Waste Not

A report released this week by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) finds that Pentagon missile defense efforts and the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship are among the most wasteful of federal programs.

As Inside the Pentagon reports this morning:

Coburn's "Wastebook 2012" identifies more than $18 billion in "egregious" federal spending, highlighting 100 of the year's "countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government," according to a statement from the senator's office.

The report complains at least $1 billion has been wasted because the Missile Defense Agency began building interceptors before research was complete, causing costs to skyrocket. "Due to the concurrent acquisition strategy, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense's newer interceptors alone have cost the taxpayers well over $1 billion more than originally planned," Coburn's report states. The agency will continue to use the risky development method, accepting the potential for new issues that "may require costly design changes and retrofit programs to resolve," the report adds.

The report also argues the Pentagon is wasting a significant amount of money in the Littoral Combat Ship program by building multiple ships based on two completely different designs. The Navy is now building two ships of each design with plans to build many more. Just for the four now under construction, the additional cost of using two designs is $148 million, the report states. The LCS program "would likely be better off fiscally and strategically with one design," Coburn's report argues.

Other security programs on Coburn's list include State Department and Energy Department endeavors that have come under fire and a Pentagon effort to spend $700,000 researching a new way to make beef jerky.

And from the beef jerky section of the report:

Beef jerky so good it will shock and awe your taste buds.

That is the goal of an ongoing Pentagon project, which is attempting to develop its own brand of jerky treats that are the bomb! Only, the money is coming from a program specially created to equip soldiers with the weapons they need.

The Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) program has spent more than $1.5 million to develop the savory snacks. This is a highly unusual initiative since the purpose of the FCT is "to improve the U.S. warfighter's capabilities" by testing "items and technologies of our foreign allies that have a high Technology Readiness Level (TRL)" that could satisfy "mission area shortcomings." One of the program’s stated objectives is "eliminating unnecessary duplication." . . .

Now beef jerky will be added to this list.

"I was told this is the first time FCT has funded a project that wasn't related to weaponry or combat systems. Mine was the first one related to food. FCT was happy to fund this novel technology," said Tom Yang, a South Carolina-based senior food scientist on the Food Processing, Engineering and Technology team at the Combat Feeding Directorate.