NFL representatives met with the Drug Enforcement Administration in the District in March and assured it that a “compliance plan” for handling prescription drugs had been put into effect for all 32 of the league’s teams.

The meeting at DEA headquarters, which was revealed by a DEA official in a letter to House lawmakers, came two weeks after the congressmen had asked the agency about its investigation into the NFL’s drug practices. The DEA recently had investigated allegations that teams flouted federal laws that govern the transporting, handling and disbursement of controlled substances.

“Currently, DEA is unaware of any new evidence that the NFL member teams travel with controlled substance across state lines,” the DEA official wrote to four Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a letter dated May 24. “And additionally, as of the fall 2015, DEA was advised that NFL team physicians no longer store inventory of controlled substances at NFL facilities.”

The lawmakers sent questions in March to the NFL and the DEA after revelations and allegations included in a federal lawsuit charged NFL teams with improperly administering pain medication to players and violating the Controlled Substances Act. While the bulk of the lawsuit was dismissed last month, a handful of claims survived.

The NFL responded to the letter in April, saying its teams had begun to change their protocols in 2011 after being warned by the DEA and that it felt its teams now were in compliance with federal laws.

“The NFL and DEA responses to our letters raise more questions about the troubling allegations that teams may have been overusing medications to alleviate or mask pain, including both controlled substances and the drug Toradol,” Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., N.J., the top-ranking Democrat on the committee, said in a statement to The Washington Post. “While it’s encouraging that our inquiry may have sparked the DEA to meet with the NFL about its compliance plans, it’s clear that much more needs to be done to ensure that teams are prioritizing the health and safety of their players, and that they are informed about the risks and side effects of any drugs they are given.”

A spokesman for the panel’s Democrats said they were reviewing the NFL and DEA responses before determining any future steps. An NFL representative confirmed the March meeting between the league and the DEA.

The DEA’s reply to lawmakers, signed by Matthew Strait, the agency’s head of congressional affairs, did not respond point by point to the questions posed by the House members. The DEA made no mention, for example, of the federal investigation into the league’s drug practices or surprise inspections that occurred in 2014, both points of interest posed in the lawmakers’ letter.

The DEA letter noted a meeting held in 2011, in which the agency’s former head of diversion control made a presentation to team medical personnel at the NFL combine. The Post reported in April that the meeting was a contentious one at which many team doctors and trainers learned for the first time that they might be violating the Controlled Substances Act by traveling with prescription pain medications, distributing them at road games or allowing non-physicians to dispense drugs.

It wasn’t until 2015, though, that the league instituted a league-wide protocol that utilized local physicians to administer prescription medication to traveling teams. In its April letter to the lawmakers, the NFL assured the committee members that its teams were in full compliance with federal laws concerning controlled substances.

Whatever the House committee members choose to do next – if anything – the NFL has provided plenty of background material.

One document, previously unreported, is titled “NFL Prescription Drug Advisory Committee Major Findings and Recommendations,” an internal summary document from 2014 that noted “substantial variation exists in reported prescribing behaviors” among its teams. It said drugs were administered and dispensed by people other than physicians and non-players also were being prescribed controlled substances.

It also found that “a correlation between prescribing behaviors and injuries could not be determined.”