EVERETT — As the Air Force mulls its flawed tanker contract, Boeing Co. backers pressed for quick action Friday, threatening to withhold support for a new Air Force secretary on the day the former one left office.
“We’re not going to allow another secretary of the Air Force” to be confirmed, “unless they say they’ll rebid,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., during a rally in Everett. “We have to go back now and hold their feet to the fire.”
Government investigators suggested earlier this week that the Air Force reopen its aerial refueling tanker competition — a contest that Boeing lost in February when the Air Force handed the $35 billion deal to Northrop Grumman and EADS. The recent ruling is not binding and doesn’t mean that Boeing necessarily will win a rebid competition. But it validated the complaints Boeing had about the way the Air Force conducted the contest.
The Air Force has 60 days to respond to the Government Accountability Office.
Two top Air Force officials were ousted earlier this month by the secretary of defense. Their firings fed cries from Boeing backers to have the contract rebid. The Air Force’s departing secretary, Michael Wynne, told reporters on Friday that he was “very disappointed” with the GAO’s ruling because the Air Force felt it had conducted an open and fair competition.
Although the secretary of defense has named Wynne’s replacement, the Senate still needs to confirm the nominee. Cantwell said she plans to get the secretary involved in order to “make sure the process is fair.”
Cantwell and the state’s senior Democratic senator, Patty Murray, visited Boeing’s commercial plant in Everett and the local Machinists hall. Murray also called for a rebid of the competition to replace 179 aerial refueling tankers. Boeing’s KC-767 would be assembled in Everett while Northrop and EADS’ KC-30 would be built in Mobile, Ala.
Northrop Grumman officials called for a “speedy resolution” of the GAO dispute on Friday. The Los Angeles-based company noted that it remains under contract with the Air Force.
“The Air Force needs a new tanker, and nothing in the GAO report refutes the fact that the Northrop Grumman KC-(30) is the most capable tanker and is ready now to go into production,” said Paul Meyer, Northrop’s program manager for the tanker.
At the Machinists hall in Everett, cautious optimism and feelings of vindication replaced the shock and anger exhibited by workers there nearly four months ago. At the end of February, outraged Machinists rallied, holding signs that read, “How could this happen?”
Seeking answers to that question, in mid-March, Boeing filed a protest with the GAO over the Air Force’s decision, citing irregularities in the process. The GAO, for the most part, firmly backed Boeing’s complaint, saying the Air Force made several “significant errors” that may have altered a “close competition.”
Along the 767 production line Friday, Timothy Gurno, who was hired at Boeing last November to replace aging machinists, said he felt his young career was riding on the Air Force’s decision. If the agency rebids the competition as the GAO suggests, Boeing is sure to win, Gurno said.
“We’ve got the superior product,” he said.
Martha Crane, a 20-year Boeing employee, said she found the Air Force’s initial decision to go with the Northrop and EADS tanker “devastating.”
“I felt very angry at our military because they would give our jobs away like that,” she said.
The GAO echoed what Boeing workers had been saying all along — that the process was filled with problems, Crane said.
Crane said she realizes that Boeing still has a long battle ahead of it. But the GAO’s ruling was “a step in the right direction,” she said.
Murray vowed to continue to press for answers about what went wrong with the Air Force’s decision in the first place.
“We are not done fighting,” Murray said. “Something stinks.”
Reporter Michelle Dunlop: 425-339-3454 or mdunlop@heraldnet.com.
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