(Bloomberg) -Northrop Grumman Corp. decided not to bid for the U.S. Air Force’s $35 billion tanker program, making good on a threat to withdraw from the contest unless the government altered some of its requirements, U.S. Representative Norm Dicks said.

The decision by Northrop and its partner, European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., to pull out leaves Boeing Co. as the only bidder for the program. Northrop said in a statement it won’t protest an award of the contract to Boeing.

“This is very good news,” said Dicks, a Democrat from Washington state, where Boeing’s manufacturing hub is located. “We can now go forward with the program.”

The Pentagon reissued bid requests Feb. 24 for the third time in nine years to replace its fleet of KC-135 refueling tankers with 179 new planes. The request followed a December warning from Northrop, which won an earlier contest, that it might pull out.

The Los Angeles-based company complained at that the time that a draft proposal of bid requirements appeared to favor a smaller plane offered by Chicago-based competitor Boeing and that the contract would impose “financial burdens.”

The February request included 230 “important changes,” such as absorption of some inflation adjustments by the government, and was designed to be fair to both sides, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said at the time.

“There is some talk that EADS will compete” on its own, Dicks said. “I don’t see that because Northrop was the public face of this.”

–Editors: James Langford, Will Daley

To contact the reporters on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Washington at gratnam1@bloomberg.net; Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Miller at kmiller@bloomberg.net.

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