Kirsten Gillibrand replaced Hillary Clinton in the Senate in 2009 and chairs the Armed Services Emerging Threats Subcommittee, where she drafted Section 1683 of the 2022 NDAA creating AARO.1
UAP legislative portfolio
Gillibrand's bipartisan Gillibrand-Rubio-Gallagher amendment established whistle-blower protections, standardized incident reporting, and required annual public reports.2 She continued refining oversight in FY 2023–2024 bills, pressing DOD to fund the new office fully.3
Advocacy and public remarks
She frames the issue not as extraterrestrial but as an intelligence gap: "If we cannot identify an object, that is a problem for flight safety and national security."4
Committee influence
Sitting on both Armed Services and Intelligence panels, Gillibrand uses dual appointments to coordinate defense appropriations with analytic requirements, ensuring AARO receives tasking authority across agencies.