This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 21, 2012 - WASHINGTON – The Senate gave final congressional approval Friday to a $633 billion defense bill that includes wartime contracting reforms, a big order of St. Louis-produced fighter aircraft, and new cybersecurity funding and rules.
Despite his earlier veto threat, President Barack Obama is expected to sign the National Defense Authorization bill, which the Senate approved 81-14. The House had passed the conference report overwhelmingly on Thursday.
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said after the vote that she got “95 percent of what we wanted” in the legislation, although staffers said a joint House-Senate conference committee had watered down a section on toughening suspension and debarment penalties for Pentagon contractors who had committed fraud.
The final provisions – based on the Comprehensive Contingency Contracting Reform Act championed by McCaskill and U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. – would revamp wasteful contracting practices and tighten the oversight of contracts.
“There are a lot of special interests in the contracting community that just don’t want the spigot turned off and don’t want to face greater accountability for their work, and they fought hard to avoid oversight,” McCaskill said in a statement Friday.
Those provisions would implement some recommendations of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, a McCaskill-Webb sponsored panel that found that U.S. agencies had squandered as much as $60 billion through waste and fraud on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In another section that authorizes military hardware, the defense bill calls for the purchase of 26 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters under a multi-year contract signed in 2010. Hornets are assembled at the Boeing Co. plant in Hazelwood, where some 4,000 workers help support the production lines.
While this defense bill does not appropriate funds for such purchases, it merely authorizes Pentagon priorities. If Congress does not act in the next week to avoid the fiscal cliff, across-the-board “sequestration” cutbacks in the defense budget would likely reduce funding for some of the bill’s aircraft orders.
Another important section of the defense bill would bolster financial support for federal cybersecurity programs, which aim to thwart foreign-based hackers. The bill also includes controversial new cybersecurity reporting and procurement rules. Some in the high-tech industry have voiced concerns about the requirements.
Akin's 'conscience clause'
The final version of the Defense bill also included a controversial – but watered down – version of a provision originally sponsored by U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Wildwood. It would restrict “adverse personnel actions” against military chaplains and service members who express their “conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs.”
That “conscience clause” was based on Akin's amendment – approved by the House Armed Services Committee in May – that aimed, in effect, to shield chaplains and other military service members from discipline for openly opposing the presence of gays in the military.
At the time, Akin – who could not be reached for comment Friday – said his amendment aimed “to protect the ability of people to have their own opinion.”
Groups representing gay and lesbian service members had denounced the amendment last spring, saying it would allow discrimination in the armed forces. This week, Tony Perkins of the socially conservative Family Research Council praised the “conscience clause” that ended up in the bill’s final version.
But Ian Thompson of the American Civil Liberties Union objected to the “conscience” section. He warned that it could lead to “claims to discriminate, not only against lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members, but also against women, religious minorities, and in the provision of health care.”
However, the Washington Blade – a publication oriented toward the gay and lesbian community in the nation's capital – reported Thursday that the top House Armed Services Democrat, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said the “conscience” language likely would not have much impact on the military because it parallels existing policy.
“I think that’s current law,” Smith said. “You can’t punish someone based solely on their beliefs. It has to be actions.” The newspaper said other liberal interest groups saying the provisions would have little impact included the Human Rights Campaign, OutServe-SLDN and the Center for American Progress.
McCaskill will keep pursuing contract fraud, abuse
On Friday, McCaskill said she was happy that the House-Senate conference panel, on which she served, accepted most of her wartime contracting provisions.
Her staff described the reforms as “the most substantial overhaul of how the federal government contracts during wartime since World War II.”
“Seeing years of work culminate in reforms that will save our country billions of dollars makes this one of the most satisfying days I’ve had in the U.S. Senate,” said McCaskill, a former Missouri state auditor who admires then-Sen. Harry S Truman's investigations of spending abuses during World War II.
“Harry Truman set the bar more than 70 years ago for cracking down on war profiteering — and I’m proud to be able to add another Missouri chapter to that effort.”
As the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, McCaskill said Friday that she wanted to use her second term in office – which begins next month – to focus again on some of her contracting provisions that the congressional panel did not completely accept in the final bill.
Specifically, McCaskill wants to restore her original proposals to toughen the government’s suspension and debarment penalties against wasteful contractors. She also wants stronger legislative language to eliminate “pass-through” contracts.
McCaskill’s staff said the wartime contracting reforms included in the final defense bill include provisions to:
- Elevate oversight responsibility, improving management structures and reforming contracting practices during overseas contingency operations;
- Require departments and agencies to assess contracting risk in overseas contingency operations and reduce reliance in areas such as private security contracting;
- Widen the responsibilities for inspectors general to oversee all aspects of overseas contingency operations;
- Improve the contracting process through greater transparency, competition and professional education; and
- Require proof that development projects are sustainable, prior to providing funding for such projects in overseas contingencies.