Washington, D.C. — Today the House of Representatives passed the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included an amendment sponsored by Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX) that would allow Congress to see and evaluate the progress being made by the Pentagon on its required audit.

In 1990, Congress passed the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, requiring every federal Department and Agency to produce verifiable financial statements that could be fully audited. Almost 30 years later, every major agency has fulfilled this requirement with the exception of the Department of Defense.

Congressman Burgess’ amendment requests DoD to rank in order, from most ready to be audited to least ready to be audited, every entity within the Department that is required to provide financial statements for the overall effort of the Department-wide audit.

After working with Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) for years on this provision, the amendment was included for the first time in the defense authorization bill signed into law last year. The Pentagon submitted the requested report to Congress late last year. It is important to continue oversight of the DoD by again requiring a report providing a comparison from year to year on auditable financial statements. It is Congressman Burgess’ hope that this will compel the Pentagon to conduct the full financial audit that is required of it by law.

“After 25 years of non-compliance with the law, I am glad the DoD is finally making progress. However, we must continue to put pressure on the Pentagon to comply with federal law in working towards a full audit,” said Burgess. “Our national security and defense is of the utmost importance; the Pentagon must be held to the same level of accountability that other public sector agencies are held to when it comes to the spending of taxpayer dollars.”

The amendment was cosponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT).

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