Guest columnist
Stand up to Europe's threat to our aerospace industry

By Patty Murray
Special to The Times

BLOOMBERG NEWS An Airbus A340-600 is pictured during assembly in this undated photo.

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It has been three decades since a Seattle billboard famously asked, "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights?" Jobs were flooding out of Washington, so that it seemed just a matter of time before the Emerald City was transformed into a ghost town. With hard work, we stemmed that tide.

I fear it's time to start looking for billboard spaces with a question: "Will the last aerospace worker leaving America turn out the lights?"

What's worse, these signs will stretch far beyond the Pacific Northwest to every region of the country. Our aerospace industry is under siege.

For many years, I have criticized Airbus and its market-manipulating practices. For the past year, I've shined a brighter light on Airbus' deceptive campaign to sell itself as an American company. Now, I am sounding the alarm again out of deep concern for our country's future in aerospace.

America's commercial aerospace industry is critical to our economy and our national defense. Innovation and technology in today's aerospace industry are pushing the bounds of human discovery. Yet, we've lost more than 700,000 aerospace jobs in the past 15 years alone. U.S. leadership in aerospace is not assured. We have to recommit our nation to lead, or sit by and watch the technology, aircraft and jobs of the future migrate to Europe.

Europe has an aggressive plan for the future of aerospace to benefit its companies and its workers — at the expense of U.S. companies and our workers. Europe is providing billions of dollars in subsidies to European Aeronautic, Defence & Space (EADS) and Airbus to capture market share and jobs from America.

And now that Airbus has taken half of the commercial marketplace, it wants U.S. taxpayers to subsidize Europe's defense industry. Last week, the German newspaper Die Welt ran a story headlined, "EADS wants to surpass Boeing in the defense sector, too." Europe wants to do away with "Buy America" provisions that are important to our work force, our aerospace industry and ultimately our national security.

Our aerospace workers have paid a heavy price. How can American workers compete against the aggressive plan and support of the entire European Union? Government subsidies have launched virtually every single Airbus aircraft. Over $30 billion in subsidies have not been paid back at market rates and some of the subsidies have been forgiven altogether. Subsidies to facilities and suppliers, political pressure to buy from Europe, corruption and bribery, airport landing rights and favorable financing are all working against U.S. aerospace firms and our workers.

The scary part of Europe's plan for global leadership in aerospace is it's working.

With the help of a deceptive public-relations campaign working to portray Airbus as an American company, Airbus is undercutting the American aerospace industry and taking jobs and contracts vital to our future. The Airbus campaign of half-truths is on full display as the company works overtime in Washington, D.C., to recreate a competition it already lost to build the next-generation refueling tanker for the Air Force.

"I see a realistic chance that the issue will be taken up again by the administration after the election," EADS Joint Chief Executive Rainer Hertrich recently told Reuters.

For more than a year, backed by the Department of Commerce, I've challenged Airbus claims that it is responsible for 120,000 jobs in the U.S., subcontracts with 800 U.S. firms and contributes $6 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Airbus has refused my calls to justify these figures. Its claims are unjustified and are part of a slick campaign to persuade U.S. policymakers and the public not to question Airbus and EADS as high-wage jobs are slowly siphoned away to Europe.

It's time for our government to take a real close look at Airbus' real impact on the U.S. A very bleak future awaits our aerospace industry and aerospace workers if we buy into the ridiculous claims by Airbus that it is an American company.

There are real consequences for U.S. national security. We have to retain a supplier base, a skilled work force and the technological advantages we have now to project force and defend this nation.

To protect and promote a U.S. future in aerospace, we must embolden our leaders to recognize the threat from Europe and respond with a bold governmentwide recognition that aerospace is a must-have industry for our children's economic future. We have to hold Europe accountable to its treaty obligations. We have to stand up to the plan to have American taxpayers pay for Europe to manipulate the defense aerospace marketplace like it has the commercial market.

Many useful recommendations from the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry await action by our government. Now is the time to act upon them to counter the threats to U.S. workers.

Our time is running out.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., heads Washington state's congressional delegation.