UAP Disclosure Act — Senate Amendment 2023

On July 13, 2023, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) introduced the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023 as a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation was modeled directly on the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and proposed establishing a UAP Records Review Board with the authority to review and declassify government records related to UAP, including records held in classified programs not accessible to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. The amendment explicitly stated that 'unidentified anomalous phenomena records' are in the public interest and that the executive branch's national security classification apparatus had been used to prevent appropriate Congressional oversight of UAP programs. The Senate passed the amendment 56-34 in a bipartisan vote — an extraordinary margin for UAP-related legislation. In the House-Senate conference negotiations for the final NDAA, the amendment was significantly amended: the automatic declassification provisions and the independent review board authority were substantially weakened. The final version signed into law retained some disclosure requirements but lacked the enforcement mechanisms of the original Schumer-Rounds amendment. The legislative effort was the most significant Congressional action on UAP disclosure since the 1966-1969 House hearings on Project Blue Book.