Breaking Defense:

Despite deep concerns within Congress about Pentagon management of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the fiscal 2020 defense spending bill released yesterday will swell DoD’s $9.43 billion budget request to $10.4 billion.

The increase comes even as the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the defense spending bill both indicate serious congressional concern about the R&E’s oversight of the missile defense mavens — and in general about R&E’s lack of transparency.

“In general, the amount of oversight into R&E hasn’t been — satisfactory isn’t the right word, but something along those lines,” a House committee aide told me yesterday. “R&E is new … and there are not a lot of boundaries,” the aide added. “So, as we’ve gotten into a couple of years of R&E existing, and seeing how it’s been executing — especially with MDA, which is one of biggest organizations beneath them … we’ve started to see where things are working and maybe not working.”

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