Dodd's Senate fight over presidential helicopter stalls bill (catfight Dodd Schumer Clinton)

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | April 7, 2005 | Associated Press

[Graybeard58]

WASHINGTON -- A contract for a presidential helicopter fleet prompted a heated turf fight on the Senate floor Wednesday, stalling a major spending bill in what one lawmaker called "a sneak attack" by a fellow Democrat.

The surprise move by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., sent New York Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer scrambling to defend a contract that will bring hundreds of defense jobs to upstate Owego, N.Y., to build the next Marine One helicopter.

Dodd objects to the Navy awarding the $6.1 billion, 23-helicopter contract to Maryland-based Lockheed Martin and its international partners instead of Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft, which has manufactured the president's helicopter fleet since 1957.

The competition led to a running debate over whether, for reasons of national security, the president's helicopter should include foreign-made parts.

"There are few more sensitive and more important national security concerns than the safe transport of our nation's chief executive," Dodd said in successfully attaching an amendment to a $34 billion foreign spending bill.

Dodd's measure would prohibit any European companies producing components of the US101 helicopter from doing business with terrorist-sponsoring states.

Lockheed's international partners include the British-Italian company, AgustaWestland.

Dodd's amendment might have subjected AgustaWestland to a bureaucratic nightmare of export paperwork for producing some of the US101's components.

The helicopter's main transmission and rotor blades will be built overseas.

After Dodd's legislative maneuver succeeded, Clinton and Schumer used parliamentary rules to block the entire spending measure.

"It was a sneak attack. We knew nothing about it," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

The bill's prospects were uncertain even before the fight between New York and Connecticut, and neither side was willing to budge Wednesday night.

"We said we're going to stay here, we're not going anywhere, we won it fair and square," said Clinton, who argued the Dodd amendment would unfairly punish European subsidiaries doing nonmilitary work in Iran.

"It's insulting to say that our two staunchest allies who have had people die in Iraq are somehow not to be trusted," Clinton said.

Even after the bill was shelved, the dispute brought Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner to the floor to defend the helicopter contract and criticize Dodd.

"I can assure you we will employ every parliamentary device available to us to see that this matter is rectified because this was not done in a manner consistent with what we normally do around here," said Warner, R-Va.

[Non-Sequitur]

Twenty three helicopters for $6.1 billion comes to about a quarter of a billion dollars apiece. Are they made of platinum? In the meantime the troops in Iraq and Afganistan are flying machines that in many cases are older than they are. How many of those helicopters would $6.1 billion buy?

[F.J. Mitchell]

What must a helicopter be capable of to make it worth 250 million dollars ? Whatever it is has surely not even been thought of, much less researched and developed.

[dayton law dude]

Uhh...Texas IS the state of production. Bell Helicopter/Textron is actually assembling most of the aircraft in Texas. Then it gets flown up here to Owego to be integrated with all the hi-tech comms stuff.

[Libloather]

'SNEAKY' CONN. SENATOR GOT 22G 'COPTER'BUTION
Sat Apr 9, 5:22 AM ET
By DEBORAH ORIN

WASHINGTON — Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd — who pulled a sneak attack to try to yank away from New York a $6.1 billion contract to build the new presidential helicopter — got nearly $22,000 in campaign cash from the Connecticut chopper firm that had wanted the deal.

Dodd infuriated Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) a few days ago by sneaking through, on voice vote, an amendment to try to kill the contract for an international partnership led by Lockheed Martin which beat out Connecticut-based Sikorsky.

His 2004 re-election campaign records show Dodd got $21,750 in campaign donations from employees of Sikorsky's parent company, United Technologies Corp., as well as $5,000 from the Teamsters Union, which represents the plant's workers.

The UTC donations included $2,000 from CEO George David, and $1,000 each from vice presidents Kent Brittan and William Bucknall.

A Dodd aide said his objection to the Pentagon decision to award the contract to Lockheed Martin is "on the merits" and has nothing to do with campaign contributions any more than New York officials would be influenced by receiving Lockheed Martin donations.

The deal means 750 jobs for upstate New York.

In an odd twist, officials of UTC have been calling other lawmakers to stress that they weren't behind Dodd's ploy and aren't trying to stop the awarding of the contact to Lockheed.