By The lack of a fiscal year 2018 defense appropriations act is delaying Pentagon plans to boost production rates for heavily used munitions, a Department of Defense official said Dec. 7.
While the House and Senate versions of the fiscal year 2018 defense appropriations bill are “very supportive” of DoD’s budget request for munitions, Congress has yet to produce a final version of any of its 12 FY 2018 appropriations bills, leaving the federal government funded at FY 2017 levels under a continuing resolution (CR).
“What the CR says is stop, wait, don’t award that contract yet, which delays when you begin to increase the quantity and the production,” DoD Comptroller David Norquist said at a Pentagon press briefing. There are “two very destructive effects of that. One is we’re delayed in meeting the requirements of the combatant commanders. The other one is there are companies out there willing to hire people to begin to meet our requirements, and, therefore, you’re not getting the benefit on the economic side of that employment. None of this is fixed until you get a proper appropriations bill.”
While Norquist did not say which specific munitions are affected, an Air Force official said in October that the service was working to increase production of the Boeing [BA] Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb guidance tail kit, the Boeing Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) Increment I, the Lockheed Martin [LMT] Hellfire missile and the BAE Systems Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) laser-guided rocket (Defense Daily, Oct. 17).
The current CR began Oct. 1 and runs out Dec. 8. Congress is considering a new CR (H.J. Res. 123) that would last until Dec. 22 and provide more time to complete the appropriations bills. The House passed the two-week CR late Dec. 7 by a 235-193 vote, sending it the Senate for its consideration.
Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said that DoD has lived under CRs for a total of 1,081 days over the past nine years and that the negative impact is adding up.
“Nothing’s had a greater impact on combat readiness than CRs,” White told reporters. “At a time when security threats are high, we really do need the predictability and the budget certainty that we don’t have with CRs.”
In other comments, Norquist said DoD will begin its first department-wide audit this month to check the accuracy of its financial information and test its ability to account for more than $2.4 trillion in assets. The department intends to make the audit an annual event, with reports issued Nov. 15.
