The Northrop Grumman Corp-EADS team that was awarded the Air Force contract to build the Air Force’s next generation of aerial refueling tankers may not be out of the woods just yet. (EADS is the European consortium behind Airbus.)
Boeing, which produces the Air Force’s current KC-135 tankers and lost the contract for the new tankers to Northrup Grumman, has powerful friends on the Appropriations Committees.
Chief among these is
Reps. Norm Dicks, a Washington state Democrat whose district includes the plant where Boeing planned to build the tanker. Dicks is the second ranking Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds the Defense budget. Dicks has
called “regrettable . . . the [Air Force] decision to award the contract to Airbus, which has consistently used unfair European government subsidies to take jobs away from American aircraft workers.”
Another advocate for Boeing will be
Rep. Todd Tiahart, a Kansas Republican and another subcommittee member whose district includes the plant where Boeing planned to do the final assembly for the tankers. Tiahart
commented after the Air Force’s decision:
"I am deeply troubled by the Air Force’s decision to award the KC-X tanker to a French company that has never built a tanker in its history. We should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers. I can not believe we would create French jobs in place of Kansas jobs.
On the Senate side,
Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, sits on the Senate’s Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and has indicated that she will be "asking tough questions" about the deal. Click here for Senator Murray’s
statement against the Air Force deal.
A legislative provision banning the Pentagon from awarding contracts to overseas-based companies that receive subsidies from foreign governments, as Northrup’s partner EADS does, could kill the deal.
However, Northrup is not without its advocates. The Northrup Gruman-EADS team plans to build the tanker in Mobile, Alabama, and
Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who also sits on the defense subcommittee, can be expected to oppose any effort to kill the deal. Since Shelby will playing defense rather than offense, defending the status quo rather than trying to change it, he may have the easier task. But this thing ain’t over just yet.