U.S. Congress roiled by Air Force tanker decision
Northrop-EADS beats Boeing for U.S. tanker"I've never believed that defence programs should be - that the major reason for them should be to create jobs. I've always felt that the best thing to do is to create the best weapon system we can as cost of taxpayers," he told reporters in Phoenix.
New York Democratic Sen. Clinton said it was "troubling" that the contract would go to "a team that includes a European firm that our government is simultaneously suing at the (World Trade Organization) for receiving illegal subsidies."
Illinois Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama expressed disappointment about the contract decision, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from Washington and Kansas on Monday wrote defence Secretary Robert Gates and demanded that the Air Force tell Chicago-based Boeing this week why it lost rather than wait until mid-March as currently planned.
The meeting will help contract loser Boeing decide whether to formally protest to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, can recommend a new competition if it finds that procedures were not followed.
Congress could also step in. Lawmakers could threaten to take away some funding or ban contracts to companies such as EADS that are fighting Washington in WTO trade disputes, according to experts.
But Air Force officials say they urgently need to start replacing the fleet of Boeing KC-135 tankers, which date to the 1960s and will be over 80 years when the last are replaced.
Lawmakers from Alabama, where EADS will assemble the tanker, dismissed critics who say U.S. jobs will be lost.
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said that, in fact, the United States would gain tens of thousands of jobs. "Any assertion that this award outsources jobs to France is simply false," he said on the Senate floor.
"In reality, what we're talking about is the insourcing, into America, of an aircraft production center that would bring 2,500 jobs to our area and 5,000 to the state," said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, also a Republican.
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