Senators Back More MDA Oversight

The Senate Armed Services Committee is pressing for greater oversight of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, along with increased transparency by the agency itself, Inside the Army reported yesterday (see GSN, March 7, 2006).

The panel, in its report for the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, focused on three areas: budget and acquisition; involvement by the Defense Department operational test and evaluation director in missile defense testing and evaluation; and extending the Government Accountability Office’s assessment of ballistic missile defense efforts.

The agency in recent years received “extraordinarily acquisition flexibility” in order to carry out the Bush administration’s 2002 plan to install the system in two years, the report states.

“Now that the system has been developed and deployed, the rationale for this extraordinary flexibility, and the resultant lack of accountability, has expired,” it says.

If the bill is approved as it stands, the Missile Defense Agency would have to use normal Pentagon categories when submitting budget requests, according to Inside the Army.  These include research, development, test and evaluation, operation and maintenance and procurement and military construction.

Under the legislation, the Pentagon operational test and evaluation chief would have increased access to agency information on ballistic missile defense test and evaluation efforts.

The GAO mandate for assessing agency efforts to meet goals relative to the cost, schedule, testing and performance of the ballistic missile defense system would be extended to fiscal 2013.

The House version of the authorization bill includes some of the Senate proposals for the Missile Defense Agency.   Representatives approved the bill on May 17, while the full Senate has yet to consider its version.   Differences in the two bills would be addressed during the conference process (Emelie Rutherford, Inside the Army, June 25).

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