The position of under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (AT&L) will survive intact for another fiscal year.
Defense authorizers in the compromise version of the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill delayed until next year splitting Pentagon acquisition czar Frank Kendall’s position into two. If the bill was to be signed into law intact, AT&L would be split into two positions, effective Feb. 1, 2018: a chief technology officer called under secretary of defense focused on research and engineering and a chief acquisition officer called under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment.
House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said Wednesday though he is satisfied with the compromise over Kendall’s position, he believes there is more work to be done. While the goal of splitting Kendall’s position into two is to improve the speed of getting needed capabilities into the field, Thornberry dismissed concerns that adding another decision maker to the fold would add bureaucracy to the process.
“I’m persuaded by those people who say it is essentially impossible to make the person who is responsible for buying things efficiently the chief innovation officer as well,” Thornberry told an audience at a Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) event in Washington.
Thornberry said he hopes President-elect Donald Trump’s administration would submit a supplemental request as soon “as they get their feet on the ground” as the compromise authorization bill did not provide as much funding to Thornberry’s liking. Thornberry hoped the supplemental would be used to restore funding for additional F-35s, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and other platforms that were dropped from the compromise legislation. The White House submitted an $815 million overseas contingency operations (OCO) supplement of its own on Nov. 10 (Defense Daily, Nov. 14). A congressional source said this supplemental was included in the conferenced authorization bill.
The conferenced bill has a separate funding stream for experimentation, Thornberry said, an effort to prevent repeating mistakes from F-35, the Ford aircraft carrier and other troubled programs. Thornberry said this year’s bill is focused on incremental improvement and not committing to buying “one-thousand of something” until the Pentagon knows that it works.
Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), who served on the Senate Armed Services Committee before losing his seat in the 2006 election to Claire McCaskill, said he would be interested in a Trump administration position. Talent, who interviewed Thornberry at the FPI forum, said he has had discussions with the Trump transition team. Talent also said he was excited about previous speeches Trump gave on defense.