WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) today announced the Department of Defense acknowledged mistakes in the procurement process that selected Airbus over the Boeing Company to build the nation's new aerial refueling tanker and that the Department of Defense will re-compete the contract in an expedited process.

"I am pleased that Secretary Gates is actively involved in this process now and has made a commitment to get it right," Brownback said. "The issues identified in the GAO report were so significant that nothing short of a re-compete will meet the standard required by the American people to have an appropriate level of confidence in this decision and move the program forward.

"We will continue to monitor this process very closely until the ultimate contract award. We believe that the Boeing KC-767 Advanced Tanker is the right platform for the mission and look forward to the day when the first one is delivered to the Air Force on the Boeing Ramp in Wichita."

"I am pleased to see that the Department of Defense and the Air Force have moved to restore the confidence of the Congress and the American people with this decision to re-compete the contract," Roberts said. "There have been critical errors in the procurement of this tanker, and we will work to ensure that this does not happen again so that the best possible tanker is selected for the warfighter. We will need to see the details of the next request for proposal, but this is certainly the right step forward."

Roberts said the bipartisan work of the Kansas and Washington state congressional delegations will continue as senators and representatives seek more detailed briefings from the Department of Defense on this new process. "Of course, we continue working closely with Boeing officials as they work through this detailed process to ensure complete fairness," Roberts added.

"We have been calling for a recompetition ever since the Air Force chose to award the KC-X tanker contract to a French tanker, and today the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is announcing that is exactly what they plan on doing," said Tiahrt. "After throwing the competition to the French tanker last time, the Department of Defense seems to have acknowledged the Air Force's mistakes and is heeding the Government Accountability Office's recommendation to rebid the competition for a mid-sized tanker.

"Rebidding the tanker competition in an expedited manner is right thing to do for our men and women in uniform who need new mid-sized tankers to replace the out-dated ones currently in use," Tiahrt said. "I intend to watch this process very closely to press for a fair and open competition. Today I spoke with OSD on a series of topics to reinforce a fair process is followed the second time around."

The Department of Defense indicated that the new contracting decision will likely come at the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009. In June, Senators Roberts and Brownback and Congressman Tiahrt introduced legislation to prohibit use of any funds by the Department of Defense on the KC-Tanker unless the DoD choose to outright award the KC-X tanker to Boeing or decided to fairly re-compete the KC-X contract using the KC-135 criteria.