Russ Feingold: “this amendment would ``fence'' the funds authorized for production of the 12 F/A-18E/F's authorized in this legislation…”

“this amendment would ``fence'' the funds authorized for production of the 12 F/A-18E/F's authorized in this legislation until such time as the Department of Defense [DOD] submits a cost/benefit analysis to Congress and Congress has an opportunity to evaluate whether production of this aircraft should commence, in light of the cost and concerns about the benefit of the F/A-18E/F in contrast to the F/A-18C/D, a far less costly yet extremely capable aircraft. The genesis for this amendment resulted from a General Accounting Office [GAO] draft report made available recently entitled ``Navy Aviation: F/A-18E/F will Provide Marginal Operational Improvement at High Cost''. In this report GAO studied the rationale and need for the F/A-18E/F in order to determine whether continued development of the aircraft is the most cost-effective approach to modernizing the Navy's tactical aircraft fleet. GAO concluded that the marginal improvements of the F/A-18E/F are outweighed by the high cost of the program. Mr. President, in our current fiscal climate, I have serious concerns about authorizing funding for such a costly program which according to GAO will deliver only marginal improvements over the current C/D version of the F/A-18. As GAO noted in its report, at a projected total program cost of $89.15 billion, the F/A-18E/F program is one of the most costly aviation programs in the Department of Defense.”