The investigation into the Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal continues to grow. Two U.S. senators say changes at the academy are not enough and are demanding much more.

Sen. Wayne Allard and his colleague, Sen. John McCain from Arizona, took to the floor of the Senate Wednesday afternoon. In a scathing indictment of the leadership of the Air Force academy, they introduced legislation to create an independent, outside team to find out who is responsible for a system that appears accepting of sexual assaults.

"Enough is enough. It is time to take action," Allard said.

Allard made it clear that he does not believe that the top brass at the Air Force Academy didn't know there was a serious problem with sexual assaults.

"Since 1998, the academy's office of character development has been conducting student surveys on sexual assaults. These surveys, which were reviewed by the academy's leadership, clearly indicates a pervasive problem with sexual assaults at the academy," Allard said.

Those surveys, first uncovered by a 7NEWS investigation, showed that in 2001, 167 cadets said they had been assaulted.

"These surveys were at the very least warnings that the academy leadership chose to ignore," Allard said.

While the senior officers at the academy have already been removed, some in Congress want them held directly responsible for the failure of their command to deal with the problem -- and that means punishment, 7NEWS reported.

That is something that Air Force Secretary Dr. James Roche has been reluctant to do and that is now causing him problems.

"The secretary of the Air Force has proven to our satisfaction that he cannot and will not address this situation, this crisis at the Air Force Academy, in a mature and efficient fashion," McCain said.

So McCain and Allard, among others, offered legislation that would create a seven-member independent review commission appointed by the secretary of the Defense Department to determine those who were responsible for the atmosphere conducive to acts of sexual misconduct.

The commission would begin work on May 1 and report to Congress within 90 days.

The key to this is determining who is responsible and many senators are focused not only on the officers at the academy, but also the Air Force's top brass, including the secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force chief of staff, 7NEWS reporter John Ferrugia said.

The amendment that would create the commission was added to a war spending bill that is to be voted on Thursday.