S.Amdt. 843

SA 843. Mr. STRANGE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill H.R. 2810, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2018 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle B of title III, add the following:

SEC. 313. SENSE ON CONGRESS ON THE SMALL TURBINE ENGINE
INDUSTRIAL BASE.

(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The United States small turbine engine industry has
been innovating, developing, producing, and sustaining small
gas turbine engines in a competitive market for more than 75
years.
(2) The United States small turbine engine industrial base
has made the United States

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the knowledge leader in low cost, no maintenance engine
designs with unmatched field reliability.
(3) The United States small turbine engine industrial base
is at a critical juncture, as military requirements have
tapered and missile programs, in misguided attempts to save
money, are narrowing production contracts to a single vendor
causing two of the three existing small turbine engine
manufacturers to go out of business.
(4) The departure of these companies from the United States
small turbine engine industry will leave only one viable,
proven source for small turbine engines for the Department of
Defense.
(5) In 2016, a number of engine failures were encountered
that severely diminished the throughput of the F107-WR-101
engine maintenance process for the AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise
Missile (ALCM), thereby putting the weapon system at major
readiness risk.
(6) The narrowing of the United States small turbine engine
industrial base would leave the Department with a sole source
United States supplier resulting in a loss of manufacturing
and testing capability that would be extremely detrimental to
both the United States industrial base and national security
by creating a single point of failure, increasing engine
procurement and testing prices by eliminating competition,
raising new engine development and air vehicle program risk,
and eliminating capabilities and expertise that would require
decades and millions of dollars to reconstitute.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of the Congress
that the Department of Defense should--
(1) allocate sufficient funding to properly sustain the
F107 turbine engine in order to ensure this vital weapon is
viable until a replacement is fielded; and
(2) contract with multiple, capable engine manufacturers to
stabilize and revitalize the United States small turbine
engine industrial base.
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