Stop Secret Spending Act of 2025

Floor Speech

Date: Aug. 7, 2026
Location: Washington, DC

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Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, taxpayers deserve to know how the money they send to Washington is being spent. For 20 years now, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act has required unclassified government spending to be put online in a searchable public website, USAspending.gov. This allows taxpayers to review the receipts for themselves. Bureaucrats, however, have been hiding tens of billions of dollars distributed through secret spending arrangements known as other transaction agreements, or OTAs, by not publicly disclosing these expenditures on USAspending.gov.

With fraudsters stealing $1.4 billion every single day, we need this information now so we can account for who is taking tax dollars and why.

In June, the Senate unanimously passed my bipartisan Stop Secret Spending Act to require OTAs to be publicly disclosed on USAspending.gov, just like all other government spending. Last month, the House approved the bipartisan companion bill introduced by Representatives Moore and Panetta. Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate agree that Washington needs to finally end the secrecy about how tens of billions of dollars are being spent every year. That is a win for everyone, especially our taxpayers.

Let's send this bill to the President today so it becomes law.

2069, which was received from the House.
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