FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Caroline Tabler or Patrick McCann (202) 224-2353
June 27, 2025

Chairman Cotton to Introduce Bill to Reform, Improve, and Streamline ODNI 

Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, today will introduce the Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act, legislation that would realign resources to intelligence missions, eliminate duplicative efforts and inefficient, non-functioning bureaucracies across the intelligence community (IC) and return the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to its original size, scope, and mission.

Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota), Ted Budd (R-North Carolina), and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) are cosponsoring the legislation.

“Created after the September 11th attacks, ODNI was intended to be a lean organization to align America’s intelligence resources and authorities, not the overstaffed and bureaucratic behemoth that it is today, where coordinators coordinate with other coordinators. These reforms will be vital to keeping our country safe from the wide range of threats that we continue to face,” said Senator Cotton. 

Text of the Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act may be found here.

The Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act would:

  • Cap ODNI full-time staff at 650.
  • Eliminate certain reporting requirements and the transfer of personnel authorities.
  • Modify the National Intelligence Council’s duties and terminate the National Intelligence Managers’ positions.
  • Terminate the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) at ODNI and transfer its responsibilities to the FBI.
  • Redesignate the National Counterterrorism Center as the National Counterterrorism and Counternarcotics Center, and limit its mission to foreign intelligence authorities. 
  • Terminate the National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center (NCBC) at ODNI, transfer NCBC’s responsibilities to the CIA, and redesignate it as the National Counterproliferation Center.
  • Repeal various positions (including the Director of the NCSC, the Director of the NCBC, and the Intelligence Community Chief Data Officer), and seven units, centers, councils, offices, and programs (including obsolete bureaucratic entities that have failed to function, such as the Joint Intelligence Community Council).  
  • Prohibit National Intelligence Program funds from being used to outsource IC analytic efforts to organizations that take funds from foreign governments.  
  • Require the DNI to wind down and terminate the National Intelligence University within 180 days.
  • Prohibit use of National Intelligence Program funds to implement any diversity, equity, or inclusion practice in the intelligence community.

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