U.S. government’s close ties to Boeing facing fresh scrutiny
By Jonathan O'Connell and Jonathan O'Connell Reporter covering economic development with a focus on commercial real estate and the Trump Organization Email Bio Follow Dan Lamothe Dan Lamothe Reporter covering the Pentagon and the U.S. military Email Bio Follow March 16 at 6:23 PM As a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, Dorothy Robyn was charged with advancing America’s aerospace industry.
President Barack Obama hired members of the Boeing board to serve as his chief of staff and commerce secretary. Against Republican opposition, he fiercely defended the federal Export-Import Bank, which has subsidized so many airline sales to foreign airline carriers by offering loan guarantees that conservative critics have derided it as “Boeing’s Bank.”
Boeing was among the top companies spending money last year trying to influence U.S. government decision-making. The Chicago-based aerospace giant spent $15.1 million lobbying the federal government, employing about 100 lobbyists on its behalf. Daniel Auble, a senior researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, called Boeing “an excellent illustration” of the “the undue influence of money in our political system.”
“Whenever the government is seeking to enhance exports, usually you’re going to find that Boeing is heavily involved in whatever initiative they’re carrying out,” said Andrew Hunter, a defense industry expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That was true in the Obama administration, and it’s true in the Trump administration.”
“If the Economist did an article about the Boeing-Airbus competition he would underline and it send it over to my boss. . . .,” she said. “He was all over it. And it was all about jobs.” Acting FAA administrator Daniel K. Elwell on the “Today” show Friday defended the speed with which U.S. regulators moved to ground the aircraft, saying it was not until they received additional information that they felt confident that a link between a Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October, also involving a Boeing 737 Max, and the March 10 Ethiopian Airways crash was “close enough.”
“The approach we have used over the years is the same approach that has served us well. Safety always is, and will be, our top priority.” Boeing also would be the beneficiary of more than $1 billion the Pentagon requested in Trump’s 2020 budget proposal to buy eight F-15X fighter jets. Senior Air Force officials said they were opposed to the expenditure, saying the money would be better spent buying from Lockheed Martin more F-35 fighters, which, unlike the F-15X, are equipped to evade advanced air defenses.
“To say it bluntly, this is unacceptable,” Roper told lawmakers. “FOD, or foreign object debris, is something we treat very seriously in the Air Force. Our flight lines are spotless. Our depots are spotless, because debris translates into a safety issue.” In 2004, Darleen Druyun, a high-ranking Air Force procurement official, was sentenced to prison after she admitted that she approved a purchase of 100 refueling airplanes from Boeing at an inflated price of about $20 billion to enhance her job prospects with the company. She also leaked proprietary pricing information from a competitor and helped Boeing secure a separate $4 billion as a thank you for hiring her daughter and future son-in-law.
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