ZOMBIE Act
Download PDFSponsored by
Rep. Palmer, Gary J. [R-AL-6]
ID: P000609
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Received in the Senate.
June 10, 2026
Introduced
Committee Review
Floor Action
Passed House
Senate Review
📍 Current Status
Next: Both chambers must agree on the same version of the bill.
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
📚 How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the 119th Congress. The ZOMBIE Act, a bill so cleverly named it's almost as if they want us to know it's a reanimated corpse of bureaucratic incompetence.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The main purpose of this bill is to pretend to care about reducing improper payments and preventing fraud in executive agencies. Because, you know, that's not something they should have been doing all along. The objectives are twofold: (1) to create the illusion of reform, and (2) to generate more paperwork and bureaucratic busywork.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 by redefining "financial loss to the Government" and adding new requirements for executive agencies to report on improper payments. It's a classic case of "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic." They're tweaking definitions, adding new clauses, and creating more reporting requirements – all while ignoring the underlying disease: a fundamentally flawed system prone to waste and abuse.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The affected parties include executive agencies, which will have to deal with more bureaucratic red tape, and taxpayers, who will foot the bill for this exercise in futility. Lobbyists and special interest groups will also be impacted, as they'll need to adapt their strategies to influence the new reporting requirements.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The potential impact of this bill is negligible, at best. It's a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. Improper payments will continue to happen, and fraud will persist. The real implication is that our elected officials are more interested in appearances than actual reform. They're willing to waste time and resources on legislative theater rather than addressing the root causes of the problem.
In medical terms, this bill is akin to treating a patient's symptoms without diagnosing the underlying disease. It's a classic case of "political placebo effect," where lawmakers pretend to take action, hoping the public will swallow the pill and forget about the real issues. Newsflash: we're not buying it. The ZOMBIE Act is a zombie bill – undead, unresponsive, and utterly ineffective.
Related Topics
💰 Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Palmer, Gary J. [R-AL-6]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Donor Network - Rep. Palmer, Gary J. [R-AL-6]
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 23 nodes and 24 connections
Total contributions: $183,210
Top Donors - Rep. Palmer, Gary J. [R-AL-6]
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Industry Impact
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 1 helped,3 harmed.
- −Health Insurance confidence 0.80
Section 2(b)(2)(B)(i) requires executive agencies to estimate improper payments resulting in financial loss to the Government, which may lead to increased scrutiny and potential reductions in payments to health insurance providers.
- −Hospitals & Health Systems confidence 0.80
Section 2(b)(2)(B)(i) requires executive agencies to estimate improper payments resulting in financial loss to the Government, which may lead to increased scrutiny and potential reductions in payments to hospitals and health systems.
- −Pharmaceuticals confidence 0.60
Section 2(d)(7) mentions implementing strategies to prevent fraud, including in programs such as grants and large contracts, which may affect pharmaceutical companies receiving government funding or contracts.
- +Cybersecurity confidence 0.60
Section 2(d)(7) mentions implementing strategies to prevent fraud, including through the use of cybersecurity measures, which may benefit cybersecurity companies providing services to government agencies.
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
Introduction
AI Analysis:
"The ZOMBIE Act's focus on preventing fraud and improper payments aligns with Project 2025's objective of reducing government waste and promoting fiscal responsibility, and its emphasis on holding executive agencies accountable resonates with the project's critique of the Administrative State. The bill's goals overlap significantly with the policy's themes of transparency, accountability, and constitutional governance."
— 7 — Foreword Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.” This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego- tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight. In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no differ- ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade, public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption. And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,” the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President. The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress. This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.” They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial powers into different branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others. Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people. In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi- bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter. Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected but seemingly un-fireable—then leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year. l A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes;
Introduction
AI Analysis:
"The ZOMBIE Act's focus on preventing fraud and improper payments aligns with Project 2025's objective of restoring fiscal limits and constitutional accountability to the federal government, although it does not directly address the broader issue of the Administrative State. The bill's emphasis on holding agencies accountable for their spending also overlaps with Project 2025's themes of reducing government waste and promoting transparency."
— 7 — Foreword Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.” This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego- tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight. In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no differ- ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade, public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption. And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,” the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President. The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress. This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.” They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial powers into different branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others. Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people. In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi- bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter. Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected but seemingly un-fireable—then leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year. l A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes; — 8 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists; l Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and l Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion.3 Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening. Nearly every power center held by the Left is funded or supported, one way or another, through the bureaucracy by Congress. Colleges and school districts are funded by tax dollars. The Administrative State holds 100 percent of its power at the sufferance of Congress, and its insulation from presidential discipline is an unconstitutional fairy tale spun by the Washington Establishment to protect its turf. Members of Congress shield themselves from constitutional accountability often when the White House allows them to get away with it. Cultural institutions like public libraries and public health agencies are only as “independent” from public accountability as elected officials and voters permit. Let’s be clear: The most egregious regulations promulgated by the current Administration come from one place: the Oval Office. The President cannot hide behind the agencies; as his many executive orders make clear, his is the respon- sibility for the regulations that threaten American communities, schools, and families. A conservative President must move swiftly to do away with these vast abuses of presidential power and remove the career and political bureaucrats who fuel it. Properly considered, restoring fiscal limits and constitutional accountability to the federal government is a continuation of restoring national sovereignty to the American people. In foreign affairs, global strategy, federal budgeting and pol- icymaking, the same pattern emerges again and again. Ruling elites slash and tear at restrictions and accountability placed on them. They centralize power up and away from the American people: to supra-national treaties and organizations, to left-wing “experts,” to sight-unseen all-or-nothing legislating, to the unelected career bureaucrats of the Administrative State.
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.
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