Seapower and Expeditionary Forces
Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor
Hearing re: Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles
June 26, 2007
"The committee will come to order. The purpose of this afternoon's hearing is to receive testimony from representatives of the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the Marine Corps on the status of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program, which recently completed an extensive review triggered by program delays and significant cost growth.
"This hearing will consist of one panel:
- Mr. David Ahern, Director, Portfolio Systems Acquisition, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (AT&L)
- Mr. Roger Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Expeditionary Warfare
- Lieutenant General Emerson Gardner, USMC, Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps, Programs and Resources
- Colonel William Taylor, USMC, Program Executive Officer, Marine Corps Land Systems
"The program under review today, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle was conceived in the mid-1990s, but its primary purpose is an enduring Marine Corps mission: getting marines from ship to shore and then helping them fight on land. The ancestor of the EFV is the "Amphibious Tractor", or "Amtrac", first developed during World War II to get marines ashore while providing limited protection and firepower support.
"However, compared to the original Amtrac, the EFV seeks to make a dramatic step forward. The goal of this program is to build an armored personnel carrier with a 30 millimeter cannon that can launch from ships 25 miles offshore and approach at 25 knots carrying 17 marines- a daunting technical challenge. Building armored combat vehicles for today's combat environment where threats can come from any direction at any time is hard enough, but building one that can also go 25 knots in the water is an order of magnitude more difficult.
"However, from the start of the program in 1995 until late 2006, the Marine Corps and the prime contractor, General Dynamics, appeared to be making good progress toward low rate production in 2007. The Marine Corps and the contractors reported that the EFV prototypes were meeting all their performance goals. Congress, for its part, provided strong support for the EFV program through defense authorization and appropriations legislation.
"Then, something apparently went wrong. Last fall the Marine Corps program manager raised concerns about the low overall reliability of the EFV prototypes undergoing developmental testing. The production version of the EFV is supposed to be able to operate about 43 hours before breaking down, but the prototypes being tested were only going between 4 and 10 hours before breaking down and there were many different systems in the EFV with reliability issues.
"I want to be very clear what this kind of reliability problem can mean for the marines who will operate these vehicles: going into combat in an armored vehicle that floats is dangerous enough, but if that same vehicle gets ashore - far from most maintenance support - and breaks down, the marines on that vehicle could be extremely vulnerable. It is clear that a reliable vehicle is a must, and while I am disappointed and troubled that the prototypes performed so poorly after US taxpayers provided more than $2.3 billion in funds, my concern is tempered somewhat by the fact that the Marine Corps noticed these reliability problems with the prototypes supplied by the contractor and are trying to do something about them now, rather than waiting until the vehicles are in the hands of marines.
"After these reliability problems arose, another major decision was made by the Marine Corps which changes the program originally authorized by this Congress. Rather than buying more than 1,000 EFVs as originally planned, the Marine Corps was directed to only buy 573. Obviously when you cut the number of vehicles in half each one is going to cost more down the road. In this case the cost of a single EFV went from $6 million a copy to $17 million, which I believe would make the EFV the most expensive ground combat vehicle in the history of the US military.
"The combination of this dramatic cost growth and reliability problems triggered a Nunn-McCurdy review of the EFV program by the Secretary of Defense, and the results of that review are the primary focus of this hearing. The Nunn-McCurdy review decided to keep the program going, but with a four year delay and numerous additional oversight and review measures.
"While there are many important technical and financial issues involved with a major program like the EFV, I am particularly concerned about DOD's decision to award another contract for continued development of the EFV to the same contractor - General Dynamics - whose poor performance led in part to the delays and cost overruns the EFV program faces today. I am concerned about what kind of message this sends to the public and to those in defense industry. An observer might reasonably ask why a contractor should get $82 million in award fees for a program that did not perform as promised and then get, in effect, a 4-year contract extension that will be worth millions more?
"At a minimum the committee expects the panel of witnesses today to address the following issues:
Why does the Marine Corps need this vehicle? What is the net gain in amphibious assault capability that the EFV will provide? What happened? Why did a program that appeared to be moving along on schedule suddenly encounter serious reliability problems? Were there warning signs that were ignored? Who was responsible for the program getting so far off track, and what actions did they take to try to fix the problems when they arose? Why did the DOD agree to let the Marine Corps keep the same contractor in place whose poor performance led, at least in part, to things going wrong? Why not run a new competition so another company can get involved? Have lessons learned been captured and is there a mitigation plan to ensure these problems will not occur again in the future? "Congress has an oversight responsibility to the American taxpayer. There are few programs of which I am aware that actually meet their cost and schedule goals. That must change. This committee and this Congress understand that advanced combat vehicles like the EFV represent difficult engineering challenges and are not easy to build. However, effective program oversight and sound engineering and program management policies are supposed to manage that risk. The Congress cannot continue to just throw money at programs as they overrun projections. There needs to be more accountability and more openness across a wide range of acquisition projects, this being just one.
"Finally, before turning to my partner Representative Roscoe Bartlett, I wanted to point out that one of our witnesses, Lieutenant General Gardener, has been nominated by the President to serve as Principal Deputy Director for Program Analyses and Evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. If confirmed, he will be the first Marine in this very important position. The subcommittee wishes him the best of luck with his Senate confirmation and new responsibilities.
"I would now like to recognize the ranking member of this subcommittee, Representative Roscoe Bartlett."
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
