Grant County in running for Airbus plant
Boeing competitor pitches $600 million aircraft assembly plant
WASHINGTON (AP) — Representatives from Washington state were among officials from 35 states in attendance Tuesday as the parent company of Boeing rival Airbus made a pitch for a $600 million aircraft assembly plant to be built in the United States.
Grant County, Wash., the city of Spokane and the state Department of Community Trade and Economic Development attended the informational session hosted by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.
France-based EADS, the majority owner of Airbus, has said it plans to open a U.S. manufacturing site within a year, with hopes of building a refueling tanker to compete with the Boeing 767.
Caroline Spira, Grant County Economic Development Council communications and research manager, said that a delegation from the county traveled to the EADS briefing regarding the company's request for proposals.
"The EDC will assist the state of Washington in incorporating a potential site in Grant County into the state's proposal," Spira said. "Grant County has a lot to offer the aerospace sector, especially due to the Grant County International Airport. It is worth evaluating the opportunity with EADS on behalf of Grant County."
Spira said that the briefing is the preliminary proposal portion of EADS' assembly plant plans.
"For economic development purposes, it would bring a new business into the valley with several hundred positions," said Craig Baldwin, manager of the Port of Moses Lake, of the Airbus plant.
Baldwin added that, based on Grant County's placing second in the bid to house Boeing's 7E7 site, "I would think we would have a pretty high chance of doing this."
About 135 people attended the session at a Capitol Hill hotel, EADS officials said.
”We felt we got a very, very positive response,” said Ralph Crosby, head of EADS North America, who led the presentation.
Crosby called the meeting the first step in a process that should result in selection of a U.S. site within a year. States interested in bidding on the Airbus plant were given a March 31 deadline to submit a general plan for where the plant would be located and what advantages the site would offer, Crosby said.
”We wanted to give everybody an opportunity to participate — and we got a lot of participants,” he said.
In addition to Washington state, other states represented at Tuesday's meeting include Arizona, California, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas, EADS officials said. All nine states have Boeing operations in their state.
Other states interested in the Airbus plant include North Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
EADS has asked states to select no more than three sites that would be capable of providing the work force, transportation options and resources needed for a site to assemble the tanker, which would be based on the Airbus A330 passenger jet. Washington is offering Grant County and Spokane. The city of Everett, home to a massive Boeing plant, said last week that it wasn't interested.
The plant, if built, could employ up to 1,100 people to manufacture billions of dollars worth of midair refueling tankers for the Air Force. Chicago-based Boeing is also interested in building the tankers, and the competition between the companies is expected to be fierce.
Under Boeing's plan, the planes would be built in Everett and modified for military use in Wichita, Kan.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and other Washington lawmakers have denounced the EADS plan as a ”slick campaign” to drum up political support for its effort to land the tanker contract.
”It's a ploy to capture American tax dollars for a French company and French jobs,” said Alex Glass, a spokeswoman for Murray. ”We think the tankers are going to be built in the United State and be built by Boeing.”
Columbia Basin Herald reporter Matthew Weaver contributed to this report.