{"id":110390,"date":"2017-12-02T15:43:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-02T15:43:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-08T11:00:27","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T11:00:27","slug":"tankers-and-politics-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/02\/tankers-and-politics-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tankers and Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Once upon a time, announcement of a DoD contract meant that someone won, and someone lost.<\/p>\n

Now, it merely signals the next round of political jockeying and protests in the defense procurement game.<\/p>\n

Consider last Friday\u2019s award of a $35 billion contract for new tanker aircraft to Northrop-Grumman and its European partner, EADS. By accepting their proposal, the Pentagon rejected a rival bid from Boeing, which offered a refueling variant of its 767 jetliner.<\/p>\n

But the matter is far from settled. With so much money\u2014and thousands of jobs\u2014at stake, Boeing will almost certainly protest the Pentagon\u2019s decision. And the aerospace giant is mobilizing its allies on Capitol Hill, who are already demanding investigations.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one of the first out of the gate, saying the Air Force decision \u201craised serious questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that, the rhetoric only intensified. Les Blumenthal of the McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau<\/a> quotes Washington Senator Patty Murray (\u201cthe contract “puts our war-fighting ability in the hands of a foreign government”) and Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas (the Air Force used an “Alice in Wonderland” approach in awarding the contract to a French company with no experience in making tankers). Can you guess where Boeing planned to build those 767 tankers?<\/p>\n

Obviously, Boeing and its supporters aren\u2019t going down without a fight.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also appropriate to ask how much of a fight they\u2019re willing to put up. Under Pentagon acquisition rules, losing firms are allowed to file a protest, a process that can last up to a year. Boeing has every right to question the Air Force\u2019s decision, and demand a fair review of the process.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, haggling over the tanker deal could last well beyond the protest period. Factor in political considerations\u2014including the obligatory hearings, briefings and legislative maneuvering\u2014and the fight over the new tanker might drag on for years.<\/p>\n

Fact is the competition apparently won by the Northrop-Grumman\/EADS team came four years after the Pentagon\u2019s first effort to acquire new tankers. In 2003, the Air Force announced plans to lease 100 767 tankers from Boeing, a proposal that also attracted Congressional attention.<\/p>\n

With Arizona Senator John McCain in the lead, House and Senate leaders pounced on the proposed lease, noting that it would be more expensive than buying new aircraft. The deal was subsequently derailed by revelations that the Air Force\u2019s former top procurement civilian, Darlene Druyun, had been recruited by Boeing during lease negotiations. She later served a nine-month prison sentence on corruption charges..<\/p>\n

In hindsight, McCain\u2019s criticism of the original tanker deal was certainly valid. And, it could also be argued that re-opening of the contract resulted in a better deal for the Air Force and the taxpayer, through the acquisition of a larger aircraft (the KC-30) with greater fuel off-load and transport capabilities.<\/p>\n

But the process also delayed acquisition of badly-needed refueling planes, designed to replace aircraft purchased during the Eisenhower administration. We\u2019ve written extensively about problems with aging KC-135Es, assigned mostly to Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units. Some of those aircraft are no longer flyable and their replacements won\u2019t enter the USAF inventory for another 5-6 years.<\/p>\n

Sadly, that forecast is decidedly optimistic. It took almost five years to untangle the last tanker mess, and it could take even longer this time around. In an election year, with thousands of jobs at stake and all that money on the table, Congressional efforts to scuttle the new tanker contract are inevitable. We can expect endless hearings on the issue, along with legislative amendments and, of course, various earmarks.<\/p>\n

After all, if Ted Kennedy can fund a jet engine the Air Force doesn\u2019t want (to the tune of $1 billion), we can easily envision Pat Roberts, Patty Murray, Nancy Pelosi and their friends setting aside money for a \u201cnext-generation tanker aircraft,\u201d while working to defund the Northrop-Grumman aircraft. Boeing has already indicated that it can build a larger tanker\u2014based on the 777 airframe\u2014and its Congressional supporters will quickly rally to that cause.<\/p>\n

Will that result in a better refueling platform for the Air Force? That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, those KC-135Es aren\u2019t getting any younger, and our current tanker \u201cshortfall\u201d will only grow worse over time. In a rational world, the Pentagon and Congress would be working together to get new tankers into the inventory as soon as possible. But in the realm of politically-charged defense acquisitions, operational needs often take a back seat to jobs, jobs, jobs and defense dollars for the folks back home.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we won\u2019t be surprised if the \u201cnew\u201d tanker deal comes undone, and we\u2019re still arguing over a KC-135 replacement in 2012. After all, if Congress could thwart the original tanker lease plan\u2014and more recently, force re-bidding of the CSAR-X contract– then spoiling the Northrop-Grumman\/EADS program should be a piece of cake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, announcement of a DoD contract meant that someone won, and someone lost. Now, it merely signals the next round of political jockeying and protests in the defense procurement game. Consider last Friday\u2019s award of a $35 billion contract for new tanker aircraft to Northrop-Grumman and its European partner, EADS. By accepting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110390"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}