“Welcome to today’s hearing on Coordinating Requirements, Budgets, and Acquisition:  How Does it Affect Costs and Acquisition Outcomes?   The panel has held three hearings to date on the first question on our work plan: how do we measure the performance of the acquisition system in meeting two critical goals: first, rapidly filling warfighter needs and second, protecting taxpayers? 

 “Today we move on to the next question on our work plan: what are the root causes of failure in the acquisition system?  We start today with the hypothesis that poor coordination between the requirements, budget, and acquisition processes of the Department of Defense is one of the root causes of failures in the acquisition system. 

 “To be exact, we are not starting with the assumption that poor coordination is a problem for all programs, but we do suggest that it is a recurring problem on a number of programs and that when it does occur, it has severe consequences for the warfighter and for taxpayers.  We will test this hypothesis today with our witnesses, who have all served in senior capacities in leading, operating, studying, and coordinating the requirements, budget, and acquisition processes.

 “We have with us the former Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Honorable Gordon England, the former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Ed Giambastiani, and the former Chairman of the Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment and former head of the Missile Defense Agency, Ron Kadish.  Gentlemen, we appreciate the fact that you are here today to share your expertise in acquisition with us, and to help us test our hypothesis about the critical importance of coordination between requirements, budgets, and acquisition. 

 “It appears that the coordination of these processes is still often ad hoc, and may be overly dependent on the personalities and compatibility of the people involved.  As you have each wrestled with this problem directly, your testimony will give us insight on this issue.

 “There are a number of proposals that have been put forward by think tanks to formalize coordination, for example, by requiring the Deputy Secretary of Defense to approve and transmit JROC requirements as binding policy to the military departments, or by adding the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, the Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation (now the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation), and the Comptroller as voting members of the JROC. 

 “Congress has already required that each military department institute configuration steering boards for major defense acquisition programs, and that these boards include representation from the Joint Staff.  What is the right mix in the formal and informal in requiring coordination and how do we achieve it?  And if we do make the products of the JROC more binding on the military departments, do we need to change the nature of the requirements process so that we avoid mandates on the acquisition process that are technologically infeasible, or financially impractical?  The panel looks forward to getting the witnesses views on all these issues today.

 “Let me now turn to our panel’s ranking member, Mr. Conaway of Texas, for his opening remarks.”