By Emelie Rutherford
Military leaders pushed back yesterday on criticism from House lawmakers who are upset the Pentagon does not want to fund a disputed jet-engine program and believe new defense budget plans focus too much on the wars of today.
House Armed Services Committee (HASC) members offered nothing but support during a day-long budget hearing for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s second-engine program, developed by General Electric [GE] and Rolls-Royce.
Since President Barack Obama requested a $548.9 billion fiscal year 2011 Pentagon budget on Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has pledged to strongly push Obama to veto defense bills if Congress again adds funding for the engine effort the Pentagon unsuccessfully has tried to kill.
HASC Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) argued to Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen that having two F-35 engine production lines “is the best way to control overall program costs, manage risk over the life of the program, and ensure engine performance and sustainability.”
“When 95 percent of the (Defense) Department’s fighters will be F-35 variants by 2035, this is not a question of pork,” Skelton said. “It is a sincere concern for the success of the F-35 program and for the benefits of competition.”
Ranking Member Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) said in writing he is “at a loss” to understand why the Pentagon supports competitive sourcing in other acquisition efforts but opposes “reaping the benefits of competition” in the Pentagon’s most expensive developmental program.
“Competition is well-known to provide cost benefits and increased product reliability, while also providing a second manufacturing source for this critical component,” McKeon said.
Skelton said Congress needs to have the same facts and figures on the alternate-engine effort that the Pentagon has, and told the military leaders the HASC “looks forward to receiving the analysis you have promised on this program.”
Gates argued “the reality is the most optimistic analyses and models that we have run show that there is little advantage to the taxpayer in having a second engine.”
He said that “almost none of the customers will buy two engines,” saying he expected foreign F-35 buyers and the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy to buy just one of the two engines. Thus, Gates argued “the only piece of this to be competed would be the Air Force part of it, and so you end up having two engines for the Air Force.”
However, second-engine supporters note F-35 international partners have signed agreements supportive of having competing engines.
Gates asserted the primary F-35 engine, which is developed by Pratt & Whitney [UTX] and has had developmental hiccups, is “doing well.”
“There’s no reason to believe that the second engine won’t encounter the same development problems the first one had,” Gates said. The alternate engine is further behind in the development process than the initial one.
Several HASC Republicans also took aim yesterday at the reorientation of the Defense Department as described in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) report released Monday.
McKeon said the Pentagon leaders’ “efforts to make balance a fixture in the QDR and the out-year budget is too focused on the short term and puts the (Defense) Department on the wrong path for the next 20 years.”
While McKeon noted the weapon-system cuts the Pentagon proposed for FY’11 are far less than those from last year, he said this year “the impact is more subtle, but I fear more severe.”
McKeon argued the QDR “understates the requirements to deter and defeat challenges from state actors and it overestimates the capabilities of the force the (Defense) Department would build.” He charged the QDR “does little to address the risk resulting from the gaps in funding, capability, and force structure.” He pointed to shortages in fighter jets and Navy ships.
Gates struck back that he “would take the strongest possible issue with those who say we are neglecting the potential future fight or the capabilities needed to take on high- end adversaries.”
He argued “there is a broad balance in this budget,” which he said takes into account “the most versatile possible array of capabilities for the widest possible range of conflict.”
Gates cited proposed budget initiatives for long-range strike and conventional prompt-global strike, along with a next-generation bomber aircraft, a new SSBN submarine, the F- 35, the MQ9 Reaper unmanned vehicle, ballistic missile defense, the Virginia-class attack submarine, a new Army ground-combat vehicle, upgrades for the B-2 and the B-52 bombers, and cyber-related initiatives.
Mullen said proposed investments that will aid the wars of today–in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets; rotary-wing aircraft; and special-operations forces- -“will be well-placed for the future.”
Skelton, meanwhile, said there should be “no confusion” that when the HASC members scour the budget they will “redouble” their efforts “to identify and eliminate wasteful spending.”
“This may mean cutting funds for particular programs or making further process changes to how we do business, as we did last year with the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009,” he said.