http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gates-...sset=&cco de=
Gates restores Air Force authority in tanker deal
Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday restored the Air Force's authority to select the winner of a $35 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers between Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp.
Gates last summer stripped the service's ability to award a contract in the wake of a Government Accountability Office report that found the Air Force failed to evaluate both proposals on the same merits.
Northrop, and its partner Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company N.V., beat out rival Boeing for the deal to replace 179 tankers last February. Boeing later successfully protested the award.
The Pentagon "cannot afford the kind of letdowns, parochial squabbles, and corporate food-fights that have bedeviled this effort in the past," Gates said.
Speaking at the Air Force Association trade show in National Harbor, Md., Gates said his office will continue to oversee the troubled competition.
