Procurement

The European fiscal crisis could force the Pentagon to alter its plans for the F-35 fighter program, a senior U.S. military official said Friday.

Before Marine Corps leaders told their Army counterparts big changes were needed for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) program, one Pentagon estimate showed each model might cost $800,000.

Senior service officials previously said each unit was once on pace to cost $600,000.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has scrubbed a planned Friday trip that was slated to include meeting F-35 fighter program workers.

Panetta was slated to head to Maryland's Naval Air Station Patuxent River, but “due to a change in [his] schedule,” it has been postponed, the Pentagon said in a Wednesday statement.

Weapon programs likely will be hit hard by budget cuts, but some experts say the Pentagon’s most prized programs should survive the guillotine.

Ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday called the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet program a "scandal" and "tragedy," and demanded greater accountability for the weapons system's maker, Lockheed Martin. 

"The Joint Strike Fighter program has been both a scandal and a tragedy," said McCain from the Senate floor Monday. "[W]e are saddled with a program has little to show for itself after 10 years and $56 billion in taxpayer investment that has produced less than 20 test and operational aircraft."

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said the decision by General Electric and Rolls-Royce to stop funding a second engine for the F-35 fighter is “just the beginning in a wave of cost-cutting” for the Pentagon and defense industry.

“I am disappointed that the uncertainty regarding the future of our military budget, and the Joint Strike Fighter program in particular, have forced GE and Rolls-Royce to discontinue self-funded development for a competitive engine for the F-35,” McKeon said in a news release. “This development is a blow to common-sense acquisition reform at the Department of Defense.”

The decision is an apparent death knell for the controversial program, which the Pentagon has proposed killing.

The Senate on Thursday afternoon cleared an amendment that would limit the taxpayer reimbursement for defense contractor salaries to the amount of the president’s salary — currently $400,000.

The Senate on Tuesday approved a plan offered by two powerful senators that furthers their crackdown on counterfeit military components.

The plan was offered as an amendment to a Pentagon policy bill by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.). Their panel recently completed a bipartisan study that found evidence that most of the counterfeit components come from China, America’s top economic and military competitor.

There’s interest in a multi-billion dollar Army contract after all.

There had been rumblings that the defense industry was unhappy with the terms of the proposed contract for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), spurring speculation that some firms might sit out the competition. 

But defense companies seem to be setting aside any misgivings. Three industry teams have confirmed to The Hill that they will compete to build thousands of the combat trucks for the Army and Marine Corps, and other firms are likely to follow.


With annual Pentagon budgets shrinking, the work order will be a major boost for the winner. Defense analysts estimate it could be worth more than $20 billion.