Google's Lease of NASA Airfield Criticized By Consumer Group

Spy Handler writes Yesterday's announcement that Google will lease Moffett Field from NASA for 60 years drew criticism from a group called Consumer Watchdog, which stated "This is like giving the keys to your car to the guy who has been siphoning gas from your tank. It is unfairly rewarding unethical and wrongful behavior. These Google guys seem to think they can do whatever they want and get away with it – and, sadly, it looks like that is true.”

Comments

Jealous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like this so-called consumer group is jealous... They may not be a "consumer" group, probably more like an astro-turf group pretending to be for the lowly "consumer". Hard to tell these days.

what?

[DoomSprinkles]

NASA doesn't need this place and Google has some cool ideas they want to lease it for and this is unethical? What?

Re:what?

[i kan reed]

They allege, and I don't know how rightly, that all of the following are true:

1. Google has received a discounted rate on jet fuel from NASA.
2. This means that Google is underpaying on the lease since they'll get their jet fuel cheap???????

The problem with that logic, which the group acknowledges and, in spite of that, persists is that NASA doesn't actually take a loss on the fuel they sell Google.

Re:what?

[Matheus]

Consumer Watchdog wants to complain about something... trying to make a name for themselves? (Naming themselves after what they consider themselves to be wasn't good enough?)

The primary complaint they have against Google: Google got cheap gas from the US Gov't while leasing hangar space at this airfield. Boo Freaking Hoo. It is specifically mentioned that no loss of money occurred so they weren't even selling the gas below cost they were just selling the gas at below retail which they are more than entitled to do (When there are $5M of *savings I can only guess what the total bill was anyway!)

Reality of the world: When you have a lot of money you pay very little per unit than everyone else because you can afford to buy a LOT of whatever "it" is. Simple economics (Economy of Scale).

As far as this deal going forward: NASA gets a lot of money they need and gets to take a not insignificant amount of maintenance cost of their balance sheet at a time when their budgets are not exactly glamorous. If the $1.16B is even spread over time that's $19.4 M per year income plus $6.3M in savings = $25.7M net gain per year for giving up use of something they are not using. (Oh yeah and $200M in renovations of property they'd still own too)

I really don't like organizations that make noise for no reason when there are plenty of worthy causes in the world.

Re:what?

[AcidPenguin9873]

Discounting the jet fuel so it could remain on-site and not have to be moved seems reasonable to me. If NASA sold it to someone else, they surely would have had to sell it at a discount anyway because it was located at an otherwise-unused airfield and would have to be transported somewhere else. Transporting jet fuel isn't free.

Re:what?

[jeffmeden]

I don't think this was "excess jet fuel".

Google was previously located out of Moffett. The private company which operates Google's planes got the benefit of buying discounted fuel which NASA had purchased.

In other words, the taxpayer subsidized the fuel price Google was paying for its private aircraft.

So, are you OK with a multi-billion dollar corporation, owned by multi-billionaires, getting cut rate jet fuel from the government because they fly their aircraft out of a federal facility?

Because that sounds kind of insane to me. Even if it is only a "few million", why is Google being given this gift?

There was no gift at all. RTFA puts it this way: "While this arrangement did not cause an economic loss to NASA or DLA-Energy, it did result in considerable savings for H211 and engendered a sense of unfairness and a perception of favoritism toward H211 and its owners."

So, they are pissed that a perfectly legal "arrangement" between Google and NASA where the latter sold the former some jet fuel for *what they paid for it*, is now an official one that apparently will save NASA about $6 million a year. I wonder if anyone else actually tried to ask NASA to sell them fuel and got turned down? Or, is this "consumer protection" group just pissed that Google had the balls and they didn't? We may never know.

Re:what?

[Trongy]

Google didn't steal. NASA didn't sell the fuel
NASA is a government agency and doesn't have to pay taxes and levies that the private sector does.
The fuel was supplied by DLA-Energy (Defense Logistics Agency), not NASA. The fuel was purchased by H211, a company owned by the top Google people.
DLA-Energy can sell the fuel, but they should collect the tax when they do.
There was confusion because H211 was flying some missions on behalf of NASA, for which they were entitled to tax free fuel.
[The inspector general] 'Martin attributed the discount to a “misunderstanding” between personnel at the airfield and the fuel supplier “rather than intentional misconduct. DLA-Energy misunderstood that H211 was drawing fuel for both private and NASA-related missions.'

Balanced article about the situation:
http://www.businessweek.com/ar...

Stick to your field

[duck_rifted]

A NASA airfield is not a consumer product or service. Google's leasing it has no immediate impact upon anything related to consumers directly. A "consumer watchdog" chiming in on this is like Gordon Ramsey engaging Stephen Hawking in a debate about black holes.

Wrong analogy

[AaronLS]

Their gripe is based on a previous case of Google being given discounts on fuel purchases, which the watchdog group themselves admits did not negatively impact the government or NASA. Google didn't steal this fuel or commit fraud to get these discounts. Their opinion is simply that it was unfair preference shown to Google(which, if anything, is misconduct on the part of NASA). So comparing this to stealing gas is unfair on the part of the watchdog group.

"These Google guys seem to think they can do whatever they want and get away with it"

So because Google was given got some fuel at a discount, "these Google guys" shouldn't be allowed to do anything at all anymore? What are they getting away with? Oh god they've leased some land and given the government some money for something that would have otherwise depreciated in value unused! The atrocity!

Re:Two links

[Spy Handler]

Submitter here. I only linked one article (the parabolicarc.com one). The editor added the second CNBC article (which I didn't know about). To be honest, the CNBC article has more info so it wasn't a bad call. Maybe what they should've done is replace my link with the CNBC link, or just reject my submission and write a new one.

Don't Understand the Complaint

[crmanriq]

"While this arrangement did not cause an economic loss to NASA or DLA-Energy, it did result in considerable savings for H211 and engendered a sense of unfairness and a perception of favoritism toward H211 and its owners. "

So nobody lost money. It sounds like Google found a way to save money (thus being good stewards of corporate cash).

In 2011 Google offered to pay a big chunk of restoration costs for the hanger, and NASA instead decided to sell or lease it. It was used for Star Trek in 2009, but other than that it seems to have sat empty.

So instead of an empty unused hanger, NASA is getting 6.3 million per year for the next 60 years.

I really don't see who is losing anything here.

Consumer Watchdog

[jratcliffe]

The group clearly has a bee in their bonnet about Google. Pretty much every month, they put out a big press release attacking something the company does.

http://insidegoogle.com/