Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Reps. Ryan Costello and Tom Marino, along with 11 other House members, have requested an audit of federal programs that use live dogs as test subjects, McClatchy DC reports.

According to White Coat Waste Project, a bipartisan group that aims to stop the animal testing and what it sees as wasteful government spending, last year, five federal agencies used nearly 300 dogs in procedures that caused “significant pain and distress,” including “induced heart attacks, drilling on their skulls and surgeries to implant equipment.”

The agencies mentioned by the group include the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Veterans Affairs.

The group claims the government agencies “fail to disclose what they are doing, how much they are spending and the purpose or outcome of the testing,” as well as what becomes of the animals.

This reported lack of transparency has caught the attention of 13 U.S. House members, who wrote a letter to the head of the Government Accountability Office last week seeking the audit.

“Such transparency and accounting deficiencies prevent assessments by Congress and the public of the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of what we estimate to be a multi-billion-dollar government enterprise,” the letter states.

Read the full report at McClatchy DC.