Although the Defense Department continues to grow its cyber workforce, the “capacity for training in a realistic environment has not kept pace,” according to the House Armed Services Committee’s intelligence, emerging threats, and capabilities panel’s mark-up of the Fiscal 2015 defense authorization bill. The panel, which noted that it was concerned DOD is not addressing the training needs or coming to a consensus on how to best manage and support those needs, recommended creating an executive agent for DOD cyber training. This position would be a good first step towards better resource management and instilling discipline in cyber testing, states the mark, released April 30. The panel called for a need for “discipline to prevent rampant proliferation of duplicative capabilities,” which an executive agent would be able to oversee. The panel is slated to begin mark-ups Thursday. (See also On Your Mark-Up, Get Set, Go.)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.