WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The United States will take at least two more years to start replacing its aircraft-refueling fleet after seven years of failed efforts, the head of a House of Representatives subcommittee with responsibility for defense spending said on Wednesday.
A team of Northrop Grumman Corp and Europe's EADS beat Boeing Co for the projected $40 billion first phase of the project in February. But Boeing has been given a second chance under the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama, after its protest was upheld by a congressional umpire.
"It will take at least another two years, at minimum, before we begin to start procurement of a replacement tanker," Rep. John Murtha, who heads the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, said in remarks prepared for a discussion on military priorities at the Center for American Progress think tank.
Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said the Defense Department had "wasted" the past seven years in its botched efforts to procure a replacement for the KC-135 fleet that averages nearly 50 years old.
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