Advocate Summary

Issue:  EA-6B Prowler Replacement 
Advocate:  Northrop Grumman Corporation – Steve Sutton
Date of Interview: 6/6/02

Basic Background
Well I’m working on a number of programs, two of the most recent ones involve the electronic warfare aircraft that we built the EA-6B Prowler and it’s an older airplane, it’s probably technology wise may go back 30 years now. It was built about 20 years ago now and its getting tired and so it’s time to replace it so we are trying to get money in the budget right now to do what they call a risk mitigation study, to figure out basically...I’m trying to figure out how to word this it can get pretty complex, let me put it this way – the department of Defense is currently looking at a number of alternative platforms to replace the EA-6B Prowler aircraft. We suspect, the platform that is being talked about as the favorite one so far is the F18 E and F, and they want to be able to convert that into an electronic warning aircraft and attack aircraft. And we have an initiative on the Hill to get money to do the risk mitigation study for that platform or any platform that is going to be selected by the Department of Defense as the EA-6B of the future. 

The EA-6B is just an airplane, it is the only aircraft in the military inventory that is capable, well has as it’s full time mission, is going out ahead of other airplanes that go to war and jamming the enemy radars with electronics. And if you can get on their frequencies and keep them from getting on our frequencies, you end up saving our airplanes. They try to identify radar and then jam their radar and these airplanes are particularly good at that so that’s essentially what they do. 

Prior Activity on the Issue 
No specific activities mentioned.

Advocacy Activities Undertaken
And I have a paper right here which shows you basically what I am doing and did. I go on to the Hill and get members of Congress and you can see them here on this paper, to support what I say here, which is basically that we need 30 million dollars in FY03 to begin the studies need to analyze the platform that is selected by the Department of Defense, the number 30 Million comes from the Navy, it’s a Navy number, it comes from their Unfunded Priority List, UPL, in effect we are doing this to help the Navy and ourselves because we’re interested in [?] support jammer which is a replacement for the EA-6B. And this has been turned into the committees on the Hill that deal with defense, and the one that we’re look to right now is the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee which will begin the process of incorporating money for all the Defense programs and we hope that this 30 million or some part of it will be included in their marks…[Discusses a different issue on ships for a bit that he is also working on]. These letters go to both sides the authorization side and the appropriations side for defense. These letters went to Jerry Lewis, they also go to the head man at the authorizing committee and to the ranking members of the appropriations and defense committees. That’s basically what I’m working on among other things. 

We have of course contacts in the Pentagon and we’re always being updated on where things are, in terms of their feelings about what platform will be selected to replace the EA-6B and more and more it appears like the F18 E and F is going to be the winning candidate but we’re never really sure. These are the actually people that signed the letter, but we have talked to other people on the Hill about it. 

My basic job is to be a network person; to get to know the staffers on the Hill and the members if possible, but 95% of my time probably is spent with staffers, we don’t want to go around them to the member, we want to go through them. And a member couldn’t handle that anyway if he took everyone into his office that wanted to see him. So I’ve been doing this for about 12 years now and so know quite a few of the staffers on the Hill. But I sort of concentrate on the House side and the there’s somebody else here that concentrates on the Senate side, he’s not here today. But that’s how we operate. 

Some of the members, like the professional staff on the committees are pretty well versed on all of these programs, they have to be. When we go over to brief them on the Hill we’ll often take somebody in the company with us that is an expert on the product, and we’re sure that he can answer most if not all of the questions. But in the case of the personal staffers we’ll often find that defense is not a high priority in some of their offices so they’ll have someone brand new in the office handling defense. So that is usually something I can handle because I can talk about the products in general. My job is really just to be an educator, to sit down and explain this is a plane, it has wings and there is a tail on it, and the EA-6B keeps the enemy from firing radar guided missiles at us by jamming them, are things that are pretty basic but they need to know. 

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
So I’ll keep in contact with all of these people and remind them, you know, that they are supporting these programs and encourage them to continue to do so. 

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
We’d like to think that Jerry Lewis supports our programs, he’s the chairman. And generally he’s pro-defense and Murtha is on the committee, he’s the ranking member and he generally pro-defense and we have you know a pretty much talking relationship with all the members on the committee. 

That’s the way it is in Congress members are particularly interested in working on things that are good for their districts, they almost automatically become champions. And our hope is that those kinds of people that have our products in their districts will become champions. 

Targets of Direct Lobbying
The likely candidates are those that are on the House Defense appropriations subcommittee.

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
None mentioned.

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants
[He seems to be discussing these generally – the below don’t seem to be active on the EA-6B issue specifically]
We belong to the Electronic Industries Association, the American Shipbuilders Association, and many other associations. We are a pretty big company now, we are probably one of the top three, and it’s important that we belong to these associations we get support from them and they support us. They do things for them and they do things for us as in trading information and things like that. There are meeting our company goes to, I don’t go to them, I go to the shipbuilding meetings, because I’m the legislative contact for the Northrop Grumman shipbuilders. So I go to the American Shipbuilding Association meetings that are right here in Washington. Our company is quite large it has a number of diverse activities and so particularly marketing people that are working in other areas as well as my own go to EIA meetings and other meetings downtown. I don’t really have time for that. 

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
The same holds true for the EA-6B Prowler airplane, there is a board set up that has had experience with electronic warfare and that’s what that’s all about, and so we meet about quarterly, tell them what we’re doing and they tell us essentially whether we are doing it right or not in their eyes. And they’ll write little papers for us maybe a couple pages, after the meeting, and the meetings might last a day or a day and a half, and the end they write a paper and leave it for us. That advice is pretty well founded.

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
We think that all of the programs we support here are good for the country, that’s the most important thing. So when you advocate increased funding we have good arguments that are plausible and usually result in reduced expenditures for our country. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
None mentioned. 

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
None mentioned. 

Nature of the Opposition
We’re not facing any opposition in particular, no. On most of these issues I don’t think there is any big opposition. The impediment would probably be the size of the budget, you know – can they fit this into the budget, where does it rank in the priority of things and that’s where Chairman Lewis gets involved and other folks. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
Not applicable. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
Not applicable. 

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
Not applicable. 

Described as a Partisan Issue
No. 

Venue(s) of Activity
House and Senate Appropriation and Authorization Defense Subcommittees

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Working to include 30 million in the Defense appropriation’s bill to fund analysis of alternatives for the aging EA-6B Prowler.

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
I spent 29 years in the US Airforce, and then retired from the airforce and one of my last assignments was in Japan and Grumman, that used to be a separate company from Northrop Grumman, asked me to go to work for them to help them out in Japan, for another year after I retired, so I said yes, one thing led to another and they asked me if I’d come to Washington and work on the Hill for them and I said sure and then we were bought by Northrop in 1994 and so I just moved from the 28th floor to the 23rd floor and work for Northrop Grumman. 

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
We do a great majority of our work on the Hill from within our organization, but we have hired consultants and they help us out in certain areas some of them are experts on ships for example and can advise us perhaps they’ve worked on a committee that’s been involved with ships or they advise on other initiatives we have, so we hire folks like that that ah, help us understand better what we have to do and give us guidance. In the case of the EA-6B and in the ship systems case, there are boards made up, in the case of ship systems of Navy admirals, that are retired and all that, and they give us advise, you know – what’s good for the Navy, what’s out there, and where we should be putting our efforts to support the Navy. The same holds true for the EA-6B Prowler airplane, there is a board set up that has had experience with electronic warfare and that’s what that’s all about, and so we meet about quarterly, tell them what we’re doing and they tell us essentially whether we are doing it right or not in their eyes. And they’ll write little papers for us maybe a couple pages, after the meeting, and the meetings might last a day or a day and a half, and the end they write a paper and leave it for us. That advice is pretty well founded. 

Number of Individuals Involved in Advocacy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Eight

Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
This is our legislative unit, I think we have 8 lobbyists now, and we lobby for the entire company. We have legal affairs available to us, be we rarely have to use those services. We have a lawyer that is one of our lobbyists that helps us keep track of the rules, taking people to lunch or something like that – how much you can spend on them, we follow those rules very assiduously and we have a PAC, a political action committee here, that gives money to members, we have a PAC director out in California, her name is Marsha Wolwasser, and the Vice President, the director of our office here guides us on our PAC – who we should be giving money to and how much. We are pretty careful with that money, particularly because it comes right from the employees of the company, they contribute money out of their checks. A PAC unfortunately is very important on the Hill, member expect to get support you know if they support us, we’d like to think of a PAC as nothing other than reflecting support for a member we’ve given money to. As you can imagine, this being a defense company, the larger proportion of our PAC money would go to those people that are strong in defense, that’s all. 

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Membership Size (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Organizational Age (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Miscellaneous