GAO releases detailed report on Boeing's tanker protest

CongressDaily June 25, 2008

The Government Accountability Office on Wednesday released a redacted copy of its 69-page decision sustaining Boeing Co.'s protest of the Air Force's decision to award a $35 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers to a team led by Northrop Grumman and EADS, the parent company of Boeing's European rival Airbus.

The 67-page public version of the report, which was scrubbed of proprietary information, follows the release last week of a summary of GAO's findings and its recommendation that the Air Force re-open competition for the contract.

The Air Force, which several lawmakers insist should solicit new bids for the tankers, has 60 days to review the findings and report back to GAO on how it intends to proceed.

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  • R. Fisher, Boeing's Protest was upheld by the GAO because the USAF failed to follow it's own rules. Are you mad that Boeing protested or that the USAF got caught playing fast and loose with the rules? The GAO is required to look at the selection process, they did and found that the USAF made several "significant errors" during the process. The AF has 60 days to decide what it will do. Ivan Posted June 27, 2008 11:53 AM
  • Even if you assume a 50% error rate in the GAO findings, that still leave 3 or 4 items that are cause for the protest to be upheld. The FARs - as cumbersome as they are - are still pretty muchy black and white on the items GAO referenced. There has to be "..the rest of the story" somewhere. How could anyone in their right mind, faced with the minute scrutiny the tanker program was going to undergo, allow such obvious errors to be part of the process? pvalovich Posted June 27, 2008 11:01 AM
  • I don't have any sympathy over the jobs issues at Boeing as some of the posters point out. The Fed's continue to buy non domestic cars and trucks and not 1 eyebrow is raised. In Afghanistan and Iraq all the vehicles are Toyota's, for the diplomatic core in Europe most vehicles are Mercedes. So if it's OK to buy foreign on vehicles its OK to buy the planes Dan ketter Posted June 27, 2008 10:05 AM
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