By Emelie Rutherford
The head of a new House panel tackling Pentagon acquisition reform pledged yesterday to examine to what extent lawmakers hinder weapons systems’ development.
Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) told reporters the new Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform he chairs will examine “institutional or cultural pressures or problems” contributing to the shortfall between money spent on and quality of items purchased by the Pentagon. Hindrances to be examined, he said, include “the Congress itself, and the practices or politics of the Congress in ways that it may be an impediment to reform.”
Leaders of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) announced last Friday the formation of the new panel intended to address broad issues surrounding the defense acquisition process. The seven-member panel will exist for at least six months and is intended to compile a report that will guide the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization act, which lawmakers are expected to consider early next year, the HASC said.
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) is the new panel’s ranking member, and its members are Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.), Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), Duncan Hunter (R- Calif.), and Mike Coffman (R-Colo.).
The panel’s formation comes at a time several related defense-spending efforts are underway, including the Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) leaders’ push for Pentagon procurement reform legislation and a government contract review initiated by President Obama.
Analyst Loren Thompson said there is “a sense of fatalism about acquisition reform in the defense industry.”
“On the one hand, (defense industry officials) know the Democrats are determined to crack down on contractors; On the other hand, they also know that most of the problems are ultimately traceable to the political system, rather than to the performance of the companies,” said Thompson, the chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute.
Because lawmakers’ input in programs at times is driven more by jobs in their districts than by military requirements and weapons-system success, he said, “members in industry figure that either things are going to get worse, or they’re just going stay the same, but they’re not likely to get better.”
If the defense-acquisition process worsens, Thompson said, there could be more reporting requirements, oversight, and constrains, but no real improvements in the rigor of systems being developed and built.
Andrews is optimistic the panel he chairs can sway detrimental congressional input in Pentagon efforts, he said yesterday in a conference call.
“I think it would be irresponsible to say that…Congress is not in part responsible for this problem,” Andrews said. “I think we probably are. And to fix it is going to take some discipline, and I’m all for that.”
The New Jersey lawmaker said the panel also will seek to measure and find the causes of defense procurement shortfalls, and then examine and recommend remedies.
“This panel is all about diagnosis, evaluation of remedies, and affixing a cure,” he said. He acknowledged there have been dozens of similar reform efforts over the years, but said the climate in Washington is different now.
“You really have the major decision makers in the White House and in the congressional branch interested in stepping on some toes here and doing what’s necessary to fix this problem,” he said. He cited defense program cost overruns as well as delays, changes, and insufficient competition for programs.
Andrews said the panel hopes to “build on” and “broaden” the reform bill touted by SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.). Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) is filing a version of the legislation in the House.
Andrews said he has not yet talked to any defense contractors about the new panel, but said their views are welcome.
The congressman emphasized panel members will not focus on particular weapons systems. He declined to speculate on whether the panel’s final report will recommend specific programmatic changes.
He said the panel will meet privately this week, and will hold “a lot” of public hearings with witnesses “who have very highly developed points of view on this question.”
Levin introduced two weeks ago wide-reaching legislation to reform the way DoD buys weapons, and bill co-sponsor McCain met last week with Pentagon officials about it (Defense Daily, Feb. 24). Defense Secretary Robert Gates has pledged to make defense acquisition reform a priority during his time in the Obama administration, and Obama cited last week Pentagon program overruns when he signed a memo calling for reviewing and possibly canceling existing government contracts (Defense Daily, Dec. 3, 2008; March 5). Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) also is chairing a new Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Contracting Oversight ad hoc subcommittee and planning to scrutinize defense contracts.
HASC Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Ranking Member John McHugh (R-N.Y.) acknowledged the repeated tries over the years to improve the acquisition process.
“Significant reforms are once again needed, in part because the acquisition system must change as DoD’s needs change,” Skelton said in a statement.
“Before we simply enact more regulations, we must understand the root causes of the Department of Defense’s acquisition challenges in order to generate suggestions to affect real reform,” McHugh said in the statement.