Lawmakers slam Air Force brass over tanker

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news/2008/03/airforce_tanker_hearing_031108w

By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 12, 2008 19:52:20 EDT

It was not a fun day for the Air Force’s top bosses.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael Wynne faced withering criticism Tuesday from lawmakers irate that on Feb. 29, the service awarded a $40 billion contract to build refueling tankers to a team involving a European company rather than U.S.-based Boeing.

At a hearing of the House Appropriation Committee’s defense subcommittee that was supposed to examine the Air Force’s 2009 budget proposal, the tanker bluster sucked most of the air out of the room.

“I ... feel like I was personally misled,” said Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., whose home state would gain jobs from a Boeing victory. “I think the Congress was misled, this committee was misled, the Boeing Co. was misled. ... You’ve got to go back and start over.”

Indeed, Boeing announced Monday that it may force the Air Force to do just that, filing a protest with the Government Accountability Office over the Air Force’s decision to award the contract to a partnership of Northrop Grumman Corp. and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. If sustained by the GAO, such a protest could delay a final decision by many months.

Wynne was reluctant to respond in much detail because the decision is being protested and is still pending, but he defended the Air Force’s selection process. He also grew visibly frustrated — if not angry — at points during the hearing.

“We believe we have accurately followed the law and arrived at a decision selecting the better of two very qualified competitors,” Wynne said. “I think it was done in a fair and legal manner.”

Dicks alleged that the Air Force continued to change its evaluation criteria to favor a larger airplane, which would favor the Northrop/EADS tanker, a version of the commercial Airbus 330, over the Boeing proposal, a version of the smaller 767 jetliner. He said the Air Force indicated throughout the process that it preferred a medium-sized aircraft over a large one, only to choose the large airplane at the last minute.

Wynne responded that size was never an explicit criterion in the Air Force’s request for proposals, and Boeing had been welcome to put forward its larger 777 but did not.

Kansas would also gain jobs from a Boeing victory, and Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican, accused the Air Force of disregarding the impact of its decision on American jobs and the American economy. He also said the Air Force did not account for subsidies EADS receives from European governments and the company’s lower health care costs, which he said allowed EADS to undercut Boeing’s bid.

“You had two competitors, but they were not on equal footing,” Tiahrt said. “It was not a fair competition. The deck was stacked against the American supplier and against American workers.”

The only panel member to defend the Air Force was James Moran, D-Va., who pointed out that the Air Force, by law and Pentagon policy, is not allowed to favor an American company over a European one.

I “believe that the professionals responsible for procurement acted in a professional manner,” Moran said. “Some of us believe that it is the Congress’ responsibility, if they don’t like the law, to change the law. But unless there is something that can be shown to us where the Air Force did not follow the law ... then the disappointment in the results may be only that.”