The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a letter to Representative Robert Pittenger (R-NC) stating that the GAO has accepted the request to review Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’s (CFIUS) “statutory and administrative authorities” to ensure that it has “kept pace with the growing scope of foreign acquisitions in important economic sectors in the United States.” (See GAO letter, Sept. 30, 2016, available here; see also Oct. 4, 2016, Press Release from Rep. Pittenger, available here.)  The GAO letter stated that it would initiate its review in about four months. 

The GAO letter was in response to a letter dated September 15, 2016, signed by Representative Pittenger and 15 other members of Congress, requesting that the GAO conduct such a review of CFIUS’s authority, as well as review the sufficiency of the CFIUS process as to Russian and Chinese investments. (See September 15, 2016 letter to the GAO, available here.)  The GAO letter of September 30, 2016, did not specifically address the latter request by the Congress members.