Total reimbursements for defense/military research & development

To Whom It May Concern:

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

This request will likely need to be sent to the office of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, but exactly who oversees that office is unclear from its website. I appreciate your assistance with forwarding the request to the appropriate office that would have the documents to fulfill the request. Anyone who writes to this email address will reach me regarding this request.

I hereby request the following records:

Documents sufficient to show the total amount the federal government paid out to private companies for reimbursement of research and development (sometimes called "R&D") for products to be used in national defense. Secondly, I request documents sufficient to show what percentage each reimbursement payment amounts to, of the total R&D cost the company reported that it incurred for that particular project. The date range of this request is the last two fiscal years for which this data is readily available.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. The requester is a journalist and publishes in several national and international publications such as The Guardian, The Daily Beast, and In These Times magazine.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Brandon Smith

Hello Mr. Rodriguez. My apologies for the delay.

To the extent that an accounting of "IR&D" costs fulfill my request for documents completely, then yes, you can take it to mean that. But if there are other programs that the DOD uses to pay for private companies R&D costs, then (necessarily, with a common reading of my request) those would have to be included in the response as well.

For your convenience, here is the relevant section of my request:

Documents sufficient to show the total amount the federal government paid out to private companies for reimbursement of research and development (sometimes called "R&D") for products to be used in national defense. Secondly, I request documents sufficient to show what percentage each reimbursement payment amounts to, of the total R&D cost the company reported that it incurred for that particular project. The date range of this request is the last two fiscal years for which this data is readily available.

Sincerely,
Brandon Smith