By Emelie Rutherford
A battle is brewing on Capitol Hill over whether to compel the Pentagon to buy aerial refueling tankers from each of the two firms battling for the Air Force contract, with influential lawmakers falling on both sides of the debate.
While powerful House members including Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) have advocated a tanker split buy be pursued this year, backers of Boeing‘s [BA] tanker bid including Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) are digging in their heels regarding their opposition.
“The most cost-effective thing we can do is to have one tanker built by one company, for all of the additional costs it would take to design, develop, build, and maintain two separate tankers,” Murray, a member of Senate leadership and the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, told Defense Daily yesterday.
“I would hope we all step back and realize that we have a tremendous responsibility to the country to be as cost-effective and efficient as possible, and that a split buy won’t meet the demands of either our taxpayers or the military,” she said at the Capitol, which was abuzz with talk of aiding the faltering economy.
Aides to other Boeing-backing lawmakers in the House confirmed resistance remains high in their camps to a tanker dual buy, while staffers for other lawmakers including backers of Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] tanker bid said their offices are more receptive to the idea.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled the politically charged tanker competition last September, leaving it to be reassessed and restarted by the next administration, in which he since agreed to serve. Defense officials had planned to recompete the contract, after pulling a February 2008 award to a Northrop Grumman-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) team following auditors’ sustainment in June 2008 of losing bidder Boeing’s contract protest.
Gates, who will remain defense secretary after President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in to office Jan. 20, said last September in a letter he would “strongly oppose” a tanker split buy and recommend outgoing-President Bush veto legislation directing one because of billion of dollars in addition costs it would require (Defense Daily, Sept. 26).
Yet Murtha, the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, said recently many of his colleagues agree with him that to actually replace the current aging fleet of Eisenhower-era tankers, after multiple delays, a dual buy may be the only option. He acknowledged Boeing-backer Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the HAC-D’s vice chairman, “has his reservations.”
Murtha said last month he would like the Pentagon to buy one tanker per month from each company.
The fiscal year 2009 defense appropriations act Murtha helped craft last year calls for the Pentagon to consider “awarding competitive contracts to more than one offeror.” (Defense Daily, Sept. 26)
Abercrombie–the chairman of the House Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee, where many defense-aircraft debates begin–has pledged to make a concerted push early this year for a tanker split buy (Defense Daily, Oct. 31).
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said yesterday he does not expect any Senate-side debate about a tanker dual buy before the Obama administration decides on how to move forward with the tanker competition.
“The first thing we need to do is to look at what the administration’s recommendation is, look at the pros and cons of the recommendation, and look at all the options,” Levin told Defense Daily. “I think to talk about compelling an outcome would be premature.”
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and its defense subcommittee, declined to pass judgment on the split-buy idea yesterday.
“I know we’d like to satisfy both Boeing and Northrop, but what we have in mind is to see what is best for our country,” Inouye told reporters.