Jay Inslee: “we come to the floor this evening to discuss this good news that we read yesterday for our warfighters doing great jobs…”

“we come to the floor this evening to discuss this good news that we read yesterday for our warfighters doing great jobs for the U.S. Air Force and for the taxpayers who are providing the equipment for the Air Force and for a lot of working families in the United States. And that was the decision by the General Accountability Office to essentially allow the protests against the previous proposed decision by the United States Air Force to send a contract for the construction of 80 tankers which refuel our Air Force planes essentially overseas to a combination that is largely European by the Airbus Company. And we are extremely gratified and vindicated that the General Accountability Office has found that in seven very fundamental ways, the decision by the Air Force to send this American tanker using American taxpayer dollars for American warriors essentially overseas, and they have found that this was a decision that violated some general principles of procurement in issuing contracts using taxpayer dollars. In a very forceful and powerful and unambiguous decision, the General Accountability Office, we call it the GAO up here, concluded that this purported decision to send this contract away was a bad decision, bottom line. And this decision must be reviewed and we hope ultimately reversed.”