[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 84 (Thursday, May 26, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Page S3316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SA 4282. Ms. HIRONO submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
her to the bill S. 2943, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2017 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
At the end of subtitle A of title XI, add the following:
SEC. 1114. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON BUSINESS CASES ANALYSES FOR
DECISIONS AFFECTING THE WORKFORCE AND MODIFYING
LOCATIONS OF WHERE WORK WILL BE EXECUTED OR
COMPLETED.
(a) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) in a budget constrained environment, the military
departments and Defense Agencies must utilize all available
tools to make informed, supportable decisions in moving
workforce and workload from one location or entity to
another;
(2) such tools should include a properly supported and
documented business case analysis (BCA);
(3) several military departments and Defense Agencies have
fallen short of proper analysis and support with respect to
decision described in paragraph (1) in recent months;
(4) in one such case--
(A) the Air Force relied exclusively on a rough order
economic analysis on an engine source of repair as
justification for moving nearly $40,000,000 per year of
workload; and
(B) before reversing its decision, the Air Force had only
planned to accomplish business case analyses to shift work
after award of the solicitation;
(5) in another case--
(A) the Defense Health Agency announced that it would be
closing the Pacific Joint Information Technology Center
(PJITC), with an annual operation and maintenance cost of
$5,800,000, without supporting documentation or analysis;
(B) the center performs Health Information Technology (HIT)
research and innovation and serves as a test center for joint
concept technology development (JCTD) prototyping for the
Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs
for information technology products and services;
(C) if the center is closed, ongoing interoperability
projects between the Department of Defense and the Department
of Veterans Affairs will lose a critical health information
technology research hub which was responsible for the Joint
Legacy Viewer (JLV) which, in turn, is deployed throughout
the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans
Affairs and meets required interoperability standards;
(D) Defense Health Agency officials contend that the
quality of the work completed at the center is not at issue,
and they plan to continue the work at a different facility
which is not a joint research facility and does not have the
capability or capacity to continue the work of the center;
(6) before a military department or Defense Agency embarks
on a workforce decision of workload in excess of $3,000,000
per year, the Department of Defense needs to understand the
possible costs, benefits, risks, and impacts to the small
business goals, small and disadvantaged contracting
agreements, and other sensitivities of the Department
associated with such a decision;
(7) the military departments and Defense Agencies should
perform a business case analysis, as part of any workforce
decision described in paragraph (6);
(8) any such business case analysis for a workforce
decision having an annual estimated cost of $5,000,0000 or
more should be reviewed and approved by the Under Secretary
of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, and
the Under Secretary should provide such business case
analysis to the congressional defense committees at least 30
days before taking any action to effect a shift in the
workload concerned;
(9) the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics,
Materiel, and Readiness, working with the Cost Analysis
Program Evaluation office, should develop minimum standards
and criteria for business case analyses covered by this
section and a process for the review and transparency of such
business case analyses; and
(10) the Assistant Secretary should submit to the
congressional defense committees, by not later than 180 days
after the date of the enactment of this Act, a report on the
plan of the Assistant Secretary plan to implement the
standards and criteria described in paragraph (9).
(b) Business Case Analysis Defined.--In this section, the
term ``business case analysis'' means a structured
methodology and decision support document that aids decision
making by identifying and comparing alternatives by examining
the mission and business impacts (both financial and non-
financial), risks, and sensitivities.
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