Jim Inhofe: “let me just real quickly cover some of the things that have been said in the last 10 or 15 minutes. First of all, I do…”

“let me just real quickly cover some of the things that have been said in the last 10 or 15 minutes. First of all, I do not like the way this ended up because we had to agree, in order to bring everyone in and to have a unanimous vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee, to allow the President of the United States to interfere and to politicize the BRAC process for the first time since it went in place in the round of 1989. Second, a quote has been attributed to me that I do not think that the private sector is going to want to bid on this. I think that is accurate, because the private sector would have liked very much to bid if they could get free--for maybe a dollar a year--a huge facility down in Texas or one in California. Sure, that would be certainly to their advantage, but the taxpayers would lose. All we are saying is: If you want to have free and open competition, let us take all costs, direct and indirect costs, to the Department of Defense and throw them in there. Two big costs: No. 1, the cost of the installation that would be used if privatization in place took place; and, No. 2, the cost of the excess capacity in the remaining three air logistics centers, which the GAO said would be about $468 million a year. Third, in terms of charges that have been made about competition, no one in this Chamber is going to be able to stand any higher than I do on my background in privatization.…”