By Emelie Rutherford
The Marine Corps’ plan to cancel the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) and replace it with three related vehicle efforts is not a done deal, as far as one key congressman is concerned.
House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee Chairman Todd Akin (R-Mo.) said yesterday naval officials did not give him the information he wanted about its EFV cancellation plans during a briefing last week. Thus, he said he hopes to put language in the fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill saying the Marine Corps cannot proceed with developing a new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) until it provides Congress with more information.
He wants details on the service’s requirements for amphibious vehicles, as well as the costs of different scenarios including keeping the EFV, keeping a pared-down EFV, upgrading old Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs) while buying a small number of EFVs, and building the newly planned ACV.
“Before we spend a lot of money doing anything, we want to make sure that we (have)…nailed our alternatives down and said how much does each one cost,” Akin told Defense Daily yesterday. “We’re going to ask for the information in the authorization bill, (saying) before we spend any money, we want this, this, this, and this nailed down.”
Akin’s subcommittee will mark up its version of the FY ’12 defense authorization bill next month.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in January he wants to kill plans to buy 573 copies of the developmental EFV, a long-delayed amphibious tracked vehicle that previously faced technical hurdles. He wants to instead develop a new ACV, buy a Marine Personnel Carrier (MPC), and upgrade existing AAVs. The Marine Corps held an industry day for the three vehicle efforts last week that had more than 600 attendees, according to service spokesman David Branham.
Akin told Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley during a March 16 Seapower subcommittee hearing he was frustrated he has not seen an analysis of the cost and capabilities associated with proceeding with development of the EFV and pursuing alternate vehicles. Stackley said the Navy could give the Seapower panel a briefing on the “current state” of terminating the EFV and “the process and the analysis” that led to planning the ACV (Defense Daily, March 17).
Yet Akin said yesterday he was not pleased with that briefing, which was last week.
“We never got the information that I wanted in terms of, ‘Here the alternatives. Each one costs this much and we like this one best for this reason,'” he said. “That’s what I was looking for.”
Akin said he directed congressional aides to formulate their own cost assessments of the vehicle options.
“The thing that we come back to was we need to really define the requirements more tightly,…and really nail down what it is that we need,” he said. “I don’t want to pour a whole lot of money into the AAV if that ultimately isn’t something we’re happy to live with for some period of time.”
Contactor General Dynamics [GD] has sought congressional support for compelling the Pentagon to buy a smaller number of EFVs, the latest versions of which passed reliability-growth testing in January.
Akin said he does not know if Congress will call for buying some EFVs, saying he doesn’t think House appropriators are “supportive of the EFV emotionally.”
“I’m more tolerant, but the only thing that is non-negotiable to me is I want Marines to get from the ocean to the shore,” he said.
Akin said he has been working with appropriators to figure out how to proceed with the EFV, so the House is in agreement.
The final FY ’11 defense appropriations bill that the House passed yesterday has report language attached to it saying the Pentagon can use $145 million for either terminating the EFV effort or completing system development and demonstration (SDD) work on it.
Akin joined House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) Chairman C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.) and Ranking Member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) in touting that language on the House floor in February (Defense Daily, Feb. 18).
“It is my hope that the (Defense) Department exercises this flexibility to finish SDD activities and get something usable for the $3 billion investment that we have already made,” Young said at the time.
Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter in a Feb. 16 memo directed Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to prepare “an orderly ‘shut-down’ and cancellation plan” for the EFV. Congressional and industry sources said this memo showed the Pentagon supported proceeding with at least some EFV development work to determine what work on it can be applied to the ACV.
That EFV cancellation plan ordered by Carter is being reviewed by Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley, according to Branham. A separate stop-work order has been issued to a subcontractor for training systems related to the EFV, he said.