diff --git a/R/plot_GATK_performance_log.R b/R/plot_GATK_performance_log.R
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d71531221
--- /dev/null
+++ b/R/plot_GATK_performance_log.R
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+args = commandArgs(TRUE);
+
+RUNME = T
+onCMDLine = ! is.na(args[1])
+DATA_FILE = args[1]
+DESCRIPTION = args[2]
+OUTPUT_PDF = paste(DATA_FILE, ".pdf", sep="")
+
+if ( onCMDLine ) { 
+   print(paste("Reading data from", DATA_FILE))
+   d = read.table(DATA_FILE, header=T)
+} 
+
+if ( onCMDLine ) pdf(OUTPUT_PDF)
+
+generateOneReport <- function(d) {
+    qs = quantile(d$processing.speed, probs = c(0.05, 0.5, 0.95))
+    plot(d$elapsed.time, d$processing.speed, main=DESCRIPTION, xlab="Elapsed time (sec)", ylab="Processing speed (seconds per 1M units)", ylim=c(qs[1], qs[3]), type="b", col="cornflowerblue", lwd=2)
+    abline(h=qs[2], lty=2)
+}
+
+if ( RUNME ) {
+    generateOneReport(d)
+}
+
+if ( onCMDLine ) dev.off()
+
+
+
diff --git a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/arguments/GATKArgumentCollection.java b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/arguments/GATKArgumentCollection.java
index 0d5010e0d..210f2c580 100755
--- a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/arguments/GATKArgumentCollection.java
+++ b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/arguments/GATKArgumentCollection.java
@@ -150,6 +150,11 @@ public class GATKArgumentCollection {
         return new DownsamplingMethod(downsamplingType,downsampleCoverage,downsampleFraction);
     }
 
+    // --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+    //
+    // BAQ arguments
+    //
+    // --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     @Element(required = false)
     @Argument(fullName = "baq", shortName="baq", doc="Type of BAQ calculation to apply in the engine", required = false)
     public BAQ.CalculationMode BAQMode = BAQ.CalculationMode.OFF;
@@ -158,6 +163,15 @@ public class GATKArgumentCollection {
     @Argument(fullName = "baqGapOpenPenalty", shortName="baqGOP", doc="BAQ gap open penalty.  Default value is 1e-4.  1e-3 is perhaps better for whole genome call sets", required = false)
     public double BAQGOP = BAQ.DEFAULT_GOP;
 
+    // --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+    //
+    // performance log arguments
+    //
+    // --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+    @Element(required = false)
+    @Argument(fullName = "performanceLog", shortName="PF", doc="If provided, a GATK runtime performance log will be written to this file", required = false)
+    public File performanceLog = null;
+
     /**
      * Gets the default downsampling method, returned if the user didn't specify any downsampling
      * method.
@@ -350,6 +364,10 @@ public class GATKArgumentCollection {
         if ( BAQMode != other.BAQMode) return false;
         if ( BAQGOP != other.BAQGOP ) return false;
 
+        if ((other.performanceLog == null && this.performanceLog != null) ||
+                (other.performanceLog != null && !other.performanceLog.equals(this.performanceLog))) {
+            return false;
+
         return true;
     }
 
diff --git a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/traversals/TraversalEngine.java b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/traversals/TraversalEngine.java
index 489b0a31d..25f825e70 100755
--- a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/traversals/TraversalEngine.java
+++ b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/traversals/TraversalEngine.java
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ public abstract class TraversalEngine<M,T,WalkerType extends Walker<M,T>,Provide
     private final long N_RECORDS_TO_PRINT = 1000000;
 
     // for performance log
-    private static final boolean PERFORMANCE_LOG_ENABLED = false;
+    private static final boolean PERFORMANCE_LOG_ENABLED = true;
     private PrintStream performanceLog = null;
     private long lastPerformanceLogPrintTime = -1;                  // When was the last time we printed to the performance log?
     private final long PERFORMANCE_LOG_PRINT_FREQUENCY = 1 * 1000;  // in seconds
@@ -126,17 +126,15 @@ public abstract class TraversalEngine<M,T,WalkerType extends Walker<M,T>,Provide
 
         //
         // code to process the performance log
-        // TODO -- should be integrated into command line system [hard coded off now]
-        // TODO -- should write a unique log name as an option?
+        //
         // TODO -- should be controlled by Queue so that .out and .performance.log comes out
         //
-        if ( PERFORMANCE_LOG_ENABLED && performanceLog == null ) {
+        if ( PERFORMANCE_LOG_ENABLED && performanceLog == null && engine.getArguments().performanceLog != null ) {
             try {
-                // todo -- temp for testing
-                performanceLog = new PrintStream(new FileOutputStream("performance.log"));
+                performanceLog = new PrintStream(new FileOutputStream(engine.getArguments().performanceLog));
                 performanceLog.println(Utils.join("\t", Arrays.asList("elapsed.time", "units.processed", "processing.speed")));
             } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
-                throw new UserException.CouldNotCreateOutputFile(new File("performance.log"), e);
+                throw new UserException.CouldNotCreateOutputFile(engine.getArguments().performanceLog, e);
             }
         }