Providing for the concurrence by the House in the Senate amendment to H.R. 7776, with an amendment.

H.Res. 1512 is a procedural resolution introduced by Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA-9) on December 8, 2022. It provided for the House to concur in the Senate amendment to H.R. 7776, the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, with an amendment. The resolution was agreed to on the same day it was introduced.

What does this resolution actually do?

On its own, H.Res. 1512 is a procedural step. It gave the House a formal path to adopt the Senate's version of the FY2023 NDAA, with changes. Without this kind of resolution, the two chambers cannot send a final bill to the President.

What UAP provisions did the underlying NDAA include?

The NDAA included several UAP-related sections. Section 1673 required the Secretary of Defense, working with the Director of National Intelligence, to set up a secure reporting mechanism for UAP events and for any government or contractor programs related to UAP, including material retrieval, reverse engineering, and testing. Section 6802 rewrote the charter of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), spelling out its duties, leadership structure, and reporting requirements. The law also expanded the definition of 'unidentified anomalous phenomena' to cover airborne objects, transmedium objects (things observed moving between space, atmosphere, and water), and submerged objects.

Section 6803 directed the Comptroller General to assign cleared Government Accountability Office staff to audit AARO's historical record report process and to brief Congress semiannually on progress.

What whistleblower and reporting protections did the UAP provisions include?

Section 1673 required that the authorized reporting mechanism be administered by appropriately cleared personnel. It also required the Secretary of Defense to notify congressional defense and intelligence committees within 72 hours if a UAP disclosure turned out to involve a special access program or compartmented access program that had not already been reported to Congress. Nondisclosure agreements could not be used to block an authorized disclosure through the mechanism.

What other major areas did the NDAA cover?

The NDAA addressed a wide range of defense topics, including satellite protection requirements, nuclear forces modernization, missile defense programs, military construction for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, intelligence community oversight, and emerging technology policy. Cooperative threat reduction funding was authorized across six categories, including $225,000,000 for biological threat reduction and $45,890,000 for proliferation prevention, among others listed in Section 1671.