Aerial Refueling

Floor Speech

AERIAL REFUELING -- (Senate - July 15, 2008)

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I have come to the floor this morning to raise a very important concern. As all of my colleagues are aware, our Nation's aerial refueling tanker fleet is aging and badly in need of repair and replacement. We are in the process of selecting a new plane right now that can serve our military for 40 years or even more. Those tankers are the backbone of our global military. They are stationed today throughout the world, and they refuel aircraft from every branch of the Armed Forces. I think everyone would agree, especially in a time of war, that as we work to replace that fleet, there is nothing more important than buying the best planes for our men and women and for our taxpayers.

Last month, in its decision sustaining Boeing's protest of the competition, the Government Accountability Office found that the Air Force made significant errors when it evaluated the bids by Boeing and the European company Airbus. The GAO found that the competition was skewed toward Airbus even though Airbus failed to meet even basic requirements of that contract.

I was pleased last week when the Pentagon announced that it would rebid the contest and take over the selection process. I had hoped it would ensure that we finally hold a fair and transparent competition and get this contract right. But instead of a fair do-over, I am concerned that it appears that the Pentagon may be planning to change the rules to benefit the already chosen winner--Airbus--by awarding greater benefits to a bigger plane. That would be shocking, given the significant number of flaws found by the GAO and how important this competition is to our service members. Changing the rules of the game in overtime to benefit Airbus is not the kind of transparency the American taxpayer is looking for now in this process. So I wish to spend a few moments this morning explaining why this is the wrong decision for our service members and for our taxpayers, and I wish to begin by reminding my colleagues of the GAO findings.

The GAO's decision was damning. It left no doubt that the Pentagon should start over and rebid the competition. The GAO found eight separate errors, and it described the competition as ``unreasonable, improper, and misleading.''

Among its findings was that the Air Force changed direction about which criteria were more important. It did not give Boeing credit for providing a more capable plane, according to the Air Force's description of what it wanted. Yet it gave Airbus extra credit for offering amenities it did not even ask for. And the Air Force accepted Airbus's proposal even though it could not meet two of the key contract requirements.

Airbus, first of all, refused to commit to providing long-term maintenance as specified in the RFP, even after the Air Force repeatedly asked for it. Secondly, the Air Force could not prove that Airbus could even refuel all of the military's aircraft, according to procedure.

Some of my colleagues have tried to downplay the GAO's ruling. They say the GAO upheld 8 points of protest, not 25, not 100, so the results were somehow less significant. I think they ought to go back and read the GAO's report one more time because the list speaks for itself. The GAO found fundamental problems, including that the Air Force could not even prove the Airbus plane could actually refuel all of our aircraft by the books, and it determined that but for those errors, Boeing could have won.

As Daniel Gordon, the Deputy General Counsel for the GAO said last week when he was asked about this issue before the House Armed Services Committee, he said:

We don't focus on this being seven out of 100. We focus on the seven that we found that caused us to sustain the protest.

I remind my colleagues about the GAO findings because after reading the decision, the next step should be obvious. The Pentagon should return to the original request for proposals and start this competition over. But instead, officials say they plan to change the criteria in order to benefit a larger airplane, and that is my first concern. When the right course for the Pentagon to take is so clear, I have to ask why in the world would it change the rules now, unless the Defense Department is hoping to skew the competition in favor of Airbus yet again.

My colleagues will remember that compared to Boeing 767, Airbus's A330 plane is massive. Clearly giving greater benefit to a larger plane in the middle of the game would only help Airbus at Boeing's expense, and that would be blatantly unfair. Why should the Pentagon give extra credit only to Airbus? The Air Force itself found that the Boeing tanker was more survivable or better able to keep the warfighters safe. That is a clear advantage, and I think most Americans would agree that giving our air men and women the safest plane should count for more.

I don't just object because the Pentagon's new criteria could unfairly skew this new competition. I am also very concerned that the Pentagon has lost sight of why it needs these tankers. It appears to me that by changing the rules in favor of a larger tanker, the Defense Department is pushing the military further and further away from the goals it had when it started this whole replacement process.

I am not the only one who is raising this issue. Retired Air Force GEN John Handy, who is a former leader of the Transportation and Air Mobility Commands, pointed out in a recent article that the Air Force originally asked for a midsized tanker in its RFP because that is what the military needs to carry out its mission. The Air Force, by the way, already has a larger tanker, the KC-10, which has its own role in the Air Force.

Midsized tankers are the Air Force's multitaskers. They are designed to respond to needs all over the world at a moment's notice. They have to be able to use our current hangars, our ramps, and our runways, and they must be flexible enough to allow our warfighters to refuel aircraft during combat or to haul freight and passengers and return home safely.

General Handy is one of the many experts and observers who has questioned what the Air Force was thinking when it selected the larger Airbus tanker in the first competition because compared to the 767, the A330 simply could not do the job as well.

I, too, have asked repeatedly for the Defense Department to justify that decision, and I have yet to receive any clear-cut answers--not from the White House, not from the Pentagon, and not from the Air Force. But I think General Handy has identified one possible reason. As he put it:

Somewhere along this acquisition process, it is obvious to me that someone lost sight of the requirement.

Unfortunately, it is our service members and our taxpayers who are going to end up paying the price.

The Defense Department's decision is not yet set in stone. It has not yet officially reopened this competition. The Pentagon still can make the decision to go back to the original RFP and run a fair contest, and it can ensure that our service members get the best tanker possible, one that will allow them to do their jobs and get home safely.

I come to the floor today to urge the Pentagon to rethink the decision to change the selection criteria. For the sake of our service members, for the sake of our taxpayers, I hope they do the right thing--start this competition over using the original RFP, and get these planes into the field where they are desperately needed.

Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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