July 23, 2009 -- A Pentagon program that arms commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan with more than a billion dollars in cash annually to fund small-scale, urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction projects is coming under new scrutiny from lawmakers who are concerned about the effort's stewardship.
The House Appropriations Committee yesterday approved its version of the Pentagon's fiscal year 2010 defense bill that freezes $500 million -- or nearly 40 percent of the $1.3 billion the committee is prepared to allocate for the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) -- until the Defense Department prepares a “thorough” report on the program.
“While the committee understands the value of CERP for our combatant commanders, it is deeply concerned that CERP has grown from an incisive counterinsurgency tool to an alternative U.S. development program with few limits and little management,” the panel notes in a report prepared by its defense subcommittee.
“The U.S. Army and U.S. Central Command have failed to justify ever-growing CERP budget requests or to execute proper management or oversight of those funds,” the report states.
Through CERP, commanders have a kitty to fund a wide range of construction and non-construction projects, including transportation, electricity and condolence payments.
The committee cites “recent reports” of “intense pressure” on provincial reconstruction teams and combatant commanders to “'rush to spend' hundreds of millions of dollars in the last quarter of the fiscal year,” the report states. “They have submitted a barrage of multi-million dollar CERP proposals that seem designed primarily to ensure that all available funds are spent.”
The panel says the Pentagon may be running afoul of a provision in the FY-09 Defense Appropriations Act designed to prevent a last-minute surge in spending by prohibiting more than 20 percent of the annual allocation to be obligated in the last two months of the fiscal year.
“Given these concerns, the committee believes a fundamental review of CERP is now urgently required,” the report states.
The lawmakers direct the defense secretary, in coordination with the national security adviser, to prepare a report on the program which explains: how CERP budget requests are generated and justified and an assessment of funding major projects during the last quarter of the fiscal year.
The review is also to assess the management and oversight of CERP funds, and provide an assessment “for Iraq and Afghanistan of the goals, purpose and expected requirement for CERP funds in the coming year” which accounts, according to the report, for the “appropriate mix of infrastructure projects and smaller-scale humanitarian projects.”
Lastly, the report -- due 90 days after the enactment of the FY-10 spending bill -- is to review “the appropriate relationship between projects funded with CERP and development projects carried out by the U.S. Agency for International Development.” -- Jason Sherman