Department of Defense Initiatives on High Energy Lasers Have Been
Responsive to Congressional Direction (18-MAY-05, GAO-05-545R).  
                                                                 
Congress directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to prepare a	 
master plan to develop laser technologies for potential weapons  
applications in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2000. In response to this legislation, the High Energy Laser
(HEL) Executive Review Panel was formed and issued the HEL Master
Plan on March 24, 2000. This plan recommended that DOD implement 
a new management structure for HEL technologies and increase the 
funding allocated to HELs to achieve a better balance between	 
large demonstration programs and the enabling science and	 
technology projects. Subsequently, in the Floyd D. Spence	 
National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2001, Congress 
directed the Secretary of Defense to implement the management and
organizational structure specified in the Master Plan. Congress  
asked us to review the extent to which DOD has implemented the	 
recommendations of the HEL Master Plan, by assessing (1) whether 
DOD has achieved more balance between large demonstration	 
projects and the enabling science and technology base projects;  
(2) whether the DOD funding process focuses on the most critical 
HEL issues; and (3) what impact the new management structure has 
had on the coordination and redundancy of HEL technology efforts 
DOD-wide.							 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-05-545R					        
    ACCNO:   A24320						        
  TITLE:     Department of Defense Initiatives on High Energy Lasers  
Have Been Responsive to Congressional Direction 		 
     DATE:   05/18/2005 
  SUBJECT:   Defense budgets					 
	     Defense capabilities				 
	     Investments					 
	     Military research and development			 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Weapons research and development			 
	     Program goals or objectives			 
	     Lasers						 
	     DOD High Energy Laser Technology Program		 

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GAO-05-545R

United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548

May 18, 2005

The Honorable Terry Everett
Chairman
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
Committee on Armed Services
House of Representatives

The Honorable Silvestre Reyes
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
Committee on Armed Services
House of Representatives

Subject: Department of Defense Initiatives on High Energy Lasers Have Been
Responsive to Congressional Direction

Congress directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to prepare a master plan
to develop laser technologies for potential weapons applications in the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000.1 In response to
this legislation, the High Energy Laser (HEL) Executive Review Panel was
formed and issued the HEL Master Plan on March 24, 2000. This plan
recommended that DOD implement a new management structure for HEL
technologies and increase the funding allocated to HELs to achieve a
better balance between large demonstration programs and the enabling
science and technology projects. Subsequently, in the Floyd D. Spence
National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2001, Congress directed
the Secretary of Defense to implement the management and organizational
structure specified in the Master Plan.2

You asked us to review the extent to which DOD has implemented the
recommendations of the HEL Master Plan, by assessing (1) whether DOD has
achieved more balance between large demonstration projects and the

1Pub. L. No. 106-65, sec. 251. 2Pub. L. No. 106-398, sec. 242.

enabling science and technology base projects; 3(2) whether the DOD
funding process focuses on the most critical HEL issues; and (3) what
impact the new management structure has had on the coordination and
redundancy of HEL technology efforts DOD-wide. We briefed your staff on
October 20, 2004, on the interim results of our work, and, at that time,
we agreed to provide a briefing on the results of our work with a letter
summarizing our findings to follow. We provided the final briefing on
March 30, 2005. This letter summarizes and transmits the final briefing
itself (see encl. I).

In addition, the conference report that accompanied the Ronald W. Reagan
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 directed the
Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress on the implementation
of the fiscal year 2001 legislation.4 The conferees required the Secretary
to provide this report by January 15, 2005, and also asked us to review
the report and provide our assessment of it to the congressional defense
committees by March 15, 2005. As of March 30, 2005, the Secretary had not
issued this report, and we were unable to review the report in time to
include our assessment in this correspondence. We will provide this
assessment to your staff and to the other defense committees in a separate
letter within 60 days after the Secretary issues the report.

The HEL Joint Technology Office (JTO) was formed in June 2000 as the
principal organization to implement the recommendations of DOD's HEL
Master Plan. It functions as the advocate for DOD's HEL technology
development and funds high priority science and technology efforts that
are expected to have significant impact on long-term laser weapon
requirements of the military services. In addition to the HEL projects
sponsored by the JTO, each of the military services, the Missile Defense
Agency, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency sponsor HEL
science and technology efforts. The Army,5 the Missile Defense Agency, and
the Special Operations Command are also working on large

3The large demonstration programs are system-specific programs, such as
the Airborne Laser or the Advanced Tactical Laser, while the enabling
science and technology base projects are somewhat independent of a
specific application.

4H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-767 at p. 520.

5The Army did not request funding for its HEL weapon program, the Mobile
Tactical High Energy Laser in its fiscal year 2006 budget request.
According to an Army official, the program's priority was insufficient to
compete favorably with other Army programs.

                                   Background

scale HEL demonstration programs with the goal of fielding laser weapon
systems.

The HEL Master Plan recommended that the funding for HEL science and
technology be increased to achieve a better balance between large
demonstration programs and the enabling science and technology projects.
In discussing the imbalance between these projects, the plan stated that,
while the demonstration programs are desirable to demonstrate that the HEL
weapons can be fielded, there must be a corresponding level of science and
technology base funding to ensure the future growth of these programs and
the continuing exploration of other types of HEL technologies. Currently,
all DOD HEL activity, including the demonstration programs, is funded
within the science and technology budget category, which includes basic
research, applied research, and advanced technology development.

The Master Plan also recommended that DOD establish a new management
structure for HEL technologies. Therefore, the HEL Technology Council was
established, with the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Science and
Technology designated chairman of the council and senior civilian official
for HEL projects. In addition, senior level executives of the services and
agencies were designated as the members of the Technology Council. The HEL
Technology Council provides oversight and approval authority over JTO
funding, while Technology Council executives represent their individual
service and agency needs and bring guidance to their respective service
based on the council's deliberations. The JTO consists of a director and
full-and part-time representatives of each service or agency, with
additional support provided by technical area working groups, which
provide recommendations and expert advice to the JTO on their projects.

We found that the Department of Defense has, in large part, implemented
the recommendations of the High Energy Laser Master Plan and has made the
following changes to increase the focus on critical high energy laser
issues:

o  	Since the High Energy Laser Master Plan and the 2001 Defense
Authorization Act, the overall investment in high energy laser efforts has
increased and the science and technology base has grown as a proportion of
total investment.

                                Results in Brief

o  	The Joint Technology Office has a process for establishing priorities
that is clearly defined, objective, and based on input from experts in the
high energy laser field. The services and agencies fund their high energy
laser projects according to their mission requirements.

o  By implementing the management structure and recommendations of the

                 Efforts to Implement Congressional Directives

Master Plan, the Department of Defense has increased collaboration within
the high energy laser community and provided more opportunities for
coordination of high energy laser efforts.

The DOD had no comments on a draft of this report.

From a resource standpoint, DOD has achieved more balance between its
spending for large-scale HEL demonstration programs and the enabling
science and technology base projects. Since the HEL Master Plan was
written and the subsequent legislation implemented, the overall investment
in HEL efforts has increased and the science and technology base has grown
as a proportion of the total investment. In 1998, the HEL technology base
accounted for 17 percent of the total HEL spending ($66 million out of
$398 million, with the demonstration programs receiving $332 million). In
2004, it increased to 27 percent of total HEL spending ($263 million of
$983 million, with the demonstration programs receiving $720 million).
This 27-percent increase includes about $58 million to fund the JTO and
its projects as well as an increase in service and agency funding for HEL
science and technology base projects, from about $66 million in 1998 to
about $205 million in 2004. We did not attempt to determine what
constitutes the ideal spending balance between demonstration programs and
science and technology base projects, nor did we attempt to analyze the
projects for technical balance.

For the new money that the JTO has infused into enabling HEL science and
technology projects-ranging from about 20 to 40 percent of the total-the
funding process does track with identified HEL priorities. While the
individual services participate in this process, they fund their own
science and technology projects based on their specific needs. The JTO has
a process to evaluate projects that includes criteria for establishing
funding priorities for the most critical technical issues. These criteria
are clearly defined, objective, and based on input from a wide range of
experts in the HEL field. In deciding on which projects to fund, the JTO
uses the priorities established through this process. The JTO initiated
the process in 2000 and continues to follow it when allocating funding for
its laser projects. The JTO used four criteria to prioritize technology
projects critical to future HEL applications: the overall potential impact
on HEL

missions; whether the technology is sufficiently mature to benefit from
increased funding; whether the funding needed for the research matches the
expected JTO funds; and whether there are benefits to multiple
applications or multiple services. The HEL technology projects were then
evaluated by a wide-range of experts in the HEL field, prioritized and
grouped into seven technology thrust areas: beam control, solid-state
lasers, chemical lasers, free-electron lasers, advanced laser technology,
lethality science, and modeling and simulations. The JTO allocates its
funding, which has been between $50 million and $60 million each year
since fiscal year 2002, exclusively to projects in these seven thrust
areas. The priorities and the investment strategy are updated annually.
The services and agencies prioritize and fund their technology investments
according to their individual mission needs. However, they do so with the
knowledge of what the JTO and other organizations have underway.

By implementing the management structure and recommendations of the 2000
HEL Master Plan, DOD provides opportunities via the Technology Council and
the JTO's Technical Area Working Groups for more collaboration among the
HEL community as well as opportunities for key HEL experts from all of the
services to discuss goals and objectives and share project information.
The Technology Council provides specific direction to the JTO and some
direction to the services and agencies on their HEL-related activities.
The senior level executives on the Technology Council represent their
services' or agencies' HEL needs and issues to the council and take the
results of the Technology Council discussions and guidance back to their
own services. Finally, based on our review of selected projects, we found
no apparent duplication of HEL technology projects within the JTO projects
or among the JTO projects and service and agency projects. Even within the
same thrust area, the projects explore different aspects of the various
technologies. According to JTO officials, the office makes a conscious
attempt to avoid duplication with service or agency projects and instead
tries to address technology gaps and issues not being covered by the
services and agencies.

Agency Comments 	The Department of Defense reviewed a draft of this
report, but had no comments on the content. Their response is included as
Enclosure II.

                               and Our Evaluation

We reviewed the HEL Master Plan and the subsequent legislation as well
as other documentation concerning the implementation of the
recommendations in the Master Plan. We interviewed officials within the
Office of the Secretary of Defense to assess DOD's implementation of the
plan's recommendations. We interviewed HEL JTO officials and reviewed
documents to determine their role in implementing the Master Plan's
recommendations and to assess their criteria for prioritizing and funding
HEL technologies. We also interviewed Army, Navy, Air Force, Missile
Defense Agency, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
officials involved in HEL projects and reviewed pertinent documentation
to determine how the officials set their priorities and funding for HEL
projects and to solicit their views on the effectiveness of the JTO as the
focal point for HEL-related activities. We reviewed the active projects
the
JTO was sponsoring for possible duplication with those from the services
and other agencies. For those projects that seemed similar to other
projects, we then did a more in-depth analysis of the project and its
focus.
We conducted our review from August 2004 to April 2005 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Paul L. Francis, Director
Acquisition and Sourcing Management

Enclosures -II

                             Scope and Methodology

                                  Enclosure I

        Service          Project Title                 Description            
     JTO Air Force     Optical component        Athermal subscale window      
        sponsor            technology       
                     Alternate HEL windows      Evaluate a type of window     
JTO Army sponsor                                     material              
JTO Navy sponsor    Tactical conformal     Fabrication of large tactical   
                       window development           conformal windows         
                        High reflective     Develop optical coatings that can 
JTO Navy sponsor         coating               withstand high power        
       Air Force      Airborne laser beam   Refine beam control for airborne  
                            control                     platforms             
                                             Investigate effects of aerosols, 
         Navy             Beam control        water vapor, and air turbulence 
                                                    on laser beam in maritime 
                                                                  environment 

             Enclosure II: Comments from the Department of Defense

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