GAO Rules in favor of Boeing on Aerial Refueling Tanker
Posted by Valerie on June 20, 2008
On Wednesday the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ‘sustained Boeing’s protest‘ regarding the Air Force’s decision to award a contract to build aerial refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman.
The Air Force now has “60 days to inform [the GAO] of the Air Force’s actions in response to [these] recommendations.” As I interpret the GAO statement, there are several directions in which the Air Force could go - it could ignore the recommendations and proceed with the contract as awarded or amend the solicitation and resume the competitive bidding process. Some in Congress believe that the Air Force should simply award the contract to Boeing - which has Alabama lawmakers a bit upset. (When the decision was made in late February, it was big news across the state of Alabama, but particularly in Mobile, where the tankers were scheduled to be built. The Birmingham News indicated that it would bring at least 1500 new jobs to the state. )
The GAO has not yet made the decision publicly available, “because the decision contains proprietary and source selection sensitive information.” However, the statement issued on Wednesday does include the rationale for sustaining the protest. Among them, it appears that the Air Force did not follow its own criteria for awarding the contract, as listed in the solicitation, and made several errors in calculating life cycle costs which, when corrected, revealed that Boeing did make a lower bid.
For more background information, the Mobile Press-Register has an informative podcast up on al.com
Update, 2008-07-06: I’m sure you’re aware by now that the GAO has released the redacted version of its opinion.
According to their web site, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will be holding a hearing on this July 15th. According to the Birmingham News, the House Armed Services Committee’s Air and Land Forces Subcommittee will be holding a hearing on this topic Thursday, July 10th. Both committees appear to make their hearings available via streaming audio or video; they also archive the hearings for later viewing/listening.
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