WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain said Monday that he hasn’t made up his mind on a $35 billion Air Force contract awarded to the parent company of French plane maker Airbus.
McCain, the likely Republican nominee for president, helped scuttle a previous deal that gave the contract for the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers to Chicago-based Boeing Co.
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its U.S. partner, Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, won a new competition with Boeing on Friday to build the refueling planes in one of the biggest Pentagon contracts in decades.
“Having investigated the tanker lease scandal a few years ago, I have always insisted that the Air Force buy major weapons through fair and open competition,” McCain said. “I will be interested to learn how the Air Force came to its contract award decision here and whether it fairly applied its own rules in arriving at that decision.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, said Congress should examine the Air Force contract.
“The Air Force’s decision to award the contract for a much-needed modernization of the nation’s aerial tanker fleet to Northrop Grumman and Airbus raises serious questions that Congress must examine thoroughly,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday.
The questions include “national security implications of using an aircraft supplied by a foreign firm,” as well as whether the Air Force gave sufficient consideration to the contract’s effect on American jobs, Pelosi said.
McCain said jobs were not the key issue.
“I’ve never believed that defense programs, that the major reason for them should be to create jobs,” he told reporters in Phoenix. “I’ve always felt that the best thing to do is to create the best weapons system we can at minimum cost to taxpayers.”
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