Even before Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled a sweeping reshaping of defense priorities Monday, the pushback from members of Congress had begun.
Late last week, Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, both Alabama Republicans, put a hold on the nomination of Harvard physicist Ashton Carter to become the Pentagon’s next acquisition chief in a spat with Gates over a $35 billion refueling tanker contract for the U.S. Air Force.
The senators demanded that Gates agree to make the decision on what tanker to buy on so-called best-value grounds – a criterion that would favor the larger, but more expensive aircraft offered by Airbus and Northrop Grumman, which have pledged to assemble the jetliners destined for tanker service at a plant in the senators’ home state of Alabama.
Ashton Carter
But Gates refused, saying the criteria for the new planes should be as simple and straightforward as possible so the Air Force acquires the best aircraft for the lowest cost, according to Defense News.
Any senator can place a hold on a confirmation, which then can freeze the entire process.
The holds came hours before the Senate was to have voted on Carter and two other defense department nominees, Jim Miller and Alexander “Sandy” Vershbow. While Carter was sidelined, Miller was confirmed as the Pentagon’s deputy policy chief, and Vershbow cleared to become the next assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
“I still have some unanswered questions about a commitment to a fair and open tanker competition,” Sessions said in a statement.
Gates will now have to wait at least until April 22 when Congress returns from recess for Carter’s nomination to be released.
But some fear that now that the defense secretary has laid out a budget that eliminates pet programs at almost every major U.S. defense contractor, other lamakers will join the fray to hold Carter’s nomination hostage in what could devolve into a series of petty battles to preserve their district’s programs.
Carter, like his prospective boss, has written extensively about the need to discipline the defense acquisitions process. A physicist as well as a defense policy expert, he was expected to bring fresh eyes, as well as a scientist’s insights, to the acquisition process.
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1 Comments
#1. American Taxpayer 04.08.2009
You referred to the Northrop Grumman/EADS offering as “larger but more expensive”. But surprisingly, the larger more capable plane offered by Northrop Grumman/EADS and selected by the Air Force was actually less expensive than the Boeing plane.
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