Home » Air » Sen. Cantwell’s Hold Remains on Donley

Sen. Cantwell’s Hold Remains on Donley

By Colin Clark Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 4:53 pm
Posted in Air, Policy

Defense Secretary Robert Gates didn’t quite get down on his knees and say pretty please, but he did ask the Senate Armed Services Committee today to act “as soon as possible” on the nomination of Michael Donley to be Air Force Secretary and Gen. William Fraser to be the service’s vice chief of staff.

He said he wanted to “encourage this committee.” What he meant, of course, was please, please, please get that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to lift the hold she has placed on Donley’s nomination. Cantwell clearly feels strongly about this issue, having taken the time to issue a statement when Gates canceled the current tanker program to say she would keep her hold on Donley to make sure the Air Force did the right thing.

And Cantwell’s spokeswoman told me Tuesday that the senator “does intend to keep the hold on the Air Force secretary.” It seems Cantwell has requested classified information from the Pentagon about the tanker “and has not received a reply.” So, even though Gates says “the Air Force is undergoing a critical period of transition and renewal, and it is vitally important that the full leadership team is in place and confirmed,” he’ll just have to wait until his department gets Cantwell her information.

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	Old391 September 24th, 2008 at 4:23 am And Cantwell’s spokeswoman told me Tuesday that the senator “does intend to keep the hold on the Air Force secretary. She will keep a hold on this approval until Boeing is awarded the contract by Congress. Political Blackmale. Something you would except from a Boeing Fan
	Jimbo September 24th, 2008 at 6:08 am I agree with Old 391. We all know that “doing the right thing” according to Cantwell, Murray, Dicks, and Tirart is to just give the award to Boeing. I think it’s pretty irresponsible on her part to hold the Air Force in limbo during this critical time until she get her way. She’s putting our service members’ lives in jeopardy.
	Sam September 25th, 2008 at 6:13 am It is important to understand that it is about fairness not blackmail. Remember the A330 has a legal issue pending in the WTO concerning illegal subsidies paid to develop this airplane, thus it can be bought at a cheaper price, the Boeing plane did not nor could have the same subsidies accorded the Airbus plane and cannot sell their plane at a competitive cost with the Airbus. Think about it, how can a newer, bigger, and more technological advanced plane be cheaper?? Instead of all this hate for Boeing, why not put things on a level playing field and run the competition that way!!
	pfcem September 28th, 2008 at 3:10 pm Are you EADS/KC-30 Kool-Aid drinkers even capable of telling the truth? Cantwell was NOT holding up Donley’s nomination “until Boeing is awarded the contract”. She was holding up Donley’s nomination until the DOD got its act together & showed that it was going to conduct the new solicitation in accordance with the GAO ruling. *** Sam, The A330-200/KC-30 IS NOT newer nor more technologically advanced than the 767-200LRF/KC-767AT. Far too many fools seem incapable of recognizing that the 767-200LRF that the KC-767AT is based on IS NOT the same aircraft as the original 767–200 that 1st flew in Sep 1981 (except for in completely contradictory statements that the 767-200LRF/KC-767AT is a “paper airplane” that hasn’t even flown yet).
	MHalblaub October 13th, 2008 at 9:33 am As I remind me, Air Force was looking for a commercial of the shelve product and not for some kind of “paper airplane” still in development. Well, the wing design of 767-200LRF/KC-767AT is still from old 767–300.
	pfcem October 13th, 2008 at 11:09 pm MHalblaub, The 767-200LRF/KC-767AT utilizes ALL commercial off the shelf parts for the airplane. Said parts just happen to be from more than one specific varient of the COMMERCIAL 767 airliner family. And Boeing has already proven TIME & TIME & TIME AGAIN that it is perfectly capable of developing new varients of existing platforms… No the wing of the 767-200LRF/KC-767AT is that of the 767-300F, which is not the same as that of the 767–300.
	MHalblaub October 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am That’s reminds me on: let’s put two HDU on a 767 and sell it to Italy as a tanker. That really is a problem, isn’t it?