Senate debating GE F-35 funding

LYNN – As the back-&-forth battle for funding of the Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine neared its climax Tuesday in the U.S. Senate, the political jousting captured the full attention of management and rank & file workers alike at General Electric’s River Works aircraft engine facility.While ceding some ground to President Obama on high-profile weapons cuts, lawmakers in Washington, D.C. are cutting money for training and spare parts to pay for other weapons systems Obama doesn’t want, such as the the alternative engine, as well as their own pet projects.This Capital Hill tug o’ war is playing out within the massive, $626 billion funding bill for the Pentagon currently under debate by the full Senate.Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney has secured the primary contract for the Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35 Lightning II, fighter’s engine, but GE, in unison with Rolls Royce, has proposed a secondary engine for the jet, the F-136, posturing it would provide security in case of a work stoppage or increased wartime demand.With more than $2.5 billion already invested in the development of the F-136 engine, including $50 million by the two companies, GE would be responsible for 60 percent of the engine production with Rolls Royce responsible for the balance.The secondary engine is not only important to GE’s military production as a whole but key to the folks at the River Works facility, which would garner some of the workload from the contract. Approval of this new product would offset the mothballing in three year’s time of the F/A18 Hornet fighter line (whose engine, the F414, is produced at the River Works), providing continuing job opportunities for the Lynn-based workforce.GE-Lynn spokesman Richard Gorham previously referred to the second engine contract as “critical” to River Works operations.GE and Rolls Royce have high-powered backers in D.C. including Sen. Daniel Inouyei, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, and a 10-term Congressman, Rep. Neil Abercrombie, the chairman of the air and land forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. While both are Democrats from Hawaii, none of the parts for the alternative engine are to be produced there.Two weeks ago, Abercrombie sent out a “Dear Colleague” letters to dozens of House members who hold sway over the fate of the program. The letter contends that continuing to finance the alternative engine would create competition with the primary manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney.”A competitive engine program for the F-35 is vital to the national interest and readiness of our future fighter force,” Abercrombie wrote.Abercrombie’s committee has jurisdiction over the F-35 and its engines. The full House has voted to continue funding the alternative engine at a cost of $560 million next year.Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have voiced strong opposition to the second F-35 engine and Gates and other administration officials have seconded the president’s warning that he may veto the defense appropriations bill if it includes more money for the program.At a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting in Phoenix in August, Obama promised to fight “the special interests and their exotic projects that are years behind schedule and billions over budget,” such as the alternative engine , the ultramodern F-22 fighter and the VH-71 presidential helicopter. “If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with this kind of waste, I will veto it,” Obama promised.Obama and Gates found an ally in this Beltway battle in Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Obama and McCain, rivals in last year’s race for the White House, are both critics of pet projects, or earmarks. McCain, however, is a far more strident critic of the Senate’s pork-barrel ways.On Tuesday, McCain said Obama has not be stern enough in his dealings with Congress on earmarks. An early White House request to strip earmarks from an omnibus spending bill for the current year was firmly rebuffed by Democratic leaders. “One thing I know about