Slotkin Joins Bipartisan Push to Hold Defense Contractors Accountable on Pricing

For decades, defense contractors have taken advantage of the Pentagon’s inability to prevent price gouging   

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Joni Ernst (R-IA) in sending a bipartisan letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg. The letter asks the Department to enforce the Pentagon’s August 18 directive on “Supplier Cost and Pricing Transparency” and to hold defense contractors accountable.  

“The culture of overcharging within the defense industry that has driven this behavior has come with significant costs to both readiness and the American taxpayer,” wrote the senators. 

The August 18 directive is meant to improve access to contractors’ cost and pricing data and help contracting officers negotiate fair prices. The senators welcomed the effort but warned of a key gap. The policy applies a $10 million threshold for obtaining certified cost and pricing data, which could leave the Department without access to critical information for more than 60 percent of its contracts. The senators urged the Pentagon to extend the directive to lower-value contracts. They also urged it to use its existing authority to make contractors ineligible for awards when they refuse to provide requested data. 

“To ensure our understanding of how this directive ‘resets the Department’s expectations regarding supplier cost and pricing information,’ and how it will gain transparency through ‘modern information technology and current business best practices,’ we seek to clarify how the Department will gain such data from refusing companies, conduct consistent oversight, and hold non-compliant companies accountable,” concluded the senators. 

The senators asked the Department to respond to their questions by November 3, 2026. 

Read the full text of the letter here. 

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