Government auditors said the debate over continuing the ill-fated F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s (JSF) alternate engine would be better informed if the Pentagon updated its cost assessments.
A recently completed performance audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), requested and released by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), notes that the Pentagon has not done a complete analysis of potential life-cycle costs of having two F-35 engines in more than four years. The Pentagon’s projection that continuing the alternate-engine program through 2016 would cost $2.9 billion is outdated and incomplete, the GAO says in the eight-page document. The GAO report, though, does not include any specific recommendations.
The report notes the Department of Defense (DoD) is firm in its stance that a compelling business case does not exist to continue supporting both engines and it does not plan to update its cost-benefit analysis.
The GAO states that “whether a more current, comprehensive analysis that includes all life-cycle costs, benefits, and risks would result in a more definitive business case–one way or another–remains an unanswered question.”
Christine Fox, director of the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, in an Aug. 30 response to the GAO’s audit reiterates the position that the up-front costs of supporting an alternate engine are not affordable and a new analysis likely would not alter that stance.
The GAO maintained that it continues “to believe that acquisition decisions should weigh both near-term and long-term costs and benefits and that an updated analysis would provide important information for making these decisions.”
Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and a supporter of the alternate engine, had asked the GAO to assess how the Pentagon’s cost estimates are impacted by changes in the program and an offer from the contracting team to pay for developing the engine for the next two years.
“Congress and the Pentagon should not make pivotal decisions without timely and accurate information, and the GAO report makes a strong case for an updated assessment of alternative engine costs,” Levin said in a statement yesterday, when he released the audit documents. “I continue to believe that DoD choked off funding for the alternative engine without fully analyzing or justifying its decision, and this report is further evidence that DoD must do a better job of developing a business case.”
The Pentagon has maintained the second-engine program is unneeded and too expensive, and terminated it in April shortly after Congress voted to kill FY ‘11 funding for it. The General Electric [GE]-Rolls-Royce contracting team offered to spend its own money to continue developing the alternate engine; the FY ‘12 defense authorization bill the House passed in May would support that self-funding, but the SASC’s version of the legislation would not. House and Senate appropriators have not tried to fund the controversial engine in FY ‘12.
Pentagon officials will meet with General Electric-Rolls-Royce to hear more about its self-funding proposal, acquisition chief Ashton Carter told the SASC last week (Defense Daily, Sept. 14). Still, Carter, who is poised to replace William Lynn as deputy defense secretary, said he has major concerns about the concept.