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“AIRBUS FALSE CLAIMS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Senate section on pages S1554-S1555 on March 5, 2008.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
AIRBUS FALSE CLAIMS
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to spend a few minutes talking about the future of our Nation's global aerospace leadership, because, frankly, I believe it is in serious jeopardy.
Now, for any of my colleagues who have not heard, last Friday, the Air Force awarded one of the largest military contracts in history. It is a $40 billion contract. But the Air Force picked a group led by the French company, Airbus, over an American company, Boeing, to supply our next generation of aerial refueling tankers.
I think I speak for many of us when I say it is deeply troubling we would turn our aerospace leadership over to a foreign company. If the contract had gone to Boeing, it would have meant 44,000 American jobs. So now Airbus is arguing that this contract isn't outsourcing jobs because it teamed with Northrop Grumman, and they have their supporters on the radio and TV talking about how excited they are about the work that will come to the United States because of this deal.
I think we better step back and take a good hard look at what Airbus is planning before anybody pops the champagne. The reality is, we don't know what Airbus is planning.
The Air Force has already said it did not consider jobs a factor when it awarded the tanker contract, so all we have to go on is Airbus's word. We have seen Airbus's slick marketing campaign before, and we have very good reason to be worried. Airbus has a history of bending the truth to try to convince Congress that it plans to invest in the United States, but when you examine their claims, they don't hold up.
Five years ago, when Airbus was first working to unravel Boeing's tanker contract, Airbus and its parent company, EADS, hired a small army of lobbyists to come out here and assert to us that their business was good for America. Well, at the time I was very skeptical of their PR campaign, so I asked our Commerce Department to investigate. Guess what I found. Airbus had claimed they had created 100,000 jobs here, but the Commerce Department looked into it and it wasn't 100,000 jobs; it was 500. Airbus said it had contracted with 800 U.S. firms, but the Commerce Department came back and said it was only 250.
At that point, Airbus did something very funny. They changed their numbers, decreasing the number of contracts from 800 all of a sudden to 300, but they increased the alleged value of those contracts from $5 billion to $6 billion a year. So I said at the time: You cannot trust Airbus's funny numbers.
What is interesting is, if you peel back the veneer on Airbus's promises this time, you start asking similar questions. Airbus had said it will build an assembly plant in Alabama. The Air Force says the planes will be American. A plant doesn't exist in America, and the only thing we know about the jobs it will create is that most of that work is going to be done overseas. If you don't believe me, read the British newspapers.
An article in a newspaper in Britain reported Monday that:
Airbus will build the planes in Europe, and fly them to a plant in Mobile, Alabama, for fitting out.
Supposedly, this allows them to call them ``made in America.'' That is like shipping a BMW over from Germany, putting new tires on it, and calling it America's newest luxury car.
As I have said before, you can put an American sticker on a plane and call it American, but that doesn't make it American made.
I think we have to take some cues from the reaction of the French and German leaders about what this contract means for Boeing and the American industry, and it is not good. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the deal ``an immense success for Airbus and the European aerospace industry.''
That is what they are saying in Europe.
A spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy called this deal a
``historic success.'' That is what they are calling it in Europe.
Four years ago, I stood on this floor to raise an alarm to my colleagues about Europe's attempt to dismantle the American aerospace industry, and I have spent years warning the administration and Congress that we have to defend our industry and demand that Airbus play by the rules. For decades, Europe has provided subsidies to prop up Airbus and EADS. Airbus is, to them, a jobs program in Europe, and it has led to tens of thousands of layoffs in the United States because of their illegal tactics, which I have been out on the floor a number of times over the past years to delineate for all of my colleagues. The U.S. Government now has a WTO case pending against Airbus--against the exact company the Air Force has now awarded a $40 billion contract to.
So I think we have even more reason for concern because this contract now gives Airbus a firm foothold as a U.S. contractor, and it is one that is going to hurt our U.S. workers for years to come.
It took us 100 years to build an aerospace industry in the United States. But once our plants shut down, the industry is gone. We can't just rebuild it overnight. So let's set the record straight. With this contract--this Air Force contract--Airbus is not creating American jobs; it is killing them. With this contract, we can say bon voyage to 44,000 U.S. jobs and bon voyage to $40 billion of our taxpayer money.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
Mr. VITTER. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 5 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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