ALTERNATE ENGINE DEBATE - THIRD PARTY COMMENTS

"The controversy over engines for F-35 fighter jets illustrates the reluctance of some members of Congress to cut back on the extravagance of the past. They want two different companies making engines for the F-35. Gates and the White House rightly oppose this as wasteful."
-- The Concord Coalition, Washington Budget Report, August 3, 2010

"U.S. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley has referred to the (second) engine as 'another rock' on top of the F-35 program."
--Pat Garofalo, Center for American Progress, July 27

"The bottom line is that outside the area of dual-use technologies like information networks, there just isn't much competition left in defense -- and with the government paying all the costs to keep two military suppliers going, it isn't likely to look kindly on plans to preserve competition. Just look at how strongly it is opposing General Electric plans to develop an 'alternate engine' that can compete with United Technologies' offering for the F-35."
--Loren Thompson from Forbes, July 26

“We also need the in-depth scrutiny of defense spending that Secretary Gates has demanded. He has urged Congress to stop funding additional C-17 cargo planes and an extra engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, to fight the rapid cost inflation in military health care, to cut unnecessary weapons systems, and to trim the overhead that makes up more than 40% of the defense budget. While his proposals have met with controversy, I wish more of us in public life were as honest about hard budget choices as Secretary Gates.”
– Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) from speech made on June 22, 2010

“We think that the current engine that GE is offering . . . probably does not meet the performance standards that are required, and the taxpayer would be required to pay for any enhancement that would bring it up to the performance standards that we require.”
--Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, Senate Appropriations Committee testimony, from June 21 Aviation Week.

"This was the first big earmark test for 2010, and Congress failed.  Neither party comes out looking good, but Republicans in particular missed a golden opportunity to show that they are really serious about getting government spending under control."
--Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste, from CNN, June 4, 2010

“As a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot, I can tell you from experience that our defense dollars should be directed toward equipping military members with the resources they need to do their jobs …Reports have shown that continued funding for the alternative-engine program will limit the number of jets we can buy, which will only hinder the success of our military.”
--Tom Garcia, Congressional Candidate, from the Orlando Sentinel, June 3, 2010

“The Joint Strike Fighter has an engine that is working well and successfully powering the plane through all its test flights, while the alternate engine – because of developmental problem – will not even be ready to compete for at least another five years.”
--Rep. Tom Rooney, from The Daily Caller, May 27, 2010

“The alternate engine for the Pentagon’s F35 Joint Strike Fighter is a perfect example of a program that wastes funding desperately needed by our military men and women serving in harm’s way.”
--Raymond C. Kelley, AMVETS National Legislative Director, May 25, 2010

“Study on top of study has shown that an extra fighter engine achieves marginal potential savings but heavy up-front costs – nearly $3 billion worth.”
--Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, from Congressional Quarterly, May 11, 2010

Robert Gates “challenged lawmakers to stop funding programs that the Pentagon does not want, such as more Boeing C-17 cargo airplanes and the General Electric-Rolls Royce secondary engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.”
--Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, from The Hill, May 8, 2010

“I support competition. However, competition doesn’t mean buying two of everything. Plus, no military aircraft developed in the last 30 years has used an alternate engine.”
– Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) in a letter to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 4, 2010

“The little engine that couldn't award goes to the $465 million for the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter.  A project that has been in the Pig Book since 2004.  Secretary Gates said that he will recommend a veto of any legislation that contains funding for the alternate engine…”
– Tom Schatz, president, Citizens Against Government Waste, in his remarks about the alternate engine winning an “Oinker Award” at CAGW’s annual Pig Book press conference, April 14, 2010

An article in The Washington Post called the alternate engine an example of a big ticket defense program and "undisclosed earmark."
--Steve Ellis, Taxpayers for Common Sense, March 15, 2010

“The secretary (Gates) has made it clear … that the pursuit of a second engine, in his estimation is a colossal waste of money …”
—Geoff Morrell, Pentagon Press Secretary, February 25, 2010

"So far in the JSF test program the F135 has lived up to our lofty expectations; it has been there when we want it, and has been no trouble at all. That’s a remarkable achievement for an engine which has to reconfigure from a 40K pound thrust category in Max AB conventional mode, to a 40K pound thrust category with the liftfan spinning in STOVL mode. For me the best thing has been that we simply haven’t had to worry about it!
--Graham Tomlinson, F-35 Lead STOVL Pilot, January 27, 2010
--Click here to read the entire interview with Graham Tomlinson...

“Financial justification for the second JSF engine calls for further spending on R&D and procurement that would later reap benefits by driving cost down through competition in the future. (Ashton) Carter says he has seen no analysis that indicates these savings are likely. He further adds that the investment in the GE/Rolls engine has been ‘disruptive to the Joint Strike Fighter program’ because it has come out of the program's top-line.”
--Ashton Carter, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, from Amy Butler’s Aviation Week blog post, Thus Spoke Carter: Notes from his Roundtable, November 23, 2009

“…the GE-Rolls Royce team has had to redesign part of the engine after its fourth test failure during only 52 hours of testing, which will delay the date for ‘competition’ with Pratt and Whitney’s primary engine until at least 2016."
--Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste, November 17, 2009
--The Alternate Engine That Couldn't

“The alternate engine has become a burden to the F-35 program, driving up the plane's cost at a time when all weapons programs are under severe scrutiny due to record budget deficits.”
 --Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, The Lexington Institute, November 17, 2009
--http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/alternate-engine-problems-prove-critics-were-right?a=1&c=1129

"The evidence is mounting that funding for the alternate engine must stop immediately."
--Dave Williams, Citizens Against Government Waste, November 6, 2009
--http://swineline.org/sen-lieberman-wants-answers

"I have seen additional reports that the F136 Joint Engine Team cancelled its planned tests at the Arnold Engineering Development Center through April 2010, a step that indicates this latest failure will require a significant re-design of the alternate engine."
--Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, November 4, 2009

“The F136 engine could be as much as a $560 million earmark, making it one of the largest in the defense appropriations bill.”
--Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste, November 2, 2009 - http://swineline.org/f136-engine-grounded/

“Congress has been forcing us to pursue the alternate engine for years now and we still do not believe that is in the best interest of the program or the taxpayer.”
–Geoff Morrell, Pentagon Spokesman, Politico, October 6, 2009

“Two presidents, two secretaries of defense, a phalanx of top military officials, and a majority of the Senate have all agreed that this program should not be funded.”
– Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste, September 29, 2009

“America can’t afford this kind of high-flying waste.”
– Citizens Against Government Waste, September 29, 2009

“…GE is trying to create the first-ever ‘immaculate earmark,’ a designated spending item with no seeable father.”
--Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste, Politico, September 22, 2009

“There is no wavering among anybody in a decision-making position here at the Pentagon about the preference to proceed with a single engine rather than an alternate engine as well.”
--DoD News Briefing with Geoff Morrell, Pentagon Spokesperson, September 15, 2009

 “With a national deficit of $1.6 trillion - three times higher than last year - something has to give. If we are to get out of this, our government needs to spend smarter and cut where cuts can be made.”
--Barney Bishop, CEO, Associated Industries of Florida, from the South Florida Sun Sentinel, September 15, 2009

“…it would cost an additional $2 billion to $3 billion to finish developing the G.E. and Rolls-Royce engine and buy enough early versions to put it on the same footing as the Pratt & Whitney version.”
--Geoff Morrell, Pentagon spokesman, from the New York Times, September 15, 2009

 “To the degree to which competitive prototyping is a measure to result in savings for taxpayers, the case for an alternate engine has not been made.”
-- Mandy Smithberger, Investigator, Project on Government Oversight, September 9, 2009

“Pratt's engine repeatedly bested a rival engine proposed by a General Electric team early in the program's history, but Congress has refused to let the ‘alternate engine’ die.”
--Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, The Lexington Institute, September 8, 2009

“There has only been one major effort to buy competing engines for military aircraft -- which also pitted a winning Pratt engine against an alternate GE engine -- and in that rivalry, the GE product never managed to match the safety record of the Pratt offering.  Proponents of repeating that process point to savings, but those materialized only after the government had paid all the costs for designing, developing and producing the rival engine. The government has to spend more money to get to the point where competition generates savings, because it is the only customer for either engine so it has to foot the whole bill for both powerplants.”
--Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, The Lexington Institute, September 8, 2009

“Complexity is increased, economies of scale are lost, and in many cases the break-even point for sustaining two suppliers rather than one is never reached.”
--Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, The Lexington Institute, September 8, 2009

“It (the alternate engine) would be an additional cost of several billion dollars.  It would start three to four years behind in terms of where we are with the F135 engine and there’s no reason to believe that that prototype engine, or that that new engine would not encounter the same kinds of challenges and issues that other developmental engines on this aircraft as well as others have encountered in the past.  At this point, based on the business case, we don’t think it’s necessary.”
--Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Bloomberg TV, September 1, 2009

 “Obama cited the presidential helicopter, a General Electric Co.-Rolls-Royce Group Plc backup engine for Lockheed’s F-35 fighter and a proposal to buy 12 more Lockheed F-22 fighters as examples of military spending that benefits contractors more than it helps U.S. soldiers.”
-- Bloomberg, August 17, 2009

“Every dollar wasted in our defense budget is a dollar we can’t spend to care for our troops, or protect America or prepare for the future.  If a project doesn’t support our troops, if it does not make America safer, we will not fund it.  If a system doesn’t perform, we will terminate it.  And if Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with a bunch of pork, I will veto it.
-- President Barack Obama, August 17, 2009

The Senate voted to support the amendment by Sen. Joseph Lieberman to ban continued spending on the alternate engine. The Senate rejected 38-59 a competing amendment by Sen. Evan Bayh to withhold 10 percent of the funding for the Joint Strike Fighter unless sufficient money was made available to continue development of an alternate engine. CQ reported that “Lieberman argued that the alternative engine would suck up money that should be used to buy more of the warplanes …”
-- Congressional Quarterly, July 23, 2009

“The Administration strongly objects to the addition of $438.9 million for the development of the alternate engine program.”
– Statement of Administration Policy, July 15, 2009

“…the Administration objects to provisions of the bill that mandate an alternative engine program for the JSF. The current engine is performing well with more than 11,000 test hours. Expenditures on a second engine are unnecessary and impede the progress of the overall JSF program. Alleged risks of a fleet-wide grounding due to a single engine are exaggerated. The Air Force currently has several fleets that operate on a single-engine source.”
--Statement of Administration Policy, June 24, 2009

“In the FY 2009 budget, this ill-conceived program got two earmarks for a total of $465 million and they were among the 142 anonymous earmarks slipped into the Defense Appropriations bill. In an era of tough economic times and deficit spending, it is impossible to justify spending $603 million on a program that will not save money or improve our defense capabilities.”
-- Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste, June 12, 2009

He [Robert Hale, Pentagon comptroller] defended the Pentagon’s decision to defy Congress and attempt to cancel the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for a third time. “We don’t see a business case [for a second engine]. We think [cancellation] is the right thing for us to do.”
-- Pentagon, May 7, 2009

"In addition, we're going to save money by eliminating unnecessary defense programs that do nothing to keep us safe - but rather prevent us from spending money on what does keep us safe. One example is a $465 million program to build an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. The Defense Department is already pleased with the engine it has. The engine it has works. The Pentagon does not want - and does not plan to use - the alternative version. That's why the Pentagon stopped requesting this funding two years ago. Yet it's still being funded."
-- President Barack Obama, May 7, 2009

“The funding of the alternate engine project is the poster child for what’s wrong with the defense budget. The Obama Administration has a real opportunity to stand up to the pork barrel spenders in Congress this year. The budget should shut down the engine.”
-- Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste April 2009

"I think the JSF engine has matured very well."
-- Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics John Young, Inside the Navy, April 28, 2008

"As far as the Pentagon can tell, there is not a good business case for developing the alternate engine."
-- Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics John Young, Inside the Navy, April 28, 2008

"We'll potentially spend more money and get less return on that investment." DOD could spend at least another $1 billion for "no more capability."
-- Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics John Young, Inside the Navy, April 28, 2008

Lockheed officials say they are neutral on the issue but stress that they don't want any decision on the engines to add expenses or delay schedules in the F-35 program. "We can't absorb that kind of cost."
-- Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed Martin Business Development Team, National Defense, June 22, 2008

As for the first F-35 test aircraft, it flew three times this week, Crowley said, and "is performing beautifully."
-- Dan Crowley, Executive Vice President for F-35, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 9, 2008

“The (Defense) Department made a decision they're willing to accept the risk" of going with just one engine, given budget pressures and a perceived lack of significant benefits from continued competition.
-- Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, Reuters, February 4, 2008

"The F135 engine has been exceptionally reliable during the 23 flights conducted in the F-35's first year of flight testing, and F135 engines have completed more than 8,500 hours of ground testing."
-- John Kent, Lockheed Martin, Inside the Navy, January 7, 2008

"I have reviewed and analyzed many scenarios for changing the acquisition strategy," Pentagon's JSF program chief, Rear Adm. Steven Enewold told panel members during the March 28 hearing. "The department feels that it is low-risk, from both a cost and an operational perspective, to cancel the F136 starting in" fiscal year 2007, he added.
-- Rear Admiral Steven Enewold, Program Executive Officer, Joint Strike Fighter, Inside the Air Force, March 31, 2006

"I think the Defense Dept. is pretty firm about not doing the second engine," he says. If the joint program office must absorb the cost of "reinventing the [Pratt & Whitney] F135," managers will cut aircraft production to find the money.
-- Tom Burbage, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Joint Strike Fighter, Aviation Week & Space Technology, September 18, 2006

“That conveniently ignores the fact that the engine has already been competed several times, and each time the Pratt & Whitney engine won. It also ignores the fact that since the government will be the sole customer for the alternate engine, it will need to pay all the costs of developing, producing and sustaining it. Four out of five independent assessments found that savings from competition across the lifetime of the program are unlikely to match or surpass the added cost of maintaining a second source.
-- Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, The Lexington Institute, United Press International, August 21, 2007

"If you have to write a program explicitly into a piece of legislation it has generally failed all the other cost-benefit analyses and otherwise would not have been approved."
-- Ronald D. Utt, The Heritage Foundation, Boston Globe, July 6, 2007

"GE and its legislative backers say the alternate engine will save money, bolster safety and strengthen the industrial base across the lifetime of the program … Pentagon policymakers say there is no firm evidence to support those claims, and want to forego funding of the new engine.
--Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, The Lexington Institute, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, August 21, 2007

"Furthermore, the engine Pratt & Whitney will provide for the F-35 is a derivative of the engine already being used on the twin-engine F-22 Raptor, whereas the engine GE will provide has never been used in an operational setting before … Past experience indicates that when new engines with no prior operational history are introduced into single-engine planes like the F-35, they have markedly inferior safety records to engines being introduced from other operational settings."
-- Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, The Lexington Institute, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, August 21, 2007

The McDonnell Douglas-led team's JSF will be powered by a Pratt & Whitney F119 cruise engine, the same engine developed for the F-22. "It was clearly the most-affordable, most-reliable and safest option," said Steurer.
-- The Hill, May 22, 1996

GE's engine business, based in Evendale, Ohio, lost the competition to power the Air Force's new F- 22 fighter. The company also lost the competition to power prototypes of the new fighter. Pratt won both contracts. "Pratt's been more at the forefront with these things because they have a brand new engine," acknowledged GE spokesman Rick Kennedy. "We've been forced to be a little more creative."
-- Hartford Courant, March 12, 1996

The engine makers hope that their YF120 cruise engine can gain the lead over the F119 engine being developed by U.S. rival Pratt and Whitney, which is leading the competition in the early stages.
-- Associated Press, March 11, 1996

The contract, awarded by the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program office, could reestablish GE as a major player in the JAST field. General Electric lost that standing earlier this year when the McDonnell Douglas/Northrop Grumman/British Aerospace JAST aircraft team eliminated the GE F120 engine as the baseline main propulsion unit for their JAST designs.
-- Aviation Week, December 11, 1995

“We are going to have a competitive flyoff, with two design families competing against each other and a downselect by the year 2000. With regard to the engine, we told the contractors that they were free to select any engine that was or could be available.”
-- General George Meullner, Interviewed by Aerospace America, September 1995