Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) said yesterday the Democrats will soon put forward an amendment during the fiscal year 2014 defense authorization bill process challenging the Defense Department’s funding of the final leg of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).
 |
| Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) Photo: Sanchez. |
“I will not put forward my amendment here, but I would like to note that we will be putting forward an amendment, most likely in the full (House Armed Services) Committee,” Sanchez said yesterday during the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee’s markup hearing on its proposed version of the FY ’14 defense authorization bill. “This committee…should really begin to think about where we are leading with this program, or is it time to really say ‘It’s enough’ as we did in the last National Defense Authorization Act.”
The subcommittee passed its proposed legislation yesterday without amendments.
DoD wants to use funds appropriated by Congress in the FY ’13 defense appropriations act to fund the final leg of MEADS, a troubled tri-nation missile defense program. DoD has said it has no plans to actually deploy MEADS, a developmental system that has suffered cost and schedule setbacks, but wants to fund it to avoid termination costs. Germany and Italy are partners with the United States on MEADS.
Subcommittee Chairman Michael Rogers (R-Ala.) said yesterday he supports funding MEADS so the United States can own the technology and be able to mine it. Sanchez argued earlier in the hearing that it was alarming that DoD would want to spend an additional $381 million to avoid termination fees when congressional appropriations committees are debating slashing health and human services and education funding.
Congress appropriated funds in the FY ’13 defense appropriations act for MEADS, over objections from the HASC. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) proposed in April legislation to block DoD from using these funds on MEADS. Shuster maintained the Pentagon is breaking the law in proceeding with MEADS because it is following the FY ’13 defense appropriations bill instead of the authorization legislation from the same year regarding MEADS (Defense Daily, April 12).
The subcommittee proposed, as part of its version of the legislation, requiring the Air Force to create and implement a plan to ensure the fair evaluation of contractors competing for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) contracts. EELV is an important Air Force program to assure government access to space.
The proposed legislation would require the Air Force secretary to include descriptions of how proposed cost, schedule and performance; mission assurance activities; manner in which the contractor will operate under the Federal Acquisition Regulation; the effect of other contracts in which the contractor is entered into with the government, such as EELV capability and the International Space Station Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts and any other areas deemed appropriate would be addressed in the evaluation.
DoD would also be required to establish a strategy for the multi-year procurement of commercial satellite services, the lack of which has been a concern of commercial satellite operators for years. The legislation would also require the defense secretary to notify Congress of each attempt by a foreign actor to disrupt, degrade or destroy a U.S. national security space capability. While the proposed bill did not go into specifics into what disrupting, degrading or destroying a national security space capability would entail, China, in 2007, destroyed an aging satellite with an anti-satellite missile and DoD is concerned that it, or another nation, could try again.
The proposed bill would also:
* Require a study by the DoD executive agent for space on responsive, low-cost launch efforts;
* Require the Air Force secretary to enter into a long-term agreement with the National Research Council (NRC) to review the near-term and long-term threats to national security space systems;
* Prevent the defense secretary from entering into contracts for satellite services with a foreign entity that a “covered foreign country,” which is China, North Korea or any country that is a state-sponsor of terrorism, plans to, or is expected to, provide launch or other satellite services;
* Require the Air Force secretary to ensure the service is capable of deploying multiple, independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) on Minuteman III ICBMs and any ground-based strategic deterrent follow-on to such missiles (Defense Daily, May 22).
MEADS is developed by MEADS International, which includes Lockheed Martin [LMT] in the United States and MBDA in Italy and MBDA’s LFK in Germany.