Federal law requires federally funded drug testing to include proper care, feeding, and housing for dogs and most other animals, but a Senate panel celebrating government transparency learned Wednesday that National Institutes for Health (NIH) officials approved spending at least $86 million in 2025 on research using canines that critics condemn as abusive and unnecessary.

The $86 million in questionable federally funded research was approved by NIH, via the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts, according to White Coat Waste Vice President Justin Goodman in testimony before the Senate Small Business Committee and Entrepreneurship, chaired by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

“It’s currently impossible to pinpoint the total amount due to disclosure deficiencies on public spending databases, which barely require any details in grant and contract descriptions and completely exempt some funding from being reported at all. Even with limited disclosures, we’ve shown that in these SBIR-funded tests, dogs — including newborn puppies as young as three weeks old — are being injected with experimental drugs or force-fed massive doses of them by having tubes shoved down their throats. Dogs are being injected with fentanyl, having their skulls drilled into to test bone glue, and subjected to other abuses,” Goodman told the Senate hearing.

“Tens of millions in SBIR funding continues to be spent for expensive, wasteful dog tests even though the FDA has stated that it ‘does not mandate that human drugs be studied in dogs’ and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary has said, ‘Why are we testing every single drug on … dogs, usually beagles? Because they’re obedient … It’s sad and it’s unnecessary.’” This wasteful SBIR-funded dog testing continues even though legislation championed by Senators [Rand] Paul [R-Ky.], [Cory] Booker [D-N.J.] and [Adam] Schiff [D-Calif.] was enacted in 2022 to remove FDA’s outdated animal testing mandate,” Goodman added.

Goodman’s testimony before the Senate panel coincided with the introduction in the House of Representatives by a bipartisan coalition of legislators entitled the Expedited Transparency Act (ETA) requiring that all federal spending expenditures be reported to and posted by the federal government’s USAspending.gov website.

The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Jimmie Panetta (D-Calif.) and Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) and is to be officially introduced March 18 in the House of Representatives. Also co-sponsoring are Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Nick Begich (R-Ark.), Clay Higgins (R-La.), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.).

Goodman’s focus on federally funded research that involves abusive and/or inhumane treatment of dogs illustrates the government’s long-standing problem with waste, fraud, and inefficiency. The Senate hearing also heard testimony from the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Director of Strategic Issues, Jeffrey Arkin, who pointed to a May 2024 report by his agency concerning needed improvements in spending transparency.

“Agencies are required by law to report federal spending data to USAspending.gov, the government’s official public source of such data. While progress has been made to improve the data on USAspending.gov, GAO has continued to identify challenges. For example, federal agencies do not consistently report spending data for other transaction agreements — legally binding agreements other than standard contracts or grants that are not subject to certain federal acquisition laws and requirements. GAO also has identified issues with the completeness and accuracy of data on USAspending.gov describing subawards — awards provided by a recipient to a subrecipient to carry out part of a federal award,” that GAO report said.

“Improving the transparency of information on federal programs and spending is foundational for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government as well as addressing persistent management challenges, such as preventing fraud and reducing improper payments. In addition, expanding the quality and availability of federal spending data opens the potential for federal program managers to make data-driven decisions about how they use government resources to meet agency goals. Improving transparency also provides taxpayers with key information on how their tax dollars are spent. However, to realize this promise, agencies need to continue to take steps to improve the transparency of federal programs. Congress can play a critical role by acting on needed legislation and continuing to exercise active oversight,” the report continued.

In her opening statement for the hearing, Ernst declared that, not only does the bureaucracy find ways to hide billions of dollars in spending, officials cannot assemble a comprehensive list of all federal programs.

“Another law passed 15 years ago requires Washington to make an annual list of programs, describing the cost, purpose, and results of each. Turns out, government agencies don’t even know how many programs they are running or if they’re accomplishing their stated goals. More than 2,600 programs have been identified to date, but that doesn’t include foreign aid and defense programs, which haven’t been tallied yet,” the Iowa Republican told the hearing. “If Washington doesn’t know how many programs there are and if they are working, how can the government guarantee your money is being properly spent? Simple answer: It can’t.”

Also testifying was John Hart, CEO of Open the Books, the Illinois-based nonprofit government watchdog inspired by the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA) that mandated creation of the USAspending.gov website. That legislation’s primary co-sponsors were then-Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Hart served for many years as Coburn’s Communications Director and was responsible for much of the messaging behind the successful campaign on behalf of FFATA.

Like GAO’s Arkin, Hart focused on what he called a “loophole” in spending covered by FFATA’s requirements, known as Other Transaction Agreements (OTA). These management tools are intended to give federal administrators flexibility to deal with changing circumstances such as those that prevailed during the COVID-19 pandemic. But there is a huge problem with OTAs, according to Hart.

“[The] Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also has no specific guidance on OTA reporting, which make them the Wild West of federal expenditures. According to the Department of Treasury, OTAs don’t need to be reported because they are not expressly mentioned in the FFATA. But this directly violates the spirit of the law, which calls for full disclosure of all spending. The numbers are not insignificant. The Government Accountability Office found the use of these deals is growing. The deals GAO was able to identify amounted to $4.8 billion in 2018 but had grown to over $18 billion in 2020. In total, GAO found $40 billion in OTAs that hadn’t been reported to USASpending.gov,” Hart told the Senate panel.

But there are major additional gaps in how agencies report spending to USAspending.gov, Hart said.

“In the same GAO report, the watchdog found 49 agencies that did not report at all. Neither entity, Treasury or OMB, has ‘clear responsibility for determining which agencies must report.’ Therefore, they said, ‘There may be other agencies with OTA authority that either did not report or for which we did not identify OTA data.’ Worse, the GAO has found that the Pentagon ‘cannot assess the extent to which OTAs are delivering capabilities to the warfighter,’” Hart explained.

Hart issued a warning in his testimony about the subtle progress within government of efforts to circumvent laws like the FFATA and the proposed ETA in order to hide waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending.

“In some blatantly authoritarian regimes like Iran, Russia, and China, the devil doesn’t need a disguise. Rulers can thwart truth and transparency by turning off the internet. But, in our system, the gradual slope to secrecy is more subtle. The enemy of truth and transparency isn’t a pack of lies or brazen secrecy. The enemy is tribalism,” Hart warned.

“Political tribalism provides the warmth of association, community and camaraderie — all good things — with a permission structure that allows for selective illumination — transparency for thee but not for me,” Hart continued. “It keeps inconvenient facts out of sight and out of mind. When both tribes permit partial secrecy, we’re on our way to total blindness. Tribalism is incompatible with the Founders’ vision of transparency. There are no Republican facts or Democrat facts or conservative facts or liberal facts. There are only facts, data, and evidence.” 

Joshua Miller, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch program, was the fourth witness to appear during the hearing, which was entitled “Sunshine Week: Bringing Secret Government Spending to Light.” Miller’s testimony focused, however, on the importance of effective congressional oversight.

“Oversight is not a partisan exercise. It is a fundamental responsibility within a democratic system of government. Independent oversight institutions exist to ensure that government officials remain accountable to the people they serve. When those institutions are weakened or dismantled, corruption becomes easier to conceal, misconduct becomes harder to detect, and public trust in government erodes. Strengthening oversight mechanisms is essential not only for protecting taxpayer dollars but for safeguarding the health, safety, and well-being of the American people,” Miller testified.

Similarly, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the panel’s top Democrat, used the hearing to criticize President Donald Trump’s administration for what he called “darkness,” “corruption,” and “censorship.” He said “more often than not, we do not hear about this administration’s actions straight from the horse’s mouth. Instead, we learn about these actions after the damage is already done, so at best it’s unacceptable and worse, it’s a deliberate series of coverups to benefit Trump and his MAGA minions instead of the American people.”