Boeing issued a statement April 1 denying any legitimate reason to extend the bidding past DOD's previous deadline May 10 to accommodate the Europeans. EADS has been pushing for a longer bidding process that might push final decision-making past mid-term U.S. elections.
In jockeying for an EADS victory that would create a large assembly factory in Alabama, the state's senior Republican Sen. Richard Shelby in February put a blanket hold on 70 top-level Obama federal appointments.
Shelby disrupted the Obama administration as it entered a critical phase of its second year after numerous delays in appointments during the first year that are keeping holdovers in many key slots throughout government. In Alabama's middle district, for example, Leura Canary remains as U.S. attorney despite being one of the nation's most controversial "loyal Bushies" (the term comes from a former Bush DOJ chief of staff) targeting such key Democrats as Alabama's former Gov. Don Siegelman.
Later, Shelby backed off in blocking all Obama appointments after flexing his Senate muscle. As a countermeasure, the Obama administration just made 15 recess appointments to try to secure control of federal bureaucracy before too much more time passes.
But the political clock is ticking in other ways if EADS and its backers can nudge final Pentagon decision-making on July bids a few more weeks into the period after November's U.S. elections. Republicans are expected to gain far more congressional clout. At that point, the Republican mastery of Senate rules even when they're in the minority, combined with European financial muscle could threaten Boeing, which is no slouch itself in power politics in the United States and internationally.
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