By Emelie Rutherford
Congressional backers of Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] aerial refueling tanker bid decried news that the Pentagon is terminating the current KC-X solicitation, charging politics factored too much into the decision.
Boeing [BA] supporters, meanwhile, hailed the move defense officials announced yesterday and said they expect no opposition to the Pentagon’s new request for funding in fiscal year 2009 to beef up the existing Eisenhower-era tankers to ensure their continued use.
Leading congressional defense authorizers and appropriators were told yesterday morning that the Pentagon is not going to proceed with a contentious tanker competition between Boeing and a Northrop Grumman-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) team, allowing the next presidential administration to conduct the competition after it enters office next year. The Pentagon had been making plans to recompete the contract, after pulling a February contract award to Northrop Grumman following the Government Accountability Office’s sustainment of a Boeing protest.
Northrop Grumman supporter and defense authorizer Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said it appears the Pentagon backed down because of political pressure and opted to “punt” the contentious competition to the next presidential administration.
“I’m just deeply disappointed that the secretary reversed his position of just a few weeks ago that he was going to move forward and decide this issue,” Sessions told Defense Daily. “Even if additional time may need to have been granted, which I don’t think it was, I don’t see any need for one administration to assume that another one wouldn’t want to follow through with the same process.”
Sources said they don’t expect any legislation to emerge in the coming months attempting to alter the Pentagon’s decision, partly because the congressional session is scheduled to wrap up in two weeks for the rest of the year.
Northrop Grumman supporter and defense appropriator Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said it “is unacceptable that the Department of Defense would abdicate its responsibility to our men and women in uniform.”
“This misguided decision clearly places business interests above the interests of the warfighter,” he said in a statement.
Fellow critic Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) said in a statement he was “outraged” by the Pentagon’s decision, also suggesting politics played into the process.
The solicitation halt was praised by Boeing’s supporters in Congress, who had argued the competition was skewed toward the Northrop Grumman-EADS bid and that a draft request for proposals for the new competition the Pentagon unveiled last month did not properly address the GAO’s concerns.
“We were concerned that Boeing would need six months to compete a new airplane and that the changes in the RFP were such that it looked as if they had to bid a new plan to competitive,” Boeing backer and House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) Vice Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) told Defense Daily.
If Boeing pulled out of the competition, as it had threatened to do, “I don’t that would have been well received up here on the Hill,” he said.
“So hopefully this will diffuse the political climate, which was not good,” he added.
The HAC-D put extensive language in its version of the FY ’09 defense appropriations bill, which it marked up in July, regarding how the Pentagon conducts the tanker competition.
HAC-D Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said the Pentagon made the right move allowing the next administration to conduct the competition.
“They were so sloppy with the RFP,” Murtha told reporters. “The problem is they didn’t give Boeing enough time to have a competition.”
The HAC-D chairman said he’s ready to support the Pentagon’s request for funds to rehabilitate its older KC-135 tankers.
The Pentagon said in a statement yesterday morning that “sufficient funds will be recommended in the FY ’09 and follow-on budgets to maintain the KC-135 at high-mission capable rates.”
“In addition, the Department will recommend to the Congress the disposition of the pending FY ’09 funding for the tanker program and plans to continue funding the KC-X program in the FY ’10 to FY ’15 budget presently under review,” the statement says.
Boeing supporter and defense appropriator Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said halting the competition “is a reality check on a procurement process that got very complicated and a little muddled.”
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Ranking Member Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) were among the other lawmakers who made statements supportive of the Pentagon’s move.