7. Intelligence Community · Notable · Needs Congress
Create a budget line item for modernizing declassification
Printed page 224 7. Intelligence Community
“An incoming Administration needs to explore options to prioritize funding for innovation in declassification management: for example, by establishing a budget line item specifically for the modernization of declassification or designating funding for program classification management as a special-interest item.”
What has happened
- Not started
Requires Congress. The FY2026 appropriations acts create no budget line item for the modernization of declassification and designate no special-interest item for program classification management. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 carries declassification only in the ordinary National Archives and Records Administration operating-expenses line, which funds "the review and declassification of documents" and the Public Interest Declassification Board out of a $421,000,000 account, exactly as before.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Requires-Congress ladder: nothing enacted, no chamber passage, no formal administration request found — not started, with the enacted appropriation attached to show what Congress did instead.
- The enrolled texts of P.L. 119-74 (zero hits for “declassification”) and P.L. 119-75 (two hits, both the NARA line above) were searched.
- Action
- create
- Object
- Budget line item for modernization of declassification
- ID
- 595