Ranking Member Courtney Leads Measure to Block Taxpayer Dollars from Funding ‘Qatar Force One’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tonight, Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-02), Ranking Member of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, spoke in support of his amendment to block any funds from the 10-year tax-and-spend GOP budget bill from being used for “Qatar Force One”. The measure comes after President Trump accepted Qatar’s luxury Boeing 747-8 as a gift from the Royal Family to be used as an interim Air Force One.
As the top Democrat on the House subcommittee with oversight of Air Force One, Rep. Courtney has been outspoken on the expensive national security nightmare that comes with accepting Qatar’s plane.
In a May Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee hearing, Rep. Courtney asked Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Darlene Costello, for an update on the new Air Force One program. She confirmed that the new Air Force One fleet is set to be delivered by 2027. To watch the full hearing Q&A, click here.
To read the amendment, click here.
Transcript of Remarks (As Delivered)
Thank you, Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member McGovern, and Members of this panel. I have a simple, straightforward amendment focused on the Air Force One program, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services, of which I serve as Ranking Member.
This amendment would prohibit funds made available by this Act from being used for the purposes of modifying an aircraft acquired from a foreign source for use as an executive airlift aircraft or for transferring such an aircraft to a non-governmental entity such as a museum. This provision is in response to the President's sudden decision to accept a Boeing 747 from Qatar to serve as a replacement for the current Air Force One aircraft. The White House has portrayed this idea as a “free” Air Force One plane. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I can say this with complete certainty because in 2018 during the first Trump administration, Congress authorized the purchase of two Boeing 747 aircraft that Boeing originally built as commercial passenger planes for an airline that went bankrupt. The cost of upgrades and retrofitting for those two planes to replace the Air Force One fleet totaled $3.9 billion. This work included stripping the planes’ interior down to the studs, hardening the planes’ defenses, installing encrypted communications technology, and building out space for what is essentially a flying command and control center for not just our nation’s military and intelligence agencies, but the entire federal government.
Earlier this month, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Darlene Costello, testified to the Seapower subcommittee that Boeing has a workable plan to achieve a delivery date by 2027. It is important to note that the final cost at this point has already exceeded $3.9 billion, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of cost overruns.
A few hours ago, the White House confirmed that the President has unilaterally accepted a third plane. We have all seen in the pictures that this aircraft is not even close to being ready to fly as Air Force One, and clearly, it will require much of the same time and expense to be stripped down and upgraded as the two jets under contract with the Air Force, which are on track for delivery during the President’s current term. This scheme was not free and the new scheme will not be free either. It’s going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money.
The relevance to this reconciliation package is that... [the structure of Title II -- covering the Armed Services provisions -- provides little to no controls on how funds are used across programs]. … Again, during the markup, we had a lot of back and forth with committee staff about the fact that the Office of Management and Budget is going to be basically free to spend that $150 billion with little or no controls or restraint. And we know this Budget Director from the first Trump administration was brazenly reprogramming money with no congressional authorization over and over again.
Madame Chair, there are a host of other reasons for Congress to approve this amendment, particularly the constitutional prohibition in Article 1, section 9, clause 8 that bars any official from accepting gifts or emoluments from another government without approval of Congress. Obviously, Congress has not even come close to approving this gift. That prohibition, as well as the significant cost retrofitting a third Air Force One, screams out for Congress to exercise its constitutional duty and put the brakes on this scheme. My amendment will do that, and I respectfully ask my colleagues to make it in order.