"Monkey Business" - The Business of Government

[Richard]

$17k drip pans!!?! This is the kind of s**t that makes me a candidate for anti-hypertensive medication.

And so it goes...

Richard

Earmark Puts $17,000 Pans on Army Craft
NYT, 18 May 2012

In the 1980s, the military had its infamous $800 toilet seat. Today, it has a $17,000 drip pan.

Thanks to a powerful Kentucky congressman who has steered tens of millions of federal dollars to his district, the Army has bought about $6.5 million worth of the “leakproof” drip pans in the last three years to catch transmission fluid on Black Hawk helicopters. And it might want more from the Kentucky company that makes the pans, even though a similar pan from another company costs a small fraction of the price: about $2,500.

The purchase shows the enduring power of earmarks, even though several scandals have prompted efforts in Congress to rein them in. And at a time when the Pentagon is facing billions of dollars in cutbacks — which include shrinking the Army, trimming back purchases of fighter jets and retiring warships — the eye-catching price tag for a small part has provoked sharp criticism.

The Kentucky company, Phoenix Products, got the job to produce the pans after Representative Harold Rogers, a Republican who is now the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, added an earmark to a 2009 spending bill. While the earmark came before restrictions were placed on such provisions for for-profit companies, its outlays have continued for the last three years.

The company’s owners are political contributors to the congressman, who has been called the “Prince of Pork” by The Lexington Herald-Leader for his history of delivering federal contracts to donors and others back home.

Military officials have said the pans work well, and Mr. Rogers defended them.

“It’s important that Congress do what it can to provide our military with the best resources to ensure their safety and advance our missions abroad, while also saving taxpayer dollars wherever possible,” Mr. Rogers said in a statement. “These dripping pans help accomplish both of these goals.”

But Bob Skillen, the chief engineer at a small manufacturer called VX Aerospace, which has a plant in North Carolina, said he was shocked to see what the Army was spending for the Black Hawk drip pans. He designs drip pans that his company sells to the military for a different helicopter, the UH-46, for about $2,500 per pan, or about one-eighth the price that his Kentucky competitor charges. The pans attach beneath the roof of the helicopter to catch leaking transmission fluid before it can seep into the cabin.

“It’s not a supercomplex part,” said Mr. Skillen, an aerospace engineer who used to work for the Navy. “As a taxpayer, I’m just like, this isn’t right.”

(Cont'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/us...it_th_20120519

[Stargazer]

Monkey see, monkey do... ~and that's all I have to say about that~

[Dad]

I think Richard Viguere (sp?) said it best a few years ago. "These are not conservatives. These are people who are turning the federal government into an atm for their buddies. translate "buddies" for campaign contributors.

[greenberetTFS]

I'm shocked,completely shocked..........

Big Teddy

[Pete]

I don't know if I'm more shocked about the critter needing a drip pan or that the cheaper version on a different chopper still cost $2,500.

Two full price drip pans or one married off post private for a year? Looks like the politicians have made their choice.

[cbtengr]

I have a very leaky 1967 Harley bagger with a big old cookie sheet under it that I could have gotten from Goodwill had I chosen to for a couple of bucks. The company supplying the 2500.00 pans must be feeling pretty stupid knowing now that their competitor is getting 17,000.00 per pan, were I a stockholder in Co. B I would be demanding an inquiry.

[Ambush Master]

These aren't your "on-the-floor" Drip Pans. They're actually part of the aircraft!!

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=black...9,r:6,s:0,i:90

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Ambush Master

These aren't your "on-the-floor" Drip Pans. They're actually part of the aircraft!!...............

And for that they paid $17,000?

[cbtengr]

Originally Posted by Ambush Master

These aren't your "on-the-floor" Drip Pans. They're actually part of the aircraft!!

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=black...9,r:6,s:0,i:90

I'm starting to feel a little better about the price now.

Its still kind of a glorified cookie sheet.

[Gypsy]

Originally Posted by Dad

These are people who are turning the federal government into an atm for their buddies. translate "buddies" for campaign contributors.

This. And these people should be thrashed.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Ambush Master

These aren't your "on-the-floor" Drip Pans.

I can go buy a 2012 Toyota Corolla for $17k - that drip pan is either made of some sort of precious metal or we're getting screwed.

Richard

[Airbornelawyer]

In the 1980s, the military had its infamous $800 toilet seat. Today, it has a $17,000 drip pan.

Two separate, though related issues, but the media usually throws them together. Not all waste is fraud or abuse, some of it is just stupidity.

The "infamous" $800 toilet seats were the result of MIL-SPEC procurement rules. The toilet seat had to fit the specific parameters of the toilet, which was designed to fit the specific parameters of the toilet's location in the aircraft. You had a very specific design, for a relatively small number of aircraft, so all the R&D and production costs went to a small number of units, with no way to reach any economies of scale. In this sense, the toilet seats aren't much different than the incredibly expensive multimillion dollar aircraft they ended up on.

Partly in reaction to the infamy of the toilet seat and some hammer deal I vaguely remember, the Reagan Administration pushed through rules to allow for more off the shelf procurement, but bureaucrats being bureaucrats, it is easier to write an RFP based on what you know (dimensions of toilet, for example), than think outside the box and maybe make an easy fix to the toilet design so you can get your seats at Home Depot.

This drip pan story sounds more like the abuse category, where competitive bidding goes out the door in favor of a constituent. Still, I wonder if we have the full story even here. CH-46s are not UH-60s. I would rather hear what other UH-60 users are spending for drip pans for comparison. VX Aerospace is run by former Navy guys but apparently doesn't have a drip-pan contract for the SH-60 (otherwise, why mention the CH-46 contract?). Given the small number of CH-46s left in service (phased out by the Navy and being phased out by the Marine Corps), maybe VX Aerospace is looking for business? If they can build one for the UH-60 for eight times less, more power to them, but Mr. Skillen doesn't actually claim that. Also, it appears that VX Aerospace has gotten its share of sole source contracts too (see here and here for example), so they are perhaps not opposed to non-competitive bidding on principle.

So I suspect there is more to the story.

[plato]

Ah, that toilet seat comes back to haunt us.

The "toilet seat" was a manifold. More or less a large wormhole that went horizontal and vertical and was cast into a large fiberglass block and connected to the holding tank. You could do a sharp turn in the aircraft, do a sudden dive, and the crap didn't flow back into and cough out of the toilet. Reporters who had diffiiculty thinking of anything about a toilet that was fiberglass except a toilet seat, interpreted the convoluted military description as a toilet seat.

The $75 dollar hammer was a little math done by one of the personnel in a government contracting department who looked at the number delivered in the first batch, divided by the total cost of the contract to date, and sounded the alarm.

About 30 years ago, in tactical and combat vehicle development, the project manager was always an engineer. (Local prejudices). I asked my contracting chief WTF those rumors were about and he tracked them down for me. I believe him. If that turns out to be untrue, I'll take a 3 wood to the back of his head next sunday.

For companies that aren't well financed, the R&D, design, and tooling are often paid up front, and 10 or so items that may later have a unit cost of $50,000 are delivered for quality exam, design check, and some tough semi-destructive testing. But instead of $500,000, the Army would often sign a check for several million to cover the opening of the plant, the creation of the tooling, and the salaries of the employees.

Heck, I'm willing to bet the first Dodge pickup off the assembly line in 2014 will cost Chrysler some $200,000,000.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

The problem is that what one person sees as a hunk of fat, another person sees as steak.

Looks like 'pork' to me.

Richard