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 Thornberry's legislation follows an initial batch of reforms
enacted last year with the 2016 annual defense policy bill, and
continues efforts to make weapons programs more transparent.
The proposals are aimed at simplifying the convoluted U.S. Defense
Department acquisition process, with a big push to fund more
experimentation and prototyping of new weapons, while driving to get
new technologies into the hands of troops faster.
Many big weapons programs are over budget and behind schedule,
although Pentagon officials say changes undertaken since 2009 are
starting to have a positive impact.
The new legislation aims to shorten the time it takes from the start
of the design phase of a new program until a military service can
start using a new weapon in combat to five-to-six years from around
nine year currently, the staff said.
 The bill requires all weapons systems to have "open systems
architectures" that will allow the services to hold competitions for
more components, and carry out quicker upgrades as new technologies
are developed.
It authorizes the Air Force, Army and other military services to use
certain funding to pay for prototype upgrades of components and to
develop technology faster.
The bill also seeks to end a controversy about how the Pentagon
treats private companies' intellectual property that has made
non-traditional suppliers reluctant to do business with the U.S.
military and its complex defense acquisition rules.
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Instead of automatically giving the government broad rights to
control intellectual property rights that are jointly funded by
industry and government, the bill would mandate that such
arrangements would have to be negotiated between the parties.
The legislation would also continue a push to make the military
services more responsible and accountable for weapons programs,
requiring them to begin overseeing milestone decisions for joint
programs after Oct. 1, 2019.
The bill also requires the secretary of defense, or his staff, to
fix the costs and expected fielding date for new weapons programs,
and then hold the services accountable for meeting those targets.
To ensure more transparency, the bill also calls for creation of an
acquisition scorecard that would compare program cost estimates with
those submitted by independent estimators.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Paul Tait)
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