Lawmakers skeptical of Air Force plan to get Boeing tankers

A note of skepticism about the Air Force's plan for replacing large numbers of aging aerial tankers arose in a House subcommittee Tuesday, when the panel's leaders admonished a pair of generals that the Pentagon had yet to make its case to Congress for leasing up to 100 new refueling aircraft.

The hearing, by the House Armed Services Projection Forces Subcommittee, marked the preliminary round in the panel's review of an impending deal between the Pentagon and Boeing Co. under which the government would lease new 767-class civilian planes-at a cost to taxpayers of $16 billion-to be converted to dual-use military tankers and cargo planes.

Although the Pentagon announced last month that it was going forward with the leasing option, both Subcommittee Chairman Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., and ranking member Gene Taylor, D-Miss., noted that the Air Force's latest study justifying the need for new tankers had never been submitted to Congress. And Taylor demanded to know why the Air Force, in contradiction to a report by GAO, claimed that it had submitted it to GAO.

"DoD does not have a current, validated study on the needs," said Neil Curtin, GAO's director of defense capabilities and management, during the hearing, noting that firm estimates of the cost and timing for replacing the old tankers with new ones had not been delivered to Congress.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul Essex maintained, however, that the study had been released to Congress in the fall of 2001 and blamed a "failure of communication between the Air Force and GAO" for the belief that it had not.

But Bartlett insisted that the Armed Services panel had gotten only a "perfunctory, three-page report" and wondered dryly if a detailed study "was lost in the mail." Whatever the case, Bartlett added, he will hold a second hearing to "address the details of the KC-767 lease proposed by the Pentagon."

Regardless of how the disagreement is settled, Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., said there is still momentum at the Pentagon to finalize the lease and start replacing the first 68 KC-135Es, whose average age is 42 years.

Dicks, who attended the subcommittee meeting and is the chief House advocate for the lease, told CongressDaily that "finalization of it is very close," despite other reports that OMB is raising some questions about the cost and terms of the deal.