Political Quotes

“Yesterday was a victory for the American people. On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office ruled that the Air Force broke its own contracting rules when it awarded a multi-billion dollar tanker contract to the Northrop Grumman Airbus team and recommended that the Air Force reopen the competitive bidding process. The GAO said the Air Force made 'a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman.' Let me just touch on some of the main points of the GAO ruling. The Air Force did not assess the relative merits of the tanker proposals in accordance with the criteria that the Air Force established. The Air Force awarded Northrop's bigger tanker extra credit even though no consideration was supposed to have been given for exceeding key performance objectives. The record did not indicate, as the Air Force claimed, that the Northrop tanker could refuel all current Air Force fixed-wing aircraft. The Air Force conducted 'misleading and unequal decisions' with Boeing by informing Boeing that it fully satisfied a key performance objective but later determined that Boeing had only partially met this objective.”