The Obama Administration today released its "Statement of Administration Policy" relative to the FY10 Defense Appropriations Bill currently before the Senate.  Unlike in the House Bill, where the Administration identified deal-breakers in the House's provision of unrequested funding for the F-35 alternate engine and the VH-71 Presidential helo, the Senate bill apparently contains no provisions for which the White House threatens a veto.  This comes as a bit of a surprise, as the Senate Bill does contain $2.5 billion in funding for 10 unrequested C-17 airlifters.  In expressing its "strong objection" to the added C-17 funding, the White House notes that "analyses by DoD have shown that the 205 C-17s in the force and on order, together with the existing fleet of C-5 aircraft, are sufficient to meet the Department’s future airlift needs, even under the most stressing situations."   It looks like more GLOBEMASTERS are on the way.

Bright and early this morning the USAF issued its long-awaited draft Request for Proposals for the KC-X tanker -- see here.  In case you missed yesterday afternoon's Press Briefing on the new "Best Value" source selection plan, see here... The slides for said briefing are here.  Boeing's first take on the contest is here and the company is said to still be mulling which tanker (767 or 777) it will propose.  Northrop Grumman, for its part, "applauds" DoD and the USAF for "re-starting the effort" and notes that the company "is looking forward to competing for and winning the contract again."