Boeing's Lobby Dollars Trump Mission Effectiveness (UPDATED)

Look, the USAF tried every way they could to dick up the tanker deal. Really.
They sent details of the rivals bids to each other.
They had a Ukranian company bid on the project.
They pissed off Northrup so much that they told the Air Force to suck their jet fuel and let EADS front the bid themselves.
And they had Lou Dobbs shouting a populist sermon that focused on job creation, regardless of the net effect on actual, y'know, combat missions.
So after Boeing has been running non-stop Washington radio and TV ads for a year about the EADS tanker (if anyone has a transcript or recording, please let me know) finally cashes in their hard-spent lobbying / bribery / public psy-ops campaign dollars with the award of the new tanker contract.

Here's the official DoD release of the KC-46A Tanker Contract Award.

The Department of the Air Force announced today the award of an engineering and manufacturing development contract valued at more than $3.5 billion for the KC-46A aerial refueler to Boeing Co. of Seattle, Washington.

The Air Force-led selection effort included experts from the larger Department of Defense community, including the office of the Defense Secretary's staff and independent review teams during each step of the process.

"Many factors were evaluated during the tanker selection process,” said Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley.

Selection "took into account mission effectiveness in wartime and life cycle costs as embodied in fuel efficiency and military construction costs," said Donley, emphasizing that both offerors met all the mandatory requirements.

“The thorough and transparent selection process was marked by continual dialogue with offerors to ensure the Air Force had a clear understanding of their proposals and the companies clearly understood the service's analysis of their offers,” said Donley.

"Gen. Schwartz and I are confident in the fact that when our young pilots, boom operators and maintainers receive this aircraft, they will have the tools they need to be successful at what we ask them to do," Donley said.

"To the men and women of our Air Force, today's announcement represents a long-overdue start to a much-needed program," Donley said. "Your Air Force leadership, supported by others throughout the Department of Defense, is determined to see this through, and we will stand behind this work."

The program will deliver the first 18 aircraft by 2017. Basing decisions for the aircraft will take place over the next couple of years.

Look, we called this a while ago. There was no way Congress was going to buy a European design over a US one during a recession, even if Boeing's was made with concrete and had 3 wings and square landing gear. So everyone remember this moment if/when we ever have planes unavailable for CAS b/c we couldn't keep enough tankers in the air near the combat zone. It was more important to put constituents to work in voting districts than it was to put steel on target in support of soldiers in harm's way.

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If you doubted the headline...

The Center for Responsive Politics has this damning comparison of lobbying expenditures.

In 2010, Boeing spent more than $17.8 million on lobbying expenditures, placing it first among companies in the defense aerospace industry. In contrast, European Aeronautics Defence and Space Company (EADS) only spent $3.2 million on lobbying during the same period, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of lobbying data finds.

And based on the numbers being thrown around for the deal ($35B for 179 planes, $3.5B for the first 18), you're looking at aircraft that cost $194M each, +/- a few hundred thousand. That's a lot of lobbying dollars built in.


By: Brant

Tanker Follies Wrapping Up Today?

Will today's pending announcement put the US Air Force tanker contract issue to bed? Or just another chapter in a political-economic fight?

The US Defense Department is set to announce the winner of a $35 billion Air Force aerial refueling tanker contract fought over by Boeing and European rival EADS for nearly a decade.
Congressional aides told AFP the award of one of the biggest procurement contracts in US history would come Thursday.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the matter.
The Defense Department is seeking to replace 179 tankers in an aging US Air Force fleet of Boeing KC-135s that date back to the 1950s.
In the high-stakes, politically charged battle, US aerospace giant Boeing and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, parent of France-based Airbus, delivered their final bids by last Friday's deadline.
EADS is looking like the favorite to land the contract, said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute think-tank based just outside the US capital.
"Judging from the frequency with which Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter has been talking up the notion of a 'globalized' defense market recently, European aerospace giant EADS is the winner," Thompson said in an online blog.
Thompson said the Air Force would announce the winner Thursday after the financial markets close.

By: Brant

GrogNews Daily Headlines

Is ASSange fighting a war on 'secrecy'? If so, where are the deep, dark, diplomatic secrets of anyone not named "United States of America"? Meanwhile, Sweden is upholding their warrant and wants him in connection with a rape case.

Wow. The South Koreans had advance intel on Nork attack? Ooof. We're also finding out about the Norks' tempestuous relationship with China.

Israel refuses to talk about building with the Palestinians, which Abbas considers to be not talking about anything.

The EU says they need to spend more to fight terrorism.

Ah, so Chavez and Cuba are the Axis of "Mischief"?

The DoD is trying to get together a group hug for the tanker contract. Good luck with that.

There are clashes in Africa after the Ivory Coast's recent election.

There's a US soldier in jail in connection with the Afghanistan "death squad" investigation.

By: Brant

GrogNews Weekend Headlines

Man, the USAF just can't get the tanker deal right, can they? Now it looks like they sent details of the bids to the opposing competitors...

As Krazi Karzai meets with NATO to discuss exit strategy, NATO vows they won't abandon Afghanistan. This as the new bicycle-borne IED threat kills 4 and wounds 31 in Afghanistan. Hey Jason, what's the map symbol for a BMXBIED?


By: Brant

GrogNews Morning Headlines

I'm going to try for more timely loads from AUSA today. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, here's some headlines for your morning...

The US lost contact with about 50 missile launch silos but says they never lost control of the nukes. I'll bet the UFO conspiracists are already lining up to explain this one, eh?

One of the USS Cole bombers/planners was interrogated in Poland, and now that he's on trial in there, local authorities have granted him "victim" status because of his interrogations.

Western powers are taking a two-pronged approach to shutting down the Taliban: either lure them out of fighting with jobs and development, or shut them down with local militias. Or a third, I guess: kill them.
This as Gorby is telling NATO that they can't win in Afghanistan. No. You couldn't win. Doesn't mean we won't.

EADS is pointing to their success with the Lakota helicopter to bolster their case for the new KC-X tanker. This as Boeing runs a bunch of disingenuous radio ads around DC (and has for at least 6 months up here).

The FBI has linked the shootings at the Marine Corps Museum and the Pentagon, and is looking at linking a local recruiting station shooting, too.

By: Brant

EADS Resurfaces with New KC-X Bid

Here comes EADS again, still tilting at the KC-X windmill.

The European defense contractor EADS said it sumbitted its official bid Thursday for the Air Force's long-delayed, $35 billion aerial refueling plane contract.
European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the parent of the aerospace company Airbus, said its North American division delivered copies of its 8,800 page proposal to an Air Force base in Ohio a day before the Pentagon's deadline for bids. A spokesman for Boeing Co. said the U.S. planemaker would submit its own bid Friday morning.
The Air Force hopes to pick a winner by November in an effort to replace its current fleet of KC-135 tankers, some of which date to the late 1950s.
The program has had a tortured past, as several previous attempts to choose a contractor failed. Those rounds of bidding were hampered by disputes between Boeing, based in Chicago, and its then-rival Northrop Grumman Corp., as well as a criminal case against a top Pentagon official.

By: Brant

KC-X Tanker Contract's New Twist

Apparently there's a Ukrainian bid coming as a partnership with a US company.

U.S. Aerospace, Inc. and Antonov executives inked a pact on July 1 spelling out the terms of a partnership under which the American company will act as the prime contractor of a team that will enter up to three Antonov aircraft into the high-stakes KC-X race, an industry source said.

Boeing is expected to enter a 767-based aircraft, and its arch-rival Airbus plans to pitch a tanker based on its A330. The U.S.-Ukrainian partnership likely will send ripple waves across the global defense sector. All bids are due July 9.

The source said U.S. Aerospace and Antonov plan to enter the four-engine AN-124-100, and a two-engine variant of that airframe known as the AN-122.

By: Brant

Return of the Son of the Undead Tanker Bid

That's right, kiddies! The KC-X tanker contract just won't die!

US Senators clashed Tuesday on European aerospace giant EADS's decision to bid on a lucrative US military aerial refueling tanker contract, taking on US archrival Boeing.

Lawmakers from states that are home to Boeing operations, like Washington, denounced the decision and vowed to fight to defeat EADS's effort to win the 35-billion-dollar deal to supply the US Air Force.

"I will continue to work with Republicans and Democrats alike to make clear to the Pentagon and the White House that this is the wrong move for our service members and our workers," said Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington.

Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, where work on the tanker would take place, hailed the European firm's decision, saying: "A sole-sourced contract would have served only Boeing's interest.

"The presence of a competitor better serves the interest of our warfighters and American taxpayers," said Shelby, who declared himself worried "this competition is already skewed" in Boeing's favor.

But Murray, echoing past criticisms of EADS, criticized the Pentagon for keeping the bidding open to help "an illegally subsidized foreign company" -- a reference to a confidential World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling in March.

By: Brant

Oh Get Real. This is -NEVER- Going To Happen

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The Ramifications of the Tanker Contract Are Only Now Coming To Light

The New York Times points out the obvious: this was a political decision, not an acquisitions decision.

There has been yet another setback in the Air Force’s long, agonizing process to replace its fleet of Eisenhower-era aerial refueling planes. Northrop Grumman and its European partner, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, dropped out of the competition this month, charging that the new contract specifications are tilted against their much larger Airbus A330 in favor of Boeing’s 767.

That leaves the Pentagon with only one bid — hardly a recipe to get the best tanker fleet at the best cost.

From a capabilities standpoint, we could see advantages in both planes. The Pentagon says that between the two rounds of bidding, it developed a more precise idea of what it needed. But its repeated flip-flops feed suspicions that politics and lobbying are what mattered most. Boeing’s Capitol Hill supporters — mainly from Washington State — built a case around stars, stripes and American jobs and, by implication, against a consortium that had, gasp, a European partner.

For American taxpayers and their armed forces to get the best possible tanker fleet — or other military equipment — for the money, qualified European partners must be permitted to compete fairly. For the record, the Airbus tankers would have been assembled in Alabama. The nation’s European allies are now understandably charging protectionism. This could cause problems down the road for the American defense industry, the biggest military exporter in the world.

And European partners are weighing and measuring possible action.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel yesterday presented a united Franco-German front against Washington's handling of a $50bn military tender, saying they would discuss "possible implications" with European partners.

"The chancellor and the president of the Republic, together with the European Commission and the European partners concerned, will examine the implications of future developments in this affair," a joint statement said.

It comes just days after France and the UK issued a similarly forthright joint statement on a visit to London by Mr Sarkozy, the French president.

The growing campaign is likely to exacerbate further trade relations with the US, already stretched by a proposed European clampdown on hedge funds.

European countries were outraged last week after EADS, the Franco-German aerospace and defence group, decided to pull out of the tender for 179 air refuelling tankers for the US Air Force, alleging foul play.

It was one of the world's biggest defence contracts on offer, with a potential value of up to $100bn (€72.7bn, £65.7bn). EADS and Northrup Grumman, its US partner, won the contract in 2008 but their victory was successfully challenged by Boeing, the US rival, and the tender was relaunched. The group and Northrup said that revised tender rules favoured Boeing, now the sole bidder in the race.

People close to both governments said the statement had been issued to show that feelings were still running high in Europe.

So Air Berlin cancels $1.7 billion of orders from Boeing. Are we really supposed to believe this is all about economics, and not the first round of fallout?

Air Berlin canceled $1.7 billion worth of firm orders for Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner aircraft amid uncertainty over whether it will increase long-haul flights.

Air Berlin, Germany's second-biggest airline after Lufthansa , said on Tuesday that it has cut its order to 15 planes from 25. It also reduced the number of options for further 787 aircraft to five from 10, it said.

"We will continue to fly long-haul, but the bulk of our business is medium-haul," a spokesman for the company said. He did not comment on whether Air Berlin will increase the number of its long-haul flights in the future.

Apparently "built in Alabama" isn't "made in America" if it's a European company. Someone better tell Mercedes.

By: Brant

Europeans Land Uppercut to US Protectionists

The leaders of both the UK and France are hammering the US over the protectionist stance they're taking on the new USAF refueling tanker contract. And Brown and Sarkozy have a pretty good point they're making.

The French and British leaders accused the U.S. of protectionism on Friday over a contract to build a new Air Force refueling tanker.
A European-led consortium pulled out of bidding this week for the $35 billion contract, saying the Pentagon was favoring rival American bidder Boeing.
"This is not the right way for the United States to treat its European allies," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
"If they want to be spearheading the fight against protectionism, they shouldn't be setting the wrong example of protectionism," he said. "In life there is what you say and then there is what you do."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was disappointed with the situation.
"We believe in free trade, we believe in open markets, we believe in open competition," he said.
The withdrawal of a bid by EADS, the parent company of Airbus, and Northrop Grumman, leaves Chicago-based Boeing as the only bidder for the 179-tanker order.
The EADS-led consortium was awarded a contract for the tanker fleet in 2008, but Boeing protested and the deal was annulled later that year.

The beauty of it all? Looks like the Brits are putting their money where their mouth is and buying a US product over a British one, to the tune of $1.5 billion.

BAE Systems Plc lost a U.K. Ministry of Defence contract for armored vehicles worth more than 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) to General Dynamics Corp., the Financial Times reported, without citing anyone.
Defence Procurement Minister Quentin Davies will next week name General Dynamics as the preferred bidder for the contract to supply about 750 vehicles, the FT said.
“Discussions are ongoing and until an official announcement has been made, it would be inappropriate to comment,” Elizabeth Humphreys, a London-based spokeswoman at the ministry, said today in an e-mail.

Of course American protectionists (and Congresscritters) will rejoice -it's more jobs for their districts - but is it the right thing to do for the military?

By: Brant

Real (or Imagined) Sorrow At One-Horse Race for Tanker Contract?

Secretary Gates claims he regrets Northrop's withdrawal from the tanker competition. I guess we'll find out whether or not he really is soon enough.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he regrets that a major defense contractor has pulled out of the contest to build a badly needed new Air Force plane.

And he warned that the lone surviving bidder shouldn't expect to be able to pad the check.

Gates told a military audience that he wishes Northrop Grumman had chosen to place a bid on the $35 billion contract to build refueling tankers for the Air Force.

The defense giant pulled out of the bidding Monday. Northrop Chief Executive Officer and President Wes Bush said in a statement that the Pentagon's guidelines for the program "clearly favor Boeing's smaller refueling tanker" but that the company would not file a formal protest.

EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., had partnered with Northrop to vie for the tanker but was not expected to be able to compete against Boeing on its own. A spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that Sarkozy will raise concerns that the tanker contract is anticompetitive when he visits President Barack Obama later this month.

Obama has said the Pentagon shouldn't pay large amounts of money to a major defense contractor without any competition. But the Pentagon defended the tanker program as fair and said both companies could compete effectively. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday the program would not be reworked just to ensure a competition.

Maybe he just regrets that with only one vendor, he's at the mercy of their pricing, no matter what they claim.

By: Brant

The Ballad of the Tanker Contract Continues

After several years of dicking this up, and multiple fired contracting overlords, the USAF's new in-flight refueling tanker seems about ready to move ahead and replace planes bought during the Eisenhower administration.
The problem? The RFP is wired so tight for Boeing that Northrop isn't even bothering to play. Sure Lou Dobbs is happy, but is that really the right way to do business?

First, we've completely killed off the domestic aviation industry through M&A and bad industry collaborations. Where we once had Northrop, Grumman, Lockheed, Martin-Marietta, Bell, Sikorsky, Boeing, and more, we're basically down to 2 fixed-wing companies, and one 1 helicopter company. And we wonder why there isn't more competition for government contracts?

Second, in tight economic times, the only thing Congress and overpaid political pontificators (again, hello Lou Dobbs, among others) will look at is where the jobs will be created. Because Northrop partnered with a European company (EADS) every protectionist worth his teleprompter started babbling about shipping jobs overseas. It's not true (the planes would be built mainly in Alabama) but when unemployment is skyrocketing as a result of a depression, it's hard to argue the truth when the emotional talking point is already out.

So what happens? Northrop gets screwed. Boeing gets a lifeline, which they need after Dreamliner orders plummeted with the world recession, and the taxpayers get screwed because Boeing can charge whatever they want. As I once noted in grad school: my grandmother can corner a market when she's the only one selling the product.

Don't take my word for it. Check out what the Financial Times had to say about it.

In any case, it would have made no economic sense for the Europeans to go it alone in the US. As Tom Enders, the Airbus chief executive, pointedly put it yesterday, if Northrop has thrown in the towel it presumably knows what the rules of the game are and what is possible in the US and what is not. The conclusion is obvious, he added. This is nothing to do with which aircraft is the best tanker and nothing to do with fair competition.

But then, was it ever going to be fair? And was it ever conceivable that the US would hand over to a foreign supplier responsibility for such a strategic defence programme? Was it conceivable even if an American company was heading the partnership and that it would have involved a new assembly plant in Alabama as well as securing thousands of aerospace jobs in the Los Angeles area? The US, as French president Nicolas Sarkozy never ceases to remind everybody, is if anything more protectionist than the most protectionist of European states.

The Europeans will still need to keep a watchful eye on Boeing and on the outcome of the contract. For as sole bidder, Boeing could well be tempted to extract a higher price than it would have otherwise received. Worse, it could use its position of strength to propose eventually to the US Air Force a modified version of its bigger 777 aircraft, rather than the smaller 767 whose commercial production has now been stopped. That would give the 777 an additional lease of life.

BusinessWeek is pretty sure that we haven't heard the last of this.

Northrop Grumman Corp.’s decision to forgo bidding on the U.S. Air Force’s $35 billion refueling tanker program, leaving Boeing Co. without a competitor, may not mark the end of a nearly decade-long quest to replace the military’s existing fleet, a Boeing executive said.
“I’ve been working this program for nine years,” Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing’s commercial aircraft and former chief of its defense unit, said in a presentation today at a JPMorgan Chase & Co. conference broadcast on the Web. “It’s the longest- running soap opera since ‘Days of Our Lives,’ and I’m not sure we’ve seen the last episode.”
Northrop, which had partnered with European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. in a winning bid for the tanker that was overturned in June 2008, announced its decision yesterday and said it wouldn’t protest an award of the contract to Boeing. The move made good on Northrop’s December threat to withdraw unless the government altered some of its requirements.
Los Angeles-based Northrop said at that time that the new draft proposal of bid requirements appeared to favor Boeing’s entry and that the contract would impose “financial burdens.” The contest had been restarted three months earlier, in September, after Boeing successfully protested the 2008 award to Northrop.

And the government is trying to make it sound like Northrop is just pouting.

Statement by Deputy Secretary William Lynn on Northrop Grumman Tanker Announcement
“We are disappointed by Northrop’s decision not to submit a bid for the U.S. Air Force tanker replacement program.
In the last tanker replacement (KC-X) competition, Northrop Grumman competed well on both price and non-price factors. We strongly believe that the current competition is structured fairly and that both companies could compete effectively.
Based on the inputs we received from both offerors to the Department’s draft Request for Proposal (RFP), we made changes to reduce the out-year risk to the potential manufacturers of KC-X. However, we did not change the war-fighters’ requirements to accommodate either offeror.
The Department strongly supports trans-Atlantic defense industrial ties and believes they benefit the American war-fighter and taxpayer.”

By: Brant

Is It A Tanker Competition When Only One Company "Competes"

Despite winning the initial bid, Northrop and EADS will not bid on the US tanker contract. Boeing is going to win, because they are the only 'competitor'. Congress will rejoice, claiming a great victory for the American worker. No one is going to ask whether or not this 'victory' is going to result in a reduction in the capability of the tanker we're buying. No one is going to ask whether or not it's more important to put fighters in the air over Kandahar than jobs in Kansas, where re-election campaigns are more important than the lives of the American servicemembers in a war zone.

Top US defense contractor Northrop Grumman and European partner EADS said Monday they would not bid for a 35-billion-dollar US Air Force tanker plane contract, clearing the way for a Boeing win.
Northrop Grumman said it had decided not to compete because the US Air Force's request for proposals for the contract published last month "favors" Boeing.
Northrop said it would not submit a bid to the Department of Defense for the KC-X tanker plane program following a "comprehensive analysis" of the requirements.
The request "clearly favors Boeing's smaller refueling tanker and does not provide adequate value recognition of the added capability of a larger tanker, precluding us from any competitive opportunity," Wes Bush, chief executive and president of Northrop Grumman, said in a statement.
The tankers refuel warplanes in mid-air.
The Northrop-EADS team won the contract in February 2008, but the deal was canceled after Boeing successfully appealed the decision to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Gee Boeing. I'll bet your mother is proud of your ability to protest. Because your ability to bid on and win a contract on your own merits seems questionable.

By: Brant

USAF Tries Again for Tanker Bid

Hey, it's been 50 years, what's a few more? The question now is, who's going to actually bid? And will Lou Dobbs blow another gasket when the winner is announced?

The Pentagon unveiled final terms for a high-stakes competition to build new US aerial refueling tankers, promising a fair contest for aviation rivals Boeing and Airbus parent EADS.
The approach favored neither firm and the Pentagon had steered "straight down the middle," Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn told reporters.
The 35-billion-dollar competition will be "fair, it's going to be open, it's going to be transparent," he said.
Wednesday's announcement marks the third attempt to replace the aging tanker aircraft fleet after years of controversy and scandal,
The final guidelines clarified technical requirements for the aircraft and allowed some flexibility to industry on contract pricing, but the basic terms for the deal have not dramatically changed since a draft proposal was issued in September, Lynn said.
Despite promises of a fair contest, it remained unclear if the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company and its partner Northrop Grumman would bid on the contract after accusing the Pentagon of favoring arch-rival Boeing.

By: Brant

Northrop to Pentagon: Suck my tanker

Northrop is threatening to tell the Pentagon kiss their jet fuel

Northrop Grumman has told Pentagon acquisition chief Ash Carter that it will not submit a bid for the KC-X tanker program unless the government makes significant changes to the final request for proposal. The company made its declaration in a letter today from incoming Northrop CEO Wes Bush to Carter: “As a result, I must regrettably inform you that, absent a responsive set of changes in the final RFP, Northrop Grumman has determined that it cannot submit a bid to the department for the KC-X program.”

Bush left the door to a vibrant competition somewhat open, adding that the company hopes the Pentagon “will elect to modify its approach to this procurement in a way that will enable us to offer our product for your consideration.”

Company spokesman Randy Belote confirmed the letter’s contents. Belote said the company is “convinced that they want a prefer smaller tanker with less multirole which puts our tanker at a terrible disadvantage.”

A veteran aerospace analyst was more direct. “This is the stupidest contest you’ve ever seen,” said Joel Johnson, a consultant for various international clients, including Northrop Grumman. “It’s a Boeing RFP. When air forces have been able to decide on merit and price, every one of them has gone with the KC-45 clone.”

So what Northrup is saying is that they won't submit a bid to build an aircraft only Boeing would build.

They won this competition once, they don't want to play a second time now that it's been re-rigged in favor of Boeing because a bunch of Congressmen are more concerned about the jobs in their districts than the quality of the equipment we provide to the men and women we send into harm's way. The priority for military acquisitions needs to be performance. Period. If we're sending someone to war, send them with the best equipment. If your priority is putting a bunch of people to work in Kansas instead of bringing the boys back home to Kansas from a war, you've got the wrong priorities.

The Pentagon-approved version of the story goes like this

Northrop Grumman and Airbus have threatened to withdraw from the competition for the multi-billion-dollar contract to build a new US military tanker aircraft, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
'The (Defense) Department regrets that Northrop-Grumman and Airbus have taken themselves out of the tanker competition and hope they will return when the final RFP (request for proposal) is issued,' Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement.
Defense officials were not prepared to change the requirements for the 35-billion-dollar contract to favor either the Airbus group or its aviation rival, Boeing, the official said.
'The Department has played this right down the middle and will continue to do so,' Whitman said.
'The Air Force tanker is a modified commercial airliner, and Boeing and Airbus make hundreds of such aircraft every year. Both companies can make a good tanker,' Whitman said."

By: Brant