; (B) a description of the appropriate manner to meet such requirements; and (C) the amount of funds that would be necessary to be transferred from the Air Force to the National Reconnaissance Office during fiscal years 2018 through 2022 to carry out such plan. (2) Activities In developing the plan under paragraph (1), the Director may conduct pre-acquisition activities, including with respect to requests for information, analyses of alternatives, study contracts, modeling and simulation, and other activities the Director determines necessary to develop such plan. (3) Submission Not later than July 1, 2017, and except as provided in subsection (c), the Director shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees the plan under paragraph (1). (b) Independent cost estimate The Director of the Cost Assessment Improvement Group of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, shall certify to the appropriate congressional committees that the amounts of funds identified under subsection (a)(1)(C) as being necessary to transfer are appropriate and include funding for positions and personnel to support program office costs. (c) Waiver based on report and certification of Air Force acquisition program The Director of the National Reconnaissance Office may waive the requirement to develop a plan under subsection (a), if the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology, and Logistics and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff jointly submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report by not later than July 1, 2017) that contains— (1) a certification that the Secretary of the Air Force is carrying out a formal acquisition program that has received Milestone A approval to address the cloud characterization and theater weather imagery requirements of the Department of Defense