By Emelie Rutherford
The head of a key House panel reiterated his call yesterday for the Pentagon to buy versions of the Air Force’s new aerial refueling tanker from both competitors, saying “a consensus is developing” among lawmakers to support a split buy.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the House Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee, told defense-industry officials at a Washington conference that the current Eisenhower-era tanker’s replacement should face no further delays.
“My view is very simple: We’re going to split the buy,” Abercrombie said at the Defense Technology and Requirements conference hosted by Aviation Week and McAleese & Associates. “Each of the tankers from each of the consortiums does different things. I understand that some [go] further, some [are] bigger, some [are] faster, it can go on different runways, all the rest of it. Buy them and use them where it’s appropriate. We need to replace those tankers.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled the politically charged tanker competition last September, leaving it to be restarted in the Obama administration. The Pentagon had pulled a February 2008 award to a Northrop Grumman–European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) team after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained losing bidder Boeing‘s [BA] protest.
Yet while Abercrombie and House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) have been calling for a tanker split buy, other powerful lawmakers including Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and HAC-D Vice Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), both Boeing backers, and Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) have been opposed. While the fiscal year 2009 defense appropriations act directs the Pentagon to consider a dual procurement, Gates in a letter last year said he would “strongly oppose” one, pointing to billions of dollars in addition costs it would generate (Defense Daily, Sept. 26, 2008).
Abercrombie said yesterday he has “spoken to all the principles involved, at least legislatively speaking, in the House and some in the Senate.”
“I think that a consensus is developing; I won’t say it’s there,” Abercrombie told reporters.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have declined to share their opinions on the split-buy concept with reporters.
Abercrombie said he has “a good sense that the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to come to a conclusion (on the tanker) as well, and collaboratively I expect that this year we will.”
As chairman of the House Armed Services Air Land subcommittee, one of the first panels to review the Pentagon’s budget proposal, Abercrombie said he will recommend the dual procurement.
“Whether it will prevail, I don’t know,” he said.
Saying lawmakers on both sides of the issue “have perfectly legitimate cases to make,” he argued a split buy is unavoidable.
“It seems to me that both (competitors) have acted in good faith and put forward a proposal that they believe was in line with what the Pentagon was requesting, what the Air Force was requesting, and they both believe that they fulfilled that,” he said during his speech. “The problem, of course, became that we didn’t have a conclusion that was sustainable–by either the GAO or possibly going to courts and all the rest–as to whether the acquisition process, and the contracting process that determined the acquisition, was adequate.”
Abercrombie also noted the jobs that would be supported by two tanker programs
“This is trying to make a decision that is in the strategic interest of the nation and at the same time accommodates both the political and economic interests of the nation,” he told reporters. “That’s a pretty good outcome.”
The congressman added the days of spending money on programs without seeing any results are over, and argued that budget pressures mean the tanker matter “is coming to a head.”
Asked how he would justify the additional logistics and maintenance costs associated with have two fleets of Air Force tankers, Abercrombie said: “How do we justify the cost of saying we needed to have a tanker seven or nine years ago and the explosion in cost since then just by not doing it?”
“I justify everything on the basis of meeting the strategic interest of the nation,” he said. “The cost should be commensurate with meeting the need. If you have a mission and you agree that that’s what the mission is, then you pay for it.”
Abercrombie declined to comment on whether he still would push for a split buy if the Pentagon’s detailed budget due in April seeks to delay the tanker procurement, an option the Obama administration has considered, according to news reports this week.
SASC member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), also speaking at the National Press Club conference, said such a tanker contract delay “concerns me to no end.”
“We’re flying on these 50-year-old airplanes right now,” Chambliss told reporters about the tankers he used to see a regular basis. “I am very concerned about delaying it.”