The Center for Strategic and International Studies believes that Congress must end sequestration budget cuts in order to fund the U.S.’ Asia-Pacific rebalance efforts, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

Sydney Freedberg Jr. writes that the think tank released a report in which it indicated potential U.S. vulnerabilities in satellites and electronic warfare and the potential challenge of China and North Korea to U.S. security commitments.

“Robust funding is needed at a level above the president’s budget,” CSIS said, according to the report.

“The rebalance to the Asia-Pacific will therefore require the Congress to forge a long-term bipartisan agreement to fund defense at the higher levels for which there is a broad consensus.”

CSIS also recommended increased missile defenses, a concrete rebalance strategy, a joint task force for the Pacific, training exercises and more weapon procurements, Freedberg reports.

The U.S. Army has enlisted the help of the Defense Information Systems Agency for the service branch’s effort to migrate to new enterprise resource planning programs as part of a potential $846 million contract, C4ISR & Networks reported Tuesday.

Amber Corrin writes the Army wants to transition the general fund enterprise business system, Army enterprise systems integration program, logistics modernization program, Global Combat Support System-Army and the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army to the Defense Enterprise Computing Center.

The Army awarded the potential five-year ERP services contract in January to 10 small businesses.

Alfred Rivera, director of DISA’s development and business center, told the publication he intends to “build a center of excellence with a core set of engineers and process folks, along with our implementation guys, that can work directly with mission partners to holistically pull these systems together into the data centers.”

“We see a big opportunity for the services to get some savings behind that, and hopefully they’ll take advantage of that as we build this ecosystem for ERPs,” Rivera told C4ISR & Networks.

The Energy Department has awarded research and development funds to Southern Company and X-energy to further develop their nuclear reactor projects as part of the government’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

DOE said Friday both awards have a cost-share value of up to $80 million and seek to exemplify public-private partnerships under the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear program.

“In order to ensure that nuclear energy remains a key source for U.S. electricity generation well into the future, it is critically important that we invest in these technologies today,” said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

X-energy will develop its Xe-100 Pebble Bed Advanced Reactor concept with Teledyne-Brown Engineering, SGL Group, BWX Technology, Oregon State University, Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Southern Company Services, a Southern Company subsidiary, will conduct materials suitability and integrated effects tests on its Molten Chloride Fast Reactor with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Electric Power Research Institute, TerraPower and Vanderbilt University.

Both firms will each receive $6 million in initial investment from DOE to help fund their projects.