Miscellanea

Didja see my new McCain vid in the sidebar? I got it here…where there’s lots more such stuff, if’n ya have a mind to…ummm… join the party. The winning party…

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Oooh… I want one!

Great ad, eh? I’m normally against co-opting rock ‘n’ roll… but this works. I’ve said this before (and about another Jag, too) and I’ll say it again: this sort of thing almost makes me wanna go back to work… Almost.

{sigh}

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There’s more…lots more… on the Air Force’s KC-45 award last week. Yesterday Ms. Sue Payton, the Air Force’s acquisition executive, briefed Rep. John Murtha’s House Appropriations military subcommittee on the award to Northrop-Grumman/EADS. A LOT of the committee members were upset, to say the very least. Some items from the Air Force Association’s Daily Report:

Moving Up: Originally scheduled for next week, the Air Force said Wednesday it would now provide Boeing on March 7 with a thorough debrief covering how its KC-767 was rated in the Air Force's KC-X source-selection evaluation. The company asked the Air Force to move up the scheduled meeting so that the Chicago-based company could gain insight into why it did not prevail in the $35 billion KC-X contest that the Air Force awarded to the KC-30 tanker team, comprising Northrop Grumman and European maker Airbus. Northrop will get its debrief sometime next week, Air Force acquisition executive Sue Payton told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee Wednesday. Payton rejected allegations made by Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), in whose state Boeing has a huge presence, that the Air Force made changes to the evaluation criteria late in the competition that placed Boeing at a disadvantage. "There were no changes made to the requirements or the evaluation criteria of this [request for proposals] after it was approved by the joint requirements oversight council," she said. And she reminded the panel that the Air Force's acquisition strategy was approved by OSD and is in compliance with the Competition in Contracting Act, the Buy America Act, and the Federal Acquisition Regulations that are derived from those acts.

-Michael C. Sirak

Image by Northrop-Grumman.

Game Face: Reiterating the stance made Feb. 29 in announcing the Northrop Grumman/EADS team as the winner in the KC-X tanker competition, Air Force acquisition executive Sue Payton said Wednesday that the company's bid was clearly the best. "Northrop Grumman brought their 'A game,' " Payton told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in her first public appearance on Capitol Hill since the politically controversial decision. The company's team, she said, "met or exceeded the requirements of the request for proposals" and "provided the best overall value to the warfighter and every American taxpayer based on the competition evaluation factors." When members such as panel chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) and David Hobson (R-Ohio) pressed Payton on whether the Air Force's evaluation weighed factors important to the lawmakers such as industrial capacity and where the jobs will be created and where the profits from the tanker work will go [i.e., home or abroad], she said, no, because such issues lie outside of the federal acquisition regulations by which she must abide. "I wish I could award to somebody I like [or] to somebody who offers things that I personally like, but according to the law ... those things cannot enter into the decisions," she said. The KC-X decision abides with Buy America provisions passed by Congress, she noted. The Buy America Act gives exemptions to about a dozen countries, Payton said, adding that it says to treat those countries "as the US." "The countries that have companies that will be engaged in the new KC-45A are all on that exempted list," she said. So the federal acquisition regulations "are all being followed."

Weighing In: Members on both sides of the political aisle in the House Appropriations defense subcommittee said Wednesday they want to look carefully at the Air Force's KC-X tanker decision to see if lies in the best interests of the country, given the fact that, at first glance, it looks like many American jobs have been lost in favor of much overseas work. "This is as political as anything that we do," said chairman John Murtha (D-Pa,) in characterizing the lawmakers' oversight role in the multi-billion-dollar tanker program. He explained: "We are the ones who appropriate the money. When I look at the Dubai [ports deal] crisis that we had, the public was up in arms. The full committee voted 60 to 2 to stop that provision, so this [too] has to be completely aired so that the public understands." Murtha said he will hold a second briefing on the tanker soon, likely behind closed doors after the two teams are debriefed (see above). Ranking member C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) echoed similar caution. "I want to make certain that we continue with manufacturing capability in the United States," he said. "I want to make certain that any technical developments within this program that are vital to the future interest of the United States are not going to be transferred to the likes of a country that I do not have all the confidence [in] that I would like to have in, namely France." Other members were less diplomatic. "This thing is fatally flawed in my judgment," said Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), in whose state Boeing would have done much of its tanker work had it won. "As far as I am concerned, Northrop Grumman is a front," said David Hobson (R-Ohio). "They are a fine company, but they are a front for the French and their other partners."

I watched parts of the hearing yesterday and it got quite animated and very contentious at times. I fully understand the lawmakers concerns about this award, not the least of which is the diminishment of our industrial capacity and the failure of the Air Force to Buy American…even if the law does provide exemptions to the “Buy American” Act for several of our “allies.” I place “allies” in scare quotes because I still remember the “support” for Iraq we got from the very same people who won the KC-45 deal… “support” that continues to this day in Afghanistan.

Just an aside: Many years ago… following my first successes in the proposal biz… I was asked if I was interested in joining EDS’ fledgling Military Services Division and, more specifically, its Air Force sub-division. I declined, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I wasn’t interested in living in the DeeSee area, even if it was in suburban Virginia. And most importantly, I wanted nothing to do with military acquisitions, given the labyrinth complexity of Federal acquisition laws, rules, and regulations. I think there are as many lawyers on pursuit teams responding to gub’mint requests for proposals (RFPs) as there are technical and pure-business folks, if not more. The civilian sector is much easier to deal with…by far. And that was then (approx. 20 years ago); one assumes it’s a lot worse, now… all the evidence seems to point in that direction. I don’t regret my decision in the least.

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Today’s WX Report… Well. As you can plainly see, Gentle Reader, Ol’ Man Winter ain’t done with us here on The High Plains of New Mexico just yet. It’s 28 degrees outside as I peck this out…with light snow showers. Kinda pretty, it is. Given the fact I made a commissary run yesterday we have absolutely NO reason to venture out today. So: Let it snow, let it snow…let it SNOW!!

(coz it’s gonna be 53 tomorrow.)

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Today’s Pic: Another photo of the dorm room I occupied in the NCO Quarters at Yokota AB, Japan…posted principally because of the travel poster stuck on my wall. That poster illustrates the rustic charms of a mountain river about an hour’s ride north of Yokota/Tokyo, and was the site of The Second Mrs. Pennington’s and my First Date, which was actually the second date. Our first date was on the day we met… and where I had been set-up with TSMP’s roommate (THE classic blind-date) by my good friends Ed and Bernice. The roommate and I had absolutely nothing in common, but TSMP and I had lots…and we spent the entire day together at an outdoor concert.

It was about a week later that I threw TSMP on the back of my motorcycle and took her up into the mountains to this river… where we spent the day playing in the water, eating lunch and dinner at small Japanese restaurants, and returning to Yokota late that evening. We spent that night in my dorm room, it being too late for TSMP to catch a train back to her place. Which, of course, was engineered that way on my part, and which she went along with enthusiastically. It was about a year later we found this poster in a Japan Travel Bureau store. It became a permanent part of our décor until such time as we moved beyond the “posters on the wall” school of interior decoration.

As always, click for larger.