I came across another delay in a federal contracting effort to report today. Seems the Department of Defense, and more specifically Secretary Robert Gates, feels it will not have sufficient time to complete the re-competition for the contract to build the next generation of mid-air refueling tankers. Gates announced this morning during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that DoD has decided to cancel the competition and leave the issue for the incoming administration to figure out. At first my reaction was this was just another example of the Bush administration pushing off their screw-ups onto someone else. But after thinking about it for a while, I think I'm changing my mind. Gates described the tanker contract issue as "enormously complex and emotional" and given the energy of the election season, trying to move forward on this contract in 2008 would probably only make things worse. Part of the reason I think this is that self-interested politicians keep sticking their noses into this issue where they don't belong. The latest is House member Rick Larsen (D-WA), who decided he was qualified enough to judge that the postponement was "great news" and a "step in the right direction." Now maybe Larsen has previous experience as a contracting officer, defense analyst, or refueling tanker pilot (these details are not apparent from his website bio). Not surprisingly, Larsen's district is home to Boeing's enormous Everett aircraft assembly plant, the main company in the team who lost the initial competition for the tanker. Gee, I wonder if that is impacting his perspective on this issue? The last thing we need is for the contracting process to become even more political than it already is. While Larsen is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, contract competitions are the perview of the executive branch, not Congress and Larsen and other politicians should stay out of a process that is already too political. Gates wisely decided that because the keen interest of politicians in this contract in an election year would only make the competition less fair, the right decision is to postpone.