Report: Congress needs to take charge of DOD procurement policy

Congress needs to take a stand before the Defense Department sets a new procurement precedent and moves away from a decades-old policy of paying for a project with one fiscal year’s appropriations. But the question for Congress is how to do that, according to a new Congressional Research Service report.

Current policy requires DOD to fund a weapon or piece of equipment in the year in which the item is bought. The full-funding policy is a budgeting rule that has been applied to DOD procurement programs since the 1950s, according to the CRS report released June 15 by the Federation of American Scientists.

Ronald O’Rourke and Stephen Daggett, national defense specialists in CRS’ Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, wrote in the report that despite being a technical rule, the policy deals with Congress’ budget power and oversight of DOD.

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