Excerpts of ranking members
By Matt Martin
The Defense Department is currently seeking to fundamentally change DoD acquisition policy and Congressional reporting via the “Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act of 2003,” submitted to Congress on April 11. The ranking House members of all the relevant committees (Government Reform, Armed Services, Appropriations, and Budget) have all expressed their alarm and asserted Constitutional authority in response. Here are some excerpts of a letter sent to Speaker Hastert and Democratic Leader Pelosi, from the four members:
- Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution (known as the Accountability Clause) states: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” We feel it would be a dereliction of Congress’ constitutional responsibilities to adopt these provisions because they would significantly curtail Congress’ ability to monitor the spending of taxpayers dollars at the Defense Department.
- In addition to eliminating the majority of information routinely submitted to Congress, the Department’s proposal would reduce congressional oversight over one of DOD’s most complex and controversial programs by collapsing $9.1 billion in annual missile defense allocations into a single budgetary item. This is more than many other federal agencies receive for their total annual budgets.
- Specifically, section 413 of the [Defense] Department’s proposal would repeal the congressional requirement to separately identify missile defense spending for specific programs according to various line items, such as boost phase, midcourse, and terminal defenses. Sections 413 and 414 of the proposal would allow the Department to lump its entire missile defense budget into a single line item defined only as “all necessary expenses for missile defense missions,” and would allow the reprogramming of funds without congressional notification or approval.
- [A]s part of the missile defense Deployment Readiness Review in 2000, a report was compiled by the Defense Department’s office of Operational Test and Evaluation, its chief independent test evaluator. This unclassified report described in detail many critical flaws in the plan to test the national missile defense system for effectiveness. It found that the system’s effectiveness is not yet proven, even in the most elementary sense, and that the system is too immature to assess its effectiveness or predict potential deployment dates. Yet the Defense Department tried repeatedly to keep this report from Congress. Despite numerous requests, the Pentagon refused to deliver the report for over eight months, disregarding a statute requiring its submission.
- [S]ection 201 of the Pentagon’s proposal would repeal a provision that requires the Department to notify Congress of significant cost increases in major weapons programs (known as Nunn-McCurdy breaches). Section 422(a)(95) would also eliminate the requirement to report cost overruns on military construction projects. Taken together, these provisions would allow the Department to avoid reporting cost increases on almost every capital asset it purchases.
- Under the mantra of “acquisition reform,” section 201 of the Pentagon’s proposal calls for the repeal of the congressional requirement to submit “Selected Acquisition Reports.” These reports provide quarterly cost, schedule, and performance information on major Pentagon weapons systems. They are often one of the only means for Congress and GAO—Congress’ investigative arm—to obtain information about cost overruns, technical failures, and schedule delays in weapons development programs.
- In addition to the outright repeal of these reporting requirements, section 421 of the Department’s proposal is a sunset provision that would eliminate all remaining Defense Department reports after five years.
- The only exception to these provisions is a single report: the Secretary’s annual report to Congress. In other words, unless Congress were subsequently and affirmatively to require new reports, the Department of Defense—the nation’s largest federal agency with an annual budget of nearly $400 billion—would submit only one annual report to Congress under this proposal. Notably, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld failed to submit even this report in two out of the last three years.
- The common thread linking all of these provisions is an effort by the Department to substantially reduce congressional oversight and public accountability.