Jay Inslee: “I really appreciate again reiterating that we want this decision to be made on the merits, and one of those merits I…”

“I really appreciate again reiterating that we want this decision to be made on the merits, and one of those merits I want to point out just that I find incredible about this decision--and that's why I'm so happy about the GAO decision--is the recognition that the Air Force totally failed to consider accurately the lifecycle costs of these two proposals. Now, obviously there's the up-front costs, but to the taxpayer, it's the lifecycle cost or the whole cost of maintaining and operating and parking the airplane that you really have to look at. And according to the GAO and the United States Air Force, they made a mistake in evaluating what the lifecycle costs were. Just reading from a Reuters article June 12--it was a few days later confirmed by GAO--the U.S. Air Force has conceded that Boeing Company's proposed KC-767 refueling tanker would cost less over time than what was then the winning plane by Airbus. And this is what the taxpayer has at stake in this thing, and this comes--we need to get down in the weeds a little bit--by the failure to take into consideration several things accurately. Number one, the Boeing airplane uses 24 percent less fuel. It's 24 percent more efficient. So you save, it's about somewhere between--I'm looking for my number here--according to a pretty good study, over the 40-year operational life, the Boeing plane would save $30 billion in projected fuel costs, $30 billion.”