Panel urges OMB not to block F-35 alternate engine funding

In a highly unusual move, House Armed Services Committee leaders wrote the Office of Management and Budget this week asking the agency to rewrite guidance it issued that makes it difficult to include funding for a controversial alternate engine for the F-35 fighter jet program in a continuing resolution.

The Monday letter to OMB Director Jacob Lew is the latest step in the committee's efforts to ensure the second engine program continues after Friday, when a stop-work order is expected unless the engine receives more funding from Congress.

The White House has made the second engine, which is produced by General Electric and Rolls Royce, an example of government waste. The Obama administration's fiscal 2011 defense budget request terminated the engine program, and officials have threatened to recommend that President Obama veto any defense bill that continues funding for the program.

Pratt & Whitney builds the primary engine for the Lockheed Martin fighter, and its parent company, United Technologies, has been running an ad campaign denouncing funding for the alternate engine as "the mother of all earmarks."

Despite the veto threat, the House-passed fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill and the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee's version of the defense spending bill both include money for the unwanted second engine. But the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations committees did not add funding to their bills for the program -- although the chairmen of both committees support development of an alternate engine.

Under guidance issued in September by OMB, a program must be included in both chambers' bills to be assured funding in a continuing resolution. If both the House and the Senate do not have the funding in their bills, Defense Secretary Robert Gates would have to request funding in writing -- which would be unlikely considering his steadfast opposition to the second engine.

The guidance "does, in fact, impinge on the funding prerogatives of Congress," according to the letter, which was signed by House Armed Services Commmittee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., ranking member Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., and the top Democrats and Republicans on two key subcommittees.

"Both Senate defense committee chairmen have made clear their support for the F-35 alternate engine," they wrote. "Yet, OMB Bulletin 10-3 has established an unnecessary impediment for the Department of Defense to proceed with the F-35 alternate engine program until such time that final fiscal year 2011 funding is determined."

The lawmakers added that the OMB guidance creates an "unacceptable circumstance that must be corrected."

The committee has been working behind the scenes for weeks to include funding in the next CR that directs DOD to continue spending on the engine up to fiscal 2010 levels. Congress last year approved $465 million for the engine.

Dating back to the George W. Bush administration, the Pentagon and White House have been trying to kill the second engine program, which was created 14 years ago. Citing the $2.9 billion needed over the next six years to develop the engine and pay for its initial production, officials have said for years that they simply cannot afford it and have threatened to veto any defense bill that keeps it alive.

But others, such as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the majority of the House, believe the long-term benefits of competition between two engine teams will ultimately save money and improve the product. Supporters of the alternate engine also argue that a sole engine provider would create a $100 billion monopoly.