The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee held a confirmation hearing yesterday to consider the nomination of Jeffrey Zients, President Obama's pick to be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and sit in the newly created position of Chief Performance Officer. The hearing was uneventful and short, lasting less than an hour, and Zients received mostly praise and kinds words from Senators.

Recent events are pointing to a shift by the Department of Defense (DOD) and at least one of the branches of the military in the way they will implement future government contracts. The passage of a new law, the planned addition of much-needed acquisition personnel at DOD – by far the government's largest contracting agency – and an intended top-to-bottom overhaul of the Air Force's procurement process are all geared toward reforming a system ripe with waste, fraud, and abuse. Despite this, barriers remain and these reforms will face critical challenges ahead.

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Yesterday, the conference committee assembled to hash out a final weapons acquisition reform bill released the new legislation and a summary report after the two sides came to agreement on Tuesday over the few issues of contention. We are currently going through the language of the bill to assess the final product, but it looks as though the conferees did not strengthen the potentially disastrous Murray amendment, and chose an independent cost analyst reporting to the Secretary of Defense over just an assistant to the secretary. If we catch anything appalling, we will post it, or, if you read through and see anything, please post your comments.