Subject: Congress Warned Against Sending Taxpayer Funds to Russia for Rocket Engines

Conservative advocacy groups warned members of Congress against lifting restrictions on the government’s purchase of Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines for use during national security space launches.

Leaders at Americans for Tax Reform and the Center for Individual Freedom appealed to members of the House Armed Services Committee ahead of a hearing Wednesday asking lawmakers to not allow the United States to send hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to a Russian manufacturer with ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Both groups reacted to suspicions that some members of Congress would propose lifting restrictions on the Pentagon’s purchase of the Russian-made rocket engines during a markup of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday.

“Besides the fact that America has launch systems more than capable of delivering our hardware into space well into the next decade, lifting the ban is a terrible mistake in terms of boosting one of our main international rivals and undermining the billions that we spend defending against Russia,” wrote Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, in a letter to Rep. Mac Thornberry (R., Tx.), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee.

“Purchasing these engines would only serve to boost Vladimir Putin’s military-industrial complex and put our allies around the globe in further danger,” Norquist wrote.

At the heart of the issue is the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin based in Colorado with a major factory in Alabama that has received government subsidies to launch national security satellites for years. The alliance’s Atlas V rocket uses Russian-manufactured engines.

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