Adding to the list of upcoming Congressional oversight hearings on the Air Force’s KC-X tanker program, the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee yesterday announced plans to convene on July 10 in open session to discuss the issue. The scheduled witnesses are Pentagon acquisition boss John Young and Air Force acquisition executive Sue Payton as well as Gary Kepplinger, general counsel at the Government Accountability Office, and Michael Golden, GAO’s procurement law guru. In the wake of GAO’s ruling last month that upheld Boeing’s protest of USAF’s $35 billion KC-X tanker award to Northrop Grumman in February, lawmakers have been mobilizing to monitor developments more closely. Already the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has scheduled a tanker hearing on July 15.
In the wake of a major Chinese military shakeup, the head of U.S. Space Command warned of China’s “breathtakingly fast” advances in space during visits to Japan and South Korea. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting’s trip to the Indo-Pacific is his first overseas visit since taking command of SPACECOM in January.