Breaking news from the Government Accountability Office related to the much-hyped $35 billion refueling tanker contract that the Air Force awarded to a Northrop Grumman/EADS partnership earlier this year (see BudgetBlog coverage here, here, and

Writing in The New York Times, James Risen brings us an astonishing article on the circumstances surrounding the firing of the Army official in charge of overseeing the KBR contract in Iraq. It's not only galling to read that the chief of the Field Support Contracting Division of the Army Field Support Command Charles M. Smith was sacked because he refused to approve payment for unsubstantiated work by KBR, but it's a sharp reminder of how the current level of Iraq contracting has lead to billions and billions of wasted federal funds. Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. "They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify," he said in an interview. "Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn't going to do that." But he was suddenly replaced, he said, and his successors — after taking the unusual step of hiring an outside contractor to consider KBR's claims — approved most of the payments he had tried to block. That's awful. But, the Army's rationale for making sure the cash spigot flows unabated signals even deeper problems with Pentagon procurement.

Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Tom Carper (D-DE), and John McCain (R-AZ) introduced new legislation on June 3 as a follow-up to the 2006 Transparency Act. The bill, the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act (S. 3077), would augment the 2006 law but go further, making important new data more easily accessible to the public and making it easier for citizens to hold our government accountable for the fiscal stewardship of our shared resources.

CongressDaily is reporting ($) that a few members of the House of Representatives are forming the "Smart Contracting Caucus" to pursue what Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) called "thoughtful federal procurement reform." But Dan Friedman at CongressDaily isn't buying the spin: