This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 3, 2012 - WASHINGTON – When U.S. Sen. Harry S Truman went after wasteful defense spending in 1941, he started by probing “cost-plus” contracts, which he accused the Pentagon of granting “in much the same way that Santa Claus passes out gifts at a Christmas party.”
As Christmas approaches this year, the Missouri Democrat who now occupies Truman’s former Senate seat, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, has moved a step closer in her five-year quest to require the Pentagon and other agencies to tighten the screws on wartime contracting.
On Thursday night, the U.S. Senate added an amendment – based on the Comprehensive Contingency Contracting Reform Act championed by McCaskill and U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. – to this year’s big defense authorization bill.
“Harry Truman would be proud of what we accomplished in the Senate here today – a real victory for accountability in government," boasted McCaskill, a former Missouri state auditor and the chair of the Senate’s contracting oversight subcommittee.
The measure would implement some recommendations of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, a McCaskill-Webb sponsored panel that found serious problems with the way federal agencies awarded wartime contracts.
The amendment, attached by voice vote to the Senate defense bill, aims to revamp several contracting practices, including a ban on “excessive” pass-through contracts and charges to the government. It would also tighten oversight of contracts.
While the Senate legislation including the McCaskill amendment is likely to be approved early this week, there is no guarantee it will end up in the final defense bill, as the House version did not include such provisions. A joint House-Senate conference committee would need to accept the language in the compromise version.
In addition to McCaskill and Webb, main sponsors of the amendment included the leaders of the Homeland Security Committee – Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine – and a bipartisan group of other senators.
McCaskill, who plans to try to expand the reach of her contracting oversight subcommittee in the new Congress that starts in January, said it’s important to apply the contracting lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan to future conflicts.
“While these wars wind down, we can’t lose the urgency to correct these mistakes, and prevent them from being repeated in the future,” McCaskill said. She told reporters that “we can still tighten the screws at the Pentagon” to save taxpayers’ money without hurting the military’s capabilities.
In its report to Congress last year, the wartime contracting commission – which had started probing contracting in 2007 – found that U.S. agencies had squandered as much as $60 billion through waste and fraud on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Durbin amendment aims at rebels in eastern Congo
In another of the dozens of amendments added to the defense bill, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., took aim at the war crimes being committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Senate approved an amendment by Durbin and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., to impose a freeze on assets, as well as a visa ban, on any persons deemed to be providing support to the brutal M23 rebels, which recently occupied the eastern Congo city of Goma.
“The rebels, known for brutal violence and led by known war criminals, have the potential to destabilize the entire nation,” said Durbin, noting that the long-running civil war in eastern
Durbin said the main goal of the amendment is “to hasten an end to the violence by starving the rebels of their key lines of support.” As the violence worsens in the region, he said in a statement, “it is clear that the rebels are benefiting from strategic and material support from outside forces.
“This amendment freezes the assets and implements a visa ban for any person providing such troubling support.”
Boeing Hornets authorized in the defense bill
The Senate defense bill also authorizes the purchase of 26 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters and 12 EA-18G Growler airborne electronic attack aircraft for a total of more than $3 billion.
Both aircraft are assembled at the Boeing Corp. plant in Hazelwood, where about 4,000 workers help support the production lines.
The bill also includes an additional $60 million (about $15 million more than the House defense authorization bill) in “advance procurement funds” for the F/A-18 program.
Earlier this year, McCaskill said those funds “would go toward filling in the gap on our [aircraft] carriers because the [F-35] Joint Strike Fighter is so far over schedule and, frankly, so far over budget.”
However, the White House budget office, in a statement Thursday threatening a possible veto related to other provisions of the Senate defense bill, said the administration had not asked for the additional Super Hornet funds.
“The Administration objects to the unrequested authorizations for the advance procurement of additional F/A-18E/F Navy fighter aircraft and for unneeded upgrades to the M-1 Abrams tank,” said the message from the Office of Management and Budget.
“Funding these items in this fiscally-constrained environment would divert scarce resources away from more important defense programs.”
In another Missouri-related section, McCaskill’s office said the Senate defense bill includes $123 million in military construction for Fort Leonard Wood in central Missouri.