4. Department of Defense · Minor
Require "Night Court" reviews to terminate outdated or underperforming programs
Printed page 96 4. Department of Defense
“Require the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, and all service secretaries to conduct "Night Court" and use existing authorities to terminate outdated or underperforming programs so that money can be used for what works and will work. Require the Under Secretaries and service secretaries to brief the Secretary annually on the results.”
What has happened
- Partially done
The Army Transformation Initiative began terminating what the Army called outdated programs and shifting the money to long-range missiles, missile defense, cyber, electronic warfare and counter-space — the Night Court behavior the Quote asks for, done once by one service. What is still missing is the standing requirement in the Quote: an annual brief to the Secretary from the Under Secretaries and every service secretary on the results.
- Attempted
EO 14265 sec. 6 requires the Deputy Secretary of Defense, with the service secretaries, the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment and component acquisition executives, to review every major defense acquisition program within 90 days; any program more than 15 percent behind schedule or over cost, unable to meet a key performance parameter, or unaligned with the Secretary's priorities "will be considered for potential cancellation," with the cancellation list sent to OMB. Sec. 6(b) extends the review to all remaining major systems. A directive with no result on the record yet.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
“Night Court” is the Army’s name for the program-termination review; the phrase itself appears in no public law and in no Federal Register document in the window. The mechanism the Quote describes is what EO 14265 sec. 6 orders.
This item was also covered by one negative search run across its whole cluster of related asks in this Chapter.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- outdated or underperforming DOD programs
- ID
- 145