Depot-Level Maintenance

Acting Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall has delegated the service secretaries the authority to grant certain waivers when implementing depot-level maintenance on weapon systems. In the fiscal year 2012 Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers made changes to statutory language concerning depot-level maintenance.

In an April 5 memo to the service secretaries, Kendall writes:

This delegation is effective immediately, will stay in effect as long as the relevant statutory language remains unmodified by subsequent enactments, and may be further redelegated to each Service's Acquisition Executive. The implementation guidance is provided in the attachment. The Department's position is that the appropriate use of waivers and the implementation guidance will enable depot maintenance activities to remain consistent with past practices.

One of those changes lawmakers made has to do with the refueling of nuclear aircraft carriers, according to Kendall's memo:

Language: Removed the exclusion for the refueling of nuclear aircraft carriers. In a separate amendment to 10 U.S.C § 2464 Core depot-level maintenance and repair capabilities, a waiver provision was created for these events.

Interpretation/Guidance: The elimination of this exclusion could disrupt longstanding practice within the Navy to balance its workload across both public and private sectors in the most optimal way to generate the strongest possible "national" industrial base and execute workload in the most efficient manner practical. It is recognized that conducting maintenance and repair as an integral part of a nuclear carrier refueling event is in the best interest of the Department from an economic perspective and the cost to establish public sector capability for either the refueling requirement alone or the combined activity of refueling and maintenance and repair would be excessive. Further, establishing additional public sector capability to execute the nuclear carrier refueling mission, as well as the companion maintenance and repair activity, could alter the balance between public and private sector capabilities. This could also damage the longstanding, effective, and stable private sector capability, thereby damaging the industrial base and, in turn, threaten our ability to conduct essential maintenance in support of national security objectives.

The Navy should establish formal procedures to waive the requirements of 10 U.S.C. § 2464 and request a waiver under the provisions of 10 U.S.C. § 2466 specific to nuclear aircraft carrier refueling and maintenance and repair activity performed in conjunction with nuclear refueling consistent with the implications stated above.

NOTE: The Department's position is that the above implementation guidance and use of appropriate waivers enables depot maintenance activities to remain consistent with past practices.