ETHICS — LOBBYING FIRMS WORK TO SAVE FUNDING FOR JET ENGINE THE PENTAGON DOESN’T WANT:Last month, the House passed the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization, which includes funding for a second engine for the F-35 fighter jet that the Department of Defense doesn’t want. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the second engine and even recommended that President Obama veto the defense authorization if it includes money for the “costly and unnecessary” engine. The Senate Armed Services Committee, to its credit, chose not to include the funding in its version of the bill, which it passed late last month. Now, the defense industry has unleashed 13 different lobbying firms, plus “each contractor’s in-house lobbyists,” to influence senators’ decision-making on the engine before the full Senate takes up the bill in coming weeks. There are “75 lobbyists working on defense issues at the firms engaged in the second-engine showdown,” Politico reports, of which, “at least 33 are registered to work on the engine issue specifically.” The F-35 project is already far over budget, with the projected cost recently raised to $382 billion. The second engine’s development for next year alone would cost $485 million. Gates has said that “every dollar additional to the budget that we have to put into the F-35 is a dollar taken from something else that the troops may need,” while Obama has stated, “[O]ne reliable engine will do just fine.” The Pentagon “ceased its support for a second engine by GE and Rolls-Royce” in 2006, but Congress has “annually overruled the Pentagon” by adding funds to continue the engine’s development.