Congress

The Navy's schedule for delivering the first Columbia-class submarine is threatened by ongoing design software challenges that will likely increase the program's cost, a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday concludes.

The Pentagon has fallen short in sharing a list of critical military capabilities with key Defense Department stakeholders and outside government agencies, potentially putting at risk federal efforts to protect those technologies, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

Congress, after overriding President Trump's veto, has passed a defense policy bill that immediately eliminates the office of the Defense Department's chief management officer, a post lawmakers established in 2017 intending it become the third-most senior job in the Pentagon.

A recent audit of Pentagon software programs found Defense Department organizations took a mixed bag of approaches to agile development and cybersecurity testing, often leading to schedule challenges, but the Pentagon says a new software "acquisition pathway" should yield better results in the future.

Lawmakers have charged the Pentagon's top officer with overseeing a comprehensive new assessment of U.S. air and missile defense capabilities of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Missile Defense Agency against advanced threats such as hypersonic glide bodies and long-range, ultra-fast cruise missiles and to develop a plan to address these threats.

President Trump has asserted several times he plans to veto the $740.5 billion defense authorization bill, which, according to the law, he must do by Dec. 23, positioning himself for a confrontation with Congress during the final weeks of his presidency.

Lawmakers are directing a digital overhaul of the Defense Department's acquisition system and instructing defense officials to use "data-driven portfolio management" to consolidate duplicate or similar weapon systems.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (TX), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said today the "message has been conveyed" to the White House that Congress will be prepared to override President Trump should he make good on threats to veto the fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill.

The compromise fiscal year 2021 defense policy bill does not include strict "Buy American" requirements for weapons programs after defense industry groups and foreign governments lobbied against them.