Not So Fast, Senator Schumer: Army Responds On Radio Competition

The battle to build the Army’s portable radios has seen more than its share of skullduggery over the last two years. A 2-star general rebuked a contractor in public. Established vendors General Dynamics and Rockwell Collins lobbied Congress to keep potential competitors out. Rochester, NY-based Harris, the up and coming upstart, throws sharp elbows in every direction. If I were an Army acquisition official, I’d have a headache by now — and it would have gotten a lot worse after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer’s announcement late Wednesday night: “Today, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced that, after his push, the Department of Defense has reversed course and will now allow companies across the country, including Rochester’s Harris RF, to compete for 5-year multi-million dollar military radio contracts,” the Senator’s press office blared. “Prior to this decision, the army was pursuing a single-vendor process that shut out competition.” Not so far, Senator Schumer. The Army formally began setting up competition for these contracts last fall: That’s 12 months before Schumer made the call to Sec. Chuck Hagel his press release is boasting about. (Admittedly, Schumer was already pushing pro-competition legislation last summer, but it didn’t become law). This fall, while a new strategy is in the works to make the process more competitive, it’s not happening particularly because of Schumer, who’s not on either of the defense committees and isn’t a major player on Pentagon policy. “All of our tactical radio strategies — including MNVR, HMS manpack and rifleman, and SRW applique — have always allowed any qualified vendor to compete competitively for contracts,” an exasperated Army official told me this afternoon. “Anybody who has a product that meets the [technical] requirements can compete.” In fact, much of lobbying skullduggery consisted of attempts to redefine those requirements in a way that only the incumbents could effectively compete — but those attempts all failed. So what is changing? Instead of having companies compete and then picking one winner for an exclusive five-year contract for several lots of radios — the “single vendor” approach — the Army has been looking hard at picking several winners — a “multi-vendor” strategy — and then having those winners bid against each other for specific lots. There’s competition either way, it’s just that a single-vendor competition is a single all-or-nothing choice, while multi-vendor allows multiple smaller competitions under a single overarching contract. The Army official declined to confirm that the single-vendor approach is dead, saying only it was being “relooked” and that “the Army’s currently finalizing plans with OSD to continue to maximize radio competition,” with “an updated acquisition strategy” now under review concurrently in both the Headquarters of the Department of the Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. But after covering this story for over a year (and getting the official to rule out some alternative interpretations), it’s pretty easy to read between the lines and see the only way to “maximize” competition would be moving to multi-vendor. That’s the approach that all the corporate players have been pushing and that the Army has been considering for months — again, long before Schumer called Chuck Hagel. Any change would require OSD approval — specifically from Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall. (Schumer has called Kendall, too). Schumer’s press release promised “will be finalized by end of [the] month.” Betting on the Pentagon bureaucracy to produce a decision within two weeks is a little gutsy, especially in the current budgetary chaos, and it’ll be interesting to see if Schumer’s prophecy is fulfilled on schedule. But whether his press release has the timing right or not, it’s taking entirely too much credit.

Breaking Defense

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Sen. Charles Schumer

Not So Fast, Senator Schumer: Army Responds On Radio Competition

Posted on November 15, 2013

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