‘We’re Wasting Billions Of Dollars Every Year’: Virginia Foxx Calls For Optimized Defense Systems

4 months ago

At a House Rules Committee hearing on Monday, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) asked a panel about how Congress can simplify internal processes in the U.S. Military.

Transcript

00:00I want to make just one quick comment about what you've said about incremental reform

00:13on procurement.

00:15I've been here several years and have worked on this issue of procurement and trying to

00:20do something about it.

00:22And I hope and pray that what you're doing in this bill is really going to make a big

00:27change in procurement because we're wasting billions of dollars every year in this area.

00:35I don't want to cut defense.

00:36I want the way we spend money for defense to be spent well.

00:42And I really am going to be watching this issue closely because I think it's really

00:48critical to our overall national security issue.

00:56Chairman Rogers, we expect a robust amendment panel, so I will keep my comments very brief.

01:04You both talked about the 65th consecutive year that Congress has advanced the NDAA through

01:13to enactment if we're successful.

01:15To what do you attribute this year's successful bipartisanship on your committee?

01:22We keep the focus on the warfighter and making sure we give them what they need to be successful

01:27and safe.

01:28And that is our focus.

01:29It always has been.

01:30We still have our robust debates around some small measure of issues, but generally the focus

01:38is where it should be, and that's our national security.

01:41Right.

01:42And you've alluded to the fact there's an array of national security threats spread across

01:50an unprecedented global landscape.

01:52Nobody can pick up a newspaper where they don't read about China, Russia, Iran, North Korea threatening

02:01this country.

02:03So I'll come back to my concern about changing the procurement system and say, how are we going

02:15to quickly and efficiently calibrate our weapons systems, platforms, and other assets to win

02:24on the battlefields of the future and what's embedded in the SPEED Act that's going to help us do that?

02:30You'll remember last year we made the focus of the bill, the primary focus, quality of life.

02:36And this year it was the acquisition and procurement process, and that's because I'm a big believer

02:41that if everything's your priority, nothing's your priority.

02:46Last year it was trying to improve the quality of life of our service members.

02:49This year we have got to get after this problem with procurement and acquisition.

02:53It is far too cumbersome, which makes it expensive and antiquated by the time it happens.

03:00So as you heard the ranking member, we went into great detail on trying to abbreviate that.

03:06In a nutshell, what we've done is we're trying to make the department function in a more commercial

03:11fashion.

03:12Let me give you an example.

03:14Right now it can take years for us to put together a set of requirements that we expect

03:21vendors to try and meet.

03:24By making them so detailed and cumbersome and broad, only the primes can participate.

03:30There are a world of midsize and small companies that cannot hit that target.

03:36We're getting away from that.

03:37One of the things that we do is instead of giving this detailed requirements, we're giving

03:42a problem, saying this is the problem we need a solution for, and inviting the private sector

03:48to give us solutions to that problem.

03:50That is going to abbreviate that dilemma of several years down to a matter of weeks.

03:56But then from that point forward, a decision has to be made on which of those solutions that

04:01are offered will be made in a matter of 90 days.

04:05We go on through the process by expediting, empowering acquisition professionals, and

04:11expecting them to make a difference.

04:13The way I like to characterize it is, you heard the ranking member say, we have worked on this

04:17for years.

04:18We've given them all kinds of authorities to go faster.

04:21They won't use them.

04:23This year, we're telling them what they have to do.

04:25And we're giving them time limits to force the function of going faster.

04:30And it goes to the point that the ranking member made.

04:33We are going to be using high-tech weapons systems in the future.

04:37We have got to have the technology world involved.

04:41They will never be willing to function at this glacial pace and this cumbersome process

04:46we've had in the past.

04:48We're trying to fix the system so it accommodates this fast-moving technology.

04:52Can I emphasize just one point on that, the requirements process?

04:55Simplifying the requirements process is the key.

04:57I remember I was visiting a shipyard where they were refurbishing a littoral combat ship,

05:03which could get us into a whole other conversation.

05:06But they were talking about, and I talked to one of the workers there, and they were repainting

05:11the portion of the ship that's under the water.

05:13And he told me that there were 1,200 pages of requirements for how to, and I don't doubt

05:18that it's more complicated than, I don't know, repainting your bathroom.

05:22But it shouldn't have that many pages of requirements.

05:25The requirements process has become a thing in and of itself, where they just sit around

05:30and come up with requirements, which if that's what you do, that's what you can do.

05:34But it has tied the hands of our ability to make the changes we need rapidly.

05:38It's going to be focused, as the chairman said, on outcomes.

05:41Here's what we want.

05:42And that makes sense, because by putting out all the requirements and telling people

05:51how to do it, it assumes that people in the military or doing the procurement have all

05:58the answers.

05:59That's right.

06:00When you have millions of other people out there who are working on this, maybe in a much

06:05more up-to-date way, able to provide a much more efficient way to do it.

06:11So I applaud you on that.

‘We’re Wasting Billions Of Dollars Every Year’: Virginia Foxx Calls For Optimized Defense Systems

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