Highway Technical Corrections Act of 2007
Floor Speech
HIGHWAY TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - April 17, 2008)
TANKER REPLACEMENT PROGRAM
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, on February 29, 2008, the U.S. Air Force announced its award of the KC-45A air refueling tanker program, a replacement to the aging KC-135 fleet. The two competitors in this process were Northrop Grumman-EADS on the one hand and the Boeing Company on the other. After a 13-month-long process, the Northrop Grumman proposal was selected as the better product for the American soldier and also the better value for the American taxpayer. It should come as no surprise that this decision amounted to a major disappointment for Boeing. Their employees and executives would understandably have appreciated the economic benefit such an award would have brought to them.
The award of the tanker program to Northrop Grumman was not the first setback to the Boeing Company in this regard.
In 2004, Congress intervened, in the fiscal year 2005 Defense bill, to terminate the Air Force tanker lease agreement. This agreement would have been costly and simply bad public policy. Afterward, the Air Force responded with one of the clearest and most transparent acquisition processes in history. The Air Force is now able to purchase and own 179 KC-45s for the same price it was going to spend to lease 100 Boeing 767s.
Compared to the reactions in States where Boeing has a presence, the selection of Northrop Grumman was greeted with enthusiasm in Mobile, AL, and along the gulf coast of my State of Mississippi, where thousands of jobs will be created locally. The tankers will be built in Mobile, but the economic impact will be felt throughout the gulf coast and, in reality, throughout the Nation. Such is the nature of the competitive process. One contestant is selected, and the other must deal with disappointing news.
It is important for Senators to understand that the Air Force and the Defense Department utilized an extremely fair and open acquisition process. The Government requested and received proposals for the tanker in early 2007 and then continued with an open review process until Northrop Grumman was announced as the winner in February of this year.
In winning this contract, Northrop Grumman simply did a better analysis and provided a better solution for the Air Force. The KC-45A carries more fuel, more passengers, and more cargo. It will also cost less to produce, passing along savings to the American taxpayers. By utilizing a broad base of suppliers in 49 of our 50 States, the Northrop Grumman tanker will create 48,000 direct and indirect jobs across our country.
Despite this, some want to stop this process from going forward. I have been disturbed by the words and actions of Boeing and its supporters. The level of misinformation injected into this process with the clear intent of derailing the award is troubling for many reasons--not the least of which is the precedent that would be set by Congress should it overturn this decision. The Air Force should be allowed to make this acquisition decision based solely on the facts and the merits of the two competing proposals, and that is exactly what it did in choosing the Northrop Grumman tanker.
Let's look at some of the claims made by Boeing and its supporters--first, that the competition was somehow unfair. The Air Force and the Defense Department testified recently to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the KC-45A tanker competition was perhaps the most rigorous, fair, and transparent acquisition in DOD history. This open process allowed for a significant amount of dialog among the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and the two bidders. This included weekly teleconferences with the Air Force, which, during the review process, sent Northrop Grumman 295 evaluation notices. They sent approximately 250 notices to Boeing.
Furthermore, following the formal request for proposals in January 2007, the Air Force received no complaints from Boeing or anyone else that the proposal request was somehow unfair. There were ample opportunities for those concerns to be aired, but no one said a word in this regard. Considering this, it is very hard to make a straight-faced claim that the process was not open or fair.
There has also been a high level of misinformation about the so-called exportation of American jobs. Some erroneously claim the Northrop Grumman award will outsource thousands of U.S. jobs to Europe. This is simply not true. No jobs are being exported to Europe. On the contrary, the KC-45A will create thousands of new jobs in America and will support a total of 48,000 direct and indirect jobs in 49 States, as I have said.
More than 230 suppliers across the United States helped make up the 60 percent U.S. content in the KC-45A tanker. This will truly be America's tanker, assembled in America by American workers and for the protection of the American military. The KC-45A will be fully assembled and militarized for U.S. Air Force operations by American workers in two separate facilities in Mobile.
No sensitive military technology will be exported to Europe in connection with this program. Instead, a new aerospace corridor will continue to grow and flourish along the gulf coast region.
The KC-45A tanker will join the Global Hawk, Fire Scout, joint cargo aircraft, and the light utility helicopter production facilities that are already successfully producing high-reliability defense systems for our Nation. The light utility helicopter, for example, is being built by EADS North America in Columbus, MS. It is a true success for the Army and for our economy. The Lakota, as the helicopter is known, was delivered to the Army 3 months ahead of schedule. To date, 24 Lakota helicopters have been delivered on or ahead of schedule. The Lakota has over 2,000 flight hours, with over a 90-percent full mission capable rate. In addition, EADS North America completed a 314,000-square-foot expansion to its Mississippi facility to manufacture this helicopter. Perhaps most importantly, the program is on budget and on schedule to deliver a critical platform to the American warfighter--just another example of EADS North America producing a product for our country's defense, using American workers.
There should be no doubt that the workforce in the gulf coast region is up to the task of building these complex systems. The results to date on the systems I just mentioned speak for themselves.
Our workforce is second to none in the Nation. So this debate, as much as some would make you believe otherwise, is not about American jobs versus European jobs. It is about where in the United States those jobs will be.
A recent full-page ad in newspapers across the country represented the worst of the misinformation. The ad claimed the Air Force selection ``penalized the warfighter and the taxpayer.''
The facts tell another story. The KC-45A was evaluated to be a superior product for the warfighter. It was also judged by the Air Force to be a better value for the taxpayer, providing superior military capability across the board at a lower total cost than the competing KC-767 aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force is not alone in choosing the KC-45A. Our friend and ally, the United Kingdom, recently announced the selection of this same aircraft frame as the best solution to meet their national security requirements. The U.K. selection is the fifth tanker competition in a row where the EADS platform was chosen as the winner over all other competitors. Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have also recently placed orders for this tanker.
Some are calling for tighter restrictions on the level of international content in U.S. defense systems. That, to my mind, would be a mistake and would amount to changing the rules in the middle of the game. The U.S. economy is tightly integrated into the global economy, and the aerospace sector is no exception.
There are numerous examples of transatlantic cooperation on vital U.S. military programs where foreign suppliers do play essential roles. Some of the more visible programs include the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter produced by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and British Aerospace; the VH-71 Presidential helicopter produced by Lockheed Martin and Augusta Westland, a European consortium; and the Joint Cargo Aircraft produced by L-3, Boeing, and Alenia, built in Florida from an Italian airframe.
I don't recall anyone in this Chamber or from Boeing expressing concern about the level of European participation in the Joint Cargo Aircraft, which has only about 60 percent U.S. content, nor did anyone complain about possible interruption of supplies of spare parts, which some have suggested would be a likely outcome of buying the KC-45A.
To repeat, Boeing's Joint Cargo Aircraft is 60 percent U.S. content and 40 percent international. When this contract was awarded, no one raised a single complaint about that. Now, when Boeing loses a competition to a partnership with a similar domestic-foreign ratio, they make it sound as if the world is coming to an end.
It seems to me the level of noise depends on whose ox is being gored. I
must stress this point. Any further delay of this contract would put at risk the brave Americans flying the current Air Force fleet of KC-135 tankers. These aircraft, on average, are more than 45 years old. Replacement has been the Air Force's top modernization priority for several years.
If the GAO upholds the Air Force selection and denies Boeing's protest, that should be the end of it. At that point, no Member of this body should stand in the way of the program moving ahead. Any further efforts to delay the program would not only be harmful to our national security but would be viewed by many of our foreign partners and allies as a major shift in U.S. policy.
From an economic point of view, potential retaliation by our European allies could have a negative impact on the current $6 billion in annual purchases of defense systems from the United States.
In closing, I would like to acknowledge that Boeing has every right to protest this decision to the Government Accountability Office. Beyond that, however, if this decision is not overturned by GAO, any attempt to alter this decision through the appropriations process or any other legislative maneuver would be dangerously shortsighted, in my opinion.
It would set a damaging precedent that would destroy our contract process now and in the future. Frankly, I would view such a move as an attack on the competition process itself, not only this award.
The workers along the gulf coast in Alabama and Mississippi and this entire corridor are ready to proceed with this work for our national defense. We would all do well to step back and let the facts in this situation speak for themselves. That is what the Air Force did when choosing the Northrop Grumman tanker as the best option for our warfighters' terms and the American taxpayer and their decision should be allowed to stand.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. WICKER. I will do my best.
Mr. President, I thank Senator McCain and Senator Kyl for putting forward this proposal. I was delighted to see it. I would, frankly, hope that Democrats and Republicans could come together on this issue in a bipartisan manner and provide this temporary relief for hard-pressed Americans during the summer months.
Many people ask us, why are gas prices so high? Why is this continuing to happen? As we know, there are many complex factors involved in that: worldwide demand, countries such as China and India increasing their demand for oil and gas at this point; also, unstable governments in oil-producing regions; and Americans' continued reliance on foreign sources of oil.
But, also, I must confess the problem being experienced by Americans, in large measure, is due to Federal policies. In the mid-1990s, President Clinton vetoed a proposal to drill in ANWR, even though the residents of the State of Alaska have asked us for permission to drill there and have told us they are satisfied it can be done in an environmentally friendly manner. Also, we have had the refusal to produce energy in America when we know it can be done in an environmentally safe way, whether that be the production of more crude oil, oil shale, or liquefied coal.
So the Federal Government and this Congress bear a good bit of the responsibility. In light of that, I think we have to ask ourselves--Mr. President, might I have an additional 1 1/2 minutes?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WICKER. Thank you, Mr. President.
I think this Senate--Republicans and Democrats--needs to ask: We have a choice. Do we ask the Federal Government to tighten its belt a bit and adopt this summer-long Federal gasoline tax holiday or do we continue to require American families to tighten their belts and pay higher gasoline prices? Do we continue to require American farmers and small businesses, who have to use transportation to earn a living, to tighten their belts?
I think the better answer there is to provide 18 cents per gallon of relief for American families, 24 cents per gallon of relief to those who are required to use diesel to earn their livelihoods, and for the Federal Government to tighten its belt and absorb this $8 billion to $9 billion that the Senator from California talked about.
The Senator from South Carolina mentioned we have already passed a much more expensive economic stimulus measure because we are concerned about the economy. This economy could go either way. We can take action to prevent it from sliding into a recession. We have already adopted one a few months ago. The McCain plan is another one. I enthusiastically support the concept. I think it is time we give Americans a break at the pump. This would do so during an important period as our economy teeters on the edge.
I hope we continue to have this debate, as the Senator from California suggested, and adopt it on a bipartisan basis.
I yield the floor.
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