House Oversight advances 9 anti-fraud payment bills

The House Oversight Committee advanced nine bills from markup on April 29, 2026, all aimed at preventing federal fraud before payments are issued. The package represents the committee's most comprehensive legislative response to improper payments since GAO estimates put annual federal fraud losses at between $233 billion and $521 billion. Since 2003, the federal government has lost over $2.8 trillion to payments made incorrectly or to ineligible recipients, costing each tax filer between $1,000 and $3,000 annually.

In Fiscal Year 2025, federal agencies self-reported $186 billion in improper payments — a $24 billion increase from the prior year. That figure includes both outright fraud and administrative errors, but GAO's fraud-specific estimate makes clear that the problem cannot be explained by paperwork mistakes alone.

The two flagship bills, H.R. 8463 (Pre-Payment Fraud Prevention and Treasury Data Access Act) and H.R. 8464 (Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act), were introduced by Chairman James Comer and co-sponsored by House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington.

H.R. 8463 directs Treasury to verify payment and payee information before disbursements are issued and expands the Do Not Pay system — a federal database matching payment records against death records, debarment lists, and other eligibility data. H.R.

8464 prevents agencies from making payments flagged as high-risk for fraud and gives Treasury authority to return suspicious payment requests to agencies for review. The Data Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization, endorsed H.R. 8463 ahead of the markup, noting that in FY2024 alone, $47 billion in improper payments stemmed directly from data verification failures that Do Not Pay is designed to catch.

H.R. 8312 (Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act of 2025), introduced by Rep. Pete Sessions, creates a permanent Inspector General for Fraud, Accountability, and Recovery within Treasury. The new IGFAR position would absorb and expand the functions of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee when it sunsets in 2028, giving the federal government a permanent cross-agency data analytics and fraud investigation infrastructure.

Sessions stressed that his bill addresses a nationwide structural problem, not a single-state scandal, and that inspectors general are a primary line of defense against fraud. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton criticized the broader context: President Trump fired or demoted over 20 inspectors general early in his term, undermining the independent oversight infrastructure that these bills attempt to rebuild or expand. The IGFAR would be a new statutory position, distinct from existing agency IGs, with government-wide data access.

H.R. 8312 (Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act of 2025), introduced by Rep. Pete Sessions, creates a permanent Inspector General for Fraud, Accountability, and Recovery within Treasury. The new IGFAR position would absorb and expand the functions of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee when it sunsets in 2028, giving the federal government a permanent cross-agency data analytics and fraud investigation infrastructure. Sessions stressed that his bill addresses a nationwide structural problem, not a single-state scandal, and that inspectors general are a primary line of defense against fraud.

Two bills with explicit bipartisan cosponsors advanced alongside the Republican-led package. H.R. 1755 (Timely and Accurate Benefits Act of 2025) was co-sponsored by Rep. William Timmons and Rep.

MFMaxwell Frost, extending Do Not Pay access to state governments administering federally funded benefit programs and requiring states to develop data verification plans. H.R. 8107 (Government Audit and Accountability of Federally Funded State-Administered Programs Act), co-sponsored by Rep. TBTim Burchett and Rep.

RKRo Khanna, directs the Comptroller General to produce a recurring 'High Risk List' of state-administered programs most vulnerable to waste and fraud, with cross-state trend comparisons. Bipartisan participation is notable because previous fraud oversight hearings had focused heavily on immigration-related benefit fraud in 🦆Minnesota and 🌴California, generating partisan conflict. Sessions and Khanna's involvement broadened the framing to a systemic data-infrastructure problem rather than an immigration-centered one.

The committee's investigation into 🦆Minnesota's social services programs — which alleged $9 billion in potentially fraudulent payments — provided the political catalyst for the markup. An interim committee report released in March 2026 alleged that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of widespread fraud in federally funded social services programs, deliberately misled the public about their knowledge, and retaliated against whistleblowers.

The case also fed the committee's investigation into 🌴California's social services programs. Comer framed both cases as evidence that state-administered federal programs are structurally vulnerable because federal agencies lack pre-payment data access to the same systems states use for eligibility.

The bills now advance to the full House floor, where they face an uncertain legislative path. The Senate would need to pass companion legislation or accept the House bills before any provision could reach the president. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, whose functions H.R. 8312 would make permanent, is currently funded and operational but scheduled to sunset in 2028, creating a clock on the legislative timeline.

The Data Foundation noted that only a small fraction of federal programs currently use Do Not Pay to its full capability — not because data is unavailable or privacy protections are inadequate, but because administrative barriers to onboarding have proven difficult to clear. The bills attempt to remove those barriers by statute while adding criminal penalties of up to $250,000 and five years in prison for unlawful disclosure of Do Not Pay information.