Courtney Pleads Case For Refueling Plane Bids

U.S. Rep. Joseph D. Courtney, D-2nd District, is urging Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates not to rush the new selection decision on the $35 billion aerial refueling tanker program bids.

In a letter to Gates that he recently made public, Courtney asks Gates to provide more time for the revised request for proposal, also known by the initials RFP, for the tanker program “to be vetted by the competitors and evaluated by Congress.”

Calling the aerial refueling aircraft program “one of the most critical components of our national security,” Courtney said, “It is important to get this decision right.”

But the Pentagon wants to fast track the rebidding process, wrapping up the award of the deal by Dec. 31. That’s about six months faster than the original bidding and review process took. And that initial process ended when the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, ruled that the original bidding procedures were flawed, overturning the bid award to a team comprised of the military arm of Europe’s Airbus Industrie and Northrop Grumman.

UTC Or GE Engines

That tanker, based on the Airbus A330 commercial plane, would be made mostly overseas and would be powered by engines built by Fairfield-based General Electric.

The competing plane, built by Chicago-based Boeing Co., would be based on Boeing’s 767 commercial aircraft and would be powered by engines built by East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney.

The GAO upheld a protest by Boeing after the initial contract award to Airbus, which critics complained had been skewed by the Pentagon, which changed its mind about the size of the plane it wanted after the bids were let.

The Airbus plane would carry more fuel, but is also larger than the Boeing entry, which critics have said would mean that the Airbus tanker could not land at, or be accommodated by smaller military airfields around the world.

Favoring Airbus

“Unfortunately, it appears that the new proposal, and the unnecessarily aggressive timeline for a final decision, will once again tilt the outcome” in favor of Airbus, Courtney said.

“If a larger tanker is truly what the Air Force needs, I have no problem with that — but that is not what they originally asked for,” he said.

Last month Courtney also questioned Under Secretary of Defense John J. Young Jr. saying he is hopeful the process would proceed “in a way that we’re really not dealing with the same umpire making the same call.”