Providing for passage of the bill (H.R. 2101) to promote reform and independence in the oversight of weapons system acquisition by the Department of Defense, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. McHUGH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I too rise in support of this very important piece of legislation, H.R. 2101, the Weapons Acquisition System Reform through Enhancing Technical Knowledge and Oversight Act of 2009.

I want to begin where thanks are truly due, and that is with my good friend, my distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), who provided the inertia and the great leadership in putting together the team that has worked so hard to bring this bill to the floor, and a particular tip of the hat to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) and my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), for

their roles as the chairman and the ranking member in our special oversight committee. They really have done yeoman's work, supported by very able members, as they advanced a great piece of legislation.

Obviously, as you have heard, we consider this matter to be of utmost importance. The United States taxpayers deserve to get the most bang for their buck. It's a trite saying, but very true, especially when matters of national security are involved. What's more, there is an enormous opportunity cost when major defense systems miss and overrun their budgets.

The Government Accountability Office found that as of 2009 the Department of Defense had, as the chairman so correctly stated, some $296 billion of cost growth on just 96 major weapons systems. And even if most of this growth is due to poor initial estimates or requirement changes and not to waste or mismanagement, the fact remains that the Department of Defense was unable to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on other planned priorities.

It's in the interest of a strong national defense, therefore, that we in Congress do all that we can to rein in cost growth in the development of major weapons programs.

This national security imperative is also what has driven us to quickly mark up, and hopefully pass today, H.R. 2101. But I would note, despite the speed with which this body has moved, the legislation we have before us is a sound and well-crafted product.

We have the benefit of feedback from the industry, from the Department, and from members of our Defense Acquisition Reform Panel. Speaking on my own behalf, I believe this feedback has allowed our committee to draft truly a superior piece of legislation.

I don't want to be taken wrong here, the Senate, the other body, has passed a solid piece of legislation as well, S. 454. But it's important for the House Members to recognize that the legislation we have before us today will take us immediately into conference with the Senate and, quite likely, to the President's desk in just a matter of weeks.

Which is why we all believe it's all the more important to get a strong vote in support of this bill, to guarantee the voice of the House is heard in this debate, so that this body will remain on the forefront of ensuring we deliver the right capability to our war fighters at the right time and at the best value.

As my chairman, Mr. Skelton, has indicated, this legislation focuses on reforms on the early stage of the acquisition system, requiring the evaluation of alternative solutions and more critical points and independent oversight earlier in the process. A focus on early stage acquisition is vital. As we know, as we heard from my chairman, the sins which cause most cost overruns are generally created in the initial stages of the acquisition process.

It also increases the level of independent scrutiny major weapons programs receive, not because our program managers are incapable, but because we recognize that it's an unfair burden to require program managers to be both a leading advocate for and an independent evaluator of the program.

The legislation also seeks to address concerns we have had heard about minimizing bureaucracy and continuing to give the Secretary of Defense the flexibility he needs to manage his own office. Despite the impressive list of reforms carried in this bill, it really is relatively narrow in scope.

Some, including The New York Times Editorial Board, have criticized us for focusing only on acquisition of major weapons systems, stating, and I quote from one of their editorials, ``Unfortunately, the House version, to be voted on later, applies to only about 20 percent of acquisitions.''

Although, with due respect to The Gray Lady, maybe $296 billion doesn't sound like a lot of money to The New York Times, but as I previously noted, that's just the cost of overruns on these 96 programs. The total planned outlay for those 96 programs is some $1.6 trillion.

I have to say that I am fairly comfortable with taking on reforms to $1.6 trillion in government spending as just a first step this year.

In addition, we deliberately narrowed the scope of our bill in order to keep the legislation aligned with the Senate and to send this bill to the President as soon as possible. The remaining 80 percent of DOD programs will not go unaddressed. If truth be told, acquisition workforce issues and acquisition of services have been addressed in prior years' bills, but we will not be satisfied with resting on the laurels that I think this body will accrue today in supporting this legislation.

These issues will continue to be considered by the Defense Acquisition Reform Panel, which will carry on with its mandate to consider initiatives that could be addressed by the committee as part of the fiscal year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to reemphasize that I give my full support to this bill. We owe a great debt of gratitude to those Members who worked so hard to bring it to the floor today and do so with such a quality product behind it.

I am honored to stand with them in this well this afternoon, and I look forward to a strong vote in support of this worthy piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2101, the Weapons Acquisition System Reform through Enhancing Technical Knowledge and Oversight Act of 2009. As my friend and Chairman, Ike Skelton, has so ably described, this bill, which was unanimously adopted by the House Armed Services Committee, takes aim at reforming the process used by the Department of Defense to acquire major weapons systems.

We consider this matter to be of the upmost importance. The United States taxpayers deserve to get the most bang for their buck-- especially when national security matters are involved. What's more, there is an enormous opportunity cost when major defense weapons systems miss overrun their budgets. The Government Accountability Office found that as of 2009 the Department of Defense had $296 billion of cost growth on 96 major weapons systems. Even if most of this growth is due to poor initial estimation or requirements changes, and not to waste or mismanagement, the fact remains that the Department of Defense was unable to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on other planned priorities. Therefore, in the interest of a strong national defense, Congress must do all it can to reign in cost growth in the development of major weapons programs.

This national security imperative is also what has driven us to quickly mark up and, hopefully, pass H.R. 2101. Despite the speed with which this body has moved, the legislation before us is a sound, well- crafted product. We have had the benefit of feedback from industry, from the Department, and from the members of our Defense Acquisition Reform Panel. Speaking for myself, I believe this feedback has allowed our Committee to draft a superior piece of legislation.

Don't get me wrong. The Senate has already passed a solid piece of legislation, S. 454. But it is important for the members of the House to recognize that the legislation we have before us today will take us immediately into conference with the Senate, and quite likely to the President's desk in a matter of weeks. Which is why I believe it is all the more important to get a strong vote in support of this bill, to guarantee the voice of the House is heard in this debate and so this body will remain on the forefront of ensuring we deliver the right capability to our warfighters at the right time and at the best value.

As Chairman Skelton has indicated, this legislation focuses reforms on the early stages of the acquisition system, requiring the evaluation of alternative solutions at more critical points and independent oversight earlier in the process. A focus on early stage acquisition is vital, because we know from experience that the sins which cause cost overruns are generally created in the initial stages of the acquisition process. It also increases the level of independent scrutiny major weapons programs receive--not because our program managers are not capable, but because we recognize that it is an unfair burden to require program managers to be both the leading advocate for a program and an independent evaluator of the program. The legislation also seeks to address concerns we have heard about minimizing bureaucracy and continuing to give the Secretary of Defense the flexibility he needs to manage his own office.

Despite the impressive list of reforms carried in this bill, our legislation is relatively narrow in scope. Some, including the New York Times Editorial Board, have criticized us for focusing only on the acquisition of major weapons systems, stating, ``Unfortunately, the House version, to be voted on later, applies only to about 20 percent of acquisitions.'' Maybe $296 billion doesn't sound like a lot of money to the New York Times, but as I've previously noted--that's just the cost overruns on those 96 programs. The total planned outlay for those 96 programs is $1.6 trillion. I

have to say that I'm fairly comfortable with taking on reforms to $1.6 trillion in Government spending, as a first step this year.

In addition, we deliberately narrowed the scope of our bill in order to keep our bill aligned with the Senate bill and to send this legislation to the President as soon as possible. The remaining 80 percent of DoD acquisition programs will not go unaddressed. If truth be told, acquisition workforce issues and acquisition of services have been addressed in prior year bills. But we will not be satisfied with resting on our laurels. These issues will continue to be considered by the Defense Acquisition Reform Panel--which will carry on with its mandate to consider initiatives that could be addressed by the Committee as part of the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act.

Ironically, others have suggested that additional legislation is not warranted. The outgoing Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics recently told reporters, ``I just do not think you can mandate a process that will ensure successful defense acquisition . . . The bottom line is people run programs, not documents [or] processes.'' I think few can argue with this assessment. In the end, implementation of sound acquisition policies and maintaining a skilled workforce is more important than passing new reforms. Nevertheless, we continue to see poor outcomes that could have been avoided if there had been a stronger independent voice, earlier in the program and the warfighters had a clear role in establishing the requirements up front.

Moreover, we have repeatedly heard testimony before the Armed Services Committee that the reforms contained in this bill are practical, necessary, and can be implemented. We heard testimony from a panel of outside experts, many of them former senior officials from DoD, and the new Deputy Secretary of Defense, who were highly complimentary of this legislation. The Department is on-board with these changes--many of which they have recently committed to internal policy guidance.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I give my full support to this bill. In conclusion, I thank all of the members, but especially Chairman Skelton, for collaborating so closely with me, and Rob Andrews and Mike Conaway who lead our Defense Acquisition Reform Panel, for their participation in this process and for helping to make this the strongest possible product. I have absolute confidence that the members of the Panel will continue in their endeavors and provide the Armed Services Committee with a number of additional recommendations when they have fulfilled their mandate. We appreciate their hard work.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on H.R. 2101.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I want to again thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his great effort and leadership and clearly associate myself with his comments about the staff, some of whom are beside and behind me here, as they are

behind the chairman and others on the other side. Everything good that we achieve comes from their efforts. Everything that is not so good is certainly because we fail to listen to them. Certainly, in this bill, we listened to them very carefully. That, in large measure, is why it's such a great product.

With that, I'm proud to yield 4 minutes to our leader on our side of the aisle, a man whom I asked if he would not think about leading our efforts from the minority side, and was anxious to go forward and really underscored why he was the only choice, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

At this time I'd be happy to yield such time as he may consume to our ranking member on the Air and Land Subcommittee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).

At this time I'd like to yield 2 minutes to a very able member of the Acquisition Reform panel and a proud veteran of our United States military, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman).

Madam Speaker, at this time I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming), a 6-year member of the Navy and a military family physician.

Madam Speaker, I would yield myself the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, as you have heard here today through very eloquent and insightful comments of Members on both sides of the aisle, this is a piece of legislation that we believe very strongly deserves the full and enthusiastic support of every Member of this House. And I want to close how I opened, and that is a word of thanks to our distinguished chairman and to the Chair and ranking member of our special panel, Messrs. Conaway and Andrews for their great efforts. And I know today that the House will take an important step forward in both serving our men and women in uniform better through acquisition reform and equally serving the interests of the United States taxpayer.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 432) providing for passage of the bill (H.R. 2101) to promote reform and independence in the oversight of weapons system acquisition by the Department of Defense, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of this measure, the Weapons Acquisition System Reform Through Enhancing Technical Knowledge and Oversight Act of 2009 and, of course, H. Res. 432, under which we will consider the bill today.

By voting for H. Res. 432, we will be adopting the bill reported out of the House Armed Services Committee 59-0, and initiating a conference with the Senate and their related bill, S. 454, which passed the Senate on a vote of 93-0. This legislation is in keeping with the best bipartisan traditions of the Congress, and the bipartisan leadership of both the House and Senate have committed to passing this legislation as quickly as possible.

The need for this legislation is urgent. It's indisputable. GAO tells us that the Department of Defense currently estimates it will exceed its original cost estimates on 96 major weapons systems by $296 billion. That's more than 2 years of pay and health care for all of our troops. Much of this cost growth is already baked into the pie because of decisions made that will be difficult or impossible to reverse. At the same time, however, a lot of this is money that we have not yet actually spent, meaning we will feel the effects of this waste for years. We cannot wait to take corrective measures.

On April 27 Ranking Member McHugh from New York and I, along with our partners, Rob Andrews and Mike Conaway, the leaders of our panel on Defense Acquisition Reform, introduced the WASTE TKO Act. After introducing the bill, the committee held two hearings on the bill and held a markup. On the basis of the testimony we received and on the basis of the committee's long experience on acquisition reform issues, I can say with confidence that this legislation will substantially improve the oversight of major weapons system acquisition.

Let me briefly summarize the bill's provisions. It requires the Secretary of Defense to assign responsibility to independent officials within his office for oversight of cost estimation, systems engineering, and performance assessment. It also assigns additional responsibility to the Director of Defense Research and Engineering for assessing technological maturity and to the unified combatant commanders for helping to set requirements.

It promotes competition in our acquisition strategies, and it promotes the consideration of tradeoffs between cost, schedule, and performance. It limits organizational conflicts of interest and tightens the Nunn-McCurdy process.

Perhaps most importantly, it requires an increased focus on programs in the early stages of acquisition when most costs are determined, and it focuses oversight on programs which have demonstrated poor performance.

Lastly, the bill authorizes the Secretary of Defense to award excellence in acquisition.

Let me clarify an important issue about this bill that has arisen. Mr. McHugh and I have worked to make clear that this bill is tailored to match the scope of S. 454 in the Senate. We did this to speed its enactment into law.

As a result, like S. 454, it deals almost exclusively with major weapons systems acquisition, which is only 20 percent of the total that the Department of Defense spends on acquisition on an annual basis. There are also serious problems with the other 80 percent of the acquisitions systems. As a result, we established the Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform in our committee, led by Rob Andrews and Mike Conaway.

They did excellent work on this bill, and we will get a lot more good work out of them before the day is done. We are fully committed to continuing the work on these issues in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 and in subsequent legislation.

I ask all Members of the House to support H. Res. 432 and the underlying bill and vote to move it forward to a conference with the Senate on this very, very vital matter.

I reserve the balance of my time.

First I want to again thank the ranking member, my good friend, John McHugh, for the good work on this excellent legislation, as well as his hard work on the Armed Services Committee. It is very much appreciated.

I yield 5 minutes to my friend, the kind colleague and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee on the Special Oversight Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Rob Andrews.

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

May I inquire as to the number of minutes I have left?

Before I yield to the next speaker, I wish to add to what my colleagues on the other side have said. What outstanding work our staff has done on this legislation--complicated. And they glued it together and the jigsaw puzzle has an absolute clear picture as to acquisition reform. We hope to go from here to conference with the Senate with a successful outline.

I yield 2 minutes to my friend and colleague, a member of the Armed Services Committee, the gentlelady from New Hampshire (Ms. Shea- Porter).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend and colleague, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Kratovil).

I yield an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend and colleague, a member of the Armed Services Committee's special oversight panel on defense acquisition reform, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Ellsworth).

I wish to mention, Madam Speaker, that this is landmark legislation. It will go a long, long way in making sure we get the best weapons systems possible for our men and women who wear the uniform, and also more in budget, and it is extremely important. A special thanks to Mr. McHugh, to the panel, Mr. Andrews and Mr. Conaway. A special thanks to the staff members, Andrew Hunter, especially, and Erin Conaton. And we urge a solid vote on this piece of legislation.

With that, I yield back.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, there is an understandable frustration and cynicism in our country about our political system. There are people who believe that all we do is argue, that the two parties never agree on anything. And when we do agree on something, it's on something symbolic or inconsequential.

I think beyond the value of the substance of this legislation is the value of showing how those caricatures of the American political process are not always true. This has been a very substantive and very significant process, and it was led by outstanding bipartisan leadership from Mr. Skelton, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who had the foresight to put together this panel and empower us with the staff, resources, and time to do the job well; and Mr. McHugh, who loaned both his expertise and his personal credibility to this effort, both of which are in significant supply.

I would also like to thank Mr. Conaway from Texas, the ranking member of the panel, for his outstanding contributions; each member of the panel, both Republican and Democratic, for their diligence in this effort; and most assuredly, the hardworking staff people who made the product possible: Erin Conaton and Andrew Hunter, Jenness Simler, Nat Bell from my office. We appreciate very much their efforts and many others.

You have heard the chairman and others say earlier that the Government Accountability Office has identified $296 billion in cost overruns, that's just overruns, in major weapons systems. And as the chairman said, had we not incurred these overruns, that's enough money to pay for the salaries of the troops and the health benefits for the troops and their families for nearly 2\1/2\ years. That's the opportunity cost for the problem that we are facing today.

The House is encouraged to pass this bill because we believe it faces that problem by implementing four very important changes. The first has to do with independence. The people who will be doing cost estimates, engineering and conceptual scientific evaluations, and scheduling analyses will not be people vested in the success of the weapons system. They will be people vested in protection of the taxpayer dollar and providing the very best value for those who wear the uniform.

The second principle is looking very critically at the development of these weapons systems as early as possible in the process. By the time 10 percent of the money is spent on these weapons systems, 70 percent of the money is obligated. That is to say, on or before the time that we decide to build or not build a weapons system, we are already far into the process, whereby a political constituency builds up, hundreds of thousands of workers, thousands of contractors, political constituencies around the country, who understandably advocate for these programs as if they were a public works project. Well, they are not. The idea behind these programs is to provide the very best tools to those who wear the uniform of this country at the appropriate price for the taxpayer.

By getting involved earlier in the process, we make it far more likely that when a bad judgment has been made, when we set off on the wrong course, that course can be reversed or terminated, as it should be.

The third principle in this bill is to give intensive attention, intensive care, to weapons systems that have been permitted to go forward even though they have not yet met all of the criteria to go forward.

If there is a true national security reason that those weapons systems should go forward beyond that milestone, it is very important that they be looked at carefully and on an ongoing basis. That is what this bill provides.

And in those, unfortunately, many instances where the programs far exceed the cost that's originally estimated, by 25 percent, by 50 percent, this legislation says that if the programs are not terminated, and if they are not terminated because there is a strong national security reason not to terminate them or a strong economic reason not to terminate them, they must be watched with great intensive attention.

Finally, the product before us has a very strong but flexible provision to prohibit undue conflicts of interest.

Frankly, this body does not aspire to micromanage the process of who can participate and contract and who cannot. What we are committed to is that all of those who are serving the public in this process serve only one master, that they are acting on behalf of the uniformed personnel and the taxpayers and not on behalf of anyone else who has an economic interest in the outcome of their deliberations.

This is a substantive piece of legislation that happened because the two parties worked together, because they listened to the best experts, and because we had put aside the squabbling in which we sometimes all engage to do what is right with our country.

It's an honor to work with my friends on this. I would urge my Members to vote ``yes'' and move this process forward.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to pass H.R. 2101, a much needed acquisition reform bill. This bill will help facilitate a strong national defense, while reining in out-of-control cost growth in the development of major weapons systems.

This bill is a result of an intensive, cooperative, and collaborative bipartisan and bicameral effort to improve and modernize the procurement and acquisition process for our Armed Forces.

I want to recognize in particular the efforts of Chairman Ike Skelton, Ranking Member John McHugh, and the members of the Defense Acquisition Reform Panel led by Chairman Robert Andrews and Ranking Member Mike Conaway.

Additionally, I would like to thank the unusually talented staff for their tireless work and contributions to this legislation.

H.R. 2101 is a much needed response to help minimize cost overruns and increase oversight and transparency in the way the Defense Department buys big-ticket weapons programs. I'm confident this legislation will provide a positive step forward for our military that will save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Moreover, this piece of legislation strategically addresses many of the issues I have long raised as concerns, including requirements creep, delivery delays, overly optimistic cost estimates, and the need for an independent broker to advise the military and Congress.

Two weeks ago during our HASC full committee hearing on Reform of Major Weapons Systems Acquisition, I posed a question before our distinguished panel of experienced acquisition experts regarding how they would weigh the causes of program cost overruns.

I asked them to record percentages based on what I called requirements creep, intentional underbidding, and, three, optimistic or incompetent cost estimating.

In short, what I took away from our expert panelists' answers was that fixing a broken defense acquisition system heavily lies with the requirements

process. I believe H.R. 2101 will help define requirements better upfront and establish a managed process for our military and defense contractors.

This bill will also address cost and schedule delays on programs early on. This bill will force the DOD to assess alternatives as soon as any major program starts going off track. Currently, this assessment is not required unless the program incurs a Nunn-McCurdy breach, which usually doesn't happen until a program is close to production.

Nunn-McCurdy has been a useful tool. It requires notification of Congress for programs that exceed cost estimates by 15 percent and termination of programs that exceed cost estimates by 25 percent unless certified by the Secretary of Defense that it's in our national security interest. H.R. 2101 provides tools and teeth to better manage and control costs of major programs from the very beginning.

Additionally, this bill elevates the importance and role of the independent cost estimator. This person gets to select the confidence level that all cost estimates will be developed to and also gets to develop his or her own cost estimate.

Further, the individual has to concur with the choice of the cost estimate made by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics, AT&L, in creating a baseline budget for the program.

Lastly, I have been a longtime advocate of independent ``brokers'' to advise our talented military and the Congress. Under this bill, independent officials would be hired to assess defense acquisition performance. The idea would be that this individual does not report to the services or to AT&L. They would report to the Secretary and to Congress about whether the taxpayers are really getting value for their money under a program, or if there are other alternatives or requirement trades we should make.

This bill is very similar but not identical to legislation already passed by the Senate, S. 545, under the leadership of Senators Carl Levin and John McCain. There are some differences between the House and Senate bills. There is unified, bipartisan support for this House bill,

I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding time on this issue. I rise today to lend another bipartisan voice to support for the Weapons Acquisition System Reform Through Enhancing Technical Knowledge and Oversight Act, giving rise to the best acronym yet in this Congress--the WASTE TKO Act.

As a member of the HASC Defense Acquisition Reform Panel, I feel a deep sense of obligation to both our men and women in uniform and my constituents back home to get this right and to give the Defense Department the tools and the manpower it needs to get the acquisition process right.

As with almost all work on the Armed Services Committee, I am pleased that we are able to work in a bipartisan manner, and I thank Chairman Skelton, Ranking Member McHugh, and Chairman Andrews for their leadership throughout this process.

Last month, the GAO reported that the ``major weapons programs continue to cost more, take longer, and deliver fewer quantities and capabilities than originally planned.'' The GAO goes on to find fault in the ``planning, execution, and oversight,'' of major weapon programs. Congress' inability to realistically plan for the future is slowly strangling our ability to govern, and in no place is that more apparent than in how we procure military hardware.

The legislation introduced by Chairman Skelton and Ranking Member McHugh represents an important first step towards our final goal of creating an end-to-end acquisition process that is most responsive to the needs of the warfighter and responsible to the financial burdens of the taxpayer.

The WASTE TKO Act will ensure that new major weapons programs begin on a solid foundation; with accurate cost estimation and realistic performance goals developed before the program progresses into the system development and demonstration phase marked milestone B.

This legislation will institute clear lines of accountability and authority within the Pentagon, and establish the policies and procedures that are necessary to create a truly knowledge-based assessment of weapons programs.

By doing our homework upfront, our armed services will be better able to prepare for the future, our warfighters will be better equipped, and we will be better stewards of the limited resources entrusted us by the taxpayers.

It is our responsibility to ensure the warfighter receives the best weapon systems to perform their mission, while at the same time ensuring that the taxpayers get the most bang for their buck.

The WASTE TKO Act addresses how we procure major weapon systems and provides much promise in resolving the enormous cost overruns that embarrass the government and infuriate the public.

Our bill is a step in the right direction, but we all know there is much more to be done to refocus the acquisitions process on supporting the warfighter first.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to continuing to work with you and Chairman McHugh and Rob Andrews and the members of the committee and Acquisition Reform Panel as we complete this important task.

I want to thank our staff--both those of the committee and personal offices--who have done such great work on this bill. I encourage my colleagues to support this important legislation.