By Emelie Rutherford
Key House lawmakers and the Navy appear receptive to continuing some near-term work on the ill-fated Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), instead of shutting down the program imminently, as officials determine which aspects of the program should be salvaged.
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 that includes estimated termination costs and “planned near-term contract actions related to EFV development and production efforts.” The plan, due to Carter in 60 days, is to include “harvesting technology from the EFV program that will be valuable to the future amphibious assault vehicle programs,” according to the memo, which calls for a gradual reduction of the EFV work and “orderly and smooth” shutdown activities.
Congressional and industry sources said this memo reflects the Navy’s support for proceeding with at least some development work on the EFV to determine which portions of the longtime program can be applied toward a new, replacement vehicle effort now dubbed the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV). An across-the-board stop-work order for the EFV program, which previously was expected, will not be issued in the immediate future, the sources said.
“Bottom line is that even though (the Navy and Office of the Secretary of Defense) still (say to) cancel EFV, they are now saying that want to finish the program smoothly and maximize what we can get out of the program,” a congressional aide supportive of the program said. “We think this is better no matter what happens in (fiscal year 2012, starting Oct. 1). Also, it gives Congress the chance to actually dig into the issue as we look at (FY ’12) vice a stop work order in the middle of (FY ’11).”
Some in Congress may still try to keep the EFV alive in FY ’12.
Three senior House lawmakers–House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) Chairman C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.), House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee Chairman Todd Akin (R-Mo.), and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.)–voiced support on the House floor yesterday for salvaging some of the work already done on the EFV.
Their comments came as the House debated the FY ’11 defense appropriations bill, which is part of a continuing resolution (CR) funding the entire federal government for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, 2010 and ends Sept. 30, 2011. That CR, which the House may vote on today, faces stiff resistance in the Senate.
Explanatory tables accompanying the House legislation state $145 million in FY ’11 funding can be used either for terminating the EFV effort or continuing ongoing system development and demonstration (SDD) work on it.
The HAC-D does not intend for that language to be interpreted by the Pentagon as direction from Congress to terminate the EFV in FY ’11 regardless of any potential change to the EFV-canceling plan Congress may propose in FY ’12, Young told Akin during a colloquy on the House floor. The language is intended to give the Pentagon flexibility to continue SDD activities to extract usable technologies from the program, Young confirmed.
“It is the intent of the committee to provide that flexibility, in fact 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. “Here’s a unique opportunity for a win-win situation. The Marines want to cancel the program and they would normally pay a $145 million termination fee. Here’s an opportunity, and we believe the contractor’s agreeable, to forego the payment of the $145 million to them but use that money to continue the program so that that we do at least get something for the $3 billion that we have already appropriated.”
Akin and Young agreed to work together on the EFV cancellation proposal.
Akin said the House plan, to allow the $145 million to be used on continued EFV SDD work, gives Congress “the flexibility to take a really good look at how do we accomplish that critical mission of moving Marines from the ocean to the shore.”
Dicks, joining the EFV conversation on the House floor, said it is a “wise course” to do more development work on the EFV to extract innovations that the Pentagon can continue using. He told Young he will work with him on the matter.
The Marine Corps plans to issue a request for information in the near future for the ACV, the replacement amphibious vehicle effort.
In the FY ’12 defense budget released this week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls for killing the long-delayed EFV, which he lamented has cost $3 billion to develop and would cost another $12 billion to build.
The proposal to kill the program generated only brief discussion during the House Armed Services Committee’s Pentagon budget posture hearing on Wednesday, and no debate during the corresponding Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing yesterday.
SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told Defense Daily he has “not reached a conclusion” on whether the EFV program should be canceled, saying he hasn’t had time to examine the matter yet. Still, he said he gives “heavy weight” to the Pentagon’s plan, especially considering Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said he supports it.