Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for 58 years, the Congress has passed the National Defense Authorization Act with large bipartisan margins, and I believe we are going to do so again this year. In fact, we must. If it were up to me, it would have already been done by now. People have to realize that this is the most important bill of the year. It is one that we have to do. We have to do it by the end of the year--and that is the end of December--or we are not going to fund our military. I mean, that is how serious it is. I will keep working with my colleagues in the House and the Senate to get this done. I am going to say that again because there is an ugly rumor out there to the contrary. We are still working to get a comprehensive bill done. We are going to keep working on it. It is even more important because of what happened over the weekend. Our brave Special Operations forces successfully executed a dangerous mission to get ISIS leader al-Baghdadi, and it was successful. It was the right call by President Trump to bring down one of the most dangerous terrorists the world has ever seen, and it was successful. It also underscored the importance of the annual Defense authorization bill. There is no better time to pass an NDAA--that is the national defense authorization bill--that puts our servicemembers and their families first than after a perilous operation demonstrating the bravery, service, and sacrifice of our troops, because it took a lot of people to pull this off. But to ensure that we give the men and women in the Armed Forces the tools they need to fight and win no matter what, we are filing a ``skinny bill'' today. Let me explain what that is. We have to have a defense authorization. It has to happen. It is one that has happened for 58 years in a row. It has to happen. It has happened for 58 years in a row. If it has happened for 58 years in a row, it is going to continue to happen. We all know that. The problem with that is, everybody knows it is going to pass. Consequently, people put more and more things on the bill, and many of the things have nothing to do with the military because they know the bill is going to pass. What happens is, then they decide to get everything in there, and consequently there are so many people lined up with different things they want to put on the Defense authorization bill that we have not been able to come to an agreement. This has happened in the past. What happens is, in the event of the Defense authorization bill--this would be the largest bill of the year, the most significant bill of the year--if, for some reason, we are not able to pass it, military operations will stop. A skinny bill is simple. It extends necessary authorities for military operations, takes care of servicemembers and their families, and authorizes essential military construction and acquisition programs. That is it. That is one paragraph. That is all it does. That part has to pass. At the end of the day, that is what we have to do by the end of this year, by the end of December. There is this old document that nobody reads anymore; it is called the Constitution. If you read that, it says what we are really supposed to be doing, what is really important. I say to my friend from West Virginia, out of all the things we do, sometimes they are not all that significant. This is that significant. That is why this is important. It is going to pass. We ought to make sure it passes. By introducing this as a skinny bill, it takes out everything that has nothing to do with the military, and we just pass the bill to take care of our troops. Here on Capitol Hill, the NDAA--National Defense Authorization Act-- is an institution itself, the last bill of its kind, an authorization bill that passes every year. We always have disagreements within and between parties on the future of national security, but we have always managed to overcome those divisions to support our military. This year is not going to be any different. Earlier this year, I worked with my Democratic colleague Senator Jack Reed to produce a bipartisan NDAA in the Senate. We did a great job. We spent hours on it, but we ultimately passed it out of committee almost unanimously--Democrats and Republicans alike. We brought it to the floor, and we passed it. It is not the bill where Jack Reed and Jim Inhofe would necessarily agree on every aspect, but these are tough decisions, and we had to make decisions, so we made decisions. Consequently, when it came up to the floor, it passed by 86 to 6. Only six people opposed it in this entire body. The same has to be true with any kind of agreement on fiscal year 2020 NDAA. That bill would require 60 votes in the Senate. It will require Republican votes in the House. The bill that came out of the House, from the House committee on the Defense authorization bill, didn't have one Republican voting for it. Obviously, it has to have Republicans in the House vote for it. It has to pass by a 60-percent margin. There is no other way it can be done. We continue making progress. We know we can't pass a bill with as many partisan provisions as we saw in the House bill--things like unprecedented restrictions on the President's ability to defend America, defend the Nation, and putting social agenda above the needs of our troops. Unfortunately, the same problem that is slowing progress on the NDAA is also stalling the appropriations process. When I supported the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, I argued that a lower topline was acceptable if it got us on-time passage of the NDAA and the defense funding, but now we are facing a delayed NDAA and the real possibility of a full-year continuing resolution. This is unacceptable. The Department of Defense has never operated under a full-year CR. A CR is a continuing resolution. A CR would simply be disastrous. What it says is, we are going to do the same thing for the military and the rest of the government as we did last year. Well, the needs have changed. We have new programs that have to be authorized and have to be voted on. It would be a huge waste of taxpayers' money if we were unable to get this thing done. We know a full-year CR would press pause on hundreds of new weapons programs and leave tens of billions of dollars in the wrong places. We had a meeting where we had General Martin testify. He is the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. For the Army alone, he said we would be looking at delays to new-start programs and increased costs of 37 programs, totaling $7 billion. That is according to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. That is the Army alone. The total failure is going to be somewhere around $22 billion that would be lost. All said, this would put work rebuilding our military even further behind and waste enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars. The national defense strategy--that is this book. This is kind of interesting because this book was put together by Democrats and Republicans, all with expertise and a background in the military, equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and they all agreed that this was going to be our defense strategy. They have a National Defense Strategy Committee. That national defense strategy provided a clear vision of the serious challenges it faces and the necessity of ``urgent change at significant scale.'' That is what Secretary Mattis stated. Failure to pass an NDAA and accepting a full-year CR would stop our Nation's defense strategy in its tracks. It would undo all the good work we have done with Secretary Esper, the President of the United States, the Pentagon, as well as our partners, to follow the recommendations of the NDS Commission report. This is not just inside-the-beltway gridlock. The world is watching. Our allies and our enemies are watching. They want to know if America is serious about its role in the world and its own national defense. Failure to pass basic legislation on a timely basis to support our military sends a terrible signal that undermines our national security. Think of the signal that sends to our troops who are out there risking their lives to defend us here at home. Caring for our troops is about the only thing anyone in this town agrees on. If we lose that bipartisan support, it will be hard to get it back, and we need it now more than ever. China and Russia. This is interesting because we didn't used to be that concerned about them. I would say that during the Obama administration, his priorities were not the same. He was very honest about it. He had other priorities. So we didn't do the job we should have done at that time for our military. China and Russia are not waiting around for us to end our disagreements with each other. During the last administration, under Obama, our military funding decreased by 25 percent. Between the years of 2010 and 2015, we decreased the amount of funding for our military in that administration by 25 percent. Meanwhile, China had increased spending by 83 percent over the last decade. Think about it. China increased its spending by 83 percent, and we reduced ours by 25 percent. They are continuing a campaign of aggression, building islands in the South China Sea. Our allies over in the South China Sea are watching what China is doing there and around the world and what we are not doing. They have come to the conclusion that a third world war may be imminent, and they are not sure whose side they want to be on. This chart I am showing right here is a picture of hypersonic weapons. These are state-of-the-art weapons. These are missiles that travel at five times the speed of sound. This is something we were ahead on during the beginning of the previous administration, and we are now behind. Right now, China is parading dozens of massive hypersonic missiles, and we have haven't even built one yet. There they are. That is a picture I haven't seen until today. Those are hypersonic weapons, and they were on Tiananmen Square on October 1, 2019. A lot of people didn't know that they are--they have not just caught up with us; they have passed us. We haven't built one yet, and there they are. People don't realize where China and Russia are. That is China, but Russia continues to develop new and dangerous nuclear weapons, while it expands its influence in the Middle East and elsewhere. I have no doubt that a united America can face these challenges. I fear that a divided America--a country that allows defending America to be a partisan issue--cannot. The path to a final defense bill is, as it always has been, bipartisan. The Defense authorization bill has historically enjoyed broad bipartisan support, and that is not an accident. Both parties have compromised to get a bill worthy of our troops and worthy of our troops' sacrifices. I hope we get to a place where we can find common ground to give our troops and military a comprehensive bill. That is what we want to continue to do. We have been working on this bill for a long period of time. Normally, it doesn't take this long. We have gotten it down to what they call the four leaders. I am one of those four leaders who have been trying to put this together, but we have not been able to get it done. What we are doing with this bill is we are putting the bill up. We are going to get it on the floor so we can be ready. Here is the problem: If we don't do it, we can sit around and do nothing through the month of November, and when December gets here, all of a sudden, we are going to be faced with the fact that we are going to have some bill that takes care of just the military, not all the other stuff that is on the bill. To do this, you have to pass it out of committee. You have to take it to the floor of the Senate. You have to pass it out. Then, if you get that far, the House has to do the same thing. Then we go into conference, and we confer on this thing. Obviously, that is going to take not just days but weeks. So to prepare for the unlikely possibility that we don't get together, we do have the skeleton bill that we are going to introduce. I am going to introduce it an hour from now. It is the only thing we can do right now to make sure we can take care of our troops if we are not able to get the comprehensive bill completed. That is the reason for it. I will be introducing it. Every provision in that bill is a provision to enhance our military efforts, to pay our troops, and to take care of our country the way we have been able to do in the past.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for 58 years, the Congress has passed the National Defense Authorization Act with large bipartisan margins, and I believe we are going to do so again this year. In fact, we must. If it were up to me, it would have already been done by now. People have to realize that this is the most important bill of the year. It is one that we have to do. We have to do it by the end of the year--and that is the end of December--or we are not going to fund our military. I mean, that is how serious it is. I will keep working with my colleagues in the House and the Senate to get this done. I am going to say that again because there is an ugly rumor out there to the contrary. We are still working to get a comprehensive bill done. We are going to keep working on it. It is even more important because of what happened over the weekend. Our brave Special Operations forces successfully executed a dangerous mission to get ISIS leader al-Baghdadi, and it was successful. It was the right call by President Trump to bring down one of the most dangerous terrorists the world has ever seen, and it was successful. It also underscored the importance of the annual Defense authorization bill. There is no better time to pass an NDAA--that is the national defense authorization bill--that puts our servicemembers and their families first than after a perilous operation demonstrating the bravery, service, and sacrifice of our troops, because it took a lot of people to pull this off. But to ensure that we give the men and women in the Armed Forces the tools they need to fight and win no matter what, we are filing a ``skinny bill'' today. Let me explain what that is. We have to have a defense authorization. It has to happen. It is one that has happened for 58 years in a row. It has to happen. It has happened for 58 years in a row. If it has happened for 58 years in a row, it is going to continue to happen. We all know that. The problem with that is, everybody knows it is going to pass. Consequently, people put more and more things on the bill, and many of the things have nothing to do with the military because they know the bill is going to pass. What happens is, then they decide to get everything in there, and consequently there are so many people lined up with different things they want to put on the Defense authorization bill that we have not been able to come to an agreement. This has happened in the past. What happens is, in the event of the Defense authorization bill--this would be the largest bill of the year, the most significant bill of the year--if, for some reason, we are not able to pass it, military operations will stop. A skinny bill is simple. It extends necessary authorities for military operations, takes care of servicemembers and their families, and authorizes essential military construction and acquisition programs. That is it. That is one paragraph. That is all it does. That part has to pass. At the end of the day, that is what we have to do by the end of this year, by the end of December. There is this old document that nobody reads anymore; it is called the Constitution. If you read that, it says what we are really supposed to be doing, what is really important. I say to my friend from West Virginia, out of all the things we do, sometimes they are not all that significant. This is that significant. That is why this is important. It is going to pass. We ought to make sure it passes. By introducing this as a skinny bill, it takes out everything that has nothing to do with the military, and we just pass the bill to take care of our troops. Here on Capitol Hill, the NDAA--National Defense Authorization Act-- is an institution itself, the last bill of its kind, an authorization bill that passes every year. We always have disagreements within and between parties on the future of national security, but we have always managed to overcome those divisions to support our military. This year is not going to be any different. Earlier this year, I worked with my Democratic colleague Senator Jack Reed to produce a bipartisan NDAA in the Senate. We did a great job. We spent hours on it, but we ultimately passed it out of committee almost unanimously--Democrats and Republicans alike. We brought it to the floor, and we passed it. It is not the bill where Jack Reed and Jim Inhofe would necessarily agree on every aspect, but these are tough decisions, and we had to make decisions, so we made decisions. Consequently, when it came up to the floor, it passed by 86 to 6. Only six people opposed it in this entire body. The same has to be true with any kind of agreement on fiscal year 2020 NDAA. That bill would require 60 votes in the Senate. It will require Republican votes in the House. The bill that came out of the House, from the House committee on the Defense authorization bill, didn't have one Republican voting for it. Obviously, it has to have Republicans in the House vote for it. It has to pass by a 60-percent margin. There is no other way it can be done. We continue making progress. We know we can't pass a bill with as many partisan provisions as we saw in the House bill--things like unprecedented restrictions on the President's ability to defend America, defend the Nation, and putting social agenda above the needs of our troops. Unfortunately, the same problem that is slowing progress on the NDAA is also stalling the appropriations process. When I supported the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, I argued that a lower topline was acceptable if it got us on-time passage of the NDAA and the defense funding, but now we are facing a delayed NDAA and the real possibility of a full-year continuing resolution. This is unacceptable. The Department of Defense has never operated under a full-year CR. A CR is a continuing resolution. A CR would simply be disastrous. What it says is, we are going to do the same thing for the military and the rest of the government as we did last year. Well, the needs have changed. We have new programs that have to be authorized and have to be voted on. It would be a huge waste of taxpayers' money if we were unable to get this thing done. We know a full-year CR would press pause on hundreds of new weapons programs and leave tens of billions of dollars in the wrong places. We had a meeting where we had General Martin testify. He is the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. For the Army alone, he said we would be looking at delays to new-start programs and increased costs of 37 programs, totaling $7 billion. That is according to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. That is the Army alone. The total failure is going to be somewhere around $22 billion that would be lost. All said, this would put work rebuilding our military even further behind and waste enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars. The national defense strategy--that is this book. This is kind of interesting because this book was put together by Democrats and Republicans, all with expertise and a background in the military, equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and they all agreed that this was going to be our defense strategy. They have a National Defense Strategy Committee. That national defense strategy provided a clear vision of the serious challenges it faces and the necessity of ``urgent change at significant scale.'' That is what Secretary Mattis stated. Failure to pass an NDAA and accepting a full-year CR would stop our Nation's defense strategy in its tracks. It would undo all the good work we have done with Secretary Esper, the President of the United States, the Pentagon, as well as our partners, to follow the recommendations of the NDS Commission report. This is not just inside-the-beltway gridlock. The world is watching. Our allies and our enemies are watching. They want to know if America is serious about its role in the world and its own national defense. Failure to pass basic legislation on a timely basis to support our military sends a terrible signal that undermines our national security. Think of the signal that sends to our troops who are out there risking their lives to defend us here at home. Caring for our troops is about the only thing anyone in this town agrees on. If we lose that bipartisan support, it will be hard to get it back, and we need it now more than ever. China and Russia. This is interesting because we didn't used to be that concerned about them. I would say that during the Obama administration, his priorities were not the same. He was very honest about it. He had other priorities. So we didn't do the job we should have done at that time for our military. China and Russia are not waiting around for us to end our disagreements with each other. During the last administration, under Obama, our military funding decreased by 25 percent. Between the years of 2010 and 2015, we decreased the amount of funding for our military in that administration by 25 percent. Meanwhile, China had increased spending by 83 percent over the last decade. Think about it. China increased its spending by 83 percent, and we reduced ours by 25 percent. They are continuing a campaign of aggression, building islands in the South China Sea. Our allies over in the South China Sea are watching what China is doing there and around the world and what we are not doing. They have come to the conclusion that a third world war may be imminent, and they are not sure whose side they want to be on. This chart I am showing right here is a picture of hypersonic weapons. These are state-of-the-art weapons. These are missiles that travel at five times the speed of sound. This is something we were ahead on during the beginning of the previous administration, and we are now behind. Right now, China is parading dozens of massive hypersonic missiles, and we have haven't even built one yet. There they are. That is a picture I haven't seen until today. Those are hypersonic weapons, and they were on Tiananmen Square on October 1, 2019. A lot of people didn't know that they are--they have not just caught up with us; they have passed us. We haven't built one yet, and there they are. People don't realize where China and Russia are. That is China, but Russia continues to develop new and dangerous nuclear weapons, while it expands its influence in the Middle East and elsewhere. I have no doubt that a united America can face these challenges. I fear that a divided America--a country that allows defending America to be a partisan issue--cannot. The path to a final defense bill is, as it always has been, bipartisan. The Defense authorization bill has historically enjoyed broad bipartisan support, and that is not an accident. Both parties have compromised to get a bill worthy of our troops and worthy of our troops' sacrifices. I hope we get to a place where we can find common ground to give our troops and military a comprehensive bill. That is what we want to continue to do. We have been working on this bill for a long period of time. Normally, it doesn't take this long. We have gotten it down to what they call the four leaders. I am one of those four leaders who have been trying to put this together, but we have not been able to get it done. What we are doing with this bill is we are putting the bill up. We are going to get it on the floor so we can be ready. Here is the problem: If we don't do it, we can sit around and do nothing through the month of November, and when December gets here, all of a sudden, we are going to be faced with the fact that we are going to have some bill that takes care of just the military, not all the other stuff that is on the bill. To do this, you have to pass it out of committee. You have to take it to the floor of the Senate. You have to pass it out. Then, if you get that far, the House has to do the same thing. Then we go into conference, and we confer on this thing. Obviously, that is going to take not just days but weeks. So to prepare for the unlikely possibility that we don't get together, we do have the skeleton bill that we are going to introduce. I am going to introduce it an hour from now. It is the only thing we can do right now to make sure we can take care of our troops if we are not able to get the comprehensive bill completed. That is the reason for it. I will be introducing it. Every provision in that bill is a provision to enhance our military efforts, to pay our troops, and to take care of our country the way we have been able to do in the past.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have four requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: committee on armed services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 29, 2019, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to consider the nominations of Ms. Lisa W. Hershman to be Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defense; Mr. Dana S. Deasy to be Chief Information Officer of the Department of Defense; and Mr. Robert J. Sander to be General Counsel of the Department of the Navy. committee on commerce, science, and transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to hold a meeting during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 29, 2019, at 10 a.m., in room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a Full Committee Hearing titled ``Aviation Safety and the Future of Boeing's 737 MAX.'' committee on foreign relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on nominations. select committee on intelligence The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the 116th Congress of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, October 29, 2019, from 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m., in room SH-219 in the Senate Hart Office Building to hold a closed roundtable.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, Gen. John Hyten is before the Senate today to be confirmed. We are anxious to get to this. It has been a long time in the working. It is going to happen, and I am very thankful, not just for the sake of General Hyten but for other officers and junior officers who are looking at a future, knowing some of the problems that exist out there. I have stood in this very spot and talked about exactly what our Nation is dealing with when it comes to our national security. The world is more dangerous now than it has ever been in my lifetime. China and Russia are building their capabilities as we have fallen behind. Our national defense strategy lays it all out. We have a document that we use. This is our blueprint. It is one that was put together by Democrats and Republicans some time ago, and we have adhered to it. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I have adhered to it and will continue to do that. As the Department of Defense and the administration implement the national defense strategy and the recommendations of the NDS Commission, we need confirmed leadership at the Joint Chiefs to provide the military perspective. We need strong, innovative leadership, someone who understands strategy, competition, new warfighting domains like space, and the importance of a strong nuclear deterrent. We need strategic guidance born from years of firsthand experience. To me, there is no doubt that General Hyten is the right man for the second highest ranking military office. Throughout his service, General Hyten has developed a reputation of discipline, integrity, and honor. For the past 2\1/2\ years, he has led STRATCOM, where he has demonstrated shrewd and decisive understanding of our national security objectives. Before that, he served honorably in top leadership positions at Air Force Space Command. He has willingly and selflessly served this Nation in uniform for nearly four decades. I am confident he is going to keep us on a path to rebuild our military advantage and protect our civilian military relations in all this. The Senate considered his nomination yesterday on a 20-to-7 vote to advance General Hyten's nomination, and here we are today making this final decision. This came after a fair, exhaustive, bipartisan process, where we closely reviewed his nomination, including allegations against him. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations ran a tight and thorough investigation. Now, in all my years I have been here, I have never seen one of those more exhaustive than this one. It went on and on and on, and all the members of the committee were able to read every document that is out there. I am very proud of the committee for taking the deliberate time to make this happen. The committee held five executive sessions, studied thousands of pages of investigative records, and reviewed statements from more than 50 witnesses. Every member had the opportunity to ask questions and to read all the documents. We did it. The Armed Services Committee made available all the information to make sure there was nothing that was overlooked. The Armed Services Committee takes allegations of sexual assault very seriously, and it has for many years. It is a problem. It is a problem we are addressing on a regular basis. We are on it, and we are going to resolve it. We went through a period of time in the last administration when the military was taken down in a manner that has never happened before. It was unprecedented. We actually went, in the last 5 years of the Obama administration, to cutting the military by 25 percent. It has never happened before. Now we are going through a rebuilding process. I applaud this President for all he is doing in rebuilding our military. I am proud of him, and that is where we are right now. Through the NDAA and stringent oversight of the Department's efforts to this end, we are putting a stop to any kind of misconduct that we have been talking about. We can't stop a nomination from going forward on unproven allegations, especially ones we examined with the utmost of care and closest scrutiny and determined not to have merit. So we are about to do this--about to get this position confirmed. It is overdue. I urge my colleagues to support this nomination. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I agree with the comments made by the Senator from Alabama. There is one problem with this, and that is, it is not paid for. I am supporting it. I am actually a cosponsor of the bill and was a cosponsor of the bill long before this year, but we are going to have to really get busy to figure out how to pay for this. It is very expensive. But I do encourage people to vote for it.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Mr. Reed, as the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as the cochairs of the Senate Army Caucus, it is our honor to pay tribute to a great leader, an exceptional officer, and a senior executive of the U.S. Army, Mr. Bernard P. Ingold. Mr. Ingold is the principle deputy chief of legislative liaison for the Office of the Secretary of the Army, and as he prepares to leave this position for a well-deserved retirement, we commend him for his outstanding leadership, advice, and sound professional judgment on numerous critical issues of enduring importance to the Army, Congress, and this Nation. Bernie Ingold has served our Army and our Nation for more than 40 years as an Army officer and a Department of the Army civilian. A native of Michigan, Mr. Ingold was commissioned in 1979 as a judge advocate general officer upon earning a degree in law from the University of Arkansas. His service to the Nation included roles as a deputy staff judge advocate for U.S. Army Berlin, as a legislative counsel for the office of the chief of legislative liaison, and as the deputy director for legal policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. After serving 20 years on Active Duty, Mr. Ingold retired and continued his service as a civilian in the Department of the Army. From 1999 to 2010, he served as the deputy chief legislative counsel for the Army's office of the chief of legislative liaison. In 2010, he entered into the senior executive service and began his role as the principle deputy for the office of the chief of legislative liaison. For the past 10 years, Mr. Ingold has implemented and enhanced strategic partnerships with Congress. He has assisted seven Army chiefs of legislative liaison and helped the Army significantly advance its relationships with both legislative Chambers and improved and broadened congressional support for Army priorities. Mr. Ingold managed complex issues through multiple legislative cycles, enabling the Army to receive the necessary resources to improve readiness, accelerate modernization, and reform processes to support combat operations, sustain the all-volunteer force, and improve the quality of life for soldiers, Army civilians, and their families. Throughout his career, he has been a true professional, dedicated soldier, leader, officer, and senior executive. On behalf of the Senate, we thank Bernard P. Ingold, his wife Lolita, and their entire family for their continued commitment, sacrifice, and contributions to this great Nation. We join our colleagues in wishing him future success as he transitions into retirement.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am pleased to recognize Mr. Dan ``Ohno'' Ohnesorge on the occasion of his retirement. In his 11 years as the Enid Woodring airport director, Dan has been a fixture in the Oklahoma aviation community, even serving as president of the Oklahoma Airport Operators Association for the 2012-13 term. In recognition of his passionate service to the Woodring Airport, Dan was awarded the Oklahoma Airport Manager of the Year in 2016, the same year that Enid Woodring Regional Airport was recognized as the Oklahoma Airport of the Year by the Oklahoma Airport Operators Association. Dan has been a passionate advocate for aviation since 1975. After graduating from Florida State University with a BS in meteorology, he earned a masters of aero science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. In his time in the U.S. Air Force, he flew F-16s with the 307th Fighter Squadron, and his dedication to serving the country has continued to the present. In his time as president of the Oklahoma Air Force Association, Dan has worked tirelessly to ensure the men and women training to become pilots at Vance Air Force Base are able to augment their training by using the runway at Woodring Airport. He was instrumental in the decision to locate a memorial honoring the men and women who gave their lives in service to their country during the Vietnam war at the Woodring Airport. It is a testament to his vision for this memorial that Oklahomans from across the State regularly visit this memorial. Under his leadership, Enid Woodring Regional Airport expanded the main runway which enhanced the safety and capability of Vance Air Force Base's pilot training program and built a new terminal building which will more efficiently serve the general aviation and military pilots and other users of the growing airport. I am thankful that I have gotten to know Dan through his passion for aviation and his commitment to the men and women who serve in our Nation's Armed Forces. I know that I join his family, the Enid Woodring Regional Airport, Vance Air Force Base, and the city of Enid in thanking Dan for his years of service and contributions to the aviation community. Congratulations on your retirement.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, despite what some people might think, I have the highest regard for the Senator from Rhode Island. It is very interesting in that the climate is changing, and the climate has always changed. All evidence out there--all historical evidence, all scriptural evidence--tells us over and over again that the climate is changing. It always has been changing, and it always will change. The good news is that the world is not coming to an end because of climate change. That is because the climate is always changing. So, for those people who believe the world is coming to an end because of greenhouse gas emissions, the good news is it is not. I am happy to share that good news with you.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, we had a situation in which we went through an 8-year period of time when our military was somewhat devastated, and I want to share some of the specifics of that because it is a serious thing. We are going to be voting on the defense budget agreement, and I have already stated where I stand on it. I am here to outline why the budget agreement is necessary for our national defense. This defense budget agreement will be able to focus on the Senate's Armed Services' top priorities, one of which is to fix the on-base privatization of military housing. Remember that this happened about 6 months ago. We discovered, all of a sudden, that we were not doing a good job on our privatized housing. Hey, I have to admit that I am partly responsible for that because I was around here when we decided to privatize the housing. It did work for a while. I think, after a period of time, people got a little careless, and there was a little slack. Some of the contractors who made that commitment got a little bit greedy. This information as to how bad the conditions were came from a person at Tinker Air Force Base who was the spouse of a military person. When I first heard this, I thought there were bad conditions just in my State of Oklahoma, but there were not; they were all over the Nation. So we fixed that thing. We fixed it with our defense authorization bill, and we had a lot of provisions in there. We are now modernizing our military housing in a way that is going to be good for all of our spouses and others who are forced to live there. For some reason, if our defense budget agreement were to go down in flames and not be passed, there wouldn't be the modernizing of our military or the giving to our troops a well-deserved pay raise, and they have not had a pay raise in a long time. This is going to be the largest pay raise for our military people in the last 10 years. It is a good thing. By the way, people are always talking about how we can be so concerned about building our military when we have China and Russia that have passed us up in many areas and spend just a fraction of the amount. The reason is very simple, which is that China and Russia are countries that don't have to do anything for their soldiers. We take care of ours. We try to provide good housing. We provide the types of things that our all-volunteer force can be very proud of and are very proud of. That is something we have to incur. The largest single expenditure that we have in the military is end strength--the people out there. Communist countries--China, Russia--don't have to worry about that. ``Here is a gun. Go out and kill somebody.'' We don't have that luxury, and we wouldn't do that if we wanted to. If we don't pass this budget bill, the effects on the military will be devastating. Let me just share a couple of things that would happen. We would force the Department of Defense to operate under a continuing resolution, which would shortchange our troops and waste taxpayer dollars. We all know that. We would face destructive, haphazard cuts in sequestration. What is it we hear on our committee? The Presiding Officer is fully familiar, for she is one of the most loyal members of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services. We have posture hearings for about 6 months at the beginning of every year with the leaders of the various branches of the military--General Votel, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, ADM Craig Faller, ADM Phil Davidson, all of these people. What do they tell us? They tell us, if we don't actually start funding our military again, we are going to have sequestration. Look, if we vote for this thing and pass it, we will end the sequestration problems and threats forever. It will not happen again. What else do they tell us? They tell us that a CR, which is a continuing resolution, would be an absolute disaster. A lot of people in this body don't know this, but every member of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services does know this because they were there. All of these people--16 leaders--come in for posture hearings each year, and we know the problems we are having and the problems we are confronted with. We would be faced with cuts in sequestration. This document right here is the ``Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission.'' Here it is right here. This is our blueprint of what we are doing to save America and to put us back on top in all of these areas in which we are deficient. If, for some reason, we don't pass this defense budget agreement, then we will not be able to continue the implementation of the national defense strategy, and we all know that. Certainly, we don't all know that, but the members of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services do know that. So that is what would happen. But what would this mean? The members of the Armed Services Committee know what it means, but for everybody else, the deficit budget deal would end the threat of sequestration forever. You don't need me to tell you that sequestration would be devastating. General Milley, just confirmed to be the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, said that the levels of funding caused by sequestration would place America ``at great risk.'' Remember, unfortunately, Heather Wilson, the former Air Force Secretary who had to leave her position. She said the cuts would be ``absolutely devastating in scope and scale.'' If we were hit by sequestration, there would be an across-the-board cut of $71 billion to the defense programs. That would halt our progress on the Space Command and developing crucial capabilities like hypersonic weapons and artificial intelligence. Those are two areas where we have actually been passed up by both Russia and China. Just yesterday, the DARPA announced that they have completed a successful design review of a hypersonic weapons program. Now, that is a good first step. I am really glad because we were way ahead of them back before the last administration came into office, and then, all of a sudden, over that period of time, we got behind. So, meanwhile, China and Russia are already testing their hypersonic weapons, and they are ahead of us. We are just trying to catch up, and that is what this budget vote is all about. The 2020 NDAA invests in hypersonic weapons, but we can't move forward if we are hit by sequestration. It would mean it would set us even further behind. By the way, the hypersonics that we are talking about are the state of the art. That is a new thing. That is a weaponry that moves at five times the speed of sound, and here we are, allowing our--I don't want to characterize China and Russia as enemies. They are not enemies, but they are certainly on the other side, and people are in shock when they find out that they have something that we don't have. We have to be competitive with them, and we are going to be if we pass this defense budget vote that we are going to have before us. So another example, in our NDAA that we passed overwhelmingly just last month, it authorized a 3.1-percent pay raise, or increase, for our troops. They deserve that pay raise, and under sequestration that pay raise is at risk. The ability for basing facilities to receive the next generation of aircraft is also at risk. If your State is like my State, your State is slated to house the F-35 or the T-X trainer or the KC-46. The KC-46 is a system that is going to replace the KC-135, which has been in place now for over 50 years and so is 50 years old. That is a system, and if you were going to have one of these systems in your State, you may not get it because of this deal. Without the budget vote that is going to take place, we wouldn't be able to move forward with our plan, and we would be hit by sequestration. It could all be over. I am talking about systems like the F-35, which we talk about every day, and the T-X trainer. We have had the trainers in existence now for some 50 years, and the KC-46, the same thing. So, anyway, that is what would happen if for some reason we vote against and don't pass the defense bill that we are going to be asked to vote on probably tomorrow. We have also made plans to continue increasing our end strength by 17,000 troops from the Obama era to our current goal, and without this defense budget deal, that wouldn't be possible. I think we all know it. Now, maybe we don't all know it in this Chamber, but as for every member of the defense authorization committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, they all know because they have been told over and over, and that is why it is so important that they be very responsible in their vote. It would be kind of hard to say that you are working for the defense of our Nation and then turn around and vote to gut their funding. Now, we have made remarkable gains in readiness over the past couple of years, thanks to President Trump's leadership and greater budgetary stability. For just one example, at the end of the Obama administration, only 5 percent of our brigade combat teams were ready to what they call ``fight tonight''--only 5 percent. Now, we have made a huge improvement. That is up to 50 percent now after just 2 years of this administration, but we have a lot more to do. All the improvements we have made in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 would be at risk if we were not able to go forward and pass our defense budget act that we are going to be asked to support. Sequestration would undo what we have done and take us back where we were before. It would be abandoning our troops right when we said we would be there for them. A continuing resolution means funding will go to the wrong places--places that were important last year but don't need to be funded this year. That is just wasteful. We all understand that, but a continuing resolution would be especially devastating for the military. Every one of these military people whom I was just reading about came in for their annual meeting. They all said the same thing: It would be devastating if we had to go into a continuing resolution. We would be forced to do programs that otherwise we would not be doing. So General Dunford said it himself. He said: ``The fact that we have routinely not had a budget at the beginning of the year has delayed new starts, and it's been incredibly inefficient in how we prioritize and allocate resources throughout the year.'' That was General Dunford. A continuing resolution means that our military will lose key planning ability. David Norquist, nominated to be the Deputy Secretary of Defense, gave a great example to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. He said: Let's say a unit is planning right now for some training in October, but we are operating under a continuing resolution. At that time, they will cancel training because they don't know how much money they would be getting in order to accomplish that. We may eventually get more money, but in the meantime we will have lost a month in the process. With sequestration off the table and with a stable 2-year budget deal in place, the Department of Defense can move forward with what is really important: implementing the National Defense Strategy. This is what my committee has been focusing on all year. We are facing a different, more dangerous world than we were 10 years ago. I look back wistfully. I have said this many times. I look back wistfully at the days of the Cold War. We had two super powers. We knew what they had, and they knew what we had--mutually assured destruction. It doesn't mean anything anymore. You have countries that are run by people that are mentally deficient having the capability of blowing up one of our American cities. It is a scary world out there. That is what we are doing. That is why it is so important that we pass this budget, because our defense is depending on it. Not everybody knows this, but the members of the Armed Services Committee do know it. We are falling behind China and Russia as they continue to build their militaries. We are seeing persistent threats from North Korea, from Iran, from the terrorist groups, and we no longer have the best of everything, and most people don't understand that. Of course the members of our committee do understand that. We have set clear priorities, and now we need to fund it. The future of our Nation is at stake. This is what it will take to regain the qualitative and quantitative advantages that we have lost. I would have liked to have seen even more funding provided to this. The National Defense Strategy Commission--by the way, they set up a system that they can use, and that system is that we should be putting together between a 3- and a 5-percent increase over inflation, but we have not done it. We have not done it even with the budget that we are working on now. The National Defense Strategy Commission, which is nonpartisan, has said that 3 to 5 percent growth is what is needed, and that is what we did not do. But at the end of the day, I am willing to take this smaller than ideal increase and give our military what it needs--predictability. It is also more than what the House passed in their Defense authorization bill, which was dangerously low. Every member of Armed Services Committee should vote for this defense budget because they know everything we have been talking about. They know that we are outranged and outgunned in artillery. They know that we are at a disadvantage in air defense, having only two Active-Duty battalions. Nuclear Triad modernization has not been taking place. We aren't there. China and Russia are. So, anyway, what I am trying to impress upon you is that those individuals who are members of the committee are fully aware of the problems we have had. They remember that under the Obama administration, at the end of the Obama administration, our Air Force was short 2,000 pilots, and 1,500 of them were fighter pilots. Only one-third of our brigade combat teams, one-fourth of our aviation brigades, and half of our divisions were ready. Also, 60 percent of our F-18s weren't flyable. This is what we are in the process of correcting, and it is all dependent upon the passage of this budget. So I would say to those individuals who are on the committee, I can't imagine that any of them would not be supporting this defense budget when it comes up, and I would hope that we don't have members of our committee who are anticipating doing things such as hearings back in their State or amendments to go as we put our Defense authorization bill through the next steps, because now is when our defense system needs to have this budget passed. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me just take a few minutes here to share an idea that when we come back next week, we will be talking about the budget. We are going to be talking about making really difficult, very difficult decisions. I would state that we on the Senate Armed Services Committee have an advantage over some of the other people because one of the critical areas in the budget coming up is how we treat the military. I think it is important for people to understand that if you are a member of the Armed Services Committee, you are in a position to know something the other Members don't know. It may sound like someone is not doing their job, but that is not true at all. When you are on the Senate Armed Services Committee, there are hearings that take place. Starting in January, there are posture hearings. Posture hearings normally take about 6 hours a week. In posture hearings, we find out about matters that others just don't have time to find out about unless you are a member of the committee. If you are a member, you are sitting there for 3 hours a week. I don't say this critically of the previous administration because--I would say, in the Obama administration, the top priority was not defending America. In fact, he established something called parity. Parity meant that for every one dollar put into the military budget, we have to put one dollar into the nonmilitary budget. That had never happened before, at least it had not happened since World War II. At that time, it was established that national defense would be our priority. Every Democrat and every Republican President at that time all the way up until the Obama administration had defending America as the top priority. What happened during that administration was that we actually had a dramatic reduction. If you use constant dollars, that reduction took place between 2010 and 2015, using constant dollars. For this description, we used 2018 dollars. Going into 2010, it was about $794 billion. Going into 2015, it was $586 billion or something like that. So there was about a 25-percent reduction in the defense budget in a 5- year period. That had never happened before in the history of this country. Yet we suffered through, and we paid dearly for it. A lot of people are not aware of it, unless you are on the Armed Services Committee because we see it. When the current President came in, President Trump, his budget boosted that back up. Now we are talking about real dollars, and it was $700 billion in fiscal year 2018. Then for fiscal year 2019 it was $716 billion. Now we are getting into where we are today in the current budget. We passed a defense authorization bill, and in it we actually came out agreeing that we had to get to $750 billion. Someone might ask why. We had something called the National Defense Commission report. It was a document that was a good document that talked about how we were going to need to appropriate because during the Obama administration we saw China and Russia become peer competitors in many areas. In fact, they ended up with some things better than ours. Let me give an example. Artillery during that period of time for both China and Russia had us outranged and outgunned. How many people know that? People assume America has the best of everything. Well, that was true up until this time. Air and defense, there were only two Active-Duty battalions with no new technological advancements. Nothing happened during that time. That allowed China and Russia to start creeping up and getting ahead of us. On nuclear triad modernization, we had no modernization increases at that time, but Russia and China did. In fact, China actually has today a nuclear triad, and Russia is actually building one. The U.S. defense against electronic warfare--we didn't have that kind of a defense. With Russia, you can remember what happened in Ukraine. Hypersonic weapons is the newest thing that people talk about. It is a type of weapon system that moves five times the speed of sound. It is the weapon system of the future. Prior to the past administration, prior to the Obama administration, we were ahead in our research on hypersonic weapons, but by the end of that time and up until this new administration came in, we were actually behind Russia and China. I only say that because we really took a hit. The only time--we have had three opportunities, one in fiscal year 2018, one in fiscal year 2019, and then another on the budget we are going to be voting on this coming week. That was our opportunity to catch up. I would just say this: If you are on the Armed Services Committee, you have an obligation because you are in a unique position of knowing the efficiencies that we have. Others don't have that. Many of the Members take the time and they find out that they can get this done. But we are in a position where--General Dunford, as an example, said that we have lost our qualitative and our quantitative edge in artillery. We are actually outnumbered 5 to 1 by China and 10 to 1 by Russia. In air and missile defense, China and Russia have weapons that prevent access--we call them SAMs, surface-to-air missiles. Nuclear modernization--no real U.S. modernization took place during that time. We had some of our top people admitting that we had deficiencies, and we quickly tried to correct them. Along came fiscal year 2018. In fiscal year 2018, we got back up to a $700 billion budget, and we started working on things. We had the manual. It is a manual I normally bring down with me to the floor when we talk about this because this is something that everyone agreed on as the manual was put together. It was the NDS Commission report. It was put together by 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans--all experts in national defense--and everyone agreed that would be our blueprint to pull us out of where we were at that time, and it was working. We were on schedule to do it. We are currently on schedule with this budget. It says that while we are rebuilding our military, we should be anticipating that we have to increase our military spending by between 3 percent and 5 percent over this period of time. That is a net increase. Well, the budget we came out with in the defense authorization bill was $750 billion, and it was a budget that almost gets us there but not quite. The President's budget agreement that came out the other day has a figure of $738 billion. That is very close to where we are supposed to be. It is a 2-year budget, and that is a good thing for the military. Those of us on the Defense Committee understand that. So that brings that $738 up to $740.5 billion for 2021, so it is very close to the $750 billion defense authorization. I only say that because that makes it more important for anyone who is serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee to be in a position to know what I just said. And that is something that most people don't know, and I don't believe that most of the Members of this body know, but those who are on the committee do know it. We have to keep in mind that this budget is going to be the only way that we are going to be able to do what needs to be done. This is the short version. I will come back and talk more this coming Monday and give a lot more details than I gave now. I will say this: I would encourage any member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to understand that they are in a position to know what the problem is, and a lot of other people do not know this. I would anticipate that members of the committee would be in that unique position to know and would be supporting a budget that gives us enough room to get back into position to recover from the losses that we took from the previous administration. That is what is at stake. That is what we are anticipating. I would anticipate that our members from the committee should be doing that. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I complete my remarks before we move to the vote to confirm our next Secretary of Defense.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are in a great position that we are not very often in. We have someone who is enthusiastically supported by Republicans, by Democrats, and he is obviously the right person. He has the trust of our President, he has the trust of our military, and he has the trust of Congress and the country to keep our Nation safe. Dr. Mark Esper is the right man for the job. He is a great choice to lead the Pentagon, and I am proud to support him. And I am not the only one. In fact, I would like to take a moment to share some of the bipartisan support we have for Dr. Esper from the defense experts, former officials, and my own colleagues. Senator Kaine from Virginia said this at Dr. Esper's confirmation hearing: He is a person of sound character and moral courage. He's been proactive and transparent . . . trademarks of exceptional leadership. Secretary Mattis--you remember him--when Dr. Esper was being sworn in as the Secretary of the Army, then-Secretary of Defense Mattis said: The bottom line is the virtuous and vile alike have written history, but let's remember here today that we're the good guys . . . and this is the man who can take us forward. Mark Jacobson, a senior adviser to Ash Carter, said: This is someone who can work across the aisle. This is somebody who can work with Congress. And that's really what defines him. A soldier, a scholar. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said: Anybody impartial would have to have come away impressed by Dr. Esper's mastery, intelligence, and thoroughness. My colleagues in the Armed Services Committee also widely support Dr. Esper's nomination, advancing his nomination with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Across the Capitol, both the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee support Dr. Esper. They all support him. Chairman Adam Smith said that Dr. Esper is ``capable of executing the National Defense Strategy in a way that is insulated from outside influence and political considerations. . . . The Department would benefit from his leadership.'' That is my counterpart over in the House. Ranking Member Mac Thornberry said he has ``done an outstanding job as Secretary of the Army.'' I agree with Congressman Thornberry. Under Dr. Esper's leadership, we saw Army modernization leap forward by leaps and bounds. He managed the largest reorganization of the Army in 45 years, prioritizing research, development, and innovation. He showed accountability to the taxpayers by being responsible with his budget, making tough decisions, tough choices, streamlining legacy programs, and directing defense dollars to critical future needs. It is impressive, but being a good Army Secretary isn't enough on its own. Secretary Mattis reminded us that civilian leaders in our military must be more than their past accomplishments. Mark Esper is more because he truly respects and honors his commitment to the men and women in uniform. I have seen this firsthand. Back in April, I asked Dr. Esper to join me on a visit to Fort Sill in my State of Oklahoma. What impressed me was how well he communicated with the troops in the field. He is one of the troops out there, and you could see the love that he had for them. In Fort Sill, he even joined them--and I was there--for an Army combat fitness test workout. He participated with the troops. He ate the MREs out in the field. Anyone who has been in the Army can tell you that you don't often find people who choose to do that, but Mark Esper did. Dr. Esper deeply cares about the troops, whether it is making sure that they have the weapons, equipment, and training they need to succeed in their missions or simply that they have quality housing when they are on base. We moved quickly to consider Dr. Esper's nomination here on the floor, but that isn't because we didn't fulfill our duty of advice and consent. We did. Dr. Esper testified for over 3 hours. Between his hearing and his followup questions for the record, he answered approximately 600 questions. It is clear that Dr. Esper has what it takes to lead the Department of Defense and that most of my colleagues think so as well. He has served the Nation with honor and integrity, and I am certain that he is going to continue to do so when he is confirmed. I strongly request a strong vote to confirm Dr. Mark Esper to be our next Secretary of Defense. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have 7 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing pending military nominations. Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Finance The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Select Committee on Intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 1:30 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing. Subcommittee on Science, Oceans, Fisheries, and Weather The Subcommittee on Science, Oceans, Fisheries, and Weather of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at 2:15 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Mississippi, I be recognized for such time as I may consume.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am looking forward to joining in on this discussion that is taking place right now on what is happening with these people and Oklahoma's role in this. Jim Bridenstine is a fairly recent Director of NASA, and he is committed to reestablishing our position of leadership. We haven't really lost it, but it hasn't been as prominent as it has been in the past. We have people like Tom Stafford. I talk to Tom Stafford almost on a daily basis. He is still around. He is still active. He still rejoices in the fact that we are reestablishing our position, and I am very excited about that. I wasn't going to talk about that today. I think that is going to be tomorrow. There is another area in which President Trump and the Republican Senate have had great success, and that is in remaking the Federal judiciary. As of this week, we have confirmed 43 appellate judges. That is more at this 2\1/2\-year point than in any other President's term in the history of this country. That is what is going on, and it goes unnoticed. These judicial confirmations have real impact. Here is a great example. This week, the Ninth Circuit--the notoriously liberal appellate court in California--ruled that portions of President Trump's ``Project Life'' rule can--not can't, can--go into effect. This is a commonsense rule. All it says is that in States that receive title X funding, it cannot be used by clinics to provide abortions. We calculate that this would have the result of defunding Planned Parenthood by about an initial $60 million annually. It is a great start to defunding the abortion-on- demand culture, and it is possible only because President Trump and Leader McConnell have rightly made remaking the Federal judiciary a top priority. What I want to talk about is something we need to talk about now because it has not been called to the attention of the American people, and that is about the great work being done in this administration to better our environment. When you say that perhaps it can be argued the Trump administration may go down as one of the truly great environmental administrations, nobody will believe that. In my lifetime and in my history, I have never seen a President so detested by members of the media. So people, consequently, don't know, with the exception of a few tweets. I admit that I cringe a little bit when I hear a new tweet coming out. But, look, if that is the only way you can get the truth out, it is something that has worked, and it has been very effective. We have a White House dedicated to clean air, land, and water by cutting excessive, duplicative regulations. Based on what you see in the media, you would think this President turned his back on the environment, but it has been just the opposite. We are seeing significant progress in environmental protection that we have not seen in any other administration. Americans should know the truth about how this administration is leading the world in environmental gains, all the while growing the economy. People say: Well, you can't do that. That can't be done. You can't increase economic activity at the same time as making environmental gains. But that is actually happening. Look at the chart behind me. There are a couple facts most Americans really don't know. They had no way of knowing, until now. Since 1970, combined emissions of the six common pollutants--we are talking about the recognized six common pollutants out there--dropped by 74 percent while the U.S. economy grew by 275 percent. Is it possible that could happen? It did happen because there it is right there--all this economic activity, all this growth. The bottom line is the aggregate emissions of the six common pollutants. There they are, going down. That is because this administration knows what it is doing and has the commitment that other people are not aware of. Now look at CO2. We have had debates over the years about whether or not CO2 is one of the pollutants. It is not one of the six common pollutants, but nonetheless it is one that people seem to be looking at. Since 2005 the United States' energy-related CO2 emissions fell by 14 percent, while global energy-related CO2 emissions increased by over 20 percent. We are talking about all the emissions increased, and still we had a reduction. Despite this drop in emissions, in 2018 the United States became the world's leading producer of oil and natural gas and a net exporter of oil and natural gas fossil fuels for the first time in 75 years. I am particularly proud of this. I am from an oil State, the State of Oklahoma. I know how many jobs are tied to it. I know what has happened to our economy, and a lot of that can be attributed to using the proper energy sources that we have available to us. This administration has proven that we don't have to impose massive tax increases or regulatory burdens on American families in order to reduce pollution. We are reducing pollution, clearly. Democrats often say the United States is failing to properly reduce carbon emissions, and this just isn't true. Look at chart No. 2. The reality is our CO2 emissions have been falling. In 2017 the United States led the world in CO2 emission reductions while, notably, China led in emissions. You have to look at this. The top line is the United States. That is reduction. We are leading the world in reductions of CO2 emissions. All the way across, at the very bottom of the page, China has the largest increase of CO2 emissions. What a contrast that is. It defies everything else we read about, and yet there it is. That is the truth. A lot of people are not aware that there is a big party which takes place every December. It has happened now for about 21 or maybe 22 years. That is where 180 countries get together and talk about what they are going to do to reduce CO2 emissions. We see who is and who is not reducing CO2 emissions with this chart. They talk about the great Paris accord, which this President wisely took us out of. What that did was to have these countries line up, and between India and China, they are responsible for one-fourth of all CO2 emissions. At that time, their obligation was to continue doing what they were doing with coal-fired plants until 2025. Then, they will consider reducing their emissions. What kind of a commitment is that? Meanwhile, our President at that time was President Obama, and President Obama made commitments that could not be kept by our country. Yet, stop to think. We don't need to. We are already doing it. Just look at what we are doing right now. People don't know that. China and India represent almost half of all the global carbon emissions. We just don't hear this in the news, and that is why we need to be talking about it. Another thing I bet most people don't know is that in the early 1970s, more than 40 percent of America's drinking water systems failed basic health standards, but today 93 percent of the systems meet all health standards all the time. In fact, the United States is ranked No. 1 in the world for clean drinking water. Clearly, this President's environmental policies are working. We would think environmentalists and Democrats would be praising our President, given these undeniable successes, but instead they are pushing for the Green New Deal. We have all heard about the Green New Deal and what it is going to be doing. It is about a $93 trillion program being promoted by a lot of the liberals around this environment here in Washington. The authors of this Green New Deal spent four pages painting the scary and inaccurate picture of our environment. Then, they spent the next nine pages outlining their socialist agenda, aimed at ensuring the government dictates life in America--from the car you drive to the energy you consume. In the Green New Deal, they talk about eliminating air traffic. That is very nice. I don't know how people will get around. They also want to eliminate beef. I happen to be from a beef State. We like beef, but, apparently, there are things that cows do. They make noise and don't smell good. So they want to eliminate beef. They want to eliminate oil and gas altogether. You can't eliminate oil and gas. Right now, 80 percent of our energy that we use to enjoy life in America comes from oil and gas, and that is going to continue. I don't see it changing in the near future. Scientists like MIT's Richard Lindzen have been calling out climate alarmists for years on this conspiracy to control our lives. This flawed plan doesn't take into account that over 80 percent of the United States' energy comes from fossil fuels--80 percent. If you eliminate fossil fuels, how do you run this machine called America? The answer is, you can't. Our Nation runs on American coal, oil, and gas, and that isn't going to change any time soon. We had a vote in the Senate on this radical Green New Deal plan, but not a single Democrat was willing to vote for it. A lot of them voted present. They didn't want to get on record voting for it, and yet that is what they are promoting over in the House. They know their plan will not work and is extremely unpopular. So they weren't going to join it. Anytime you don't want to vote for or against something, what do you do? You vote present. I didn't think Democrats could be more radical than they were under the Obama administration, but I was wrong. At least I give the Obama administration credit for being honest about its radical war on fossil fuels. For 8 years, President Obama targeted oil and gas producers in States like my State of Oklahoma, but President Obama lost that fight, and Oklahoma energy producers continue to create thousands of jobs to fuel this machine called America. I think back to 1990. I was here in 1990, and that is when we passed a landmark piece of legislation called the Clean Air Act. I cosponsored that act, and that succeeded in reducing acid rain, air pollution, and harm to our ozone layer. It has gone down in history as one of the true great successes that has happened in this country in terms of the environment. We are all a part of this, and we have been successful. Many of today's Democrats are virtually unrecognizable compared to those back in 1990. I urge my Democratic colleagues to reject radical socialist environmental policies, come back to reality, and support our President's very effective approach. I am proud of President Trump and his administration's record on improving our Nation's environment while streamlining government overreach. It is possible to have a thriving economy while safeguarding our air and water. Again, I ask you to look at this chart. Just look and see what we have done and where we are. In spite of what you hear, we are leading the country, under this administration, which is going to go down and be recognized as one of the truly great environmental administrations. I am very proud of that. I think it is time that people know it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I wish in tribute to Lieutenant Colonel Michael Healey of the British Royal Artillery Regiment, a great gunner, an officer of the highest quality, a British patriot, and a beloved friend of Oklahoma and America. On June 29, we lost Mike Healey at the age of 67 after a 4-year battle with cancer. Just as in life, he faced his last fight with courage and vigor, without complaint, and with that famous British stiff upper lip. Mike was taken from us too soon, but his memory will be with us always, and his service will live on as a testament to the bonds of affection and friendship that still animate the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. Mike spent a lot of time in my State during the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s at a little place called Fort Sill, in Lawton, OK. Many of you know that Fort Sill is the home of the U.S. Army Field Artillery and Air Defense Artillery. Major Mike Healey first came to Fort Sill in January 1988 to replace Major Ian Dowdswell as the british exchange instructor in the field artillery advanced course, which is now called the captains career course. Mike was already very experienced as a major in the British Artillery and brought that tactical and technical knowledge to share with U.S. students and faculty. He made it through the instructor ``murder boards'' in record time, as he had been an instructor in his own Army. He very quickly grasped the American acronyms and organization for combat. Mike did a fantastic job as an instructor and was respected by his students and colleagues. Mike came back to Fort Sill in 1997, after a promotion to lieutenant colonel, and became the British liaison officer to the U.S. Field Artillery. He represented the British Army exceptionally well in all aspects of the new position. One of the main reasons he was promoted and was allowed to return to America so soon was that he spoke ``American'' so well. Lieutenant Colonel Healey returned for a third time to Oklahoma in 2005 to be, once again, the British LNO to the U.S. Field Artillery School but with the added responsibility of also serving as the British air defense artillery liaison officer. LTG Dave Valcourt was the commanding general of Fort Sill at the time, and specifically requested that the British Army send Mike back to Fort Sill for yet another tour to help guide the base through a critical period as it absorbed the U.S. Army ADA School from Fort Bliss. Lieutenant Colonel Healey's combat theater service gave him immediate credibility with his American comrades in arms. Mike served in the Falklands War with British forces in 1984 and in Iraq alongside American units in 1991. In addition to his combat credentials, he coordinated joint/combined Cold War exercises and security procedures, working with Americans in Germany in 1979 and 1990 and in Turkey in 1996. As a truly solemn and high-visibility assignment, Mike commanded the Queen's Guard at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, marching the men down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Castle, followed by dinner with the Queen in 1983. Mike was a graduate of Sandhurst Military Academy, the Royal Field Artillery School at Larkhill, and earned a master's degree at Schrivenham. He also had a BA in economics from Manchester University. His military awards include the U.S. Army Field Artillery Association St. Barbara's Medal, the U.S. Army Meritorious Service Medal, the British Gulf War Medal, and the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal for special recognition during the commemoration of the Queen's 50th year on the throne. Lieutenant Colonel Healey's greatest satisfaction and proudest moment, by his own admission, was when he authored, staffed, and presented a new Ministry of Defense Command policy to House of Commons on ensuring military members were not forgotten once they left the military and that their sacrifices were acknowledged in the civilian world with special accommodations. He and his wife, Mo, were the consummate hosts at numerous official functions they personally planned and catered at Fort Sill, to include their memorable farewell bash in 2007 at the Polo Field. Mike Healey loved America, Oklahoma, and the U.S. Army Field Artillery. He was constantly amazed by the wide-open spaces in the American West, the 300-plus sunny days per year, and how friendly the people were. Mike unabashedly adopted the United States as his second home and voluntarily spent nearly a third of his military career in Oklahoma. In fact, he thought so much of this great land that he specifically requested Old Glory be draped across his casket next to the Union Jack at his military funeral, which will be on July 19 in Thirsk, England. I am personally requesting that an American flag be flown over the Capitol in honor of Mike Healey and his service, not just to his own country but also for his service to our country. That flag will then be transported to England for the burial by Lieutenant General Valcourt, Retired, who will also deliver a portion of Mike's eulogy. With this extraordinary request, Mike performed one last act of service by reminding his British compatriots and his American friends of our proud history and all that we still have to achieve together. In January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt sent Harry Hopkins as his personal envoy to meet Prime Minister Winston Churchill. At dinner one night, Hopkins rose and quoted from the Book of Ruth: ``Whither thou goest I will go, and whither thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'' He then added, ``even to the end.'' Mike Healey lived those words. He saw firsthand why Americans love their country, and he became a true ``forward observer'' of the American dream. We are all better off for knowing Mike, and we will never forget all he has done for the U.S. Army, the Field Artillery School, the State of Oklahoma, and the United States of America.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the service of an Oklahoma native and proud Marine officer upon completing 22 years of dedicated service to our great Nation. Lt. Col. Michelle Heath was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in April 1997 and has dedicated her career to the selfless service of our country. Throughout the course of her career, Lieutenant Colonel Heath supported numerous operations both stateside and overseas. During her first tour at Camp Lejeune with 8th Motor Transport Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Heath deployed as the motor transport detachment commander. After completion of this deployment, in May 2000, she was assigned as the assistant logistics officer to Marine Aircraft Group- 14, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Follow-on assignments included duty as the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing Antiterrorism Officer, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point followed by time with Mobilization Plans and Policy, Manpower and Reserve Affairs, Marine Corps Base Quantico. During this time she was directly involved with the mobilization of Marine Corps Reserve units in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In June 2006, Lieutenant Colonel Heath deployed to Iraq to serve with Marine Wing Support Squadron-473 as a logistics officer. In 2013, Lieutenant Colonel Heath attended the Naval Command and Staff course at the Naval War College. Upon graduation, she served as the operational sponsor for Marine for Life, Manpower and Reserve Affairs in Quantico, VA. In this capacity, she sought to ensure that all Marines maintained a connection to the Corps, regardless of their stage in life. Lieutenant Colonel Heath continued her service to the Nation when she joined the operational sponsor for the Readiness Support Program, Marine Corps Individual Reserve Support Activity, Marine Forces Reserve, New Orleans, LA. Since 2016, Lieutenant Colonel Heath has served in the Office of Legislative Affairs, Headquarters, Marine Corps, Pentagon. In this capacity, she has worked tirelessly while balancing military, political, and budgetary priorities for the Congress. Upon retirement, Lieutenant Colonel Heath will return to the great State of Oklahoma and will reside in Norman, OK. On behalf of my colleagues and the entire U.S. Senate, I want to personally thank Lieutenant Colonel Heath for her more than two decades of service to the Marine Corps and our Nation, and I wish her well in her future endeavors.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we begin the 4:30 p.m. vote.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, reserving the right, let me share a story of something that happened. The timing sometimes happens at very inconvenient times, but on September 7, 2011, I was in my State of Oklahoma and was in Collinsville, OK. Probably not many people have been to Collinsville, OK, but I have. It was the home of a really beloved individual and family. The family was the Chris Horton family, and the wife was Jane Horton. I remember it so well. This was September 7, 2011. I was talking to the group, and I was telling them that I was preparing to make one of my regular trips to Afghanistan. At that time, I was not chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but I was a high-ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In the audience was Jane Horton, and Jane said: Well, if you are going to go over there, why don't you go by and see my husband, Chris? I said: I will do it. I found out his whereabouts, exactly where he was. I got over there to look up Chris, only to find out that 2 days after I made that commitment in Collinsville, OK, that Chris died in action. Chris died in action. I was the one who had to call on and share that with his wife, Jane Horton. In fact, after that, we hired Jane to go around and help us with the widows' benefits. Starting at that time, I was the leader and continued to be a leader long before the Senator from Alabama was into this, and he will agree that I was actively working on this issue. I support and will continue to support the permanent fix. It is going to happen. We are going to do it. In fact, I am the first Senate Armed Services chairman to cosponsor this legislation. Mr. Jones mentioned there were 75 people who cosponsored it. That is I. I was on there on the initial legislation and will continue to be and will always be, and that reflects my commitment to the permanent fix. Here is the problem we have. There has to be a fix, but it can't be on this bill. The reason it can't be on this bill is because it has a mandatory spending that has no offset, and there is not an exception to this on the bill. This is part of the agreement in bringing the bill up. Now, what we can do is go ahead and do what is necessary with this very popular cause, and I will be standing with the Senator from Alabama to make sure this happens. Let's assume that were not true, that we couldn't do it under the rules. Under the rules, there is another rule that, if there is an objection to any amendments coming up, then I, as the chairman of the committee, if the party objecting is not here, I have to offer his objection. There is an objection to this, and I will therefore object and be in the strongest position of helping this to become a reality. I owe it not just to the many people I know but also to the family whom I just referred to from Collinsville.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the yeas and nays on the substitute amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I and Senator Jack Reed be given such time as we shall consume prior to the vote that will take place.