The Standing Rules of the Senate are drafted to encourage vigorous public debate on our nation’s most important issues. Indeed, the U.S. Senate is often referred to as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” The Rules allow any Senator to seek recognition from the Chair at any time and, absent a temporary agreement to the contrary, to speak without interruption so long as he or she wishes. Debating important questions before the Senate is one way a Senator can highlight an issue, advocate for a change in policy, or voice his or her opinion on pending legislation.
Senate debate occurs in public, and is televised on CSPAN and transcribed in the Congressional Record. For your convenience, I post transcripts of my Senate floor speeches on this site for your review. I hope you find them informative and useful. My web site also makes available information on my voting record and legislation that I have sponsored in the Senate.
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Sessions Speaks on Tanker Competition
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The junior Senator from Alabama is recognized.
AIR FORCE'S KC-X TANKER COMPETITION
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to take a few moments to talk about the Air Force's KC-X tanker competition. There was a House hearing on that matter this week, and a number of our colleagues have spoken on it. I have discussed it on the floor a couple of times.
As you will remember, that contract was awarded to the Northrop/EADS team back in February, after a competition that the Air Force adjudicated. That team--the Northrop/EADS team--plans to build a new tanker, which our military desperately needs, in my hometown of Mobile, AL. It is important to the people of Alabama, and they are watching it very closely.
However, Boeing objected to the decision. They protested. They cited 100 concerns with the Air Force's award--more than 100. The Government Accountability Office, whose duty is to review such complaints, did so and concluded that out of the 100-plus complaints, only eight elements of the protest had merit. So it was then up to the Department of Defense, after the GAO report was issued, to decide how it would address GAO's concerns. That is the way the system works, and every bidder has that opportunity. The DOD was not legally bound to accept or acknowledge these criticisms. They legally could have gone forward with the process and affirmed their own decision and gone forward with it. However, Secretary Gates considered the matter carefully. He announced that in order to ensure this selection process is totally fair, transparent, and beyond reproach, that the Secretary would order a ``limited recompetition'' of the contract. This new competition will be personally overseen, he said, by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Mr. John Young, and Mr. Young will be advised by a completely new Source Selection Advisory Committee.
Secretary Gates announced he will amend the original solicitation and allow both Boeing and Northrop Grumman to submit revised bids. The amended contract will address each of the eight complaints that were upheld by GAO. Wisely, I think, it ignored the extraneous issues that some have raised over the past few months, such as WTO disputes or industrial base matters.
So let me repeat, each of the concerns raised by the GAO would be addressed, but political considerations here in Washington, the Secretary said, will not affect this process.
So as the Secretary said in his press conference yesterday:
Industry, the Congress and the American people all must have confidence in the integrity of this acquisitions process. I believe the revised process will result in the best tanker for the Air Force at the best price for the American taxpayer.
I think that is what Congress asked of him, and that is what he has committed to do.
The GAO affirmed the Secretary's decision yesterday in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Daniel Gordon, the Deputy General Counsel for the GAO--I think he headed the team or supervised the team at GAO--said that, based on the Department of Defense press conference earlier this week, ``it certainly sounded to me like Secretary Gates was acting in good faith to implement the recommendations'' made by the GAO.
This expedited process, it is hoped, can lead to a new source selection soon.
There are some additional points I wish to make to respond to those who say the GAO's decision suggests a preference for one aircraft--for the Boeing aircraft. In other words, some have contended that their decision indicated that GAO was suggesting that a wrong decision was made. Others have suggested that this report should, therefore, invite the Congress to somehow take over this competition, which I submit would be unprecedented and unwise since we are not aircraft engineers, we are not pilots, we are not responsible for managing these aircraft, nor are we capable of making the final decision about which aircraft is the best.
So I would make these points: No. 1, the GAO did not say Boeing should have won the competition at all, nor did it say the award should now be sole-sourced to Boeing or any other contractor. GAO said clearly when they released their decision:
Our decision should not be read to reflect a view as to the merits of the firm's respective aircraft. Judgments about which offeror will most successfully meet the governmental needs largely is reserved for the procuring agencies, subject only to such statutory and regulatory requirements as full and open competition and fairness to potential offerors.
This point was reinforced yesterday in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee by Mr. Daniel Gordon, who is the deputy general counsel for the GAO:
We found serious errors in the procurement process that could have affected the outcome of, again, what was a close competition. But our legal decision does not say anything about the merits of the Boeing's or Northrop's proposed tankers.
Point 2: When it comes to capability, the Northrop Grumman plane is still the superior choice for our warfighters, I would submit, based on the analysis, and I would make these points--ultimately, that would have to be decided by the professionals, not this Senator.
I would just make these points as a push-back to some of the comments my colleagues have raised. First, I would note that the A330, the Northrop aircraft frame, is a more modern airframe than the Boeing 767. The first 767 flew in 1982. The A330 was first built in 1998, some 16 years later. It is a much more modern airframe.
No. 2: I would note that no one disputes that the A330 can carry and offload more fuel, the primary job of a refueling tanker. The Air Force judged that one Northrop plane could do more refueling more efficiently than one Boeing plane, and the GAO upheld that finding.
The GAO did criticize the Air Force for giving Northrop ``extra credit'' for their superior refueling capability. However, they noted that this extra credit was not in keeping with--in a legal sense--the language of the original request for proposal. They did not say the Air Force shouldn't place a premium on refueling capability. Mr. Gordon of GAO said yesterday:
There was an objective. Northrop exceeded it by quite a bit and Northrop got all the extra credit. We have no opinion, we have no view on whether it was a good idea.
Well, I would suggest that giving a refueling tanker credit for its refueling capability would seem like a good idea to me, if the Air Force wants the best aircraft for their men and women in uniform.
Further, I would note that in addition to carrying more fuel, the GAO also agreed with the Air Force and their finding that the larger boom envelope of the Northrop KC-45 would make it easier and safer for pilots to refuel.
In addition, because the A330 is a more capable refueler than the 767, the Air Force predicts they will ultimately have to buy 22 fewer aircraft if they go with the Northrop team. At today's prices, the sticker price of 22 aircraft is $4.3 billion. That is without factoring in manning those aircraft and maintaining them over the years.
The GAO acknowledged in their report and in their testimony yesterday that the A330 can carry more cargo, more personnel, and conduct more aeromedical evaluations. They said:
We see no basis to conclude that the Air Force's evaluation that Northrop Grumman's aircraft was more advantageous in the airlift area is unreasonable.
The GAO further found no fault with the Air Force's conclusion that the Boeing proposal was more risky in certain areas and that their past performance on--by the Boeing team--on similar contracts was ``marginal.''
So what did the GAO ultimately say about the Air Force's decision? They certainly said the decision was flawed from a procedural perspective, but they also said the Air Force picked a plane that could carry and offload more fuel more efficiently and in a more desirable way for pilots.
The main fuselage compartment of the aircraft is not where the fuel is stored. It is in the wings. So these aircraft have a tremendous capability of helping airlift personnel and equipment to a distant battlefield. They found that the plane's secondary mission--airlift--could be accomplished more effectively by the Northrop aircraft.
Finally, the GAO agreed that the Northrop plane was lower risk and that Boeing had marginal past performance.
Point 3: We need to maintain a fair and competitive process. The fact that we chose to compete this contract--that Congress ordered a competition for this aircraft--directed it rather than sole-sourcing it to Boeing or any other company, as some would have preferred, has been hugely beneficial to our military and to our taxpayer. Boeing's preferred sole-source leasing plan or scheme that got through this Congress, or this Senate, would have had us leasing 100 767s for $23.5 billion. So we would lease them for $23.5 billion, or $235 million a copy.
Now, thanks to this very competitive and aggressively conducted bid competition, thanks to fair and transparent procedures, the military is going to own 179 superior aircraft for $35 billion, or $195 million a copy. That is a win for the taxpayers and a win for the military.
As Secretary Young said yesterday in his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee:
I see no benefit, in my experience across the acquisition enterprise, setting this aside. Sole sources limit our flexibility in negotiating prices. We achieve the best value through a competitive source selection of a single source who has bid in a competitive environment and offered us hopefully an excellent deal.
So these words should induce caution in those of my colleagues and some of our Senators who have introduced legislation that would, in effect, sole-source this contract to Boeing. The result would be inferior planes for our military and clearly inflated costs for the taxpayers.
As important as the principle that we should have a competitive process for defense contracts is the principle that the military ultimately--and not the Congress--should be in charge of making meritorious, objective, and fair decisions on who should be the winner of a contract.
As Secretary Young said yesterday in his testimony:
Grounded in the warfighter's requirements and the pursuit of the best value for the taxpayer, the Defense Department is the only organization that can fairly and knowledgeably conduct this competition .....
Isn't that true?
..... The Defense Department does not care which tanker wins the competition. The Defense Department's sole objective is to get the required capability for the men and women who serve this Nation at the best price for the taxpayer.
I certainly think that is correct. I certainly think that is correct.
I will conclude by saying, after the collapse and quite a bit of embarrassment and actual criminal prosecutions of the sole-source lease plan that occurred--and we are all aware of how that occurred--Congress required a competition. By definition, a competition assumes that there will be bidders, and there are only two potential bidders in the world for this kind of aircraft. And if you are going to have a competition, it needs to be fair. Both bids should be objectively evaluated on the merits of the product they have offered. If that is so, I think the American taxpayer will be the winner in the end. I will just say to my colleagues, I have advice. I believe the Northrop team presented the best aircraft, but I don't know. I am not an expert. So I would urge my colleagues to resist any political pressures that might be brought to bear or interests that they may have in infecting this process with politics. Let's let them make the best decision. That is what I have said from the beginning, and that is what I have said throughout this process. That is what I believe is the only right position we can take.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
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