Burlison details fight to pass UAP disclosure amendment, touts healthcare bill support

Southwest Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison said he overcame significant political and procedural obstacles to secure passage of a measure aimed at increasing government transparency surrounding unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, as part of the House version of the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

Speaking Friday on Newstalk KZRG, the Republican said the amendment would establish a statutory framework for collecting, reviewing and publicly releasing federal records related to UAPs, commonly referred to as UFOs.

The proposal would create an independent review board appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The board would receive UAP-related records, including videos, reports and other documents, from federal agencies and determine whether they should be released to the public.

Under the amendment, records more than 25 years old would generally be subject to automatic declassification unless the president determines their release would pose a national security risk.

"It basically sets a posture of having the declassification switch on," Burlison said. "In order for them to stop something, they have to actually take action to stop it."

Burlison said Congress would retain oversight of the review board to ensure it fulfills its responsibility to release records when appropriate.

The amendment was adopted as part of the House's defense authorization bill, which establishes policy and priorities for the military but does not itself provide funding. Appropriations legislation is required before federal money is spent.

Burlison said adding the UAP language required months of negotiations and overcoming repeated procedural objections from congressional staff and committees.

He said opponents questioned whether the House Armed Services Committee had jurisdiction over the amendment before later raising concerns involving the Judiciary Committee.

Burlison said he contacted House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, directly after learning of those objections.

According to Burlison, Jordan said he had no concerns with the proposal, and Judiciary Committee staff later informed the House Rules Committee they did not oppose the amendment.

Burlison also said he voted against a procedural rule advanced by his own party after the amendment was initially excluded from consideration, a move he described as unusual but necessary to keep the proposal alive.

"It was difficult to get that in there," Burlison said. "We had to fight staffers, really staffers, people that are unelected, who kept throwing every excuse in the book."

The congressman characterized the effort as a bipartisan transparency initiative, noting previous attempts by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to advance similar disclosure legislation.

"I never thought in a million years I'd be agreeing with Chuck Schumer on something," Burlison said. "But when it comes to transparency and accountability for the American people, we do agree."

Burlison said the defense authorization bill also includes several conservative priorities, including language from the SAVE America Act and provisions prohibiting Pentagon funding for transgender surgeries.

During the interview, Burlison also discussed his healthcare reform proposal, which recently received endorsements from several conservative and business organizations, including the National Federation of Independent Business, Heritage Action and the America First Policy Institute.

He called the support from NFIB particularly significant because of the organization's representation of small businesses.

Burlison said the endorsements demonstrate growing momentum behind legislation designed to expand market-based healthcare reforms while preventing the adoption of a government-run, single-payer healthcare system.

"My number one policy item that we're working on is healthcare," Burlison said. "We're trying to make sure that we don't end up in a single-payer model. We don't end up with government-run healthcare for everything, and that we return healthcare to a free market and something that people can really and actually afford."

The House-approved National Defense Authorization Act must still be reconciled with the Senate version before a final bill can be sent to the president for consideration.