Defense bill may include tankers

Congress may set aside $100 million for the Air Force to buy or lease new tankers, even though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he wants to study the idea until after the election.

The House Defense Appropriations subcommittee added $100 million for tankers to next year’s defense budget Thursday at the urging of Rep. George Nethercutt, a Spokane Republican.

The money would go into a Tanker Replacement Fund and could be used for leasing, buying or further research on the flying gas stations.

For nearly three years, members of the Washington congressional delegation and others have pushed for the Air Force to replace 100 planes in its aging fleet of KC-135 air refueling tankers with reconfigured 767s from Boeing. The original plan called for the Air Force to lease all 100 planes, a way of saving the upfront purchase costs for the planes.

The first 32 planes would come to Fairchild Air Force Base, which is one of the nation’s largest tanker facilities.

But congressional watchdogs objected that leasing was more expensive in the long run than buying them outright, and a compromise later proposed that the Air Force lease the first 20 and buy the other 80. The proposal was later marred by questions of whether Boeing had inside information and an unfair advantage in bidding for the contract over European-base Airbus.

Last month, Rumsfeld ordered two more studies, trying to determine if the problems with the KC-135s are as bad as initially described. Nethercutt said he believes the Defense Department will eventually decide to move forward with the new tankers.

But until it does, the amendment says the Air Force can’t retire any of the KC-135s.

The House will vote on the defense spending bill later this year.