The 2019 budget actually allocates R&D funding for accelerated acquisition of urgently needed technologies of the Navy’s choice, Kilby said, rather than specifying every line item in law. That’s an extraordinary delegation of authority by the legislature, and the service doesn’t want anything to undermine Congress’s confidence…
That was from the always excellent Sydney Freedberg over at Breaking Defense.
I wasn’t aware that the FY 2019 budget provided the Navy the ability to decide on R&D project allocations after authorization. That’s… amazing. It means that you don’t have to justify program funding two years in advance of receipt (among other travails).
I was aware of certain prototype funding blocks, which in 2017 stood at $1.6 billion for the Department as a whole. Perhaps that’s what the article was referring to.
The article’s point seemed to be that contractors were bypassing the military services to lobby Congress because project funding was not specified. It didn’t make clear exactly what contractors were asking of Congress. But I bet it was about getting particular line items into the budget and boxing out any new entrants.
Contractors might say things like, “it’s the obligation of Congress to make sure the services don’t initiate unaffordable and poorly conceived programs.” They warn that “if such and such project isn’t funded, then so many jobs will be lost in your district.”
Competing openly for new project ideas that have not already been marketed and captured can be a scary thing for contractors used to being plugged in from the start. They’re used to being assured their fair share as made into law through the appropriation. Its no wonder they are lobbying hard, because even a relatively small win for a design or prototype award can be the wedge that grows into a multi-billion dollar program.
And so, the Navy’s message back to industry is:
Just, please, talk to the Navy before you talk to Congress.
There’s an interesting dynamic in Congress that makes sense of this whole story:
One complication is the different perspectives on Capitol Hill between the armed services committees – which authorize programs to proceed under various legal authorities– and the appropriations committees – which must approve all actual funding. “On the one hand, the authorizers are asking the services to go faster, reform acquisitions, and they’ve given the authorities in Section 804 to do some of that work,” Philips said.
“But on the other hand, the appropriators are still looking at everything through the same lens that they always have … They want to make sure that we’re using the dollars in an appropriate manner in the timeframe given. This is just a natural tension that exists in the defense committees, and it’s something that we as the … acquisition board are learning to navigate through.”
The Armed Services Committees have been looking for more agility from the military services. It seems that when they finally start delivering authorities to accomplish that end, there’s backlash from the Appropriations Committees. Certainly the Appropriations Committee has good reason to be risk averse in federal spending. But its members are also accustomed to handing out goodies.
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