More acquisition reforms coming in defense spending bill

The operative word is more! This article says that there will be more attention to contracting and subcontracting contained in the 2008 Defense Appropriations bill, just now being staffed on Capitol Hill.

That is in addition to the other "reforms" that the "new" Congress has in mind.

For instance, the Accountability in Contracting Act is already in play (the Supplemental Appropriations bill- with it attached- is in the hands of the Senate). Now Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) on the House Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee wants more oversight. According to the article, his aim is

(m)ore government employees should be scrutinizing contracts

That should be good new for us, but I can't believe that means more people to do the scrutinizing. Maybe even more contractors to help with the scrutinizing.

Regardless, we need to watch for new developments.

Accountability in Contracting Act tacked onto Supplemental Appropriations bill

Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), gained House passage of his contracting bill but had no companion Senate bill to create a law. So, he used the important-to-our-troops supplemental appropriations bill to get it in position to become a law.

If it stays stapled to this bill, along with the other earmarks used to gain passage in the House of their controversial version, this will become law. All in the name of supporting our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.

If only I had a project I wanted to get passed. This looks like the gravy train to put it on. Such are our stakeholders up North in the domed building.

Government spending website coming soon

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 calls for a single searchable website to allow access to information regarding all federal awards. It defines federal awards as:

grants, subgrants, loans, awards,cooperative agreements, and other forms of financial assistance; [and includes] contracts, subcontracts,
purchase orders, task orders, and delivery orders [but] does not include individual transactions below $25,000; and...before October 1, 2008, does not include credit card transactions.

The linked article is a good overview of the proposed system, describing it as a "Google-like search engine and database."

There are two interesting aspects to this. First is trying to get all the data that this calls for and to keep it updated (there is a requriement all information is updated within 30 days of award). The Federal Procurement Data System-New Generation is supposed to have that, at least for federal contract information, but doesn't. Good luck integrating that data.

The other interesting part to me is the emphasis on subcontracts. Since the focus lately on the sub-sub-sub-contracts of the Army's LOGCAP contracts, this could be quite an expansive system. Of course, the bill calls for contractors to charge for this reporting effort.

This upside, though, is that if it increases the visibility of how important federal procurement is to the U.S. economy, it may be a good thing.

Cost growth in weapons systems gets HASC laser vision

More on the priorities of the current House Armed Services Committee.

A recurring issue throughout their Oversight Plan is controlling costs. So it comes as no surprise that they plan to conduct hearings and briefings to look at how weapons systems procurements get out of hand. They believe that the causes of cost growth, schedule delays, and/or performance degradation from envisioned capabilities include:

• too many programs competing for too few resources;
• requirements determination, definition, and growth [second notice that requirements determination is a focus];
• failures of cost estimation;
• unrealistic program schedules related to immature technology and insufficient funding;
• instability in funding profiles;
• labor and material cost increases; and
• management shortfalls.

That is an ambitious goal. It seems that the operational side of this process- those of us who are "in the field"- have long known that requirement generation is an issues that needs addressed. Perhaps Congressional attention to it in the weapon systems arena may bring changes all the way to the supplies and services contracting done at local installations around the world.

Acquisition issues come into the view of the HASC

Continuing our look at the priorities of the House Armed Services Committee for the 110th Congress...

There are many issues that the committee could have chosen in the area of Department of Defense procurement/acquisition. Here is what they are going to pay most attention to.

In their role of oversight and management, the committee intends to pay particular attention to the Acquisition System and Acquisition Policy. They plan to:

• Oversee “…the defense acquisition system and address growing concerns about cost growth [Note this area] in major defense acquisition programs and the responsiveness of the system to compelling military needs.”
• Examine in depth [my emphasis] the "military requirements process [Note this area, too- you will see it again]… (that) continues to produce outcomes which do not reflect the jointness that the military has achieved at the operating level.”
• Monitor revisions to laws concerning the reporting of cost growth [Here it is again] in weapons systems, controlling the government’s interest in technical data rights, and governing the management structure for contracting for services to recommend further revisions where necessary.
• Continue to push for accountability and integrity in contracting with the Panel on Contracting Integrity and working in part through the reconstituted Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, to identify and eliminate as many contracting vulnerabilities as possible (my emphasis).

Cost growth and requirements generation are certainly areas of concern to the committee.

In addition to acquisition policy, the committee wants to improve the Defense Industrial Base and Technology Transfers. They plan to:

• Give close examination to the health of the defense industrial base and those suppliers (which) appear to be struggling to generate profit margins large enough to justify long-term investments in infrastructure and technology. These long-term investments are vital to the health of the defense industrial base.

[Helping companies that are struggling with profit margins and controlling cost growth seem to be conflicting goals and should bear watching.]

• Examine the effects of mergers, acquisitions, and consolidation of second and third tier suppliers on competition and “the extent to which contractors may be taking on management roles previously performed by the government.
• Continue to review issues surrounding contractors on the battlefield and the outsourcing of inherently governmental operational functions.

[Here is another look at how the "contractorization" of government is being examined.]

The HASC focus on financial/resource management will include examining the “causes of the DOD’s inability to consolidate its financial information and monitor closely the … dollars being spent on business systems modernization programs … proposed to address [DoD’s] financial management problems.”

The US spends 3 times as much per person on defense as does Europe

This interesting article shows graphically how much the US spends on defense and how much of the world's freedom is shouldered by our country.

To me, the most telling is the statistic that shows that only 4% of Europe's soldiers are deployed throughout the year and that 16% of America's fighting men and women are deployed (some of our troops are deployed to Europe and are included in this total, I presume).

This is who is defending freedom world-wide.

I'd like to say that the rest of the world (England and Australia excepted) should pick up their share of the load, but that never has happened and may never happen.

All except Defense and Homeland Security still under continuing resolution

The continuing resolution for the remaining 9 appropriations bills may not become firm until March. Read how this happened and how it may affect what the federal government must do until then.