Political Quotes

“On February 29, 2008, the U.S. Air Force announced its award of the KC-45A air refueling tanker program, a replacement to the aging KC-135 fleet. The two competitors in this process were Northrop Grumman-EADS on the one hand and the Boeing Company on the other. After a 13-month-long process, the Northrop Grumman proposal was selected as the better product for the American soldier and also the better value for the American taxpayer. It should come as no surprise that this decision amounted to a major disappointment for Boeing. Their employees and executives would understandably have appreciated the economic benefit such an award would have brought to them. The award of the tanker program to Northrop Grumman was not the first setback to the Boeing Company in this regard. In 2004, Congress intervened, in the fiscal year 2005 Defense bill, to terminate the Air Force tanker lease agreement. This agreement would have been costly and simply bad public policy. Afterward, the Air Force responded with one of the clearest and most transparent acquisition processes in history. The Air Force is now able to purchase and own 179 KC-45s for the same price it was going to spend to lease 100 Boeing 767s. Compared to the reactions in States where Boeing has a presence, the selection of Northrop Grumman was greeted with enthusiasm in Mobile, AL, and along the gulf coast of my State of Mississippi, where thousands of jobs will be created locally.”