Kenneth Krieg, the Defense Department's acquisition executive, is expected to sign a memo requiring that the "fully burdened cost of fuel" be considered in the design trades for the Air Force's long-range strike concept decision, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle requirement, and the Maritime Air and Missile Defense of Joint Forces alternative ship concepts analysis of alternatives.

When signed, the memo and its follow-on work, will mark the intersection of two high-level Pentagon efforts under way over the last year that are taking stock of what Defense Department leaders say is the U.S. military's growing dependence on foreign oil. These efforts reviewed a range of issues dealing with energy and U.S. national security that aim to reshape the military's approach to fuel consumption on other fronts as well.

On Aug. 17, Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and head of the Pentagon's high-level Joint Requirements Oversight Council, signed a memo that codified recommendations of a nearly nine-month-long review, according to a Joint Staff official. The review recommended, among other things, the Pentagon should on a "selective basis" require energy efficiency as a key performance parameter in new weapon systems, said the official.

That recommendation, along with a handful of other new requirements for key performance parameters, are set to be included in this fall's update of the Joint Staff's procedures that guide the development of new capability requirements.

"We're raising this to a level of importance where we're making a conscious decision on whether or not you need a KPP for energy efficiency" a Joint Staff official said.

At around the same time, the Energy Security Task Force, formed this spring at the direction of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was wrapping up its review of the cost of energy to the Defense Department and options to reduce that burden. This cost, it turns out, is roughly an additional $1.8 billion for every $10 hike in a barrel of oil, according to a member of the task force.

The group, headed by Director of Defense Research and Engineering John Young, briefed its recommendations to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Giambastiani and the other members of the Deputy's Advisory Working Group at the end of September, according to a task force member.

England blessed the overall recommendations of the task force, which include: increasing platform efficiency, establishing an alternative fuels program, and accelerating initiatives to make defense installations more energy efficient.

This amounts to "a strategic statement of intent by the department," Alan Shaffer, the director of plans and programs in Young's office, said in a Nov. 14 interview with InsideDefense.com.

To increase platform efficiency, the Pentagon plans to incorporate the "delivered cost of fuel" into acquisition decisions; "develop and test efficient propulsion systems, power generators and machinery"; and "develop and prototype lightweight vehicles and structures," according to Nov. 8 briefing slides used by Christopher DiPetto, deputy director for systems and software engineering in Young's office. DiPetto has a key role in the Energy Security Task Force.

Establishing an alternative fuels program, according to DiPetto's briefing, includes efforts to mature and test synthetic fuels, such as those derived from the Fischer-Tropsch process; measure and assess the Defense Department's energy progress; and develop incentive programs for an alternate fuel industry. The Fischer-Tropsch process can use coal in combination with agricultural waste or other biomass to produce synthetic fuel.

The Defense Energy Support Center, which purchases fuel in bulk for the entire Defense Department, is considering proposals it received this summer from industry in response to a request for a buy of 200 million gallons of synthetic fuel produced through the Fischer-Tropsch process, according to Patrick Jones, a spokesman for the center. Shaffer said this fuel will be used to test its ability to power air, sea and ground vehicles.

The third recommendation of the task force calls for accelerating initiatives to make defense installations more efficient.

The Energy Security Task Force made a number of investment recommendations designed to affect the fiscal year 2008 budget proposal and its accompanying six-year spending plan. Shaffer declined to detail these proposals because he said the Defense Department has not yet decided which to fund.

In his January State of the Union address, President Bush declared that the United States must wean itself from its "addiction to oil."

The spike in fuel prices caused by disruption to the oil industry along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina last year provided new traction within the Defense Department to examine what could be done to make the U.S. military more energy efficient.

In a Dec. 14, 2005, "snowflake" memo to England, Rumsfeld asked what actions the Defense Department might take to conserve energy.

"It seems to me we should be doing all we can to pursue energy initiatives through fuel-efficient vehicles, advanced battery technology or hybrid power trains," Rumsfeld wrote. "It really is a national security issue and we are an enormous part of government consumption."

The pilot program Krieg is expected to approve will, in effect, address a key finding of the 2001 Defense Science Board study that examined fuel efficiency in weapon systems. The group found that the Pentagon priced fuel based on the wholesale refinery price, not the cost delivered to the end user. This practice, the 2001 panel concluded, "prevents an end-to-end view of fuel utilization in decision-making, does not reflect the DOD's true fuel costs, masks energy efficiency benefits, and distorts platform choices."

An example of calculating the fully burdened cost of fuel is offered in DiPetto's slides: It cost the Army about 16 times as much to deliver fuel as to purchase it.

The pilot program Krieg is expected to initiate will receive instructions on how to calculate the fully burdened price of fuel from a group being led by James Finley, deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology. Finley is leading an integrated product team, according to DiPetto's briefing, that aims to "quantify the DOD fully burdened cost of fuel and how [to] incorporate results into investment decisions."