Acquisition Changes Could Impact LRS-B

The Long-Range Strike Bomber could be one of the first programs subject to a National Defense Authorization Act provision, which gives more acquisition responsibility to service chiefs and secretaries, Senate and House Armed Service Committee aides said. The proposed National Defense Authorization Act contains dozens of provisions to reform the defense acquisition process, with a goal of increasing accountability, establishing alternative acquisition pathways, gaining access to non-traditional parts of the industrial base, streamlining systems and processes, and improving acquisition workflow, a SASC aide told reporters in a background briefing on Capitol Hill. One of those provisions would give service chiefs and service secretaries greater responsibility and decision authority for service-specific acquisition projects initiated in Fiscal 2017 or later, the aide said. But, if the cost of those programs overran established baselines, services would be required to pay three? percent of any cost overruns on post-Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 programs to a fund controlled by the Defense Department’s office of acquisition, technology, and logistics. The fund will be used for risk reduction and prototyping. If costs continued escalating, the program responsibility would be transferred to AT&L, the aide said. The White House has said the President will veto the legislation.