Senior Pentagon and Air Force officials who have read the full 67-page report about the tanker bid by the Government Accountability Office think they can still grant a contract before the end of the Bush Administration. John Young, the Pentagons acquisition czar, has reportedly drafted a letter for the four congressional committees that oversee defense spending and policy informing them of the Pentagons decision to go ahead and award the contract to Northrop Grumman.
There have been reports that the GAO ruling on the tanker contract could add two years or more to the contract award, something that has greatly concerned Air Force leaders eager to start building new tankers after almost a decade of trying.
“Their finding is that the full document is quite different from the summary,” issued last Wednesday, said a source familiar with the issue. The source said Air Force leaders believe much of what was challenged is procedural and can be resolved without rebidding the deal.
The 69-page report is expected to become public today.
The GAO said in its summary that it found a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman and recommended that the bid be reopened. By law, the Air Force has 60 days to inform the GAO of how it will respond to the recommendations.
Any Air Force decision to press ahead with the contract award to Northrop Grumman is likely to spark outrage on Capitol Hill among supporters of Boeing, who include Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the Nr. 2 member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, as well as Washingtons two senators and lawmakers from Kansas.
Read the rest of this story over at Military.com’s new online defense and acquisition journal, DoD Buzz.
> John Young, the Pentagon
Yes, they will have no choice but to recompete the contract…over, and over, and over again until Boeing “wins”.
Yes, they will have no choice but to recompete the contract…over, and over, and over again until Boeing “wins”.
shame on the incompetents from the Air Force. time for Sue Payton to be fired with great fanfare.
just a few procedural gigs, eh? like dotting i’s and crossing t’s. hey, that’s the taxpayers’ money and the warfighters’ sacred need.
all the screw ups, down to whatever GS level involved, plus the usual suspects of FFRDCs and support contractors involved in this debacle need to be canned, and canned in style.
I fear we are heading towards a split buy. There is simply too much support & opposition for both offers & neither side is likely to relent. The USAF screwed up its 1st attempt to recapitulate its tanker fleet by trying to rush the process. It screwed up its 2nd attempt to recapitulate its tanker fleet by making “a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome”. In defense of the USAF in BOTH cased the USAF was not wholey at fault or without reason for its fault. In its 1st attempt by rushing the process so it skipped steps which left it open to much criticism eventually leading to the very public exposure of scandalous activity which is far more common than most want to admit. In its 2nd attempt by doing so much to ensure that both competitors stayed in the competition SO THAT THERE WOULD BE A DEMANDED COMPETITION made a number of significant errors that flawed the process & affected the outcome.
Senior Pentagon and Air Force officials think they can ignore the GOA’s recommendation to “reopen discussions with the offerors, obtain revised proposals, re-evaluate the revised proposals, and make a new source selection decision, consistent with the GAO
> its 1st attempt to recapitulate its tanker fleet
recapitalize
>In order to do that they MUST (what ever they do) AT LEAST address the 7 specific reasons (not to mention the additional ones indicateded in the full report) the GOA sited TO THE GOA’s satisfaction.
no, they can just give the GOA the finger and say “this is our selection and we’re sticking by it neener neener neener”, which is apparently (if this report is to be believed) what they’re doing
of course the political reality is that that’s going to be a tough sell to congress
Last week I was looking at a beautiful antique auto on display in a museum. It was a ’56 Fairlane. Then I thought “Holy crap, the air force flies planes that rolled off the assembly line at the same time as this car.” I hope whatever the AF does, they do it soon.
irtusk,
No they can not. Not unless they can come up with the $35++ billion dollars (come on we ALL know KC-X like most all recent defense programs is going to end up significantly over budget) out of their own personal bank accounts. Funding for the KC-X will not get through either the Legislative (Congress) or Executive (President) at this point UNLESS the GOA signs off on it.
This is totally pointless, what are the chances after all this ridiculous interference that N-G will win this contract again? Should’ve just saved everyone the time and effort and given it to boeing without going for the re-bid. What a bunch of corrupt idiots.
What’s interesting is how hard it is to get any facts on this story. What EXACTLY is Boeing’s complaint, except they didn’t win? What are the specific errors, biases, etc. in the contract procedures? As an ex Boeing employee (it’s required to live in Seattle), I root for Boeing, but emotions aside, I have no idea what the actual facts of the matter are and ProPublica has not illuminated the matter.
irtusk,
It is not flaws in either of the offer but flaws in the PROCESS with which the USAF (or more correctly the KC-X source selection evaluation team — it really is unfair to blame the ENTIRE USAF) used in its selection. It is disingenuous to fault/critisize Boeing for protesting when anyone who has followed the process much knew full well there was going to be a protest no matter which offer was chosen — that only SUPPORTS the fact that the process was wrong.
Right now all the points are anti-KC-X source selection evaluation team & how their errors flawed the selection towards the NG/EADS offer. Unfortunately in that it has now been made public that (under the rules of the process) the NG/EADS offer DID NOT meet all requirements (or there is not sufficient evidence to establish that it did not not) & DID NOT “beat” the Boeing offer in a number of criteria as had been announced.
If NG didn not meet the requirements set in the Request for Proposal then they are in defaut with a “No Bid” and their proposal should be rejected as per the regulations.
Bill,
Boeing’s EXACT complaints are spelled out in its protest.
> It is not flaws in either of the offer but flaws in the PROCESS
but so far only flaws in the PROCESS that favor one particular team are being examined
do you truly believe that there were ZERO flaws in the process that favored Boeing?
> Unfortunately
my what big crocodile tears you have ::rolleyes::
> in that it has now been made public that (under the rules of the process) the NG/EADS offer DID NOT meet all requirements (or there is not sufficient evidence to establish that it did not not) & DID NOT “beat” the Boeing offer in a number of criteria as had been announced.
and my point was that it’s likely the Boeing bid ALSO didn’t meet all the criteria, it simply hasn’t been subjected to the same scrutiny … yet
as predicted, pushing through was a non-starter
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2008/06/25/af-chief-nomination-could-be-at-risk/
“However, the latest we are hearing is that OSD officials, who thought as last as 6 p.m. last night that the tanker deal could go ahead without being rebid are now looking at some sort of fly-off as a compromise.”
irtusk,
Yes it is only flaws in the PROCESS that favor one particular team that are being examined BUT my point was that it was flaws were in the PROCESS, not flaws in the offers as you had stated.
If you think there were flaws in the process that favored Boeing have fun finding them. I am sure that if Boeing had won NG/EADs could have found something but the question then becomes if what they found would have been suficient for the GOA to recommend that the USAF “reopen discussions with the offerors, obtain revised proposals, re-evaluate the revised proposals, and make a new source selection decision, consistent with the GAO