Tell Congress:  Vote NO on Any Funding for the JSF Alternate Engine!

The House and Senate are scheduled to consider the conference report on the fiscal year 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act sometime next week.  Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are meeting right now to decide whether to include $560 million in pork-barrel earmarks for the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter in the final version of the conference report. 

Even though the Pentagon has proposed canceling the alternate engine project each year since 2006, Congress has added more than $1 billion in earmarks in subsequent defense appropriations bills.  In total, the alternate engine will cost $7.2 billion.  There is no economic or military justification for the program, which will not save money or improve U.S. defense capabilities.

In fact, Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a letter on October 14 to the chairman and ranking member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that the conference report should not include “weapons that are not working or no longer needed,” such as the alternate engine.  He will recommend that President Obama veto the bill if it includes the alternate engine. 

Problems with the alternate engine go beyond the lack of savings and the failure to help defend the country.  Last week, the builders of the alternate engine stopped work on the engine after another failure on the test stand.  This marks the fourth time in less than 50 total testing hours that the alternate engine has experienced problems.

CCAGW has vigorously opposed the alternate engine since Congress first earmarked funds for it in fiscal year 2004, earning the engine inclusion in the 2004 Congressional Pig Book and this summer launched an all-out media blitz to stop funding this boondoggle.  Both Presidents Bush and Obama, along with the Pentagon, have called for eliminating the alternate engine program, saying it is an unnecessary expense that would divert scarce taxpayer funds from other vital defense projects. 

However, members of Congress with facilities in their states and districts where the alternate engine would be built have kept the program alive with self-serving earmarks! 

Air Force General Mark Shackelford testified before a Senate subcommittee on June 9 that funding an alternate engine would mean cutting two to four JSF aircraft this year and as many as 53 in the next five years.  The JSF is a stealth, supersonic aircraft designed to serve as a cornerstone of our nation’s future aerial defense capabilities by replacing the aging fighter and strike aircraft of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marines.

Retired General John Michael Loh, former Air Force vice chief of staff and a former commander of the Air Force’s aircraft and engine acquisition center, wrote in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “Alternate engines for military aircraft are not necessary…Alternate systems add cost, complexity and safety problems.  They don’t pay economically or operationally.  The F-35 alternate engine program flies in the face of smart acquisition policies.  It is a contrived competition ginned up by special interests in Congress.”

Tell Congress to vote NO on the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act if it contains any money for the alternate engine!

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