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Kansas sens. seek protest of tanker decision

WASHINGTON — Kansas lawmakers encouraged Boeing Co. on Thursday to lodge a formal protest against the Air Force’s decision to award a $35 billion refueling tanker contract to a consortium of Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus.

Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, both Kansas Republicans, made the comments after meeting with Boeing officials to hear the company’s view of losing the contract.

“The more we look into it, it certainly merits a protest by Boeing,” Roberts said.

Boeing officials, who were stunned to learn last week that they lost the contract, have said they will consider filing a protest only if they discover irregularities in the proposal phase. The Air Force is expected to explain its decision to Boeing on Friday.

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne defended the decision on Wednesday, telling a Senate panel that the two bidders were judged on nine key criteria and that “across the spectrum ... the Northrop Grumman airplane was clearly a better performer.”

But dozens of lawmakers from Kansas, Washington and other states faced with the unexpected loss of jobs have expressed outrage at the idea of outsourcing the work to France and other European nations.

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in Wichita, Kan., would have been the finishing center for the tankers, providing several hundred jobs to the company and thousands more to local suppliers.

Brownback said it’s possible Congress could withhold funding for the deal if concerns aren’t addressed. He also suggested there could be a security risk in the future if European leaders threaten to withhold spare parts for military aircraft because they “aren’t satisfied with what we’re doing in the Middle East.”

In a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday, Roberts told U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Susan Schwab that it makes little sense to award a major defense contract to Airbus when the same company is the subject of a massive legal challenge before the World Trade Organization over unfair European government subsidies.

“The long and the short of it is, if this decision holds, it will be to the detriment of our local and national economy, if not our national security,” Roberts said.

If the U.S. should retaliate by increasing tariffs on foreign aircraft parts, Roberts said, U.S. taxpayers could foot the bill for more-expensive spare parts for the Airbus tanker.

Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican whose district includes the Boeing facility, has accused the Air Force of using “bait and switch” tactics to lure Boeing into thinking the military wanted a smaller, more fuel-efficient tanker, only to change its mind and select the larger Airbus plane.

Tiahrt said there would be a push to “try to turn this around” in the House Appropriations Committee, of which he is a member. Tiahrt also claimed a law that requires the Defense Department to “buy American” unfairly allows the military to include European allies.

“These inequities are way beyond this one contract ... we have a system that is unfair,” Tiahrt said.

Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said Boeing faces a difficult task in protesting the contract based on the rationale Air Force officials have laid out for their decision.

“The problem that Boeing faces in protesting the tanker award is that it was not a close outcome,” Thompson said. “It lost on almost every measure. They would have to allege really huge errors in order to make any progress.”

As for the “bait and switch” argument, Thompson said there was a widely held view in the Air Force at the beginning of the competition that a bigger plane would be too expensive to operate and too hard to use at many overseas air fields.

“Somewhere along the course of this review, Northrop convinced the Air Force to think in a different way about how aerial refueling should be done in the future,” Thompson said.

Thompson said he also doubts Boeing’s supporters can overturn the decision through political means because the tanker to be built by EADS and Northrop Grumman will create thousands of new jobs in Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio and other states where lawmakers are keen on defending the contract choice.