Feel the anticipation: at 5:10 this afternoon, the Air Force will finally announce that either Boeing or EADS has won a $35 billion contract to build a new flying gas station. It's the culmination of nearly a decade's worth of intense lobbying, tons of cash, and more than a little impropriety. Don't expect it to stop with today's award.
The KC-X midair refueling tanker is a star-crossed plane. A contract to build the replacement for Boeing's archaic KC-135 bounced between Boeing and an EADS-Northrop Grumman consortium through the 2000s before getting repeatedly nixed by legislative interference and good-government oversight.
Sometimes that was necessary to stop corruption, as Sen. John McCain determined in 2004 had infested Boeing's initial Air Force contract. More recently, the Air Force accidentally gave each company confidential information about the other's bidsin November, prompting the embarrassed service to delay the award yet again.
The end result is that Boeing and EADS each have small armies on Capitol Hill ready to fight the Air Force and the Pentagon if they lose the deal. The contract is to build nearly 200 planes, generating tens of thousands of jobs, something politically crucial to lawmakers.
The companies are in an arms race of cash that Boeing is winning. The American aeronautics giant spent over $2.5 million on campaign contributions in this past election alone, along with $5 million just this year on ads for its tanker prototype. EADS' North American branch spent $1.7 million on ads and "just" $213,000 in checks to politicos.
The companies are furiously tweeting their virtues or projecting a sense of confidence. "We're looking forward to the KC-X #tanker announcement later today," EADS beamed, "and so is the work force in Mobile Alabama!"
Congress is off this week. You'd have to be pretty naive to think it's coincidental that the announcement is coming today. But if the Pentagon thinks it's in for a smooth flight after the award, they're misjudging just how many legislators defense contractor money can buy.
Photo: U.S. Air Force
