7. Intelligence Community · Minor
Reject calls to add new centers and layers to the ODNI
Printed page 229 7. Intelligence Community
“Rather, it was designed to be small and lightweight with a mission to coordinate and integrate the critical activities of the IC’s 18 agencies without creating new bureaucracy. That goal should remain in force, and calls by outside entities or Congress to add new centers and layers should be rejected.”
What has happened
- Done
Congress removed the ability to add centers and layers to the ODNI, and removed two existing ones. Intelligence Authorization Act for FY2026 section 6402 amends section 102A of the National Security Act to repeal the DNI's authority to establish new national intelligence centers and the associated personnel-transfer authority; section 6404 requires the DNI to terminate the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center and the position of its Director within 180 days; section 6405 terminates the Office of Engagement and strikes section 122 of the National Security Act outright, effective 90 days after enactment; and section 6403 requires the DNI to give Congress a target end-state staffing level for the Office. The whole title is styled "Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness". The repeal is self-executing on enactment: no new national intelligence center can be established.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Leveled done because a “preserve” or “continue” ask is done while the thing continues — the goal the Quote asks to keep in force is now in force by statute, and the two additions closest to the “new centers and layers” the Quote warns about were removed rather than added.
- Boundary call: anyone who reads “centers and layers” as two objects, only one of which was reached by the repeal, would level this partial.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- New ODNI centers and organizational layers
- ID
- 610