Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

This is a bipartisan amendment that I offer together with the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman). We may appear as the odd couple politically, but we share a common interest in trying to ensure that taxpayers get their money's worth, and that is true on military contracts as with every other aspect of government. When it comes to those contracts, we are concerned that that is not happening on too many of them.

We don't ask you to just take our word for it, but we have turned to a fellow named Shay Assad, sometimes referred to as the most disliked person in the Pentagon. He had four decades of experience in negotiating government contracts, served as the top director for procurement for both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

He was central to an illuminating ``60 Minutes'' report last year about price gouging, which he described as unconscionable and widespread. He has returned to the Pentagon now as the director of procurement at the Air Force.

I know that Chairman Rogers and Mr. Smith have been concerned about this problem. Their committee has given it some attention, but I think we can supplement their efforts. Military contractors deserve to get a fair profit, but American taxpayers deserve to be treated fairly also.

We have seen a consolidation in the defense industry where 50 firms have been reduced to about 5 primary contractors. This is a very modest amendment. It requires essentially a one-time type of audit by a review panel that will conduct oversight on the reasonableness of prices on sole-sourced munitions and weapons systems, a 1-year investigation to determine whether the Department has achieved fair prices in surveyed contracts and make recommendations made to the Armed Services Committee and the Pentagon to be sure that taxpayers are getting the best bang for their buck.

Just as one example that was cited, we have had inflation. All of us are concerned about it, but the cost of a Stinger missile of the type we have been shipping to Ukraine rose from $25,000 in 1991 to $400,000 to replace it. That is a little more than the increase in inflation and the improvements that may have occurred to the missile.

The Patriot, the PAC-3 missile, is very important in defense. Hundreds of millions of dollars were saved after a review, and it was found that the contractor was earning a 40 percent profit.

Our amendment would not change the procurement process or add new requirements of contractors. It would simply look at what has occurred in the past and determine if there is a way to improve it. It has the support of bipartisan groups across the ideological spectrum, including the R Street Institute, the Project on Government Oversight, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Public Citizen, and American Economic Liberties Project.

There have been hundreds of amendments offered to the bill that we are considering. This is the only bipartisan amendment made in order for addressing reasonable prices.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this modest step forward. It is a very modest step, but I think it can be helpful to the committee and to all of us in ensuring that we get our money's worth.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman, and I know he shares my concern about this. I am eager to work with him on it. I appreciate his comments and will be delighted to work with him.

Sometimes this offer to work ends and begins at once. So long as this is not going to turn into mush in the conference committee or be totally dropped, I am ready to work with the gentleman and cooperate. I appreciate it.

We so often hear about waste, fraud, and abuse as being able to finance essentially the whole government. I know there are many contractors that are doing their job. They are vital to our security. I hope we can work together and find a way to get at the core of this problem and save taxpayers money at the same time we keep our military second to none.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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