US Senate bill aims to fix Pentagon arms buying
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department would be forced to change its acquisition process under legislation introduced on Tuesday by top senators determined to crack down on the runaway costs and costly schedule delays dogging many Pentagon weapons programs.
Senators Carl Levin, the Democrat who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John McCain, a former presidential candidate and the top Republican on the committee, said the bill aimed to achieve more reasonable cost and schedule estimates before programs started.
It also would ensure technologies were more developed before production began and would crack down on the frequent changes to programs blamed for many cost increases.
The bill would also tighten the existing Nunn-McCurdy law, which requires termination of major weapons programs if they breach certain cost thresholds, but is seldom implemented. The Senate plan would require more documentation and independent cost estimates before any future Nunn-McCurdy law waivers are granted for national security reasons.
The Pentagon's "95 largest acquisition programs are an average of two years behind schedule and have exceeded their original budgets by a combined total of almost $300 billion," Levin said in a statement. "We simply cannot afford this kind of continued waste and inefficiency."
Levin said the key lies in better early planning, systems engineering, cost-estimating, and early developmental testing.
McCain said the bill would result in important changes, but the Pentagon needed to tackle its own systemic problems.
"The primary responsibility to reform the process falls on the Department of Defense. No amount of legislation can substitute for a true commitment to acquisition reform within the Pentagon," McCain said in a statement.
The senators said massive cost overruns had become routine in major weapons programs, largely because previous "reforms" had cut back the number of government acquisition experts and taken shortcuts around early program phases.
FINANCIAL CRISIS FORCING ACTION
The bill builds on past legislative efforts by Levin, McCain and other lawmakers to reform the acquisition process, but it comes at a time when the financial crisis is putting additional pressure on the Pentagon's budget.
"The financial crisis has proven to be a really interesting forcing function," said one congressional aide, who asked not to be named. "There just isn't as much money to go around."
Fundamental changes were needed to get a grip on systemic problems plaguing Pentagon procurement, said the aide, adding, "Otherwise you're just rearranging the chairs on the Titanic."
President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates say they plan to scrutinize major weapons programs, especially those that have run into cost and schedule problems.
On Monday, Obama singled out a Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) presidential helicopter program as an example of the procurement process "gone amok" and said the existing helicopter seemed "perfectly adequate." Continued...
