Grassley, Sanders Reintroduce Bipartisan Bill to Audit the Pentagon and End Wasteful Spending

BUTLER COUNTY, IOWA – U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reintroduced the Audit the Pentagon Act to ensure the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is a careful steward of taxpayers’ dollars. The legislation would impose financial consequences if the Pentagon fails to pass a full, independent audit. Any Pentagon component that does not achieve a clean audit opinion would have 2% of its budget withheld and that percentage would be returned to the federal treasury for deficit reduction. “America has the strongest military in the world and a mission to deliver peace through strength. National security is the number one responsibility of the federal government, and every dollar we spend to keep our country safe should be clearly accounted for. Yet, the Department of Defense has never received a clean audit opinion. Our bipartisan legislation holds the Defense Department accountable by ensuring it meets the same audit standards as other agencies, or it faces a financial penalty. Any dollar lost by the Department of Defense wastes taxpayers’ money and weakens our national security,” Grassley said. “The Pentagon has been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud and financial mismanagement for decades,” Sanders said. “Year after year, the Pentagon fails an audit, and year after year, Congress hands it another blank check. The Pentagon still cannot tell us where trillions of dollars have gone. We have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only major federal agency that has never passed an independent audit.” Background: Despite accounting for more than half of the federal government's discretionary spending and roughly two-thirds of all federal contracting activity, the Pentagon remains the only one of the federal government's 24 major agencies that has never passed a clean financial audit — a requirement under federal law since the early 1990s and mandatory on an annual basis since 2018. In its eighth consecutive failed audit, which was released in December 2025 and covered $4.65 trillion in reported assets and $4.7 trillion in liabilities across all 50 states and more than 40 countries, the Pentagon Office of Inspector General identified 26 instances of the most severe auditing errors and two additional significant accounting issues in the department's internal controls over financial reporting. In April, Grassley welcomed news from U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that the Pentagon is committed to achieving a clean audit opinion by 2028. Grassley has fought wasteful Pentagon spending throughout his career in the U.S. Senate. He and Sanders first introduced this bill in 2021 and reintroduced it in 2023 . The legislation is cosponsored by U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). Bill text can be found HERE. -30-