Special interests at work
A Times EditorialPublished June 14, 2005
In June 2003, the Air Force's plan to lease 100 refueling tankers from Boeing Co. and send some of them to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa was hailed by Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores and other MacDill supporters as terrific news. They said the tankers would help preserve the base's future and brushed aside complaints by consumer advocates about whether leasing the planes was a good deal for taxpayers. Two years later, the tankers are on hold and a new report by the Defense Department's inspector general details how the leasing scheme was rotten to its core.
Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Boeing began working with the Air Force and the Defense Department to circumvent federal regulations so the government could lease rather than purchase the planes. Washington didn't have enough money to buy them, Boeing desperately needed the business and influential members of Congress backed the plan. The inspector general's report reveals how Boeing and the military colluded to make it happen, including instances where high-ranking Air Force officials instructed Boeing on how to pressure Defense officials to quit complaining.
An August 2002 e-mail from one senior Pentagon official to three others: "Since we all know that this is a bailout for Boeing why don't we just bite the bullet and do what we did when we were bailing Douglas out on the KC-10s. We didn't need those aircraft either, but we didn't screw the taxpayer in the process ..."
An October 2002 e-mail to Air Force Secretary James Roche from an assistant secretary: "Boss Our problem is we do not have a good answer to why we claim that we have a(n) urgent need for tankers ..."
This is the culture of Washington, where influential special interests too often trump the public interest. The inspector general report says Air Force and Defense officials violated procurement rules to try to lease Boeing planes that would have cost billions less to buy. The Justice Department overrules its own career lawyers and abruptly asks for billions less in damages in a tobacco lawsuit it reluctantly inherited from the Clinton administration. A White House official who was an oil industry lobbyist edits reports on global warming to soften the warnings. The Interior Department's inspector general reports that a deal to buy mineral rights in the Big Cypress National Preserve circumvented routine pricing practices and offered the influential Collier family millions more than the rights are worth.
Sometimes, the public wins. The Collier deal has been scrapped. A former Air Force official who went to work for Boeing in the midst of negotiating the tanker leases is in prison. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, deserves much of the credit for flushing out the scam and forcing the original deal to be killed.
The politically well-connected always have had an edge in Washington, but the Bush administration has gone to extremes to tilt the scales even further.