[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 4, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1490-S1492]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BOEING LOSES
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues, the senior
Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, who did an eloquent job talking
about the shocking news that came out last Friday about the Air Force's
decision to go with the KC-30 tanker over the Boeing KC-767 plane. I
know my colleagues from Kansas want to continue this dialog as well.
What we see is a lot of concern and questions that have not been
answered by the Air Force. I appreciate the fact that Speaker Pelosi
also issued a statement today questioning the decision by the Air Force
and asking for further congressional review. That is why my colleagues
are here this morning. We want answers from the Air Force. Frankly, we
don't want to wait another week to get them. For 75 years, Boeing has
been making tanker products. They know what they are doing. They
submitted a bid to the Air Force for a more flexible plane with a cost-
effective life cycle. It has proven boom technology. This technology is
used to refuel aircraft for the militaries all over the world. Other
governments have already bought this product and have made the decision
to use this technology. It is amazing to my colleagues and me that the
Air Force would make this decision about these planes based one bid
that is a proven technology and has proven successful for more than 70
years and all of a sudden switch to a product that has yet to be built
and yet to be proven. The Air Force has made assertions and assumptions
without giving Congress the answers.
What I am really amazed about, frankly, is that we are seeing some of
the highest fuel costs in America and that impacts our Air Force as
well and I want to know why the Air Force picked such a large plane,
when their specs clearly asked for a medium-sized plane. If the Air
Force wanted a large plane, the Air Force should have simply asked for
a large plane. The Boeing Company could have provided a 777 instead of
the 767. But that is not what the Air Force asked. I take the Air Force
at its word when they say they want to be more energy efficient. In
fact, the Air Force uses more than half of all the fuel the U.S.
Government consumes each year. Aviation fuel accounts for more than 80
percent of the Air Force's total energy bill. In 2006, they spent more
than $5.8 billion for almost 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel, more than
twice what they spent in 2003.
If anybody thinks fuel costs are somehow magically going to come
down, they are not. The Air Force needs to consider the impact of fuel
costs in the future. In fact, I believe it is a national security
concern as to where the Air Force is going to get fuel in the future.
Just last Friday, the Air Force Assistant Secretary told the House
Armed Services Committee that it wants to leave a greener footprint
with more environmentally sound energy resources. Well, if the Air
Force is coming up to Capitol Hill talking about a greener, more fuel-
efficient plane and at the same time awarding a contract for a plane
that burns 24 percent more fuel than the Boeing KC-767, they do not
have their act together.
This is what Assistant Secretary Bill Anderson said:
The increasing costs of energy and the nation's commitment
to reducing its dependence on foreign oil have led to the
development of the Air Force energy strategy--to reduce
demand, increase supply and change the culture within the Air
Force so that energy is a consideration in everything we do.
Well, I certainly want to know what consideration the Air Force gave
to this new energy mandate in their decision to go with the KC-30 over
the KC-767, when the Boeing plane is 24 percent more fuel efficient.
Now, one of the things the Air Force stressed in the contract
announcement was the size of the KC-30. It is a slightly bigger plane,
and the Air Force claims to want that larger plane because it can carry
more fuel. However, that fuel is going to cost us.
Since the Vietnam war, the average amount of fuel offloaded from
these air tankers is 70,000 pounds. When these tankers are out
refueling planes the average amount of fuel they need to carry to
complete a mission is less than 70,000 pounds, and that is during
combat operations when they are very busy, which obviously would be
less during in peacetime operations. This begs the question: Why did
the Air Force choose a foreign-built tanker that has the capacity to
carry 245,000 pounds of fuel versus the right-sized plane from Boeing
that carries 205,000 pounds of fuel? Why did they choose a plane they
know is going to have more expensive life cycle costs and more
expensive on fuel costs, instead of buying the right sized plane? That
would be like driving a humvee to the Capitol every day when you could
drive a more fuel-efficient car. The Air Force has to live up to their
commitment to a greener energy strategy.
The second issue that is troubling to me is the fact that there is an
issue about runway, ramp, and infrastructure capacity. The KC-767
tanker is a smaller plane, it has ability to land on many more
airstrips we have access to around the world. The Boeing tanker can
land on shorter runways, takes up less ramp space, and altogether needs
less infrastructure. The KC-767 can operate at over 1,000 bases and
airstrips worldwide.
For example, at a strategic central Asian airbase in Manas,
Kyrgyzstan that I think is key to the war on terrorism, the current
runway cannot support the KC-30 plane. It cannot support the plane the
Air Force just selected. However, it can support the KC-767 that Boeing
offered. Again, it begs the question: why did the Air Force would
choose a larger plane when it knows it is going to be unable to land at
many bases and airstrips? Are we going to have to pay for the cost of
infrastructure improvements of that as well?
It is very important, given these fuel issues and these
infrastructure issues, that the Air Force prove to Congress that the
cost-effectiveness throughout the life cycle of this procurement really
does pan out. If we are simply talking about buying cheaper planes up
front, but the life-cycle cost of these planes turns out to be
exorbitant--because the fuel is more expensive, because the plane
cannot land at various bases--and you have to spend billions more on
both of those things, that is very troubling.
The reason this is so troubling to me is because I have seen this
same issue play out in the commercial marketplace. Airbus planes have
been backed by government financing in the commercial markets, so they
were able to put a cheaper plane out in front of many governments
across the globe. Boeing, on the other hand, has proven with technology
to have more fuel-efficient planes, and they were able to show people
that the true life cycle costs of their planes were actually more cost
effective. The end result is a WTO dispute over the financing of Airbus
by government-backed operations.
What I am trying to say is that the private sector has figured it
out. In the commercial space, fuel-efficient planes are paying their
way. I wonder why the Air Force did not figure out the same scenario
and did not figure out that they will save U.S. taxpayers' dollars by
having a more fuel-efficient plane. I also ask the Air Force to explain
when the Boeing tanker is 22 percent cheaper to maintain because of the
flexibility advantages it has.
I have concerns that Boeing worked hard to meet the requirements the
Air Force set. The 767 platform best matched what the Air Force wanted.
If they wanted a bigger plane with more capacity, they simply could
have asked for one. Yet here we are with a questionable decision that I
think raises concerns about the ability of the Department of Defense to
maintain critical skills. We need to make sure there is a homegrown
workforce and engineers to deliver products we need.
The U.S. Government needs to consider the national security
implications of fuel efficiency in this procurement decision. It needs
to take a look
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at the U.S. workforce and determine whether the loss of high-skill
manufacturing jobs is impacting our national security. I plan to ask
the Government Accountability Office to investigate these issues and
report back to Congress so we can have a full debate and move ahead.
I will remind the Air Force that in the conclusion of their testimony
last week before Congress, they stated: We will continue to wisely
invest in our precious military construction and operations and
maintenance. They highlighted energy as the key element wise
investment. I think the Air Force has a lot of explaining to do, and I
want to know why they have made this choice. I guarantee you that
Congress will continue to ask the tough questions until the information
is clear to everyone in America.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority's time has expired.
The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Hearing none, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, thank you very much.
I thank my colleagues. I, too, am from a State that is keenly
impacted by what is taking place on this bid proposal. The Air Force's
decision to award a new tanker contract last week is a crowning
achievement, not for the Air Force or the United States but for Airbus
and the Europeans.
We were saying in our office, I wonder if in the future our young men
and women going into the Air Force to fly these planes or to work on
these planes are going to have to pass a test in French--``Parlez-vous
francais?''--to be able to determine whether we can work on these
aircraft. And to be able to get maintenance, equipment, and training,
well, we are going to have to go to Europe to be able to do that. We
are going to have to get the people who built them to tell us how to do
it. I do not think that is right.
I also would like to say to my colleagues, I have been around this
fight between Airbus and Boeing for a long time, and Airbus has
subsidized itself directly into the commercial aviation market. They
had zero market share 30 years ago. They started a European consortium
called Airbus and EADS to be able to get at Boeing and into the
commercial aviation market. They completely subsidized their way into
it. It got to a point with the subsidies where they were taking over
half of the marketplace in commercial aviation. Now here we go again.
We are just now on the defense side of it. Instead of the commercial
side, we are on the defense side.
This aircraft which EADS and Airbus have put together is heavily
subsidized by European governments, by European treasuries, to be able
to get a price point, to be able to compete against a well-known Boeing
aircraft that has been in our fleet for decades, that has worked well
for decades, that has been used to train our young pilots and multiple
generations of pilots on this tanker. Now we are going to put those
pilots in an Airbus plane, and they are going to land in fields all
over the world in an Airbus airplane--our U.S. military risking life
and limb--while the Europeans make money off of us and get into, by
subsidization, a defense marketplace.
Make no mistake, this is just a start. This is what the Europeans did
in commercial aviation. They started subsidizing commercial aviation.
They got in one place, got all the market share, and subsidized into
another one.
They do things called launch aid. I don't know, my colleagues
probably are not familiar with launch aid, but launch aid is where
European governments say: We will give you this much money to start
this aircraft, and if you stop producing this aircraft, then you have
to pay the money back. Well, it then pays them to keep producing the
aircraft, and even selling it at a loss, because then they do not have
to pay the launch aid back.
Well, now they are doing it in a defense contract field, and they
start with tankers. The Europeans start with tankers. Then they will go
with surveillance aircraft. Then they will move to other airframes, to
where then is it going to be all of our major airframes that are going
to be made by the Europeans?
I like the comment from my colleague from the State of Washington:
What happens if the Europeans are not pleased with what we are doing in
the war on terrorism or what we are doing in the defense of Israel and
if then their governments start saying: Well, I don't like what your
policy is in the Middle East. Now, as you know, what they do is they
say: Well, we are not going to give you overflight rights. We are not
going to let you fly your planes out of Germany or not let you fly your
planes out of Great Britain. We are going to stop you.
What if in the future they start saying: We are not going to sell you
spare parts. Then where are we at that point in time? What do we say to
them? I do not know how to use my French enough to plead and beg for
spare parts, but I really do not want to be in that spot, and I do not
think we should.
As a friend of mine said to me this morning--he is for a very open
trading system--he said: There are two things we should not be
dependent upon other governments for: one is for your defense, and one
is for your food. Those are just two things you should not be dependent
upon another government for. Now we are going to be dependent for our
defense on a European government that often goes a different way than
us. I think this is crazy. For a decision that is going to last--as my
colleague, my seatmate from Kansas, said--for up to 80 years, that just
does not seem to be a smart way to go.
This is one Senator who is going to fight against this, who is going
to fight against this in the appropriations process. I do not think it
is smart. I think it is the wrong thing to do.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, will my colleague and friend yield for a
question?
Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, I will.
Mr. ROBERTS. I say to the Senator, you brought something up that I
think is very important. As you look at the various countries that form
up EADS and Airbus and that will participate in this joint effort,
which is subsidized, even though we have a WTO case against them, what
happens if these countries do not agree, as the Senator has pointed
out, with our appropriate policy in regard to the war against terrorism
or any other endeavor?
The example I would like to make is: Look at the amount of money
these countries, in their gross domestic product, give to defense. The
answer is almost zero. Look at the amount of investment they give to
NATO, where we are now fighting al-Qaida in Afghanistan. A few
countries will fight with us. Note the word I said: ``fight.'' As to
other countries that are now receiving this contract, despite the fact
they are subsidizing their own product, they are not fighting in
Afghanistan. They are not contributing to NATO in a positive way. Some
of them are there, but they do not enter into the battle.
Now, here we are, with the American taxpayer paying for the security
of Europe and Europe really not facing up to the task of funding and
participating in NATO to the extent they can. Yet, in regard to our
national security with this particular purchase--and if you do not have
tankers, you do not have global reach, you cannot go anywhere, you have
access denial, and you cannot even fight the war in regard to
Afghanistan or any future place. Yet they are absent without leave,
they are not even there. So I think my friend has made an excellent
point and I thank him for his comments. We are going to join in an
effort to see what can be done because this is harmful not only in
regards to workers in France, vis-a-vis these workers in America, but
it involves our national security.
I think my colleague and my friend from Kansas has made an excellent
point.
Mr. BROWNBACK. I appreciate my colleague joining with me. I wish to
make two other quick points. One is I think we need a long-term
economic model of the impact on our economy versus the impact on the
European economy. Because I believe if you look at the true cost and if
you look at the true impact of these jobs being in the United States
versus subsidized jobs in Europe, you are going to see the long-term
economic impact on this country and on our Government with the taxes
our workers would pay will be better by building the plane here.
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Second--and this is a strategic issue--this is a bigger plane that is
being purchased by the military. It is going to need a longer landing
strip. Are those longer landing strips going to be available in
countries such as Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan or are we going to be able
to get a longer runway to be able to land on? Now we have a plane that
will carry more fuel, but it will take a longer landing strip. We can
build those in the United States. We can build bigger hangars here. Can
we around the world so we can have the reach we need?
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, will the Senator from Kansas yield for a
question?
Mr. BROWNBACK. I am happy to yield.
Mrs. MURRAY. I am listening to the Senator from Kansas, and he makes
a very good point about the infrastructure that will be needed to be
built to build these larger airplanes. Was any of the cost of building
those runways or those hangars to accommodate the larger airplanes in
part of the bid from Airbus?
Mr. BROWNBACK. I understand from the Air Force yesterday that some of
it was, but I don't understand if it was--I do not know fully if it was
just the U.S. cost or if it is also what we are going to have to get
from other countries around the world on costs there for landing,
longer landing strips, and bigger hangars to be able to put any of the
aircraft in. So I don't know if that is fully in it as well. But these
are huge, decade-long projects and costs.
Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Senator. I think it is a point we have to
look at in terms of the costs of providing this military contract to a
subsidized foreign company as well as the future costs--not just for
those airplanes but for the infrastructure to handle it and our
capability of doing that.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, we have just started this discussion,
and I think it is a big one, I think it is an important one, whether we
should be dependent upon European governments for our global reach in
military for our aircraft. That is what tankers provide us is a global
reach and whether we should be dependent on the European governments--
upon the French, upon the Germans, upon the Brits--for our global
reach. I don't think we should be. I think we have to look at the
subsidization of this cost by the Europeans. I think that needs to be
discounted and taken out of this proposal. I think we have to look at a
long-term project, and we are going to be talking about this a lot
before we go forward with this--as Chancellor Merkel called it, this
giant success for Airbus and the European aviation industry. It may
have been that it is at our cost. I am not going to stand still and let
it happen.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire is
recognized.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, what is the regular business? Are we in
morning business? Do we have a half hour?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. We are in morning business and the
Senator has a half hour.
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