Congress needs to investigate the Air Force’s decision to use European airplanes to replace the aging U.S. fleet of aerial tankers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday, adding that the $40 billion contract for 179 planes “raised serious questions.”
As the fallout from the contract award spread across Capitol Hill, some congressional aides suggested Monday that the Air Force may have misled the Boeing Co. into basing its bid on the wrong-sized aircraft.
Lawmakers from Washington state and Kansas, where much of the work on the Boeing tanker was to have been done, urged the Air Force to brief Boeing by the end of the week on its decision to award the contract to Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. Their bid would use an Airbus A330 for the tanker.
