Sam Brownback: “I wish to speak about the leasing of 100 aircraft tankers, many of which will be remodeled in the State of Kansas. The…”

“I wish to speak about the leasing of 100 aircraft tankers, many of which will be remodeled in the State of Kansas. The current tanker fleet is 40 years old, some of it 45 years old. A lot of these tankers are spending a great deal of time in depot. They are spending up to 60 percent of their time being repaired. If we do not go through this lease arrangement, we are not going to have the tanker fleet to conduct our current long-range bombing missions. We cannot conduct campaigns, such as we are in Afghanistan, unless we do something like this. I also think this lease arrangement is going to allow us to do something we could not do if we were on a straight purchase basis. It is something we need to do now. This will get us 100 aircraft that we need to replace some that are 40 to 45 years old. This legislation will get this going now while we have the operational capacity to build them.”