Saxby Chambliss

I believe that the opportunities on the horizon have never been brighter for rural America.

It is vital that we have good leadership in place at the Department to deal with the many issues.

We are very pleased to see you here, pleased to see you willing to commit yourself to America's farmers and ranchers.

Our rural citizens are certainly not exempt from economic and financial hardships.

Should the President and Congress conclude that our forces should be sized to deal with only one contingency where our control of the air is contested, that will be an appropriate time to terminate production of the F-22.

Is it not normal to have some analysis for terminating a line, versus deciding to terminate the line and then do your analysis after the fact?

By the time you take out planes for testing, by the time you consider planes that are in depot maintenance, you're going to wind up with combat-coded airplanes roughly in the range of 125 to 135.

I kind of like that line of questioning you were on, Mr. Chairman.

Do you know of any analysis that went into arriving at that number?

Has the F-22 been pointed to, over the last decade, as the next-generation fighter that was going to allow us to maintain air dominance and air superiority?

Was not the JSF intended to complement the F-22, rather than replace the F-22?

Ending production of the F-22 and C-17... represent a major change to our national defense strategy.

It is my understanding that C-5 RERP is performing well, that Lockheed Martin is performing to cost and schedule, and that the Air Force has indicated that RERP meets or exceeds all key performance parameters specified by contract.

It is my understanding that the recently released Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) study considered 36 alternative mixes and sizes for airlift and compared them both in cost and effectiveness with the program of record.

What concerns me about this budget is that I think we're giving up a capability that we're going to need.

This is a 1-year decision and the real problem is the acquisition process.

Commitment to the military is a family commitment, we understand that.

If we should pick up a high-value target in Afghanistan, what would happen to that high-value target? Where would they go?

What concerns me, Secretary Flournoy, is that we have the Iranians, who we know have provided munitions to our enemy in Iraq...

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this important hearing to consider the nominations of Joe Leonard, Jr., Kathleen Merrigan, and Jim Miller for key positions with USDA.

I was very pleased to hear you say that right out of the box, you are going to look toward implementation of the farm bill.

Congress has forced you to keep C-130s that you've wanted to retire and added funds to the budget for maintaining them.

Are you comfortable with where you see us headed over the next 10 to 15 years about having that capacity?

I am all for modernizing and maintaining aircraft, and other equipment for that matter, that have useful service life left and that it makes sense to modernize.

Our ability to maintain air sovereignty in the future is at risk. Legacy fighters are aging and will be stressed to maintain reliability and capability as we move into the 2013-2025 time frame. The tradeoff between modernization of…