George Darden: “I rise today in strong opposition to the Harman amendment. Back in 1986, the good old Heritage Foundation, a good…”

“I rise today in strong opposition to the Harman amendment. Back in 1986, the good old Heritage Foundation, a good, conservative think-tank, issued a report dated January 23, 1986, which I think summarizes my philosophy about the flawed C-17 program. It came to the conclusion that: A careful analysis by experts of U.S. airlift needs and of the C-17 program reveals that a new cargo plane is not needed to close the gap. As such, the Air Force should cancel the C-17, now in a full-scale engineering phase of development, and instead build more C-5B cargo and KC-10 cargo tanker aircraft. Better use, moreover, should be made of the existing fleet of C-130 Hercules and C-141B Starlifter strategic aircraft. Not only could this save about $20 billion, but the U.S. would have the needed planes available much sooner. Let me address one other issue that was raised by the Heritage, good, conservative Republican think-tank, report. It said that the idea of using the C-17 to go to the far edge of the battle area, the FEBA, as it was known, was absolutely ridiculous because "Is it realistic to expect the Air Force to risk the C-17, which may cost $180 million or more each," and, of course, that is up now to about $250 million or more, "on austere airfields in or near combat zones? Former Air Force Secretary Bernon Orr apparently does not think so.”