Pentagon | The Contracting Education Academy

November 1, 2019 By cs

As secret Pentagon spending rises, Defense firms cash in

Classified spending has edged up faster than overall defense budget requests, and accounts for nearly 11 percent of the $716 billion proposed for 2020.

The share of Pentagon spending hidden from public view is rising, as are defense contractors’ revenues from it.

The U.S. Defense Department’s overall budget request increased nearly 5 percent from 2019 to 2020, but classified spending rose 6 percent, according to the consulting firm Avascent. It accounts for about $76 billion, or almost 11%, of the $718 billion requested for the current fiscal year.

Military officials say they can’t talk about classified aircraft, space, and missile projects, lest they cede advantage to America’s enemies. (Critics, including House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith, D-Wash., say excessive hidden spending hinders oversight, leads to waste, and undermines public trust.)

But there is one group of people talking about classified spending: the executives of America’s largest defense firms. In recent months, what defense contractors call “restricted” projects have become a hot topic on quarterly earnings calls with Wall Street analysts. Firms also tout the increase in classified contracts in annual reports and regulatory filings.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/technology/2019/10/secret-pentagon-spending-rises-defense-firms-cash/160818/

October 28, 2019 By cs

How ‘night court’ will impact the Pentagon’s acquisition office

When U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper launched a review this summer of the departmentwide offices known as the “fourth estate,” he made it clear that everything, including cuts to programs and personnel, were on the table.

Two months into that review, clear themes have emerged, according to Pentagon acquisition head Ellen Lord: Esper isn’t looking to cut just to cut, and if offices aren’t tied directly into war-fighting needs, they may no longer belong in the Department of Defense.

Speaking on a panel at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference last Monday, Lord said several of her offices, including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Defense Acquisition University, have gone through the review process.

“What we’ve seen there is more, perhaps, a pushing back of certain functions to either services or to intel,” Lord said. “Where I’ve seen a question of actually cutting the workforce is non-true DoD missions. As we’ve gone through a lot of the different areas, if it isn’t war fighting, if it’s something that one of the other agencies or the other departments across government has asked us to do, or if it’s something that should be a function of another department because it’s not about lethality, it will get cut.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/15/how-night-court-will-impact-the-pentagons-acquisition-office

October 24, 2019 By cs

Just 1 bidder is vying for 2 Pentagon programs worth $130 billion

The defense acquisition chief is looking into the Army’s disqualification of a second bidder to replace Bradley armored vehicles.

It’s a pretty widely accepted business principle that competition is good for business. But for two separate programs potentially worth a combined $130 billion, the Pentagon has just one possible bidder.

That’s prompted the U.S. Defense Department’s top weapons buyer to look into the U.S. Army’s $45 billion effort to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Service officials recently disqualified one potential competitor, leaving just one company to bid.

“I’m just getting more involved in that one right now,” Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said at a Friday press briefing.

DoD leaders have spent the past few years delegating the oversight of most major acquisition projects to the individual military services, a move intended to remove bureaucratic hurdles, speed up development and get weapons to troops faster. This marks the first time that Lord, who has held her job since August 2017, has publicly said she would step in to review one of those programs.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2019/10/just-one-bidder-vying-two-pentagon-programs-worth-130-billion/160718/

October 22, 2019 By cs

Pentagon standing up a nonprofit to assess vendor cybersecurity

The organization would be responsible for running the department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification.

The Defense Department is looking to stand up a nonprofit organization to measure the strength of its contractors’ cybersecurity practices.

The group would be responsible for running the vendor accreditation process under the Pentagon’s new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC. The framework, which was released in draft form last month, will serve as a yardstick for determining if contractors are taking sufficient steps to protect the sensitive military data that resides on their networks.

The certification process is intended to push the Pentagon’s extensive network of vendors to strengthen their digital defenses, or at least adopt protections that are appropriate for the sensitivity of their work. The program comes adversaries like China increasingly target defense contractors to steal military secrets.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/10/pentagon-standing-nonprofit-assess-vendor-cybersecurity/160425/

Classified spending has edged up faster than overall defense budget requests, and accounts for nearly 11 percent of the $716 billion proposed for 2020.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has removed himself from decision-making on a cloud computing contract potentially worth $10 billion, citing his son’s employment with one of the original contract bidders.

When U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper launched a review this summer of the departmentwide offices known as the “fourth estate,” he made it clear that everything, including cuts to programs and personnel, were on the table.

The defense acquisition chief is looking into the Army’s disqualification of a second bidder to replace Bradley armored vehicles.

The organization would be responsible for running the department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification.

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