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May 01, 2008 Governor Riley Signs Bipartisan Resolution Urging Speaker Pelosi to Accept Air Force’s Decision on Tanker Contract
MONTGOMERY - Governor Bob Riley today ceremoniously signed a resolution passed by the Legislature that urges the U.S. Speaker of the House to accept the decision of the U.S. Air Force concerning the tanker contract won by the Northrop Grumman-EADS North America team in February. “I’m here today to send the message to the rest of the country: This is not about red states or blue states, this is about red white and blue,” Governor Riley said shortly before signing the resolution. “This is about doing what’s in the best interests of this country and our fighting men and women.” The resolution, sponsored by Democratic State Senator Zeb Little and passed without opposition in both the House and Senate, encourages Speaker Nancy Pelosi “to accept the decision of the United States Air Force concerning the awarding of the jet tankers contract, refrain from turning this vital national security matter into a political free for all, and allow the competent and capable workers of Alabama to immediately begin work on this critical contract.” “When it comes to national security, there is no partisan divide in Alabama,” said Governor Riley. “This was the most open and transparent contract competition in the history of the Pentagon. The best equipment for our troops was selected. We need to keep the politics out of this process, and that’s what we’re urging here today.” Democratic Speaker of the Alabama House Seth Hammett joined Governor Riley at the signing ceremony and said Northrop Grumman “won it fair and square. I can tell you this: If those planes are assembled by people from Alabama, that product is American-made.” Speaker Pelosi, who is scheduled to be in Alabama on Friday, said in March the Air Force’s decision “raises serious questions.” Speaker Pelosi also argued the contract endangers the U.S. defense industrial base. “We will not have the industrial and technological base necessary to ensure our national security because it will fade, it will diminish, it is not strengthened,” she told reporters in March. The tanker contract, worth up to $40 billion, would mean 1,500 new jobs in Mobile, where Northrop and its partner EADS North America plan a $600 million assembly complex. The tankers would be assembled at Mobile’s Brookley Field Industrial Complex. The Air Force tanker contract would also result in commercial jets being produced at the Brookley site. In January, Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS, announced it would assemble commercial jets in Mobile if the Air Force contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman-EADS North America. That could also result in potentially thousands more jobs in supplier companies.
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