By Emelie Rutherford
Pentagon officials are expected to unveil this week their plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s second engine, which Congress recently agreed to fund until at least March 4.
Observers said it is not clear what Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who wants to stop the General Electric [GE]-Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine effort, will do this week. Even though funding is in place to continue developing the engine for two more months, Gates could go as far as to impound funding for the program.
A continuing resolution (CR) that is temporarily funding the federal government until March 4 contains funding for the Air Force and Navy to continue work on the alternate engine. President Barack Obama, who also opposes the second engine, signed that CR into law on Dec. 22. The federal government has been running on such short-term funding resolutions since FY ’11 began Oct. 1, 2010, because Congress has not passed any appropriations bills for the federal agencies including the Pentagon.
White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Jacob Lew said in a Dec. 21 letter that the March 4 CR would continue funding the alternate engine.
Lew wrote to Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a second-engine supporter, that the resolution would continue FY ’10 efforts required by law, including the F136. Still, Lew noted that “DoD would be expected to continue funding activities on a pro-rata basis during the period covered by the CR, so as not to impinge on Congress’ full-year funding prerogatives for FY 2011,” which runs through Sept. 30.
Brown hailed Lew’s letter as a boon to the engine effort. Yet Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), in whose state Pratt & Whitney‘s [UTX] primary engine is built, has criticized Lew’s letter and pushed for OMB to reconsider its stance.
“The representations made in Director Lew’s letter to Senator Brown contradict OMB’s own guidelines about funding programs under a continuing resolution and is inconsistent with the strong opposition of President Obama and Secretary Gates to this second engine,” Lieberman argued Dec. 21 (Defense Daily, Dec. 22, 2010).
The current F136 contract with General Electric and Rolls-Royce currently is slated to run until this Friday, according to a congressional aide. The Pentagon’s F-35 program office agreed last month to extend the period of performance for the contract from Dec. 23, 2010 to Jan. 7, 2011. That extension on the program is being funded through leftover funding from FY ’10, which ended Sept. 30, 2010. Those FY ’10 monies could be stretched out in part because engine test schedules were reduced over the holiday period.
The F-35 alternate engine does not have a specific authorization in the policy-setting FY ’10 defense authorization bill. Yet second-engine supporters point out that the legislation does not authorize specific programs, and instead more vaguely provides dollar amounts for larger funding categories such as Air Force procurement; thus, they argue the policy bill does not prohibit the alternate engine.
The Senate granted final congressional approval to that delayed defense authorization bill on Dec. 22, but Obama still had not signed it as of press time last night. The president is concerned about language in the bill it regarding Guantanamo Bay detention facility and reportedly is considering signing the legislation into law while also issuing a “signing statement” rejecting those Guantanamo provisions.