From the December 5 Washington Post: 100 Boeing 767 tankers for the US Air Force:
"The huge underlying defense measure, approved unanimously and scheduled to go to the Senate floor Thursday, includes a provision that will enable Boeing Co. to relieve some of the slack in its production lines by building and leasing 100 of its 767-series planes to the Air Force over the next 15 years for use as long-haul military tankers.
"Boeing, reeling from cutbacks in commercial aircraft orders after Sept. 11, sent its top executives to lobby Congress for the unusual deal, valued at $15 billion to $20 billion.
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did not request the planes, and the White House budget office opposed the original lease-purchase proposal. To get around budget rules, Senate officials worked out a lease arrangement that will not count against the Pentagon's regular procurement budget.
"Boeing will be required to repossess the planes after the leases expire, and the Air Force will have to remove the modifications. Military analysts have argued that the nation must start replacing the Air Force's aging fleet of tankers, which are playing a critical role supporting the Afghan war as well as military aircraft flying reconnaissance over 26 U.S. cities.
"But competition for the lucrative contract appears to have been all but ruled out. "I'm confident [the Air Force] will lease Boeing planes, because they are the ones available right now," said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), ranking Republican on the defense appropriations subcommittee. Parochial considerations helped persuade key members of
the Senate Budget Committee to support the leasing arrangement, sources said.
"Forty-eight planes from the U.S. tanker force are based at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, the home state of Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D). Sen. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.), the Budget Committee's ranking Republican, also endorsed the leasing plan after appropriators agreed to include several provisions he had sought in the anti-terrorism legislation attached to the defense bill."