http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/ny.../07copter.html
Go Get 'Em Dodd!
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Legislative Combat Over the President's Copters
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Published: April 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, April 6 - A border dispute between Connecticut and New York erupted on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday afternoon and brought business in the chamber to a sudden halt.
The fight - which had been brewing for months - centered on the Pentagon's decision to hire an international group led by Lockheed Martin to build the next fleet of presidential helicopters.
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That decision pleased New York's Congressional delegation, primarily because some of the work will be done at a new Lockheed plant in upstate New York. But it outraged members of Connecticut's Congressional delegation, who wanted Sikorsky Aircraft, a Connecticut-based company, to continue building the White House's helicopters, as it has since the Eisenhower era.
The matter seemed to be settled until Wednesday, when Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, tried introducing a measure that would likely have undermined the deal between the Pentagon and Lockheed. Unknown to his colleagues from New York - or so they say - Mr. Dodd offered the measure in the form of an amendment to a bill to authorize rules governing the State Department.
But before a vote on the Dodd amendment could take place, word quickly got back to his New York colleagues, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who rushed to the Senate floor to stop Mr. Dodd.
The two New York senators accused Mr. Dodd of, in effect, trying to pull a fast one and threatened to use procedural maneuvers to tie up the larger State Department bill unless Mr. Dodd withdrew his amendment.
"I will hold up this bill," Mr. Schumer said on the floor. "It was a sneak attack."
But Mr. Dodd refused to yield, forcing Senate leaders to withdraw the State Department bill.
The fireworks continued after the floor debate, with Senator Clinton cornering Mr. Dodd, wagging her finger at him and scolding him for being "naughty," according to one official who witnessed the encounter.
"This is a huge deal to our state," Mrs. Clinton said later, noting that the project would bring up to 700 jobs to the Binghamton area. "We won this contract fair and square."
The helicopter fleet, which will be ready in 2009, will be built by Lockheed and AgustaWestland, a British-Italian venture.
The amendment that Mr. Dodd offered would require any foreign company involved in building the presidential helicopters to declare that it would not do business with any state that sponsors terrorism.
Mr. Dodd's office noted that AgustaWestland was one of the companies listed as having attended an air show in Iran, though the senator's office said it was not accusing the company of doing business with Iran.
"My amendment is simple," Mr. Dodd said when he presented the measure on the floor. "It says that foreign companies involved in developing the president's Marine One helicopter must pledge in writing that they will not conduct business with state sponsors of terrorism."
"The principle is clear," he continued, "and hardly controversial."