U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul is calling for House hearings on an Army decision to award a vehicle deal to a Wisconsin company, potentially costing a manufacturing facility in Sealy a contract of more than $2 billion.

McCaul, whose district includes Austin and Washington counties, has asked the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces to hold hearings.

McCaul has written letters to chairmen of both the committees, asking them to hold hearings "on the Army’s recent decision to abandon its longtime provider of Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTVs) and award the FMTV contract to a company that has never built this truck line in the past."

BAE Systems has manufactured military vehicles there for 17 years, but in September the Army announced it was awarding the military vehicle contract to Oshkosh Corp., based in Wisconsin.

McCaul has said he thinks the decision was made using a flawed procurement process and could cost BAE and Sealy 3,000 jobs.

"This decision will adversely affect the capability of the industrial base at a time when reports continue of the new provider’s potential insolvency," he said in his letters to the two committees.

"I have a great concern as to whether the Army, in selecting the awardee, followed one of its own primary criteria for awarding a contract: financial capability.

"In fact, 40 percent of the selection criteria was cost and price, which includes financial capability. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that the awardee was on the edge of bankruptcy and had suffered a $1.2 billion loss last year. In the Army’s evaluation however, the awardee was rated the same as BAE on financial capability as both being excellent/low risk.

"Another factor to be considered was production capability. The FMTV award was supposedly based primarily on cost and the low bid offered by the awardee. However, no independent cost analysis was done to confirm that the awardee could build the vehicles specified in the contract for the price that was bid. In my judgment, the awardee will not be able to perform under the terms of this contract at this price.

"Cost overruns could also occur which might eventually delay delivery of the FMTV and come at a cost to the taxpayer and to the war fighter in the field.

"In the past 17 years, the Army has invested over $300 million rebuilding the infrastructure at the FMTV facility in Scaly. Texas. It is now a state of the art facility that employs 3,000 people and consistently meets and exceeds Army expectations in efficiency and quality.

"With the award given to another manufacturer without previous experience building this truck line, significant costs are going to be incurred by the awardee in refitting its facilities to handle manufacturing the FMTV line as well as filling the thousands of employee positions necessary to meet this contract. Significant R&D dollars are going to have to be spent in order for the awardee to manufacture the trucks to Army specifications that BAE already meets."

McCaul also said there are "a myriad of questionable actions and inactions that occurred during the award of this contract that simply do not pass the common sense test."

"Some of these items include: the awardee was notified of the contract award two full days before it was publicly announced by the Department of Defense (stock price shot up 19 percent in one day); there was no Congressional notification; and to this day the Army has not identified the Source Selection Authority (SSA) which is a standard practice.

"This entire process simply does not make sense."