Pentagon tanker rebid: Boeing workers hopeful

The Pentagon's announcement that Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. will rebid the disputed $35 billion Air Force tanker contract has given new hope to Boeing workers at the company's Everett production line.

The rebid "really gives new life to many Everett families," Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson said Wednesday.

The Government Accountability Office found "significant errors" the Air Force made in the original award to the Northrop team. The GAO said Chicago-based Boeing, which protested the deal, might have won had the service not made mistakes in evaluating the bids.

Boeing has supplied refueling tankers to the Air Force for decades.

It proposed building the new tankers, based on its 767 jetliners, at its Everett facilities. Without the tanker contract, the 767 line is slated to close in 2012, so the decision affects thousands of jobs.

The Pentagon will conduct a limited rebid that looks only at eight issues where government auditors found problems in the initial process, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

Gates said his office will oversee the competition between Boeing and the team of Northrop and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.

"It went from the light turning off to the light getting brighter," Mike McDougall, a mechanic on the 767 assembly line for 19 years, said in a telephone interview.

The 767 plant was like a "ghost town or tomb" after the Air Force announced the earlier contract winner, McDougall said.

Tom Wroblewski, president of the Seattle-based Aerospace Machinists' District Lodge 751, said he thinks the Air Force was biased in its original evaluation, adding, "They appeared to be going in there with an agenda that didn't include us, didn't include Boeing."

The union leader said he's confident that Boeing will win the contract this time around.

Still, Boeing remains concerned the Pentagon's revised request may not "significantly alter the selection criteria" beyond what was initially asked for by the Air Force, said company spokesman Dan Beck.

Boeing supporter Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., planned to ask pointed questions about the Pentagon's plan to give extra credit to the Northrop team for a larger plane that can carry more fuel and cargo.

That practice was among the GAO's eight complaints with the original Air Force selection process and continuing it would insert "bias in the competition from the start," said Dicks' spokesman George Behan. A Pentagon spokesman had no immediate comment.

Dicks and other lawmakers from Washington state and Kansas, where Boeing employs thousands of workers, pressured the Air Force to reopen the bidding process and cancel the contract with the Northrop team.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called Wednesday for "a real bid, not a rehash; a rebid that protects our national security, shields the American taxpayer from operating and infrastructure costs and buys a tanker that can refuel the entire fleet."

Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire said a thorough review of the 40-year lifecycle costs for the competing proposals would show that Boeing has "the best, most efficient and cost-effective bid."

Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., whose congressional district includes Boeing's Everett plant, called the Pentagon decision "good news for American taxpayers, Boeing workers and the men and women who serve in our military."

Larsen, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said he would work to "make sure American taxpayers don't foot the bill for a less capable, more expensive and illegally subsidized European tanker."