August 6, 2008

Statement on Revised RFP Issued by Department of Defense

Press Release: The revised Request For Proposal (RFP) issued today by the Defense Department includes substantive changes that appear to favor a tanker larger than any real-world scenarios would require and that appear to diminish the substantially greater life-cycle costs of buying a bigger aircraft.

Among the serious flaws that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found, was the Air Force’s failure to evaluate proposals in accordance with the requirements of the original RFP when it selected the Airbus 330 to the medium-sized KC-135 tankers now in our fleet.   In this revised RFP, the Defense Department now apparently intends to award greater credit for having the ability to carry more than the “threshold requirement” contained in the previous solicitation – which was already three times the amount routinely off-loaded by KC-135 aircraft today.

In addition, the new RFP contains vague language about how the fuel burn rate would be calculated – potentially diminishing the additional $25 to $30 billion cost of purchasing the 179 A-330 versus that number of Boeing 767s. 

The unusually-brief timeline of the new RFP process also suggests that the Pentagon wants to justify its previous decision.  If this was a bona fide competition for a much larger tanker, as suggested by the changes in the RFP, it is unimaginable that the government would launch a $40 billion procurement with final proposals due in 45 days and a source selection decision by the end of the year.  In the original selection process, the Air Force took nearly 10 months –and botched the job -- to do what it now plans to do in three. 

Since the Department seems to be confused on what type of tanker it believes is needed at this time, I believe that moving forward with such a large procurement in such a precipitous manner is inadvisable, and I believe that it’s time for Congress to exert greater control of this process.

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