Air Force Tanker Procurement: CRS Report Has Facts.

Congressional members from Washington state are making a lot of noise about the recently announced decision to award a larger tanker contract to Northrup Grumman instead of Boeing. (It's only a matter of time IMO that Oregon lawmakers will be asked to weigh in on Boeing's behalf).

For those interested more in the facts than the politics, the Congressional Research Survey issued a report HERE at the end of February 2008 that does a good job of explaining what the procurement was intended to accomplish and the evaluation factors that were used in the procurement process. This report was issued before the procurement decision was announced.

Oregon Congresssional Delegation and Staff: Privately Financed Travel--Gordon and Earl In the Lead.

From Legistorm, shows all privately paid for member and staff trips and also includes link to show staff salaries paid. Free sign up allows you to view actual post disclosure form filed.

Note that many of these trips are from several years ago, but some are more current. Clicking on the column headings sort data by that column--so you sort the date column for example to see the most recent trips first.

Privately Paid for trips, and their source for all Oregon Reps and Senators can be found HERE in table format.

For the years covered, Senator Smith, and his staff lead with 97 approved trips taken at a cost of $190,000+, with Rep. Blumenhauer coming close,with a much smaller district, with 70 approved trips for $156,000+

Click on any individual Rep or Senator in left column to get more detailed information.