{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://cloud.house.gov/posts/release-congressman-michael-cloud-and-senator-cornyn-introduce-two-companion-bills-the-depots-act-and-depot-data-transparency-act", "RELEASE: Congressman Michael Cloud and Senator Cornyn Introduce Two Companion Bills: The DEPOTS Act and Depot Data Transparency Act", "2026-08-07", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Michael Cloud", "C001115", "cloud.house.gov", "cloud", "https://cloud.house.gov/press", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Congressman Michael Cloud (TX-27) introduced two House companion bills to improve oversight and financial management of Department of War (DoW) depots and arsenals: The Defense Expenditure Planning for Optimizing Throughput and Sustainment (DEPOTS) Act and the Depot Data Transparency Act.\n\nThe DEPOTS Act aims to clear the outdated internal accounting charges tied to depots and arsenals, which were affected by mission changes. The Department of War (DoW) runs depots and arsenals using revolving funds, but when facilities receive mission changes from the government, some of the old equipment or capital investments stop generating revenue.\n\nKey provisions of the DEPOTS Act include:\n\nAllow the Secretary of Defense to write off depreciation costs or internal debt on DoW\u2019s books when the charges are linked to capital assets that no longer generate revenue, due to a change in mission.\n\nRequire cash outlays to be recovered first.\n\nAllow the Secretary of Defense to delegate this authority down to the secretaries of the individual military departments: Army, Navy, Air Force.\n\nDoes not apply to payments owed to commercial contractors.\n\n\u201cThe DEPOTS Act is a commonsense flexibility for a real problem. Depots shouldn\u2019t face the adverse effects alone due to mission changes by the Department of War and Congress,\u201d said Rep. Cloud. \u201cCorpus Christi Army Depot does critical work keeping our service members\u2019 aircraft safe and reliable, and this practical reform keeps our Army\u2019s and the nation\u2019s rotary aircraft operational and, in the fight,\u201d concluded Rep. Cloud.\n\n\u201cTexas\u2019 two extraordinary Organic Industrial Base sites, the Corpus Christi and Red River Army Depots, make immeasurable, ongoing contributions to our nation\u2019s defense readiness,\u201d said Sen. Cornyn. \u201cI\u2019m proud to introduce the DEPOTS Act, which would allow the Department of War to provide surpluses to depots whose labor rates have been negatively impacted by government-directed mission changes, and the Depot Data Transparency Act, which would improve transparency into how depot-level maintenance funds are allocated and allow Congressional oversight at each depot,\u201d concluded Sen. Cornyn.\n\nThe Depot Data Transparency Act, co-led with Congressman Vicente Gonzalez, requires DoW\u2019s depot maintenance to apply to all individual depots rather than being averaged across an agency, thus strengthening the visibility of where taxpayer dollars are going.\n\nFor years, the DoW reported the percentage of work done at its Army Depots under each Defense Agency, rather than at each depot individually. This gap has allowed work contracts to shift away from certain depots, including Corpus Christi Army Depot. The bill thus fixes a loophole in our current law that requires at least half of depot maintenance work to stay with government-run facilities to protect our national security and industrial base.\n\n\u201cOver the past decade, Corpus Christi Army Depot\u2019s highly trained civilian workforce has dropped by thousands due to the Army\u2019s increasing reliance on private companies for helicopter repair work. This is a federal issue hurting depots across the country and requires a federal solution; it starts with bringing greater transparency to the Army\u2019s maintenance and overhaul schedule. Our bill builds on bipartisan language we secured in the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act and would ensure we protect South Texas\u2019s military competitiveness and the thousands of workers it employs,\u201d said Rep. Gonzalez.\n\nThe DEPOTS Act and Depot Data Transparency Act work together to keep depots competitive for mission and platform changes, promote public transparency, and strengthen our organic industrial bases.\n\nRead the bill text for the DEPOTS Act here.", 1, "2026-08-08T05:41:38Z", "2026-08-08T05:43:24Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://cloud.house.gov/posts/release-congressman-michael-cloud-and-senator-cornyn-introduce-two-companion-bills-the-depots-act-and-depot-data-transparency-act"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8963830769062042, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}