Kent Conrad: “I rise to answer some of the charges made by the Senator from Arizona with respect to this lease agreement between the…”

“I rise to answer some of the charges made by the Senator from Arizona with respect to this lease agreement between the Air Force and Boeing to acquire 100 Boeing 767s to replace 100 of the aging KC-135 tanker aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. The Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Texas have suggested that this is a matter of the appropriators requiring the Air Force to acquire planes that are not a priority for the U.S. Air Force. That is wrong. That is not even close to being right. I know something about this, not because I am an appropriator, I am not. I know something about it because, as chairman of the Budget Committee, we saw in the appropriations bill a proposed lease agreement that we did not regard as a true lease. So I became involved in this effort and learned a good deal about what is being discussed. First, the Air Force is not required to lease planes from Boeing or anyone else. The statement of the Senator from Arizona that the Air Force is being required to lease planes from Boeing or anywhere else is simply not true.”