Military Contractors Square Off Over F-35 Jet Engine Program
Wall Street Journal | Brody Mullins
March 8, 2023
One of the biggest lobbying clashes in recent years is heating up again: the fight to fund an alternate engine to power the Pentagon’s F-35 jet fighter.
More than a decade ago, engine-maker Pratt & Whitney and its allies in Congress won out over General Electric Co. to be the exclusive supplier for the next-generation fighter. Now GE is once again lobbying Congress to provide billions of dollars to fund an alternative engine it would build, citing what it calls the flaws in Pratt’s engine.
GE’s campaign is a challenge to fellow defense giant Raytheon Technologies Corp., which owns Pratt. Raytheon says developing a new engine could cost a total of $6 billion, a price tag that swells to $40 billion when calculated to include maintenance. Upgrading the Pratt engine would cost about $2.5 billion, according to the company.
The dispute is shaping up to be one of the biggest lobbying contests in Washington this year, when little aside from defense spending bills is expected to move through a bitterly divided Congress. It is also drawing criticism from groups that want to reel in government spending.
“No matter how wasteful, no bad idea is ever truly dead in Washington, especially when there are billions of dollars on the line,” said Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan government watchdog. “You have to kill, kill, kill, until it’s dead, dead, dead.”
Proponents of the engine alternative say it is needed to keep pace with a rising China and that putting a new generation of engines onto the F-35 would ultimately be more cost effective than upgrading the existing model to address concerns about thrust and efficiency.
The GE-Raytheon duel could also serve as a test for conservatives, including Ohio’s GOP Sen. J.D. Vance and Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson, who have demanded that Republicans cut government spending, but who represent areas with voters who work at GE production facilities.
GE is reorganizing into a stand-alone aerospace company, and analysts expect it to expand its defense business to reduce reliance on engines for commercial jetliners.
“Today’s geopolitical tensions require revolutionary capabilities for the U.S. military,” GE said of its campaign for the F-35 second engine. “Nearly 50 bipartisan members of Congress wrote in support of advanced engine programs like ours because they recognize these needs, in addition to the role competition can play in reducing past cost overruns.”
Raytheon and Pratt & Whitney say the funding would be a waste of taxpayer money.
Paying to upgrade the existing Pratt engine is “2½ times more cost effective than a brand new program,” said Jill Albertelli, head of Pratt’s military engine unit.
President Biden is expected Thursday to release his fiscal 2024 budget proposal, in which the Defense Department could formally ask Congress to pay for the production of the GE engine for the plane.
Both sides are running advertisements on the internet to promote the new funds, and last week executives with more than 70 Pratt & Whitney suppliers traveled to Capitol Hill to press lawmakers to oppose the new government spending.
Stock market analysts say GE’s chances of elbowing its way back into the F-35 contest are improving.
Among the issues has been the higher-than-expected cost of maintaining the Pratt engines, leading to a shortage of existing F-35 fighters ready for flight, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Raytheon has told investors the issues are being addressed.
Last year, Congress allocated $203 million in research funding to GE to keep its development program running, and much of the recent lobbying has focused on persuading the White House to include funding to produce the engines.
Even if that fails, GE could score a win if Congress votes to add money for the new engine.
GE draws some of its support from lawmakers who represent parts of the country that are home to GE’s production facilities, including Ohio and Indiana.
Several dozen lawmakers from those states and elsewhere signed a letter last fall that supported GE’s position on funding a new engine “as quickly as possible,” according to the letter. That was seen as a tacit nudge to consider GE’s alternate engine design for the F-35, according to people familiar with the matter.
During the last big fight over funding the engine, opponents beat back GE’s efforts by winning broad support from Tea Party Republicans and rank-and-file Republicans.
Lobbyists for Raytheon and Pratt & Whitney hope to replicate the winning strategy by rallying support from Freedom Caucus members and other Republican lawmakers who have called on Republican leaders to cut government spending, such as Reps. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a leader of the Freedom Caucus, and Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) whose state is home to GE facilities.
When Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California ran for Speaker in January, a group of conservative holdouts elicited a promise to reduce defense spending by roughly $70 billion.
GE’s opponents hope to rally opposition from those Republicans and other conservatives by appealing to their antigovernment ideology.
“In a testament to how hard it is to end a duplicative program in Washington, D.C., today some in Congress and the Pentagon are attempting to resurrect the earmark for the extra F-35 engine program,” according to written talking-points being circulated to Republicans by Raytheon lobbyists.
Other targets include Mr. Vance of Ohio, Sen. Mike Braun (R., Ind.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a former head of the House’s fiscally conservative Republican Study Committee, which has called for budget cuts. Each represents states with GE production facilities that could see a boost in hiring if Congress funds the engine.
A spokesman for Mr. Vance declined to comment. Other lawmakers didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Raytheon lobbyists also hope to appeal to conservatives by arguing that giving the engine to GE could give the company a near-monopoly over the production of jet engines for the military.
According to data provided to lawmakers by Raytheon lobbyists, the military engine business is currently split evenly between GE and Pratt & Whitney. Giving half of the F-35 engines to GE, however, would give the company a dominant share of the business.
“A competitive marketplace maintains a healthy domestic industrial base and drives down costs for taxpayers,” states a lobbying pitch Raytheon’s team has been distributing to offices on Capitol Hill.
