WASHINGTON — US House and Senate conferees finalized a $612 billion defense policy bill that requires service chiefs to sign off on future acquisition programs suffering from cost overruns shifts the balance of power of acquisitions from the Office of the Secretary of Defense toward the service chiefs.
The measure, which also authorizes and encourages lethal aid to Ukraine, offers benefit reform, weans the US off of Russian rocket engines, bans torture, and keeps open the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, — and includes a number of pay and benefit reform provisions — came after lawmakers in the House and Senate wrapped up negotiations. The bill also includes a number of pay and benefit reform provisions. Among the acquisition reform measures, service chiefs would be required to sign off on programs suffering from cost overruns. The bill also includes a number of troop pay and benefit reform provisions.
"The service chiefs will have to sign off if they are aware of or cognizant of an overrun," said US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. "One of the biggest problems in the past is no one’s been held accountable for cost overruns, but now the signature of the service chief will be on a sheet of paper."
McCain and House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry, with the ranking Democrats of each committee — Sen. Jack Reed and Rep. Adam Smith — announced the report
had been
was finalized
unveiled the conference report
at a Capitol Hill press conference late Tuesday afternoon. The so-called "big four" did not release the conference report immediately or discuss it in great detail.
As lawmakers unveiled the measure, the Pentagon press secretary said Defense Secretary Ash Carter would recommend the president veto the legislation. Carter and the Obama administration have opposed funding increases for the Pentagon through a wartime overseas contingency operations (OCO) account, which is exempt from sequestration budget caps, and which is part of the bill.
But while Smith and Reed attended the press conference, both said they opposed the legislation, referencing the OCO issue
—
. Reed said he takes "fundamental issue" with the continued reliance on OCO funding because it provides an excuse not to repeal sequestration.
"I’m afraid that not only this circumventing of funding limits and the accusation ...
— I don't think anyone here —
that we don’t have to deal with sequestration because we’ve taken care of the Department of Defense," Reed said. "Our national security is much more than the Department of Defense, it’s a host of other agencies, and we have to have a solution to sequestration."
McCain, as in the past, said the solution lies with the appropriations legislation, not the authorizing legislation.
In the name of acquisition reform, McCain
had
championed a measure in the Senate version of the policy bill to increase the armed services' authorities to manage major weapon programs, a move seen as weakening the power of the Pentagon's top acquisition office.
The final version of the bill says that
requires,
if a program suffers a Nunn-McCurdy violation, the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics
(AT&L),
"can jerk it back," Thornberry said.
A central part of the measure
had
involved provisions aimed at keeping each service chief and secretary better informed about program progress and problems. The goal was to make those senior officials more accountable for their weapon programs.
The legislation seeks to give the armed services key incentives: Execute your program without major cost breaches and you get more control and say over its annual budget. If the services fail to manage major weapon programs without substantial cost increases — known as a Nunn-McCurdy breach — the Pentagon acquisition executive would have a decision to make: Take over the program or cancel it.
The 2016 defense authorization bill allows $515 billion for the Pentagon's base budget, an additional $89 billion for OCO and $8 billion for non-defense.
The conference report authorizes $515 billion in base funding, including $496 billion for the Department of Defense and $19 billion for Department of Energy national security programs. In line with the Senate budget resolution, the agreement authorizes $89 billion in OCO funding, $38 billion of which is made up of operations and maintenance funds that support readiness and troop training.
The House could vote on the bill Thursday. Lawmakers did not immediately say when the Senate planned to vote on it, though it is expected before next week.
The announcement was made in the shadow of a veto threat by President Obama, tied to the larger chaos and uncertainty surrounding the federal budget. Congress seems poised to pass a stop-gap spending measure that keeps the federal government open through Dec. 11, but it has yet to reach an agreement on the budget itself.
The president is said to want a budget deal that increases the defense and nondefense sides of the federal budget equally, while Republicans have proffered a budget that raises the defense side through the use of the OCO, while not raising the nondefense side. The Obama administration regards this as a gimmick and the president is said to have threatened a veto.
Email: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe
Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.