The INSIDER daily digest -- June 27, 2018

The FY-19 defense spending bills dominate this Wednesday INSIDER Daily Digest.

House and Senate appropriators like the military's artificial intelligence pathfinder program:

Appropriators add money to military AI pathfinder as Pentagon grapples with Google spurn

Congressional appropriators want to increase funding for the military's artificial intelligence pathfinder, even as Pentagon officials debate how to move forward after Google announced it would drop out of the project once its contract ends.

The White House has chimed in on House and Senate authorizers' and appropriators' defense bills:

White House withholds veto threat on Senate defense bill, but opposes ZTE, missile defense provisions

The White House strongly objects to several provisions in the Senate's fiscal year 2019 defense authorization bill, especially a section that would ban the Defense Department from doing business with Chinese telecommunications company ZTE, but the administration is not threatening to veto the legislation, according to a statement of administration policy from the Office of Management and Budget.

Document: Statement of administration policy on the Senate's FY-19 defense policy bill

White House opposes House appropriators' fence around cloud computing funds

The White House opposes several provisions in the House's fiscal year 2019 defense appropriations bill, including one that blocks all funding for the Pentagon's planned shift toward cloud computing until the defense secretary provides Congress with a written strategy.

Document: Statement of administration policy on the House's FY-19 defense spending bill

Inside Defense recently obtained a letter on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter:

Projected F-35 EOQ cost savings cut in half in CAPE estimate

The Defense Department's recent $660 million award to Lockheed Martin to support an F-35 economic order quantity buy will yield less than half of what the program expected in cost savings, according to a letter obtained this week by Inside Defense.

Document: DOD letter to Congress on F-35 EOQ

The nominee to become the next head of U.S. Transportation Command was on Capitol Hill this week:

TRANSCOM nominee backs surge sealift recap plan

The president's nominee to lead U.S. Transportation Command today said he agrees with the Navy and the current command chief's plan to recapitalize the surge sealift fleet.

Document: Senate hearing on TRANSCOM nominee

A senior DIUx executive said this week there "was some confusion about the timing" of the production other transaction agreement given to REAN Cloud in February:

Military tech incubator updating OTA playbook after production snafu

The Defense Innovation Unit Experimental is updating its guidebook for using other transaction agreements after the Government Accountability Office upheld a protest against one of the organization’s production agreements.