I actually have never heard of Rep. Peter DeFazio, but evidently he managed to add an "audit the pentagon" amendment in a committee which would suspend the DOD's exemption from Federal Audits.
Defazio:
In 1990, Congress passed a law that required that all — all — federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, must have auditable financial statements every year. Since that time, the Department of Defense has spent $10 trillion ... [a]nd yet, no audit has been conducted. ... In 2005 Congress passed a ban on completing an audit ... Yet we don't know where ... $2.3 trillion dollars went.
Here is a link to a clip:
Clip
It's far from a "done deal" as it now goes to the Senate markup committee, but pretty impressive that it passed in his committee by 6-2....in the republican house.
From another article:
Of course, this may be just more political grandstanding as the bill will now be passed onto a Senate markup committee. If the amendment stays intact when the committee introduces the final bill it will then need to be reviewed and passed by a full Senate vote. If the amendment is still intact at that point then it will finally be presented to President Obama who will need to approve the bill and sign it into law.
In a time were social programs and the jobs of public employees are being slashed left and right it often seems that politicians exchanging rhetoric over trivial spending issues grabs all of the headlines. Clearly it is a sigh of relief to see the congress giving attention on the Elephant in room, even though the media hasn't given the issue the attention it deserves.
I cannot find very much on this at all other than DeFazio's page and the article above.
I wish there was more attention being paid to this. With all the deficit talks - this should be getting everyone's attention.