The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) is proposing an array of Pentagon acquisition reforms, ranging from measures targeting weapon systems’ testing and operations costs to contractors’ compensation and political activities.
The committee that played a major role in crafting the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 is not done calling for reforms to Pentagon purchasing processes, as detailed in its version of the fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill and report. The documents were made public late last Friday, following the SASC’s markup of the legislation the previous week. Observers believe the Senate will not weigh the annual military policy-setting bill until September at the earliest.
The SASC’s report on the bill highlights a June 3 memo from two Pentagon officials saying they found no significant evidence that Department of Defense (DoD) weapons testing “drives undue requirements, excessive cost, and added schedule into programs,” as some program managers have argued. Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter and lead weapons tester J. Michael Gilmore instead blamed delays on poorly-defined requirements and acquisition plans that are not well aligned with test plans.
The SASC says in report language it “endorses the findings” of Cater and Gilmore’s memo. The committee calls for military departments to fully implement the recommendations in that missive, which include involving more officials in the requirements-development process.
The committee’s bill also would mandate the defense secretary issue guidance on assessing and controlling costs to the Pentagon for major weapon systems’ operations and support (O&S). Such costs are estimated to be responsible for up to 70 percent of big programs’ life-cycle price tags, and have been a concern in the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation Office and the Government Accountability Office.
“The required steps would include efforts to improve DoD processes for estimating O&S costs, collection and retention of data on O&S costs, and use of such data to inform system design and maintenance decisions,” the SASC’s report says about the legislative language. “The (Defense) Department would also be required to conduct independent logistics assessments prior to key decision points in the acquisition process and to use those assessments to identify and address factors that drive up O&S costs.”
The committee’s report stresses its desire that major systems in development comply with a directive memo Carter issued in March intended to improve weapon systems’ reliability. The SASC’s report thus directs the Pentagon to modify guidance to ensure the changes spelled out in the memo, based on recommendations from Gilmore last year, are carried out. Carter’s missive calls for institutionalizing new procedures for analysis, planning, tracking, and reporting of reliability issues, among other things.
The SASC calls for changing the types of weapons programs that must be recertified to Congress, under so-called Nunn-McCurdy rules, when they experience cost breaches. The committee’s bill would no longer have the Nunn-McCurdy requirements apply to programs that had major per-unit cost growth because the Pentagon decided to decrease the number of systems purchased.
The legislation also would mandate the comptroller general review noncompetitive and one-offer defense contracts, and require each major defense acquisition program be supported by a chief developmental tester and a lead developmental test and evaluation organization.
The Senate panel further wants changes to the Pentagon contracting authorities and procedures. Its bill would amend the U.S. Code so that a cap on defense-contractor executive compensation extends to all management employees, as requested by the Pentagon. Current law applies the pay limit only to the five highest paid executives in each segment of a company.
“The committee concludes that the extension of the provision is justified to ensure that the (Defense) Department is not required to reimburse defense contractors for unreasonable or excessive compensation paid to company executives,” the SASC’s report explains.
The legislation also would ban the Pentagon from requiring contractors to submit “political information as a part of a solicitation or at any other point during the performance of a contract.” Exceptions would be made for enforcing regulatory and law enforcement requirements and for some audit activities.
The White House has drafted an executive order that would require companies bidding on government contracts disclose political contributions.