New Air Force Tanker Bid to be Reopened
The controversy over the recent awarding of the new Air Force tanker contract to Airbus has been settled and a new bid process is going to be started. Representative Todd Tiahart from the Fourth Congressional District of Kansas worked very hard to have this bid process reviewed. After finding some serious flaws in the initial bid process, three important items were added to or clarified to make sure that the bid is fair and honest. According to an e-mail from Representative Tiahart, the following are some of the concerns that were addressed:
- Mandating the Department calculate costs using a 40-year life-cycle cost as mandated by the Air Force requirements documents, and correctly evaluating life-cycle costs that include real fuel and military construction costs. (The Air Force originally used a 25-year life-cycle cost and failed to accurately assess fuel and military construction costs.)
- Ensuring that both competitors meet the requirements established by the Air Force such as being able to refuel all fixed-wing aircraft in the inventory and providing an organic depot-level maintenance capability. (The Air Force could not prove the French Tanker met these basic requirements.)
- Forces the Department to consider Industrial Base in the competition.
(Although required by law to consider industrial base, the Department failed to complete this critical analysis in the initial decision.)
It is nice to know that there are people in Congress that are concerned about we the people and are willing to fight for us. If you want more information about the tanker controversy visit Rep. Tiahart's blog.
- Thomas Paine 2
Technorati Tags: government, government reform, politics, Air Force tanker contract
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