Pentagon chief, Senate defense board: No GE engine funding

LYNN – Determination and steadfastness are virtues to be admired and desired in almost every undertaking.But the continued tenacity of Defense Secretary Robert Gates in relation to General Electric’s Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine program now seems something to fear.Gates has been consistently opposed to funding two engines for the JSF or F-35. He said he has the backing of President Barack Obama as he loudly labeled it a waste of taxpayer dollars during Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearings last fall and winter.Now the Defense Department has unveiled a surprising new plan to start reining in its supersized budget: After nine years of unbridled war spending, the military will finally start bargain hunting.Gates told reporters at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday that the military will begin factoring in affordability before committing to a purchase. Any contracts exceeding $1 billion will be scrutinized in particular for ways to keep costs down. And when looking to spend money, the military will try to do more comparison shopping, Gates said.The initiatives are part of Gates’ goal to find $100 billion in budget fat in the next five years, money that he says is needed to care for U.S. troops and modernize weapons.The Senate subcommittee apparently took Gates’ appeal to heart, according to a published report. Funding for the GE-Rolls-Royce F-136 engine was not included during Tuesday’s markup of the 2011 defense spending bill, leaving approximately 400 jobs at the River Works plant in Lynn hanging.Once the F-35 goes into production, the Navy, Marines and Air Force will all fly the same aircraft, albeit in versions customized for their particular needs.As a result, the current most advanced fighter plane in use by the U.S. military – the F-18 powered by twin GE F414 jet engines – will be phased out. The F-18 fighter has been the primary combat aircraft on the battlefield since the early 1980s.Production of the F414 engine, along with the T700 jet engine for the Black Hawk and Apache military helicopters, is what keeps GE jobs in Lynn, although the majority of those two engine models are made at other GE facilities around the country.Last June, GE spokesman Rick Kennedy said approximately 400 people would work on the Joint Strike Fighter engine in Lynn if the F-35 program is approved. “Right now, about 150 contractors in the Boston area and 50 employees in Lynn are working on the development phases for that engine,” he said. “If we survive all the political machinations, we expect to have 400 people working on it in Lynn.”Kennedy said those jobs would replace the positions lost as production of the engine for the F-18 fighter plane is eliminated.”You would have reduction in the demand for replacement of engines for the F-18,” he said. “The new jobs would be more of a stabilization. It would be the key to maintaining those jobs.”Now those Lynn jobs are back in jeopardy but second-engine supporter, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., maintains that an alternate engine fosters competition, which would reduce overall costs.GE officials and its partners at Rolls Royce Group strongly agree, arguing that competition is healthy and should entitle the company to some of the contract, which has an estimated worth of $100 billion over the anticipated 35-year lifespan of the aircraft.Leahy, through a spokesman’s statement, insists the GE engine project will be funded.”Senator Leahy and other senior members of the Appropriations Committee believe that completing the investment in the alternative engine is prudent in terms of both cost and quality,” the statement read. “He will continue to fight for that approach because having an alternative engine is more cost-effective,” as well as improving quality.GE has long lobbied Congress and the Pentagon for continued funding of the alternative engine, to compete with Pratt & Whitney’s primary engine and Kennedy said the committee’s action on Tuesday was not unexpected.But, Kennedy s