Defying Obama, House votes to keep F-35 second engine funds

The House on Thursday voted to keep funding a second engine for the
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, defying the White House and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates.

Gates has repeatedly threatened that he would personally recommend
that President Barack Obama veto any defense bill containing funding
for an engine made by General Electric-Rolls Royce that the Pentagon
does not want. The Office of Management and Budget on Thursday followed
up with its own veto threat in a statement of administration policy.

{mosads}Both GE-Rolls Royce and primary engine maker Pratt & Whitney
mounted vigorous lobbying campaigns in recent weeks aligning
congressional supporters on each side. But when the House cast a vote
on an amendment to strike funding for the second engine, the supporters
of a second engine prevailed by a vote of 231-193.

The House Armed Services Committee included $485 million for the
development of the GE-Rolls Royce engine in its version of the 2011
defense authorization bill. More than a dozen lawmakers, including
Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), John Larson
(D-Conn.) and Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) sponsored an amendment to strike the
funding and allocate the money toward paying down the national debt.

The House Armed Services Committee and its Senate counterpart for
years have believed that a secondary engine was necessary for the F-35
program. They’ve argued that a backup engine would be useful if there
are problems with the primary engine, and that competition between two
engine-makers could save money over the life of the program. The
defense authorizers also believe that a competitive F-35 engine program
would reap non-financial benefits such as increased reliability,
improved contractor responsiveness and a more robust fighter engine
industrial base.

The Senate last year successfully stripped funding for the engine
from its defense authorization bill. This year, the Senate Armed
Services Committee opted not to add funding for the second
engine — effectively making the issue an item of negotiation between the
House and the Senate for the final defense authorization bill sent to
Obama. In what could be a telling vote for the appropriators in the
House, Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) on Thursday voted against the second
engine. Dicks voted to strip the funding out of the defense
authorization bill.