House and Senate Conferees Reach Agreement on Defense Acquisition Reform

House and Senate conferees reached agreement on May 19, 2009 on legislation (H.R. 2101/S. 454) to reform the defense acquisition process. GAO earlier had reported that for DOD’s 96 major acquisition programs in 2008, total R&D costs were 42% higher than originally estimated and the programs experienced an average delay of 22 months in delivering initial capabilities.

According to Congress Daily (subscription required), the conference version of the legislation would create within DOD a Director for Developmental Test and Evaluation and a Director for Systems Engineering, and require the Secretary of Defense to designate a senior official to conduct performance assessments for and analyze the root causes of problems with weapons systems. Conferees reportedly agreed with a provision that presumes that any program that exceeds costs by more than 25% will be terminated. If the program is not canceled, it must be restructured and go through its last major review again. (The term “weapons systems” includes major DOD space programs.)