By Lesley Weidenbener TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – The world’s largest jet engine manufacturer announced Wednesday that it will invest $100 million into a new assembly plant in Lafayette and create as many as 200 jobs by 2020.

General Electric Aviation will build a 225,000 square foot facility to assemble its new LEAP engine as part of a partnership with Snecma of France. The companies have united to create CFM International, which already has orders for more than 6,000 of the engines.

Gov. Mike Pence joined GE Aviation President David Joyce for an announcement Wednesday at the Purdue University Airport.

“By selecting Indiana for its new jet engine facility, the company gains a workforce skilled at both developing the big ideas and bringing them to life,” Pence said a statement. “From jet engines to medical breakthroughs, companies launch the next wave of new technologies in Indiana, confident that in a state that works, the sky is the limit.” The Lafayette facility will be GE Aviation’s first final assembly plant in Indiana. The new jobs – including salaried and hourly positions – are expected to pay an average of $36 per hour.

“Our state has made significant gains in attracting this type of investment and the announcement made today indicates that we are on the right track to sustain that growth,” said Sen. Brandt Hershman, R-Buck Creek, who pushed legislation in the past to help the aviation industry.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered General Electric Aviation up to $3.3 million in conditional tax credits and up to $332,000 in training grants based on the company’s job creation plans.

The incentives are performance-based, meaning until Hoosiers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives. In addition, the IEDC will provide the community with up to $1.35 million in infrastructure assistance from the state’s Industrial Development Grant Fund.

The engines developed at the plant will be used on the Airbus A320neo, Boeing 737 MAX and COMAC (China) C919 planes for airlines worldwide.  Launched in 2008, the LEAP engine is now undergoing development testing. As the engine transitions to the production phase, GE could begin hirng at the new Lafayette facility as early as 2015.

According to state and company officials, the facility will operate a highly advanced assembly line incorporating several new technologies, including automated vision inspection systems and radio frequency parts management to easily spot parts on the shop floor.

Within five years, the plant’s workforce is expected to exceed 200 people with the capacity to do final assembly for the engine as well as work on the engine’s hot section, which includes the compressor, combustor and high pressure turbine.

“We are thrilled by the airline industry’s enthusiasm for the new LEAP engine and its ground-breaking technologies,” Joyce said. “Beginning in 2015, the LEAP engine will experience a dramatic production ramp-up for the remainder of the decade.”

The Lafayette facility will be GE’s fifth location in Indiana. The company employs nearly 1,700 Hoosiers across the state.

“Tippecanoe County eagerly welcomes GE Aviation, the fourth company to choose Park 350 for a significant industrial investment,” said Tippecanoe County Commissioner John Knochel. “This is a company already renowned for successfully setting its sight on the future in global reach and technological advances. Now, it will pioneer an all-new aircraft engine with a ‘made in Lafayette, Ind.’ stamp, and supply it to commercial aircraft manufacturers around the world.”

Lesley Weidenbener is executive editor of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

By Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller

Several same-sex couples recently filed lawsuits seeking to strike down Indiana’s traditional marriage definition law. As Indiana attorney general, I have been asked why my office is defending the statute in court when some AGs in other states are not defending their states’ traditional marriage laws from similar lawsuits. I explain that I took an oath to represent and defend Indiana’s state government and its existing statutes. I don’t make the laws – that’s the Legislature’s job – but I have a solemn obligation to defend those laws while there is a good-faith defense, and I cannot shirk my duty nor abdicate that responsibility to others.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller

This is not personal advocacy on my part or by the lawyers who work in my office. Whenever the State of Indiana is sued, you – the taxpayers and citizens of the state – are really being sued collectively, and you are entitled to counsel. The correct course of action is for the attorney general to provide a good-faith defense – within the resources already available – until and unless the U.S. Supreme Court decides to the contrary. The justice system cannot work if one side is not represented by counsel or if the attorneys presume that they are judge and jury in their own cases and fail to zealously advocate for their clients.

Some have asked if in providing this defense I am on “the wrong side of history.” They note my counterpart, the Kentucky attorney general, recently announced he no longer would defend his state’s traditional marriage definition. But even he defended his state’s marriage law at the federal district court stage, and his decision not to continue representing his state’s position on appeal does not mean the law will go undefended. Instead, the Kentucky governor had to hire outside counsel to defend the statute in court. Was the Kentucky attorney general on the “wrong side of history” when he represented his client, but suddenly on the “right side of history” when outside lawyers were called in at significant cost to Kentucky taxpayers to do so?

Unlike Kentucky, Indiana does not need outside counsel to defend its own duly-enacted laws the Legislature passed. My office can do so readily within our existing budget, approved by the Legislature in advance, using our own salaried attorneys who do not charge billable hours and who would be paid the same whether these lawsuits were filed or not.

It’s worth noting what happened in California where the Proposition 8 constitutional amendment defined marriage in the traditional way. When that definition was challenged in federal court, California’s attorney general declined to mount any legal defense. When the U.S. Supreme Court heard the Proposition 8 case last year, it ruled that because the law was not defended by the State of California, the law’s private defenders lacked legal standing, and there could be no conclusive ruling on Proposition 8’s constitutionality. That left the question of state-level marriage definitions muddled and left our nation in suspense. How exactly is the lack of a legal defense on the “right side of history”?

My office will defend an Indiana statute, as we do every day in numerous cases, as long as a good-faith defense exists – and with the marriage definition law, it still does. Indiana courts previously have upheld Indiana’s marriage law, and the U.S. Supreme Court has previously permitted states to license marriage as between one man and one woman. While there are various challenges of multiple states’ laws now working their way through the federal appeals court pipeline, until and unless the U.S. Supreme Court rules otherwise, the State of Indiana has the right and obligation to enforce its longstanding statute and defend it from plaintiffs’ lawyers.

When plaintiffs challenge statutes, I never complain; federal courts exist to decide such questions. I hope that Hoosiers on all sides of this controversial issue will show civility and respect toward each other while the court does its work.

But when two opposing attorneys represent their clients to the best of their skill and ability, neither lawyer is by virtue of their courtroom role on the “wrong” side of history. Both serve as advocates before the court that makes the rulings that ultimately make the history. When we lawyers take an oath to represent our client, we can’t shirk our duty.

Greg Zoeller is attorney general of Indiana.