Posted on 06/01/2007 12:59:22 PM PDT by dennisw
For nearly $7 million a year, taxpayers are leasing three private jets for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to use in case of emergency. But they're rarely used, according to records and interviews.
CDC officials say the jets are critical to their mission, giving the Atlanta-based agency the ability to mobilize disease fighters across the country or around the globe at any time of the day or night.
In the past year, the three jets have been used for a combined total of nine emergency flights. Even so, CDC officials say they need all of them and their pilots on call 24 hours a day.
"We are constantly looking at questions around cost and efficiency," said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. "If there are more cost-efficient ways to accomplish this vitally important mission, we'll definitely explore those."
For nearly a year The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has sought access under the federal Freedom of Information Act to internal CDC memos and other documents that would show how the agency justified leasing three jets and what other options it explored. The agency says it's still processing the newspaper's June 20, 2006, requests.
Last June the AJC reported that one luxury jet, a Gulfstream III, leased by the CDC, was barnstorming the country to promote the new Medicare drug plan. Even though Congress had authorized the jet for use in emergencies, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt was regularly using it to attend news conferences and meetings. HHS is the CDC's parent agency.
But since Leavitt's jet-setting came under scrutiny by Congress and drew national publicity, the plane has mostly sat idle at a Cartersville airport, flight records show. Leavitt hasn't taken any trips on it since last June.
Since then, it has flown so rarely — and not at all for the CDC since November — that its machinery was at risk from a lack of use, said Dent Thompson, vice president of Phoenix Air Group of Cartersville, which leases the aircraft to the CDC.
Phoenix Air charges the agency $3 million a year, under a competitively bid contract, to lease the jet and have it constantly at the ready. When the CDC uses it, it pays an additional $3,000 per flight hour.
The CDC leases two additional jets, another Gulfstream III and a smaller Gulfstream II, from Flightworks in Kennesaw for a combined cost of $3.8 million a year, according to records and spokesman Skinner. This contract also was competitively bid.
That contract covers use of the jets for 180 flight hours, after which the CDC would pay $2,286 for each additional flight hour.
These Flightworks jets are assigned to carry CDC staff who work with the Strategic National Stockpile of medicines and equipment — though they are too small to carry the prepackaged supplies that would be distributed in a major disaster. In an emergency, the CDC would use a commercial courier company to rush medicine and equipment — by air or truck — to the scene within 12 hours. Skinner said there are no planes on standby for the prepackaged cargo.
Two stockpile Gulfstream jets are needed to be able to transport CDC staff to two simultaneous events, Skinner said.
Here's how CDC has used its three leased jets since June 1, 2006:
The Phoenix Air Gulfstream III "emergency jet" has responded to four emergencies with five round trips:
• Transported doses of Prussian Blue, a compound used to remove radioactive materials from victims' bodies, in response to a laboratory accident in Puerto Rico.
• Picked up and transported medical samples in two separate cases of suspected human rabies to determine whether the victims needed treatment.
• Shuttled equipment and staff in two round trips to Panama City, Panama, to help solve a deadly case of medicines tainted with poison.
The two Flightworks jets that have been used for a combined total of two emergencies involving four round-trip flights:
• A jet made three round trips carrying vaccinia immune globulin to treat a 2-year-old Indiana boy who suffered a life-threatening viral infection contracted from the smallpox vaccination his military father received before going to Iraq. Skinner said that the stockpiled medicine is such a precious commodity that the agency only took one dose per trip. When the child needed more, each additional flight was taken.
• A jet transported anthrax immune globulin from the stockpile to New York where there had been a lab accident.
The jets have also taken 23 flights as part of emergency response exercises, which generally involved simulated deployment of stockpile medicines, Skinner said.
Skinner said the families whose lives were saved by the CDC's quick action with the jets know their value.
A taxpayer watchdog group said the number of jets CDC has on call bears closer scrutiny.
"The necessity of having a backup aircraft was greater when they had the secretary flying around, which he shouldn't have been doing in the first place," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington. "Certainly if it becomes a big enough issue, the military ... is going to be available for transporting the CDC around," Ellis said.
Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, also questioned "whether having three planes set aside is the appropriate model." But he acknowledged that "having the capacity to move people quickly is certainly critical for the CDC."
The CDC has leased the two Flightworks jets for at least six years. The agency began leasing the third jet in January 2004 after the agency ran into problems getting a military or private aircraft to evacuate an ill scientist from Asia during the SARS outbreak.
I don’t see a problem with this - it’s better to have and not need, than to need and not have, and it’s not like it’s a huge fleet of aircraft anyway.
It’s an insurance policy. The question is not whether the jets, being costly and going unused, is a waste, but rather, how much is it worth to have the capability if it were suddenly needed?
BS, let them fly commercial. They would likely get to their destination within 3 ours of scheduled arrival.
Just kidding of course. Seems like a very small price to pay. Plus they were competitively bid contracts.
Ditto, only an idiot would cripple the agency by removing it’s jets. It’s pity but some people can’t tell the difference between waste and legitimate government functions.
I agree. This is legit.
Exactly. I also think it's surprisingly judicious for them to use the jets sparingly, but to use cheaper commercial aviation in non-emergency situations. It would be stupid for the CDC to cut the fleet just because they rarely use them, since when they need them, commercial aviation simply wouldn't be an option. It would be equally stupid to over-use them just because they're there.
“and their pilots on call 24 hours a day.”
I bet they don’t have trouble keeping pilots with that sweet deal!
You don’t really need that $2 million UPS for your credit card processing datacenter. It’s not like the power ever goes out or anything.
You don’t need that $10 thousand/year insurance policy for your house. It’s not like it has ever burned down.
US Air Force rarely uses costly nuclear missiles.
Or since it transporting him back to the US wasn't that time critical, why not arrange military transport from our air base in Italy.
My guess is because it was some arrogant CDC official that decided to strand the guy there because he didn't heed their recommendation that he not travel even thought the CDC doctors admitted there wasn't a real need for the restriction.
So on average each jet is only flown on business, once a year.
I'm sure the pilots get to take the jets to various destinations to test them and keep up their training.
Definitely a good deal for them.
I’m going to get rid of those fire extinguishers that I rarely use. And that spare tire? Gone.
And us taxpayers don’t mind do we?
I have no problem with this. It means nobody is abusing them, and if the CDC requires a jet, its on standby.
“And that spare tire? Gone.”
Wow, and motivation to diet too........
Probably costs less to save lives than to put up a public housing building worth of fat lazy slackers watching digital cable on their goverment paid-for plasma TV’s.
This is a real, justifiable expense. Generations of scum sucking from the government teat year after year after year are not.
Wanna bitch? Bitch about waste and “entitlements”, not a justifiable expense.
Good point. Maybe they should have 10 more -- just in case.
Is the author wishing for catastrophe or that the CDC isn’t able to respond?
Idiots. Then again, it is the AJC.
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