House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI)

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) is the House committee charged with oversight of the U.S. Intelligence Community and the Military Intelligence Program.¹ Its official jurisdiction page describes that portfolio as covering intelligence and intelligence-related activities across eighteen U.S. Government elements, including ODNI, CIA, Defense components, NSA, NGA, NRO, FBI, DHS, State, Treasury, Energy, and the military services.¹

  Origin and jurisdiction

H.Res. 658 was introduced on June 27, 1977 and passed the House on July 14, 1977, establishing a permanent House select committee for intelligence oversight.² The current House Manual places that authority in Rule X, clause 11, which establishes HPSCI, sets a maximum membership of 25 Members, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner, and includes the Speaker and Minority Leader as non-voting ex officio members.³ Rule X refers proposed legislation, messages, petitions, memorials, and other matters to HPSCI when they relate to the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence, the National Intelligence Program, or intelligence and intelligence-related activities of other departments and agencies.³

The committee's rules apply House and HPSCI procedures to the full committee and its subcommittees, require an official committee website, and define hearing, meeting, report, investigation, and classified-information procedures.⁴ Those rules also require appropriate clearances for committee staff before access to classified information and impose strict need-to-know controls for Controlled Access Programs, Special Access Programs, and similarly restricted classified information.⁴

  Why UAP oversight lands here

UAP oversight reaches HPSCI because the statutory office now codified at 50 U.S.C. 3373 sits inside the Defense and Intelligence Community reporting structure, with duties to standardize collection, reporting, and analysis of unidentified anomalous phenomena across DoD and the intelligence community.⁵ The same statute requires intelligence-community data availability to the office, an intelligence collection and analysis plan, and congressional reports in classified and unclassified form.⁵ Its statutory notes also identify HPSCI, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the congressional defense committees as appropriate congressional committees for UAP-related access under a fiscal year 2024 funding limitation.⁵

HPSCI is therefore not the only congressional venue for UAP oversight, but it is the House committee structurally positioned to examine classified intelligence programs, sources and methods, and intelligence-community reporting chains tied to UAP cases.³⁴⁵ That placement explains why the committee's May 2022 hearing paired an open public session with a closed classified session in the committee's secure spaces.⁶

  May 17, 2022 C3 hearing

On May 17, 2022, HPSCI's Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation held the hearing "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (Open and Closed)" at 9:00 a.m. in HVC-210 of the Capitol Visitor Center.⁶ The House committee repository scheduled a closed portion for 12:00 p.m. in HVC-304, making the event both a public oversight hearing and a classified follow-up session.⁶ Congress.gov's video record labels the public portion as an open C3 subcommittee hearing and lists the recorded proceeding at 1 hour, 32 minutes, and 50 seconds.⁷

The official transcript identifies the hearing body as HPSCI's C3 subcommittee, with Chairman Andre Carson presiding and Representatives Carson, Schiff, Welch, Himes, Krishnamoorthi, Wenstrup, Crawford, Gallagher, Mullin, and LaHood present.⁸ The witnesses were Ronald S. Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and Scott W. Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence.⁸ Moultrie testified that the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act helped establish a dedicated UAP office for collection, processing, analysis, and reporting of UAP-related data.⁸

  Oversight themes from the record

Carson's opening statement framed the hearing around three oversight demands: the status of AOIMSG, a reporting culture that treats military and civilian aviators as witnesses, and a DoD commitment to follow facts on unresolved cases.⁹ Schiff's statement said the open session served transparency and placed UAP reporting, investigation, and communication across DoD, the intelligence community, and the U.S. Government as a national-security matter.¹⁰ The transcript records Ranking Member Rick Crawford emphasizing foreign-adversary technology, technical surprise, flight safety, and full congressional visibility into intelligence-community developments.⁸

Members used the open hearing to press for standardized reporting, declassification where feasible, and a repeatable process for checking whether UAP sightings could be attributable to compartmented U.S. aircraft or programs.⁸ Witnesses repeatedly tied public limits to the protection of sensitive sources and methods, while the committee record preserved public-facing statements, support documents, and the open transcript for later citation.⁶⁸

  Key people and materials

  References

  References

1. intelligence.house.gov ↩ ↩²

2. congress.gov ↩

3. govinfo.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. intelligence.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. uscode.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. docs.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. congress.gov ↩ ↩²

8. docs.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

9. docs.house.gov ↩ ↩²

10. docs.house.gov ↩ ↩²