[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 29, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H9039-H9040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            DO NOT CUT THE PRODUCTION OF F-22 AIRCRAFT SHORT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. The Obama administration and Secretary Gates have 
gone to great lengths to say that they want to stop the production of 
the F-22 for the Air Force. I have made a mistake. I have to admit, I 
have been reading some of the blogs on the comment board, and I am 
amazed at some of the shallow analysis of this particular decision. So 
since tomorrow we are going to be debating and discussing the Defense 
appropriations bill, I would like to take just a few moments today and 
simply talk about this issue, the F-22 and the Air Force, along four 
areas.

[[Page H9040]]

One is the military necessity for this plane; two and three are the 
ways we keep our air superiority, both by technology and the number of 
planes we have; and then finally, the priorities and what it says about 
this particular Nation.
  Two years ago the military was unanimous when they came before our 
committees and said that we need 381 F-22s and that 250 put us at a 
moderate risk. Now today Secretary Gates will tell us we only need 187, 
not the 381 planes. One has to ask, what has changed? Has the threat 
this Nation faces changed? Or is it simply the political climate that 
may have changed? In the last 15 years, there have been 30 independent 
separate studies, all of which say the same thing: 243 is the minimum 
number of F-22s we need; and at that, our air superiority faces a 
moderate risk. Air Combat Command General Corley has written a letter 
saying he needs at least 243 planes, F-22s, and that his command was 
not consulted when the decision to cap at 187 was actually made. The 
Air National Guard General Wyatt has also written a letter to our 
colleagues in the Senate, saying he needs at least 243 to 250 F-22s. 
General Schwartz, Chief of the Air Force, has already publicly stated 
that 243 is the minimum we need; and when asked in front of our 
committee, Is 187, that particular number, a military decision of what 
we need or is it the political decision of what we can afford?, he 
simply said, It is what we think we can afford.
  The bottom line is that nowhere has there been any study conducted to 
say that 187 is the correct number. In fact, that number has been 
contradicted. General Corley of Air Combat Command clearly said that 
with 187, the Air Combat Command could not fulfill its air force 
function. Is this a military decision? Does the military still want the 
F-22? And the answer is clearly, yes. Secretary Gates does not want the 
F-22. The 187 F-22s is a political, not a military, number; and the 
House, who has already voted to maintain the higher number should not 
back off in relationship to what the Senate has particularly done.
  Let me go also to this concept of air superiority. The United States 
has had air superiority since the Korean War, and there are two aspects 
of that: technology as well as the numbers that we have. I hate to say 
this, but before I came to Congress, there were air games that the 
United States engaged in with the Air Force of India. We used F-15s. We 
didn't use everything at our disposal; but the only reason we won those 
air games is because of the ability of our pilots, not because we have 
the technology to do it. The technology level of the United States, as 
good as the 15 and the 16 airplanes are--which are 30 years old--is 
that we still have the same technology advantage as a third-world Air 
Force. The F-22 moves us forward in that technology debate. However, 
just having the technology doesn't work if you don't have the numbers. 
The Russians are already building their fifth generation, and they are 
scheduled to build about 600 of their next-generation fighters. They 
will only keep about 350 for themselves. You have to ask the logical 
question, What will they do with the others? They will sell them. And 
where will they go? The bidders right now are countries like Venezuela 
and Iran, countries that are not necessarily friends of ours, but 
countries that could become a problem with this new generation of 
fighter that they buy from the Russians.
  We have been told that the F-35 is enough for what we need. However, 
the F-35 is not a replacement for the F-22. And the problem is, we 
won't even get an F-35 under the best of circumstances before the year 
2014, and there is some indication that it may be the year 2016 before 
that takes place. We are in a situation where this administration 
clearly puts $5 billion in programs like ACORN but doesn't want to put 
$2 billion to continue the production of the F-22, vital to the defense 
of this particular country.
  Is this plane expensive? Yes. Is this plane militarily required? Yes. 
Is it useless? No. Is it a Cold War element? Well, actually, almost 
everything we have is a Cold War element. We just simply try to improve 
them as time goes on. What we are dealing with now, Mr. Speaker, is 
simply the concept that we are dealing with what we need in the next 15 
to 20 years. And in that particular situation, the F-22 is what we need 
for the future defense of this country.

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