In a rare open hearing Wednesday on the Pentagon’s so-called UFO office, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., panned the Biden administration for not sufficiently funding the outfit’s research.
During a Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats Subcommittee hearing on the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, Gillibrand, who chairs the panel, said despite substantial initial funding for AARO, the budgets that the Biden administration proposed for fiscal years 2023 and 2024 offered only enough funding to cover the office’s operating expenses.
The requests included “almost no funds to sustain the critical research and development work needed to sustain serious investigations,” Gillibrand said. “It took a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III from me, Senator Marco Rubio, and 14 others to get the office temporary relief for this fiscal year,” she said, referring to the Republican senator from Florida.
