Daryl Witherspoon, former deputy general counsel at the Defense Department Education Activity, has been named general counsel of the Defense Contract Audit Agency at Fort Belvoir.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced the Senior Executive Service assignment in a notice published Wednesday.

Witherspoon previously held various roles at multiple organizations under DoD, including the National Guard Office of Chief Counsel, Army Litigation Division, U.S. Forces – Afghanistan, Fort McPherson, Army Central Command and Army Procurement Fraud Division.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and a doctor of jurisprudence degree from the Valparaiso University School of Law.

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Washington) has called on Congress to approve a defense policy bill that would increase the Pentagon’s base budget without underfunding the overseas war fund, the Washington Examiner reported Wednesday.

Jacqueline Klimas writes House and Senate lawmakers aim to finalize the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act by Oct. 1 but some analysts believe a funding discrepancy between NDAA drafts from both sides of the aisle and the upcoming presidential election could delay the bill’s passage until later in 2016.

The House proposed to shift $18 billion from the Defense Department‘s overseas contingency operations account to priority military programs.

Meanwhile, the Senate’s version of the NDAA would add $15 billion to DoD’s base budget and offset the spending increase with a series of discretionary program cuts.

Sydney Freedberg Jr. of Breaking Defense reported that Smith recommended cuts to endstrength and nuclear modernization initiatives at DoD to offset higher defense spending.

“It would have been nice if the agreement we reached nine months ago we could’ve just stuck to,” he was quoted as saying by Breaking Defense.

“Honestly I think the most promising one is the Senate Appropriations Committee.”

The U.S. Army has demonstrated a set of power generation systems that work to reduce fuel consumption during an integrated exercise at Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

The service branch said Thursday the exercise ran from May through June 17 at Fort Devens’ Base Camp Integration Laboratory as part of the Sustainability Logistics Basing — Science Technology Objective Demonstration that seeks to reduce fuel, water resupply demand and waste generation at small base camps.

“We introduced two new fuel reduction technology demonstrators as well as two returning systems with updated designs based on lessons learned from prior STO Demos and capability upgrades,” said Selma Matthews, SLB-STO-D fuel reduction thrust lead.

The Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command leads the project while the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center manages the initiative that aims to reduce fuel demand by 25 percent.

CERDEC also tested its Energy Informed Operations tactical microgrid which is designed to give power resources access to the grid and support user management through a software applicatio.

The EIO microgrid worked to maintain power for 10 days at the south side of the camp at BCIL as the east side was powered through the Towable 100 kilowatt Generator Set that works to match engine speed with power load to reduce fuel usage, the Army said.

A computer modeling and simulation tool called Auto Distribution Illumination System Electrical worked to support the EIO microgrid and Towable 100 KW GenSet to help users prepare tailored power and heating, ventilation and air conditioning layouts, the Army noted.

CERDEC is scheduled to conclude SLB-STO-D in 2017 and continue to develop the participating fuel reduction technologies.