Adam Smith: “First of all, I thank Chairman Rogers, his team, and his staff. The process that we went through in committee was just a…”

“First of all, I thank Chairman Rogers, his team, and his staff. The process that we went through in committee was just a model for how to legislate on the National Defense Authorization Act and in a bipartisan fashion. I think, in that process, we put together a really good bill. The chairman has done a good job of describing it. I won't belabor some of those points except to say that the emphasis on acquisition and procurement reform is so crucial to everything we are doing. In order to meet the national security threats that we face, we are going to have to innovate vastly more quickly than we do right now. The pace of warfare is simply changing on a day-in and day-out basis: drones, AI, missiles, missile defense, counter-drone technologies. This is evolving rapidly. We simply have to make sure that the best technologies from innovative companies out there in the world have access to the Department of Defense so that we can update and change the way we do business and move more quickly. One of the easiest ways to think about it is we need to focus on solving problems, not on process. This bill does an excellent job of making those changes.”