Congress restores $109 million for CN-235

House and Senate conferees have restored $109 million earmarked to start buying the EADS CASA CN-235 under the Army-Air Force Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Virginia) helped the two senators from Alabama, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions (pictured), push the money back into the 2007 defense budget.

EADS CASA has turned the CN-235 into what critics call a pork barrel project for Alabama by offering to build an assembly plant in the state.

According to the Press-Register of Mobile, Alabama, "The Army currently is scheduled to take delivery of the first of 75 planes beginning in 2008; the Air Force would receive the first of its 70 planes beginning in 2010. . . . the support of Warner, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, should ensure a swift approval, Sessions said.