Each of the U.S. armed services seems to have had a major - if not their biggest - acquisition program rescaled in recent months as Defense Secretary Gates and budget pressures collide to challenge the military on these monstrous efforts. Everyone, that is, but the Marine Corps - and its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) could be just the juicy target Pentagon reformers and electioneering lawmakers will address next.

What makes me think of this is that the Pentagon on Friday said the Marine Corps Systems Command awarded EFV prime contractor General Dynamics Land Systems a $766.8 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for development and manufacture of two EFV prototypes under a so-called system development and demonstration-2 phase. The contractor also will modify existing EFV prototypes, procure preliminary spares and repair parts, long lead materials for the SDD-2 prototypes, and conduct systems engineering, studies and analysis, logistics support and test support.

The contract, which was not competitively awarded, is for work that won't be completed until September 2012. And notice they're calling it "SDD-2," as in the second attempt at it. That's because about a year ago, the Navy and Marines rewrote the program -  and had to hike the cost by billions of dollars while slashing expected deliveries in half and pushing back the timeline by years.

Surprisingly, in my opinion, that announcement didn't draw much attention at the time. At least not for what it was: declaring the Corps' top acquisition effort a failure (although one necessary to keep pursuing). This year, things changed; the House Government Oversight Committee spotlighted the program in a surprise move April 29 and the panel's scathing hearing came shortly after yet another, critical Government Accountability Office report March 31. Most recently, the House and Senate Armed Services committees have weighed in with increasing concern themselves.

Under current plans, the EFV will not achieve initial operational capability until 2015 and full operational capability until 2025 - or about 35 years after the EFV program entered development. The SASC bill says the plan puts "the Marine Corps' primary mission capability - amphibious operations - at risk for an unacceptably long duration." Senators want the Pentagon to seriously consider spending toward an annual production rate far beyond the one limited to 55 vehicles per year once full-rate production begins in 2016.

The HASC, meanwhile, is concerned that plans to begin fabrication of the new EFV prototypes in fiscal 2009 have not sufficiently addressed protection from mines and improvised explosive devices in some operational scenarios. In their House-passed bill, they cut authorized spending for research and development by $40.2 million to $275.9 million.

The two bills seem to go in opposite directions, but they also show growing pressure on the program to perform and produce despite its major setback. EFV may have benefited from less attention before, but perhaps its time in the spotlight is coming.