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Panel: Flaws push EFV back 8 years

WASHINGTON — Major development flaws have pushed up the cost of the Marine Corps’ amphibious Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program by 168 percent per tank and pushed the production deadline back by eight years, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found.

The Defense Department says it will acquire 593 vehicles from General Dynamics at a total cost of $13.2 billion, compared with an earlier projection of 1,025 tanks for $8.4 billion, according to a House Oversight Committee report released Tuesday.

The committee presented its findings at Tuesday’s hearing on a major Government Accountability Office report concluding that inefficient Pentagon management led to cost increases, delays and production shortfalls for many key weapons programs last year.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the committee’s chairman, said the amphibious tank program illustrates many of the problems highlighted in the broader GAO report, which came out in late March.

“The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle experience appears to be the rule, not the exception,” Waxman, D-Calif., said at the hearing.

The GAO’s sixth-annual report on selected weapons purchases found that acquisition costs came in 26 percent above original estimates for 72 major weapons programs in 2007. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, also found that the programs are experiencing delays of 21 months on average.

The GAO put the blame on the Pentagon for its inefficient practices, including changes in program requirements after weapons development had started, turnover in program management and the use of contractors and other outside personnel.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment Tuesday. James Finley, the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary for acquisition and technology, also said during his testimony at the hearing that he could not comment on the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program.

General Dynamics also had no comment.