Senate NDAA Calls for New ‘Data Czar’ for Foreign Military Sales
The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the Defense Department to create a “data czar” to collect, track and disseminate information about its Foreign Military Sales program, according to a newly released summary of the panel’s FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.
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During a July 11 press briefing on the NDAA, a senior congressional official said that having a single person or office in charge of overseeing FMS data would help address lawmakers’ concerns that the FMS process is slow and lacks transparency.
“This is just an opportunity or an effort on our part to try and get a better grasp on how the DOD and the State Department work together to track foreign military sales from the beginning of the process all the way to the end,” the official told reporters. “Right now, we don’t have a very firm understanding between the different entities that execute a foreign military sale about how they track and share data with each other, let alone with us. So establishing a data czar will help with that. It will give us a single button to press to figure out where an item is in the process.”
A second congressional official noted that Senate Armed Services Committee members from both parties criticized the FMS process during a May hearing on defense exports (see 2505150051). “Very frequently, what you see in those hearings winds up being in our bill, and this is a direct example of that,” the official said.
The officials declined to comment on how a data czar would compare to the “joint fusion cell” the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s arms sales task force is considering pursuing to help industry track the U.S. government’s review of defense export requests (see 2507020022). The cell would bring together personnel from the Commerce, Defense and State departments.
The NDAA also would require DOD to write a report on "acceleration options" for an initiative that allows European countries to fund weapons purchases for Ukraine through the FMS system, the bill summary says.
In a press release, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he secured language in the NDAA that would require DOD to annually review and consider adding entities to the Section 1260H List of Chinese military companies if they are already on other U.S. government sanctions lists.
The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the NDAA by a 26-1 vote in a closed-door session July 9. The text has not yet been publicly released, and it is unclear when the full Senate will take up the legislation. “Hopefully, we’ll go to the floor soon,” the second senior congressional official said. The House Armed Services Committee plans to mark up its version of the bill July 15.