Wonder what brought this on?
Brought to you by the Number 41.
Read the article - he’s pissed that Boeing might get the tanker deal (which of course means a US company will be building the planes).
Maybe the Republicans in the Senate just got fed up with Obama trying to ram through his nominees and holding up Brown’s seating to do it.
Evidently, Obama has a guy nominated for TSA who is even further left than the first nominee and he wanted him voted on before Brown got seated.
Maybe more information will be forthcoming. But the Republicans have to be steamed about Kirk being allowed to vote after he was no longer legally a Senator.
From later in the article:
Shelby applied the holds because of a dispute over a contract to build Air Force refueling tankers. The original deal was awarded to Northrop Grumman, which would have constructed the planes in Mobile, Ala.
But Boeing protested the award to the Government Accountability Office, which negated the deal in a report that faulted the Pentagon’s selection process.
The Pentagon then reopened the competition, but Northrop has argued that it has given Boeing an unfair advantage in that process by disclosing price information to Boeing. It has threatened to pull out of the competition, and has been conducting a lobbying and public-relations campaign criticizing the competition.
Though holds on nominees are commonly used to protest unrelated issues, blanket holds occur less frequently and affect a wider swath of nominees before the Senate.
The Defense Department “must recognize” that the tanker deal “needs to be significantly and substantively changed,” Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo said in a statement.
Shelby is also not happy with the Obama administration’s decision to hold back funding for an FBI facility in Alabama dedicated to research on explosives used by terrorists.
Earmarks for his state. He is insisting the RFP for a big contract be tweaked so Airbus can win it, thereby giving his state the ability to make the parts. A huge boon for his state. Will any Republicans come out against this earmark grab before the Dems do? It would be smart politics for them to do so. There’s also a 2nd earmark he wants for his state but I forget what it is.
Uh... MA election.
It could be retaliation for the total trashing of Huntsville and Madison, AL by the cancellation of Constellation and the suggestion of turning all those rocket-scientist geniuses into weather monitors and terrorist guards.
41 Seats in the Senate.. that’s what.