Panel I of a Hearing of the House Armed Services Committees Air and Land Forces Subcommittee - The Source Selection and Path Forward Regarding the Air Force KC-(X) Program
Statement
REP. RICK LARSEN (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just a point on this. I don't feel sorry for Northrop Grumman Airbus. I don't feel sorry for Boeing in this. I feel sorry for the warfighter in all this. And sometimes your job at GAO is to come tell us things that we don't like to hear, and that's usually what you come tell us, honestly. And so thank you for doing that, not just today but every time we ask you to come up here.
So, the first question I want to ask you is having to do with the KPPs and KSAs. Just to clarify for me --- the Air Force RFP specifically said it wouldn't award extra credit for a tanker that had additional fuel offload capability, and then essentially extra credit was given anyway. Is that about right?
MR. GORDON: Right. Again, it has nothing to do with our sense of the merits. There was just a groundrule that said --
REP. LARSEN: Right.
MR. GORDON: -- if there's an objective, you don't get extra credit for exceeding it. And there was an objective, and yet they gave Northrop extra credit.
REP. LARSEN: Okay. On the flip side, I think on page 30 of the report, you found the Air Force then failed to give the Boeing offer credit for meeting far more SRD requirements than the Airbus proposal. Is that correct?
MR. GORDON: Yes. We saw no evidence that Boeing was given credit for -- for offering many more SRD requirements than Northrop.
REP. LARSEN: Okay. You also --
REP. ABERCROMBIE: Excuse me, Mr. Gordon. Can you say what that -- you characterized it with an alphabet.
MR. GORDON: I apologize. System Requirements Document. And the most unfortunate thing, Mr. Chairman, is that we use the word "requirement" here, and they don't mean a requirement. It was sort of a desirable. The solicitation said the Air Force wanted as many as possible of those, System Requirements Document requirements. And Boeing offered far more of those than did Northrop, but we didn't see evidence that Boeing was given credit for it.
REP. ABERCROMBIE: Can I ask everybody, then, when you get to these acronyms and so on, if you'd use the full designation and then say what it is. It's because most everybody here knows what it's all about, but not everybody does, and this is for the record, so it's just for clarity's sake.
MR. GORDON: A point well made.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. LARSEN: A-ok, Mr. Chairman.
Then also determined that Air Force failed to consider that Boeing's proposal -- the proposal's strengths, referred to as major discriminators, were in vital KPP or Key Performance Parameters Areas, whereas the Airbus proposal strengths were in areas that were weighted relatively lower in non-key performance and key system attribute requirements. Is that correct?
MR. GORDON: It is.
REP. LARSEN: Page 31. So it does seem that the Air Force gave Northrop, Airbus extra credit when it wasn't supposed to and they didn't give the Boeing offer credit when it was supposed to.
MR. GORDON: In those instances, that's true.
REP. LARSEN: In those instances. As we move forward, there's been some discussion about how the Air Force would potentially amend a new RFP. And I don't know if you can answer this, and maybe it's a question I'm asking for the next panelist, but if you can, please offer an answer. How should Congress -- or perhaps how would you as well -- but how should Congress look at an amended RFP that changes the relative weights for certain requirements that were weighted differently in this RFP but not other requirements?
MR. GORDON: Two parts to the answer if I could, Representative Larsen. First of all, I'm sure your next panelist, Secretary Young, will be the better person to answer than we would.
And that relates to the second point. GAO -- what's going to happen is this. Seeing as I just heard from Secretary Gates's press conference yesterday that the Air Force is, in fact, going to implement our recommendation, amend the solicitation, have discussions, get revised proposals and then move forward, we can't speak about what particulars the Air Force should or should not -- what steps they should take in those amendments for at least two reasons. Reason number one, it's up for the Air Force to decide its requirements, not us.
Reason number two, in fact, one of the private companies, when it sees the amendments, could file a protest with us, and we have to maintain our independence. They could -- one of the companies could say by what the Air Force is doing in the solicitation, they're skewing the competition in favor of the other side, either one of the companies. And they have the right to protest the amendment to the solicitation. And as a result, we can't speak to the particulars of what the Air Force should or should not do in amending this solicitation.
REP. LARSEN: If I may, Mr. Chairman, just another question.
REP. ABERCROMBIE: One more.
REP. LARSEN: Yeah. As a for instance on that, if the DOD -- in this case, AT&L -- should be responsible for the next steps in this said, fuel off-load capability is going to be important and we're going to have more points for that this time around, but fuel costs, which you did not say they ought to, but it certainly it seemed from the report said they may want to certainly take that into consideration, fuel cost and fuel use. Fuel costs should not be a heavy factor. That would seem to some to say that that might skew the process.
They may try to make it look objective. But it would certainly look to some like it would skew the process towards one offer over the other offer.
MR. GORDON: Your example proves my point.
Someone could protest and say that that was an anti-competitive change to the solicitation and it restricted the competition unduly. We will not be able to speak to that.
REP. LARSEN: Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
REP. LARSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to clarify, I too hope that the Air Force can certainly define what their requirements are. Your job is not to do that, and you've been very clear about that. Your job is to ensure that in this process, the agency followed what they said -- they were supposed to do under the law. And so your conclusions are based on whether or not the agency did.
And if they can't back it up with documentation, as I understand it, then you have to call foul on them. They have to -- they have to back up what they say they're going to do, and in many regards, when you cite these significant errors, they were not able to back that up.
And that's what your job is to do in these protests. It's not to fly an airplane or fly a desk or anything else, it's to hold the agency accountable. In this case, it happens to be the Air Force. In other protest decisions, it's whatever agency is going to have to make a procurement decision. Is that generally correct?
MR. GOLDEN: Under the federal acquisition regulations, the agency are required to document and support their evaluation record. There were specific requirements. And --
REP. LARSEN: And when they don't, you have to call them on it, when there's a protest.
MR. GORDON: I want to be very concrete here. With respect to the overrun speeds, the Air Force itself had concerns during the procurement about whether the Northrop plane would, in fact, meet the requirement.
With respect to breakaway, that didn't come up until the protest.
But the problem isn't our making a judgment about whether the plane meets a requirement. Our question is to the Air Force: tell us why you made that determination. Agencies, including the Air Force in this procurement and in this protest, get enormous leeway. This is not in this case or in any case that we have a question of reasonable minds can differ and GAO decided X. This is, if you will, the agencies get to make the decision. The agencies have huge leeway. We give them deference in making those decisions. What we do is say we want to be sure that you follow the evaluation criteria and that what you've said holds together. It's when we ask and get an answer that doesn't hold together -- not because we're experts in the technology, but because we're seeing a concern and we're asking what's the response to the concern, and the response is simply not satisfactory. That's why we've sustained this protest ground.
REP. LARSEN: But gentlemen, I can assure you that the pro-GAO faction in Congress is bigger than the pro-Northrop, pro-Boeing and pro-Air Force factions put together. I assure you of that. You do a great job. We rely on you for a lot of things.
MR. GORDON: Thank you.
MR. GOLDEN: Thank you.
REP. LARSEN: Thanks.
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