Russ Feingold: “Let me simply remind my colleagues what this amendment seeks to do. It asks, in light of this recently released GAO…”

“Let me simply remind my colleagues what this amendment seeks to do. It asks, in light of this recently released GAO report, released yesterday, that we fence the money until such time as the Department of Defense provides us with a response to this, and then there will be just a 90-day period afterward, during which we would have an opportunity to look at it and GAO would look at it. This is a serious report. There may be disagreement. When you are talking about $17 billion between the C/D and Super Hornet, I think it deserves a look. I am not suggesting, nor have I suggested, the E/F is a bad airplane. Clearly, many of the things you indicated about its capabilities are there. The question that was raised by the report was whether or not the current C/D plane can provide these benefits and that perhaps we could move directly from the C/D plane on to the JSF plane as a cheaper and most cost-effective way. All we are suggesting here then is this brief period when we would have a chance to see whether the GAO was on the right track and see what the Department of Defense has to say about it.”