July 9, 2008

Norm is "Skeptical" of Pentagon's Ability to Conduct Fair Tanker Re-Competition

Press Release: U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks said today that he has serious doubts about the ability of the Defense Department to conduct a renewed competition that is fair and open and that meets the “real world” requirements of refueling U.S. military aircraft. The congressman, who serves as vice-chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House, said he has learned that the new competition will include a higher priority for a bigger airplane, repeating a bias that resulted in stinging criticism from the independent Government Accountability Office.

Rep. Dicks said: “Last month the GAO issued a report that was unusually critical of the tanker selection process conducted by the Air Force for unfairly favoring a tanker that was larger than needed, most costly to maintain and that would require substantial amounts of construction money for new facilities. In its harshly-worded report, the GAO said that the Air Force failed to evaluate proposals based on its stated requirements and it demonstrated favorable treatment toward the EADS/Northrop Grumman A-330 tanker over Boeing’s KC-767.”

But today Rep. Dicks learned from Undersecretary John Young, the Pentagon official responsible for conducting a new competition, that the criteria for the new tanker will favor a larger tanker from the outset, assigning additional credit to a bigger plane in the initial “request for proposals” which will be circulated this summer.

“I am concerned that the department is trying to find a new way to justify selecting the larger Airbus tanker again, even though there is no current operational requirement for a larger refueling tanker,” Rep. Dicks said. He said he will strongly oppose the effort.

Rep. Dicks also noted that the Airbus A-330 is 53 percent larger than the Boeing 767, requiring much greater maintenance and operations costs. He noted that fuel costs alone would be billions higher for the larger A-330 aircraft. He said that “for the stated requirement of flying 750 hours per year, and assuming, conservatively, that oil will average $150 per barrel over the 40 year life-cycle of the 179 aircraft, the KC-767 will save $35 billion—an amount large enough to equal the purchase of the entire fleet.”

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