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U.S. Representative Rob Wittman, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, delivered the following opening remarks at a hearing on Air Force projection forces aviation programs and capabilities related to the FY 2022 budget request.

I want to thank Chairman Courtney for yielding and thank our witnesses for testifying today.

A bad contract leads to perverse incentives. And unfortunately, I think that we are working with a bad contract with the KC-46A tanker. To date, the KC-46A has problems holding the fuel it has, delivering fuel it provides, and in some cases, has the potential to severely damage receiving aircraft. It even has problems being able to hold the sewage from onboard passengers. Boeing has reported to have lost over $5 billion to date on this seemingly simple 767 conversion effort and is late in delivering a myriad of aircraft, in some cases dating back to aircraft ordered over five years ago. The Air Force has reported that it does not anticipate having a fully functional tanker until 2024.

I think that the root cause of this increasingly troubled aircraft is a bad contract and I further believe that Boeing has little incentive to correct these debilitating deficiencies. Boeing has naturally responded in an attempt to stop the bleeding and is seeking additional compensation in sustainment. It has been reported that Boeing has upcharged one of our FMS partners by a factor of 15 or 1500% for previously negotiated spares. Additionally, Air Force has been unable to substantiate over $10 million in additional spares and has decided to forgo ordering other critical spares for this aircraft…. perverse incentives. We need to change course on this troubled contract. I think one of two options need to be pursued. The Air Force could either change the contract incentive structure and actively manage the KC-46A development; or, seek a new path and pursue a non-developmental recompete of the tanker effort. Without pursuing one of these paths, at this point, I am confident that we will continue to see poor performance and an increasingly negative impact as tanker capacity is diminished.

Additionally, I am concerned about the significant cost increase on the B-52 reengining program. In the FY22 budget request, Air Force projected a 50% cost increase in development. This effort is being pursued under the middle-tier acquisition authority that allows the military service to accelerate prototyping efforts. But as we are seeing in this case, this lack of rigor and concurrency of effort also leads to cost escalation. We have to do better.

On a positive note, I continue to be impressed by the active contract management and collaboration by Air Force with Northrup Grumman on the B-21 contract. This close cooperation and efficient incentive structure leads to success in production and should significantly improve long term maintenance. I am looking forward to seeing first flight of this aircraft next year and supporting advance production of B-21 aircraft in our FY22 NDAA.

To quote one of our nation's foremost physicist, Albert Einstein, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." I believe that we need to revamp our acquisition processes to ensure desirable outcomes. We need be aware of the perils of fixed price development contracts and concurrency of development. In the end, we need to emulate the successes of B-21 and replicate this development and production effort across a multitude of other acquisition efforts.

Our witnesses today have the authority to make these desired changes and I look forward to their testimony.

Again, I appreciate the Chairman for having this important hearing and I yield back the balance of my time.