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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.”
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.
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.
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.