FT - 4 May: Funding for alternative strike fighter engine restored
Rolls-Royce appeared to win a major victory on Thursday after two congressional committees restored money in the 2007 defence budget for an alternative engine for the Joint Strike Fighter programme.
The Pentagon earlier this year recommended cancelling the alternate $2.4bn engine, which was being developed by the British company and its US partner General Electric, to cut back costs on the $257bn JSF programme, the most expensive weapons programme in history.
Following the example of the House armed services committee, the Senate armed services committee on Thursday voted to add about $400m back to the Pentagon budget for the F136 engine...... Approval by the House and Senate defence committees does not guarantee that the engine programme will be reinstated, but it sends a strong signal to the appropriations committees, which must approve the measure in the final budget, to restore funding.
“That signals … that the money and the programme are not going away,” said Loren Thompson, defence analyst at the Lexington Institute. “This is an extremely convoluted process and you cant count your dollars until all the players have spoken but it is very unlikely that with both authorizing committees voting similar amounts for the same purpose that the appropriators would say no.”
British defence officials had lobbied Congress to reinstate the alternate engine programme, and not leave the JSF with only one engine manufactured by Pratt & Whitney. After the Pentagon budget was proposed, John Warner, the Senate armed services committee chairman, suggested that the decision should be revisited because of the UK contribution to Iraq. “I think we have a responsibility, particularly because the international aspects of this programme and particularly Great Britain, who has been our most steadfast partner in the Iraqi coalition forces – it is deserving of the careful attention by the committee,” Mr Warner told Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, at a hearing in February.
John Boehner, the Republican House majority leader, yesterday welcomed the House armed services decision, saying he was “hopefull” that the move would be approved by the defence appropriations’ committees.