H.R. 8197 is a one-section bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on April 6, 2026, by Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee. Its title is "To terminate the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office of the Department of Defense, and for other purposes." Within 60 days of enactment, the Secretary of Defense would have to end the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and move its functions to other Defense Department elements as the Secretary sees fit. Neither the Secretary nor the Director of National Intelligence could then create a similar single office "that exercises comprehensive or centralized authority over matters relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena."

The bill would repeal Section 1683 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, the statute that established AARO and sets out its duties. It would also repeal a 2026 provision on accounting for security classification guides and rewrite records and archives provisions from the 2023 and 2024 defense bills to name the Secretary of Defense instead of AARO. It keeps definitions of unidentified anomalous phenomena covering airborne objects, transmedium objects that move between space, air and water, and certain submerged objects. The bill was referred to the House Armed Services Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. As of October 2026, Congress.gov listed no cosponsors and no action beyond those referrals.

The text contains no findings or statement of purpose. Burchett has long accused federal agencies of withholding UFO information, and days before filing the bill he told Newsmax, "We just need to disclose it all," according to Newsweek, which reported no response from the Pentagon. AARO was created in 2022 as the successor to the UAP Task Force, and its March 2024 historical report found "no empirical evidence" of extraterrestrial technology, a conclusion that witnesses and several lawmakers have disputed. UAP commentators were divided: some welcomed the prospect of shutting the office down, while Christopher Sharp, editor of Liberation Times, argued that AARO "has no power to declassify" and that the President does.

H.R. 8197 marks a reversal within the congressional UAP agenda. The defense bills it would amend built AARO up as the government's central clearinghouse for UAP reports, historical records and declassification reviews. Burchett's bill would dissolve that office and forbid any replacement with the same central authority. It arrived two months after President Trump said he would direct the Department of War to begin releasing UFO files, and it put a member's call to abolish the office, rather than reform it, into the legislative record.