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Bi-Partisan New Weapon Acquisition Reform Act for DOD

by Pythiian1 | May 22, 2009 at 06:33 am

593 views | 62 Recommendations | 6 comments

This morning, President Obama signed this important bill on May 22, to curb wasteful military spending that was sponsored and voted by members of Republican and Democrat parties.

Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Congressmen Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and John McHugh (R-NY) are the chairmen and ranking members in the Senate and House.

The Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act adds new oversight and transparency to a complex and often murky process, which has long been fraught with billions of dollars in cost overruns and long delays in getting weapons ready for the battlefield.

The Senate voted 95-0 and the House voted 411-0, both unanimously, to pass this new legislation in time before Memorial Day weekend in the US. The Senate version is S. 454 and the House version is H.R. 2101.

The House-Senate bill also proposes creation of two new director-level positions within OSD, one to oversee developmental test and evaluation and another to manage the Pentagon’s systems engineering efforts. Appointed by the defense secretary, the new directors would be charged with “issuing joint guidance relating to the integration of developmental test and systems engineering” and “leading the developmental test and systems engineering workforces within DOD.”

The Pentagon's biggest defense contractors are Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., Northrop Grumman Corp., General Dynamics, and interestingly, Britain's BAE Systems.

Senator John McCain is one of bill's major sponsors, however, he could not be present as he is with his son, midshipman, Jack McCain, who is the fourth McCain due to graduate on May 22, from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.

The US President is the commencement speaker at the US Naval Academy's ceremony on May 22, 2009.

This report was written based on the added functioning feature of live streaming from the White House at the time of the event.

Sources:

Congress
The White House live streaming webcast

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JeffHuang

at 07:27 on May 22nd, 2009

Thanks for posting this story Pythiian

Pythiian1

at 07:37 on May 22nd, 2009

Thanks so much, Jeff, for your read, comment, and recommendation. It's a bit of an obscure news, nevertheless, important to reduce wasteful spending at the Pentagon far too long, as agreed and supported by both parties.

Amy Judd

at 07:28 on May 22nd, 2009

It seems like this was a necessary step to curbing some spending and hopefully those cost overruns can now be allocated somewhere else.

thanks for this update.

Pythiian1

at 07:42 on May 22nd, 2009

Thanks so much, Amy, for your read, comments, and recommendation.

It is a long overdue piece of legislation that has finally passed after months of bi-partisan Congressional compromising efforts before this early morning Presidential sign-off. Both Senators Levin and McCain had issued their comments about this bill on their respective websites.