House subcommittee votes to cut military's tech budget

Management questions and concerns about outdated systems and insufficient integration prompted a House Armed Services subcommittee on Friday to vote to cut $2 billion from the Defense Department's fiscal 2004 budget request for information technology programs.

"We cannot afford to keep paying for programs that do not directly contribute to the warfighter," said New Jersey Republican Jim Saxton, chairman of the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. Saxton said the subcommittee recommended the spending reductions "not because IT isn't important, but because it is critical that every dollar contributes to an integrated, well-honed system."

The Pentagon has requested nearly $28 billion for next year's IT initiatives, most of which fall under the subcommittee's jurisdiction. The panel recommended the $2 billion reduction while voting on its portion of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill, H.R. 1588. The full committee is scheduled to debate the measure next week.

Saxton said IT issues have "consumed much of the subcommittee's efforts" this year. "We know that there are some expensive new programs getting started, but it was unclear how all the developing programs fit with the newly fielded programs, and what the plan is to ferret out and discontinue obsolete programs," he said.

"While I believe that [Defense] has a plan to modernize its IT systems, I am not confident as to how well the plan is managed or enforced at various agency levels and whether the funding is properly scrutinized by the various chief information officers at the department."

Subcommittee ranking Democrat Marty Meehan of Massachusetts called the legislation "a solid proposal" overall but said he is "more than troubled" by the reduction in proposed IT spending. "I question the wisdom of such an approach," he said, adding that the U.S. military must maintain its technological advantage in order to defend the nation from information-age threats. "These are potential investments that, in my view, we have to be very careful about dismissing."

Saxton said Congress is in the midst of an unprecedented examination of all Defense IT programs. "Sometimes programs build up a head of steam like an old train," he said. "I can assure everybody here ... that we are not intending to derail the train but to make sure that it moves forward in an efficient manner."

Saxton added that the Pentagon's science and technology research programs would be "largely fully funded" under the legislation, but the subcommittee included "some fine tuning" of various initiatives. "All of these programs are vital to the transformation efforts of the department and the military services," Saxton said of the science and tech budget.

The legislation also includes a new initiative to promote "promising ideas" for combating chemical and biological threats, according to Saxton. "There is a need for more, better and less expensive chemical and biological detectors and counter measures of various sorts," he said.

Meehan said he is "encouraged" by that provision, as well as the recommendation to fully fund the Pentagon's request of $45 million for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.