•Eielson Air Force Base will not be home to a group of F-35 fighters, the Department of Defense says.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that a year ago the Pentagon considered Eielson one of the top six contenders, but now it has fallen to the point where about 65 bases are deemed more suitable for the new jet.
She said, the Air Force had scheduled meetings in the Interior in November 2008 to begin preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement.
“Those meetings never occurred. Today we learned that Eielson is not on the top of the heap for the F-35s but ranks in the middle third of all Air Force bases evaluated under a new set of criteria,” she said.
All three members of the Alaska delegation said they are disappointed with the news.
“I am deeply disappointed that the Air Force abandoned its previous short list, which was based on the priorities of its warfighting commanders, in favor of a new list, based upon a point scoring system of uncertain validity. Although the Air Force will not tell us precisely how Eielson scored until tomorrow, we will be protesting this decision to senior defense officials," she said.
Sen. Mark Begich expressed similar sentiments:
"Given Alaska’s important geographic and strategic advantages for the overall defense of our country, I am disappointed to learn that none of Alaska’s Air Force bases were chosen as one of the preferred locations to base a portion of the Air Force’s first 250-300 aircraft in the F-35 JSF. This is particularly disappointing since the Air Force indicated last fall that Eielson was on the “short list,’” said Begich in a prepared statement.
"The Air Force designed this current selection process to be more objective and less political than those in the past, and I appreciate that. But I still plan to inquire how this process was managed and that the advantages of Alaska’s bases were clearly understood and taken into account in this decision," Begich said.
“Knowing the Air Force plans to procure more than 1,700 F-35s in total and the next round of basing decisions will take place in 2013, we will continue to work with the DoD in my capacity as a Senate Armed Services member to see what opportunities are ahead for Alaska in the future,” he said.
Rep. Don Young said in a prepared statement “Eielson is the best place for the F-35’s and I’m sorry that the Department of Defense could not recognize that.”
The Deseret News in Utah, quoting Congressional sources, said Utah’s Hill Air Force Base, Mountain Home, Idaho and Shaw, S.C. were the three sites chosen for the fighter out of more than 200 bases.
Elected officials from many states wanted the planes based on their home turf. From all of those states there were assertions that “my state is the ideal place to put the planes.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told a TV station in his state about how important this plane is: "The F-35 will replace the military’s F-16, A-10, AV-8B, and some F/A-18 fighter aircraft. It’s the future aircraft of the Air Force and the bases that house the F-35 will be among the most valuable in our arsenal.”
Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican, said of the news: "We’ve gone through the swimsuit competition and now it’s time for the evening gown portion. This is good news for Hill Air Force Base."
Here's another concept probably not in your playbook. National defense, of which many of those dollars were for, benefits all Americans. We cant change our strategic position.
Continue on with your myth making. Once liberals make up a good story, they love to repeat it over and over and over again.
Yes, we don't have many highways because we don't have many people.
The fact remains that we take in MANY more dollars than we pay in.
Hmmmmmm.... Did you notice the colors on the chart? It seems that those who piss and moan about pork take the most. It also seems that it's the hippie, lib, socialist states who pay the most in to support Alaska's rugged, individualistic lifestyle. That's weird...
Does your pretty chart include interstate highways? We're kind of short on those, compared to any of the Lower 48. I believe, in speaking over the years to Senator Stevens, that that expense is not factored in when calculating dollars to Alaska, yet we pay all the same federal transportation taxes. How could that be?
There is NO WAY we DON'T get these planes if Stevens is in office.
The number of jobs the local economy in Fbx lost for many years to come is HUGE.
And for what? Stevens was exonerated. Remarkable. The voters' burned themselves and the state.
This is just the FIRST of MANY, MANY programs Alaska will NOT GET because we now have a rookie, with NO FAVORS to pay back, in Stevens seat.
Dumb, really, really DUMB.
What a great picture of an Obama voter.
i too would have claimed that this was the result of punishment for alaska providing the last elections losing VP candidate and just in general being a red state. but utah and south carolina are no friends of obama either. i too thnk that losing ted stevens may have played a role in eielson's fall from consideration. but we were eventually going to lose ted anyway. he's no spring chicken. still i think we should sue someone over the lose of his services.
i say, close up eielson. let's move away from the military as an economic plan. the military will just have a diminishing role in the usa as we move more towards a socialist one world government.
Also, the Air Force is a deployable force. If a threat develops, appropriate USAF assets can be on the ground, set up, and fighting pretty darn quick.
When you buy a new hunting rifle, do you sight it in before you take it to the woods?
So... If Ted were there he'd get the USAF to deploy to Alaska a bunch of planes they didn't want to deploy here? Isn't that the worst kind of pork?
It's too bad that so many of you took the kneejerk Republican path and whined and complained about pork while residing in one of the porkiest states in the nation.
But he's getting expert advice from "General" Joe Biden and "General" John Kerry.
We've got an inexperienced wimp dictating our foreign policy and military strategies and we are seeing the results broadcast in realtime worldwide.
If you know anything about how the USAF bases its aircraft, you'd recognize that the USAF will place these new WARFIGHTING assets at bases which have the WARFIGHTING-coded aircraft the new weapon system is intended to replace. Having said this, you should now see that Eielson has only TRAINING-coded F-16 aircraft stationed there. It is also the reason there has been a steady reduction in the number of servicemembers stationed there.
The USAF will have its way--it will close Eielson--or place it in "warm storage" and used only during Red Flag Alaska exercises (which means most airmen will only be TDY up here).
WAKE-UP!! It's time Alaska reclaimed the use of the 60,000 square miles of airspace it gave to the Department of Defense...or, the USAF can place its new weapon system up here.
Or, if the purpose of the Air Force is to protect the Great Salt Lake and let the Alaska pipe line defend itself?
Yep, sure smells like rotten fish in the Pentagon with this decision.