Committee would withhold half of DOD's cloud contract funding

By Tony Bertuca / May 4, 2018 at 3:22 PM

The House Armed Services Committee will debate a provision next week that would fence half the total budget of the Pentagon's new and controversial cloud computing contract until additional information is provided to Congress, according to committee staffers.

"The provision is just an oversight provision,” a committee staffer told reporters today. “It's a large contract. Typically, anywhere we use a fence [is] for oversight purposes to ask for information. Basically it's a call for information, enough information so we can do what we think is the necessary oversight for a very significant dollar amount contract. Then the fence will be lifted. It's because we want the information so we can conduct the oversight we think is necessary."

The Pentagon, meanwhile, is scheduled to deliver two reports justifying and detailing its cloud acquisition strategy on Monday.

Two draft requests for proposals show the Pentagon plans to award a single, two-year base contract, with options to extend the deal to as long as 10 years. The department has not assigned a dollar figure to the contract, but some analysts have pegged its total value at $10 billion.

Many contractors have criticized the Pentagon's single-award acquisition strategy, with some speculating the deal is being positioned for Amazon Web Services to win.

Pentagon officials, meanwhile, have pushed back against critics, arguing the department will continue to maintain multiple cloud services.

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