Defense-Conversion Program Appears Likely to Lose Funding

House Republicans are virtually certain to kill the nation’s cornerstone defense-conversion program today, a plan introduced by President Clinton amid much fanfare two years ago as a crucial effort to sustain defense technology in the aftermath of the Cold War.

The House Appropriations Committee is voting on a move to rescind the $425 million already approved in the current fiscal year for the Technology Reinvestment Program, which Republican leaders have ridiculed as a “slush fund” that drains scarce resources from the military.

The Clinton Administration is given little chance of beating back the funding cutoff, either today or later, when the matter is taken up by the full House. Instead, the White House is hoping to salvage the program in the Senate, though it also faces criticism there.

In a last-ditch effort to preserve some portion of the funding, the White House on Thursday released a lengthy defense of the program, asserting that the Pentagon will derive much of its future technology from commercial industry.

Ever since its unveiling, the Technology Reinvestment Program has been the target of opposition. Various critics have objected to its goals or have said it was too small to have a substantial impact amid the massive cutbacks in defense acquisition.

The premise of TRP is that the Pentagon can no longer afford to sustain a separate defense industrial base and instead must increasingly rely on the commercial economy for key military technology.

Under the program, the Pentagon has made 251 grants totaling $820 million to consortiums developing a broad array of industrial technologies, ranging from laser cutting tools to using the devices that power military ejector seats in high-tech “jaws of life” rescue equipment.

Republicans, however, suggest that the program has frittered away money at a time when military units are facing shortages in equipment and cutting back on training.

For example, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has cited TRP projects such as one with the title “Holistic Approach for Preparing Students to Learn and Lead in a New Manufacturing Paradigm.” Livingston asserts that much of TRP has little bearing on defense technology.

The proposed cuts would be incorporated in an emergency $2.6-billion Pentagon request to pay for military operations in Bosnia and Haiti. Two weeks ago, Republican leaders of an Appropriations subcommittee decided to fund the Pentagon request by cutting TRP and other programs associated with Clinton.

Another rub has been California firms’ huge success in the competition. Unsuccessful contractors and their representatives in Congress have complained that California has won 25% of the TRP awards and that the competition must be rigged.

Actually, California has won about 21% of the funding and submitted 23% of the proposals, according to Lee Buchanan, TRP program manager at the Pentagon’s advanced research projects agency.

“Everybody who was unsuccessful feels that something was wrong,” Buchanan said. “There is a constant undercurrent of criticism that these awards are politically influenced.”

Buchanan and other Administration officials reject such allegations, saying California has won large numbers of awards because it is a leading producer of defense technology.

A fight to preserve TRP is being waged by a coalition led by DuPont, 3M and IBM.

“The coalition has mobilized very quickly to defend TRP,” said DuPont lobbyist Tom Sellers, who said the Republican opposition to the program took a lot of people by surprise.

The coalition is conspicuous for the absence of major defense firms, many of which participate in the program. Defense firms do not want to take a visible role in the battle out of fear that Republicans might punish them later by cutting their weapons programs, industry sources say.

Nonetheless, companies with TRP projects say the federal program has been crucial in creating industrial consortiums and encouraging investments in risky technology that would not otherwise have been pursued.

“The interchange of ideas has really worked,” said Len Marabella, a TRW engineer in Redondo Beach who leads a TRP team of 20 corporations developing a powerful new laser cutting tool for industry.

The laser device could have broad applications in both commercial and defense products, Marabella said, reducing waste and increasing manufacturing speeds.