House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) said today that the panel's top priority in the coming year -- along with increasing defense spending -- will be reforming the Pentagon's notoriously slow and cumbersome acquisition system, a perennial concern on Capitol Hill.
“The top priority for this committee in this year's [defense authorization bill] is to deal with that acquisition and infrastructure and process and reform it, as well as getting defense spending up,” Rogers said during a hearing today.
The pledge came amid comments from retired Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jack Keane, who currently chairs the Institute for the Study of War. He told lawmakers they should listen to military service chiefs if they propose cutting legacy weapons that have little to no role in a potential conflict with China.
“Services more than ever need to rid themselves of systems no longer relevant and need your support even though the system is manufactured in your district,” he said in prepared remarks.
Additionally, Keane called on the committee to give the military authority to make bulk drone purchases outside the normal “program of record” system.
“If you leave the Army program of record to itself, they’ll get less than 100 drones this year,” he said. “What they need is about 20,000. But they can’t go get that because it’s not a program of record. And to get a program of record like that, it would likely take a few years.”
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the committee’s ranking member, said he was in “complete agreement” with Rogers and Keane, especially about military “requirements creep.”
Currently, Smith said, the Pentagon is structured to build automobiles of the 1950s.
“They need to be 2022 Apple,” he said.
Any effort made by the House authorizers to reform acquisition will come alongside those already proposed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS), who in December put forth his own legislative package.
Additionally, Rogers said he would like to see defense spending go beyond 4% of gross domestic product -- or about $1 trillion -- though he stressed reform should accompany any push to increase spending.
“We must get back above 4% of GDP,” he said. “That starts with a reconciliation process that includes robust defense funding.”
The House Budget Committee released a resolution today that would increase defense spending by $100 billion through the reconciliation process, which would circumvent Democratic opposition over more than $1 trillion in non-defense cuts.
Rogers, however, said the new spending must be accompanied by efficiencies.
“Just spending more is not the answer,” he said. “Every dollar has to be spent smarter.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said yesterday the Pentagon welcomes “the keen eye” of the “Department of Government Efficiency” led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Hegseth has also said the Pentagon spends too much on the wrong weapons.
“There's a lot of programs around here that we spend a lot of money on that when you actually wargame don't have the impact you want them to,” he said at a Pentagon “town hall” speech last week.
The secretive DOGE, however, has become politically controversial as Democrats rage against its access to federal data and the role it is playing in dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and cutting federal programs like those at the National Institutes of Health.
Musk’s role at DOGE and how it could reform the Pentagon has also come under scrutiny as his companies, including SpaceX, have a variety of defense contracts.
Today, Smith said he agreed with Rogers that additional spending will not be enough to meet the threats posed by China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and non-state extremists. He also noted he believes DOGE could be successful if it stayed focused on reforming DOD.
“They could go into the Pentagon and make it more efficient and more effective,” he said. “I would urge members of this committee to make sure that they do that instead of engaging in personal loyalty tests and personal vengeance. That's not going to help anything. We've got work to do.”