Boeing-backer Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) says he is working with House defense appropriations chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) for Dicks to introduce an amendment to an appropriations bill preventing the award of the U.S. Air Force tanker replacement program to Northrop Grumman/EADS.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been reviewing Boeing's protest of the February award and is expected to rule by June 19.

But "no matter what happens with the GAO, if it doesn't stop this, Congress has a responsibility to review this," Dicks told AVIATION WEEK after a House Aerospace Caucus luncheon June 12. "We're going to take whatever action we have to take."

GAO's recommendations on bid protests are not officially binding - GAO is a congressional agency while the Air Force is under the executive branch - but the Air Force risks the wrath of Congress if it ignores them. Lawmakers tend to defer to congressional auditors, and indeed, no language stopping the award has emerged in defense authorization lawmaking yet as legislators have said they didn't want to get ahead of the GAO.

Dicks said some estimates have put the total lifecycle costs for the Northrop/EADS KC-45 tanker at $50 billion higher than Boeing's proposed KC-767. He complained that the acquisition process was not transparent and the Air Force misled Congress about how it evaluated the proposals (Aerospace DAILY, March 12). He and other lawmakers opposing the Northrop-EADS win have discussed trying to halt the award for months (Aerospace DAILY, April 29)."The more I get into this, the angrier I get," Dicks said.

Photo: Northrop Grumman