Northrop's Hill allies hit tanker RFP

Pentagon officials on Wednesday briefed key lawmakers on the much-anticipated request for proposals for the Air Force's aerial refueling tanker, but concerns from Alabama's congressional delegation raise questions about whether there will be competition for the high-stakes program.

The reaction from the Alabama delegation might presage a sharply negative response from Northrop Grumman Corp., which has teamed up with EADS, the European consortium behind Airbus, to vie for the contract and, if successful, plans to build the planes at a new multimillion-dollar facility in Mobile, Ala.

But Northrop officials have threatened to pull out of the competition for the program worth as much as $40 billion amid concerns that an initial draft RFP favored a smaller-body Boeing 767 aircraft over their offering of a modified Airbus 330.

After the briefings, several Alabama lawmakers said the Air Force had made few changes to the draft RFP to address Northrop Grumman's concerns.

"This is a disappointment," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. "The integrity of the Department of Defense is at stake."

Sessions, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would urge the Northrop Grumman-EADS team to compete, but added that he is worried the firms would opt out. "They'll have to do what is in their best interest," he said.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., called the RFP "an illusion of a fair competition in which the war-fighter and the taxpayer lose." He also accused the Air Force of not making any revisions to key warfighter requirements.

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley were on hand for the series of briefings on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Officials are briefing the companies this afternoon, with a news conference set for 4 p.m. at the Pentagon.

For their part, Boeing's backers on Capitol Hill emerged from the briefings appearing confident that the tanker will be built at the aerospace giant's facility in Everett, Wash.

"Given a fair shot, Washington state's workers will bring home this contract," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., declared in a statement.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., whose 2003 investigation exposed a corrupt deal to lease Boeing-built tankers to the Air Force, said he plans to watch the current procurement process closely.

"This is an ongoing process," McCain said after a briefing. "We'll be having hearings. We'll be examining this very carefully to make sure we don't repeat what happened last time."

McCain said he doesn't believe the RFP favors one firm over the other, but added, "We don't have complete information yet."

In briefing charts provided to lawmakers and staff and obtained by CongressDaily, Pentagon officials defended their process and stressed that the RFP is not skewed toward to either of the competitors.

"We are confident that our acquisition strategy favors no one except the war-fighter and taxpayer. We've steered 'straight down the middle'," one briefing chart says. "We believe that both companies have the ability to not only make a competitive offering, but the opportunity to win the solicitation."

Since issuing the draft RFP in September, Pentagon officials made more than 230 changes to "ensure improved clarity and understanding by all concerned." But the final RFP "retains the basic structure of the requirements," the charts say.

Among the biggest changes made during the last few months is a change in the pricing structure for the aircraft procurement contract to address concerns raised by both competitors that they would be assuming too much risk delivering future lots of tankers due to unforeseen economic fluctuations.

The companies now have 75 days to respond to the final RFP. After that, the Air Force is expected to take 120 days to evaluate the proposals, with a decision on a contract award expected sometime in September.