it happen.
Mr. ROUNDS. I agree with my friend and colleague.
To those who think that the citizen review board that would have been created in our UAP Disclosure Act would be unprecedented and somehow go too far, we note that the proposed review board was very closely modeled on the review board established in the J.F.K. Assassination Records Act of 1992, which has successfully guided the release of records to the American public on another very sensitive matter of high interest to the American people.
It does one more thing that we really need to recognize, and that is that there is, we believe, information and data that has been collected by more than just the Department of Defense--but by other Agencies of the Federal Government, as well--and by allowing for an outside, independent collection of these records, we can make progress in terms of dispelling myths and providing accurate information to the American people.
Mr. SCHUMER. Again, I thank my colleague and pledge to work with him and other bipartisan colleagues in the future to build upon what we have achieved in the conference report. We encourage our colleagues to join us in the further investigation of this issue and in advancing legislation that will complete what we have accomplished in this NDAA.
