Senator Tim Kaine. It might be productive for the committee to have hits and failures of recent acquisition programs and get the DOD to tell us what lessons have been learned, the good or the bad and the lessons shared across branches and if so, show us examples of what we have achieved, forward motion, because of the lessons learned.
Senator Dan Sullivan: [This is] something we should take on because our acquisition system is one of the biggest vulnerabilities we have. There’s a joke that runs to the committee, somebody should take acquisition regulations, top secret, even though they are not, put them in front of the Chinese embassy and hope they take on the program because — let them learn about things we do here because it is not obvious, it is hurting us. There are a lot of lessons learned we can do but when you look at next generation handgun RFP [request for proposal], it is 450 pages, you know something is wrong with the acquisition.
I think it would be great to do that… Lessons learned, good and bad, a lot of it would require changes to the law. In my view, getting rid of entire levels of bureaucracy at the Pentagon which causes a lot of these problems, well-intentioned people were innocent, it’s not helping out nation — They are calculated attempts to keep supply chains dependent on them.
That was an interesting exchange at the end of a Oct 1 SASC hearing on COVID-19 and supply chains. That’s a strong statement there from Senator Sullivan. We can only hope that the Chinese would be foolish enough to emulate the DoD’s acquisition system.
Perhaps some congress members are willing to take this problem on. Sullivan talks about the “acquisition regulations,” but the real issue is the budget process. It’s not clear how many of congress members recognize that fact. The SASC was receptive to “mission based budgeting” in the FY2021 NDAA report. However, the House Appropriations Committee is nowhere close on that.
One thing is clear: the DoD acquisition system is a critical vulnerability to the security of the Western world, and eventually people in Congress are going to have to confront the fact that they have to do what’s against their own interest in order to advance the national interest.
They need to take a look at the broken protest process. Protest, corrective actions, Protest second awards after corrective action, second bite at the Apple to go from GAO to Court of Federal Claims. Look at recent big ones Navy Ngen, DISA DEOS, Army Unified All tied up for a year plus in litigation. What about the mission needs