Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me first thank the Senator from Texas for allowing me to very briefly work in here. It happens that I was elected to the House and then to the Senate at the same time as Craig and Susan Thomas. And you know, sometimes you see someone for the first time and they have, as Senator Enzi pointed out, that infectious smile, and that was Craig. That was Craig. Everyone had to love Craig. I have thought of him so often during consideration of the bill that is on the floor now. Craig had such convictions, but he never quit smiling. What the guy could do is, he could say the same thing I would say and people would love him, but they wouldn't love me. I don't know how he got by with that, but he did. I picture him and where he would be today if he were here while we have a bill on the floor that has an increase in gas taxes, $6.7 trillion of increases in taxes over the life of the bill, with job losses to China, and he wouldn't be sitting there, he would be up here. I applaud his replacement, the junior Senator from Wyoming, Senator Barrasso. Every time I turn around, he is coming down and saying exactly--exactly--what Craig would be saying. I would say this about Craig Thomas: He was always there at our Senate prayer breakfast every Wednesday morning. He was a Jesus guy, like we are, and so I don't feel the sadness a lot of people do with Craig Thomas, because I can only say right now: Craig, I know you are here with us, and we are going to see you later. I thank my colleague, and I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a quick question? I don't want to use the Senator's time.

Mr. INHOFE. I want it made clear today, as we go into the debate, that when we look back at the clean air amendments of the 1990s, we had something like 180 amendments considered at that time and we had it on the floor for 5 weeks. This goes much further than those amendments did, and yet they are cutting us off. Let us make it very clear: The Republicans on this side of the aisle want to debate this bill, want to vote, we want recorded votes on amendments, and we want to vote on the bill itself.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, how much time do we have on our side?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, please tell me when I have 1 minute. All Republicans want just one thing, and that is to debate this bill, bring it out in the open, let the light shine on it. Every Republican who has spoken has talked about the various amendments they want. All we want to do is discuss, debate amendments, have recorded votes on the amendments, and then have a recorded vote on final passage. That is a very reasonable request. The Senator from New Mexico said on a couple of occasions that-- referring to the amendments of 1990--there were 180 amendments that were offered at that time in 5 weeks of debate. Now we are talking about 3 days. I don't want anyone walking away when they pull the bill and say the Republicans had anything to do with it because all we want to do is debate it. One of the amendments I want is to set up a mechanism we put down in a very reasonable way that would protect truckers, small businesses, and farmers from higher diesel prices caused by the Lieberman-Warner bill. I still want that amendment, and I hope there is a change of heart someplace and we will be allowed to do it. It is important in these last few minutes to talk a little bit about this 53 cents a gallon they have estimated. They have said it is not going to be 53 cents a gallon, but the EIA, the Energy Information Agency, has estimated that it would be 53 cents. But they say we are underestimating. They said first they acknowledge their model does not take into account cost of allowances for refineries, it does not account for more production going overseas, and it does not account for supply-side changes in the market, which means as production costs go up, supply will get tighter. That is a conservative estimate. Since our junior Senator from California has returned, let me one more time talk about the tax increase. This is a massive tax increase on the American people. At a press conference on June 2, Senator Boxer said this is tax relief. Later on, she said in the same press conference: We also have in this bill a very large piece, almost $1 trillion of tax relief. So when we see some increases in energy costs, we can have tax relief. Then she talks about tax relief. What does the bill say? The bill says the tax relief referred to is nonbinding; it is sense of the Senate. That just means it is conversation. It says it should be used to protect consumers. It doesn't authorize it, it doesn't direct it, it doesn't provide anything is paid. So what we are talking about is that $800 billion is not going to happen. But assuming it did--that is after we have taxed the American people $6.7 trillion--then we might give them back $800 billion. That means that for every $8 we tax them, we give them back $1. Next, nuclear. Certainly, the Senator from New Mexico has been a leader on this, and we have talked about trying to get more nuclear energy for quite some time. I will say this about the McCain-Lieberman bill. One of the reasons I don't believe Senator McCain is for this bill is that it doesn't have a nuclear component. His bill had a nuclear component, a recognition that we are not going to solve this problem in this country without a nuclear component. So this bill has no nuclear component. When you look at other countries, such as France, they get 80 percent of their energy from nuclear energy. We are getting 20 percent. It is clean, abundant, cheap, and safe, and we ought to be doing more of that. I think we are on the road to start doing that, but not in this bill. It is not in this bill. Next, the gas price, the 53 cents, I would suggest that is not just conservative, it is incredibly conservative because that is assuming 268 new nuclear electric powerplants by 2050. That is assuming we have 268 new nuclear plants. Well, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, and everybody else, the most we could have would be 64. So that is one-fourth the amount. That means the increase in the cost per gallon most likely would be closer to $2 a gallon instead of 53 cents a gallon. On the $6.7 trillion tax increase, this is one where they say: Well, we are going to give part of this back. Even if they gave back $2.5 trillion over that period of time, this would still be a $4.2 trillion tax increase. Now, you might say: What is all that money going for? Look behind me. There are 45 new or expanded bureaucracies that would be recorded or be established by this bill. In other words, if we do this bill, yes, we are going to be taxing the American people $6.7 trillion, and it is going to be going toward expanding and creating new bureaucracies--45 of them. I can assure you that none of that money would be returned to the people of Oklahoma. Now, it is hard to explain what $6.7 trillion means. It has so many zeros, people's heads start to swim. The analysis by Charles Rivers Associates says that each family of four in my State of Oklahoma will have their taxes increased by $3,300 a year--$3,300 a year. That is a massive tax increase. If you go back and look at the last major tax increase we had in this country--it was the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993--where the taxes went up, Americans were taxed by some $32 billion. This would be closer to in the trillions. It would be 10 or 12 times more than that. The last major thing to talk about is jobs. I don't know how anyone can look at this logically and come to the conclusion that this is not going to be the killer for jobs in America. I listened to my friends from Ohio and other States in the Midwest. We in Oklahoma don't really have that much of a problem, but in the manufacturing belt of the Midwest--Ohio, Michigan, Illinois--they are losing their manufacturing jobs. They have lost, by some estimates, up to 25 percent of their manufacturing jobs because we don't have adequate amounts of energy to take care of those things. Well, this bill, according to the analysis that was done, would increase the loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector by 9.5 percent. In other words, it is not going to lose a few thousand jobs but many thousands. If the manufacturing sector is going to be dropping another 10 percent, it is devastating. Now, where are these jobs going to go? They are going to go to Mexico and they are going to go to India and China. There are a number of different places they will go. This is the interesting thing--and I think the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, gave a speech on this that I thought was very good. In the speech, he talked about what happens when jobs go to China. When jobs go to China, they do not have any emissions restrictions in China, so the problem we will have there is that it is going to increase the amount of CO2 in the air. I have agreed going into this debate that we would assume that it is true that manmade gases--anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane-- are a major cause of climate change. I don't believe that is true, but we wanted to assume it because if we didn't do that, this debate would be all about science. We might end up winning the debate but not in the short time the leadership has given us for this bill. So if we were to have the time to do that and to talk about these losses and where these losses are coming from, it would be much more meaningful. But the bottom line is this: You can't worry about what is going to happen if we lose the jobs without realizing that even if this bill were to pass, it will end up costing the atmosphere. We will end up with a lot more CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere. It is only logical we are going to lose these jobs to developing nations, some of which I have mentioned, and those developing nations don't have any restrictions on their emissions. So what happens? We pass the bill, emissions increase, and America goes through this economic disaster. For those reasons, we can't do it, and for those reasons, we are getting all kinds of editorials all around the country saying we can't afford to do it and saying things such as: This is easily the largest income redistribution scheme since the income tax. And saying things such as: The only thing it will cool is the U.S. economy. And saying things such as: The Boxer climate tax bill would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s.

Mr. INHOFE. Our only request is to let us debate the bill, debate the amendments, vote on the amendments, and vote on the bill. It is a reasonable request.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I have heard the same thing, and I have a great deal of respect for our chairman of the committee and her people's information. I used to chair that committee when the Republicans were in the majority. We are not a majority now, so it is Senator Boxer. But I wanted to cover the three things she covered. First, gas prices, that somehow gas prices are not going to be going up as a result of this, and blaming that on the President, the administration, whether it is Cheney-Bush or whoever it is. Let's keep in mind that gas prices went up when the Democrats controlled the House and Democrats controlled the Senate. Now, if anyone doubts who is at fault for this, go to the Web site for Environment and Public Works, epw.senate.gov, and look it up. What I have done is document the votes all the way back to 1995. Every time we tried to increase the supply of energy in America and every time we tried to increase our refining capacity, it was killed by the Democrats, right down party lines. Look it up. It is there. I have provided it for you so you don't have to find it yourself. It is there. Now, I don't know how many times I can refute this; the distinguished Senator talks about the fact that she doesn't believe this is a tax increase and it is going to be a tax decrease by almost $1 trillion. It is $800 billion. But let us remember, as I said before, this bill takes $6.7 trillion from Americans in the form of a consumption tax on consumable goods and on energy. Now, the bill says we should give back $800 billion. That means for every $8 we are taxing the American people, we might be giving back $1. The third thing is on jobs. You know, this is such a logical thing that I don't believe we should have to go into all this. If you do away with energy and dramatically cut energy in America, jobs have to go someplace. It is estimated that almost 10 percent of manufacturing jobs will go overseas. They will be gone. She talks about the labor unions. Let me read what the labor unions say. The National Mining Association wrote: Contrary to representations made of the Boxer substitute, S. 3036 does not provide sufficient funding or incentives for CCS and advanced coal technologies. Under the Boxer substitute, the advanced coal research program proposed is replaced with a kick-start program. In other words, they are opposed to it. How about United Auto Workers? The last time I checked, that was a union. They said in a letter to her and to me: The legislation still contains serious defects that would undermine the environmental benefits while posing a threat to economic growth and jobs. Accordingly, the UAW opposes this bill in its current form. We urge you to insist that the legislation must be modified to correct for these defects. That is the UAW. Again, the last thing the distinguished Senator said is we need to get to final passage, we need to pass this thing. I only hope that the Democratic majority of the Senate will let us vote on amendments and let us vote on final passage. If we take this bill down, I don't know who you want to point a finger at, but I am standing here right now begging with the leadership, let us debate the amendments and let us debate final passage, let us have public record votes on the amendments and votes on the bill so the light will shine brightly and everyone will know who is responsible if this bill goes down. I yield the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. And the Senator from California has between 2 and 3. Between now and 2 o'clock is equally divided.

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, that wasn't quite my understanding. I thought we would have that 2-hour period equally divided but not necessarily--going back and forth would be my preference.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask this time be charged to both sides.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. INHOFE. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: If there indeed is a second Great Depression to come, this will be the government measure that guarantees it arrives with a devastating gut punch. San Francisco Chronicle. We have to have this one because generally they are on the other side of these issues. The Senate debate on the climate bill probably will focus on its impact on energy prices and the economy, which in the short run could be considered significant. Anyway, we have many, many more. So I guess to finalize what I have said, you have to repeat some of these things. First, we do have the problem of gas prices. You could argue it is not going to increase the price of gas. Every study we have, except one that presumes we are going to triple the number of nuclear plants, agrees with that. In fact, the Energy Information Agency estimates that gas prices would increase from 41 cents somewhere to a dollar. When they talk about only 2 cents a year, that is on a study the EIA did that assumes that currently we have 104 nuclear plants and that would be increased by 260. Nuclear, we are going to have some amendments. There will be several amendments on that. Let's remember now the other two major things that are worth repeating. You lose your jobs. The jobs are not going to be here. You are not going to have the energy. This bill puts caps on all the energy we produce today. They talk about the future. Yes, as the Senator from Vermont said, I want to have the renewables. I want to have solar energy that will work. I want to have wind energy. All of these we want to have. We need them all. But what are we going to do today? That technology is not here. Today the technology on oil and gas is here. The technology is here on clean coal. We actually have, right now, 32 applications pending on new nuclear plants, a nuclear renaissance. That is what we need in this country. Lastly, the tax and spend: $6.7 trillion, all going to be paid for by all these people out there. Maybe they may get back $1 out of every $8 they pay, but I doubt it. Because, as I said earlier, if you look and see clearly what it is that is in the bill, it says we should return some of this money to them, but it does not demand it. It does not authorize it. The Finance Committee would end up having to do it. Now, with that, I will yield the floor for the response.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes, but I also had the 5 minutes in addition to rebut after the speech, which I acknowledged and asked for when I first started talking. Twenty-five plus 5 equals 30.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me comment that these things do not come without a cost. I am putting up some things that will happen in the State of Vermont. But I would also say this: It is so tempting to debate when he talks about the science here because the science is not settled. But I stated--and I do not think the Senator from Vermont was on the floor when I opened the discussion yesterday, I guess it was--that for the purpose of this bill, so that there will not be Members coming down who do not want to talk about the bill and instead want to talk about the science, I said as far as the bill is concerned, let's assume the science is there so we do not have to put that on the table and use up the time. So that is what we have been doing. I hope we will be able to continue to do that. However, tomorrow, after the locked-in vote on the budget, I believe we are going to be going, hopefully, to some of these amendments which I think are very significant. Now, I had by unanimous consent asked to have, I think, locked in 30 minutes. I do not need that much time. I would like to repeat a couple of things. I understand Senator Enzi is coming back to the floor. One of the things I think he stated earlier when he was speaking was something that somehow people have forgotten; that is, there can be no debate over whether jobs are going to be lost. Jobs have to be lost because we are talking about putting a cap on oil and gas, putting a cap on our energy supply. We are talking about doing what we can to reduce coal. There is no nuclear provision in this bill. So we are going to have a cutback in the ability to run this great machine we call America. So what happens to manufacturing jobs in the State of Ohio and other States? They go south. Most of them will go probably to China, some down to Mexico. But already we have seen a huge migration of jobs, manufacturing jobs, and the estimate on this bill is that would be increased by 9.5 percent. We have the studies that show we would lose manufacturing jobs by another 9.5 percent over and above all of the manufacturing jobs that are gone. Now, if you do not agree with these studies, use a little logic. If there is no energy to run these manufacturing jobs, they have to go where the energy is. It has been 30 years since we have had a new coal- fired generating plant in the United States. China is cranking one out every 3 days--every 3 days. And I know it is a mess over there. It is a polluted mess. We spent a lot of time talking about CO2. But I would state to the chairman of the committee that in China, it is SO2, CO2, it is mercury, it is everything else, because they do not really have the restrictions. So the point Senator Enzi was making was that when these jobs go over there--let's say this bill passes, which it will not, but if it did pass, that it would have the effect of increasing CO2 in that respect. And it is very simple because it would go, as Senator Enzi said, to these countries where they have no controls. So that is very significant. The third point I wish to make, because it has been made several times by my very close friend, the junior Senator from California, the chairman of the committee, that somehow the increase in gas has something to do with the Bush administration, when I would only remind you that during the period of time we have had the acceleration of the price of gas at the pump, it has been through the Congress, congressional acts. In fact, if anyone doubts that, they can go to our Web site. The chairman and I, as chairman and ranking member, have a Web site called EPW, Environment and Public Works, epw.senate.gov. When you go in, you will see I have documented the votes of every time we try to increase our capacity of energy, and it goes down on straight party-line votes. I am talking about increasing the exploration in ANWR, offshore, in all of the other areas, addressing the tar sands, trying to do something in expanding into the shale in western Colorado, the Western United States, trying to do something about tax incentives for marginal well production. You know I know about that because we are the largest State for marginal production in the country. That is wells of 15 barrels or fewer a day. So if we had all of the marginal wells producing today that we plugged in the last 10 years, it would amount to more than we are currently importing from Saudi Arabia. So I have to get on record here to make sure everyone understands. And the documentation is there. Every time we have tried to either get nuclear or tried to do something about clean coal technology or something about oil and gas, to expand our supply of energy in America, it goes down right along party lines. That is the problem we have. Now, I do have another area I wanted to talk about and maybe try to put it in a different context than it has been in the past, because the bill with all of these ramifications, with the 45 new bureaucracies, with all of the money, with the $6.7 trillion of additional money that is going to come into the system--that has to come from taxpayers, from consumers of energy. That is where it is going to come from. When this all comes up, it is a shell game. It reminds me of the magician who takes a small object and he puts it under a shell, all under the watchful eyes of the public. Then he starts mixing them up in the shells. The problem is that the magician does such a good job of shuffling the shells around, no one can agree where the prize is, and sometimes the magician simply removes the prize in a slight-of-hand and all of the shells are empty. Well, this bill, the Lieberman-Warner bill, is much like a shell game. They promise everything to everyone. There is one group--I do not think I will mention their name now--one of the big ag groups in this country has came out, and they were convinced they were going to get all of the credits and they would be able to control these credits and they were going to make all of this money. Now they realize that is not true, so they have taken their support away from this. But the bill that promises everything to everyone showed the public a pile of money under one shell, and then they lead people to believe everyone is going to get that. The trouble is, there are more losers with the Lieberman-Warner bill than winners. What makes it worse is we are the ones choosing the losers and winners. We try very hard to make everyone think they will be better off under this redistribution of wealth, but, like most schemes, it does not work. The first major shell game trick is the claim by the sponsors that the bill would generate $6.7 trillion of new revenue. The problem, of course, is that revenue comes from consumers and people in higher energy costs. It is a tax on everyone in this country who uses energy. It is a tax on energy, of course, either consumer products such as food, manufactured goods, or higher prices on anything made of concrete, steel, or chemicals. Now, you can bet that whenever the Government tells you they are going to redistribute money, the money they are distributing is coming from the U.S. taxpayers one way or another. The next shell game trick is the promise of tax relief. We have heard this. We talk about tax relief. I hope everyone was listening when I read very carefully from the bill that there is no tax relief. They are merely talking about this, what they should do with all of this money after it has been redistributed back to people. But it doesn't say they will do it. It does not authorize it. It does not direct it. In fact, if it did happen, it still has to go to the Finance Committee, and they would have to make those decisions. But they are saying--the sponsors of the bill are promising Americans $800 billion in tax relief over the next 40 years. Now, the trouble is they are taking in $6.7 trillion. If they do redistribute the $800 billion, that is not a very good deal; that is $1 back for every $8 put in. Only in Washington, DC, does that sound like a good return on investment. Now, how much tax relief will $800 billion provide? Let's break it down. Over 40 years, that is $20 billion a year. While that seems like a lot of money--and it is--this year's tax rebate cost the Government $150 billion. This means that for the U.S. taxpayer to play the Lieberman-Warner shell game, they have to fork over $8 for the chance of getting back $1. The bill's sponsors also play the same shell game with different industries. They promise them that a small amount of money is hidden under one shell and hope they don't notice how much they will have to pay overall. They promise the auto industry less than $2 billion a year for research and development, when the industry already spends $75 billion a year. They promise $34 billion to help transition oil refineries over the life of the bill, when in the first year alone, 2012, they will have to purchase over $65 billion worth of credits based upon conservative estimates. This is actually written into the bill where you have the credits allocated by industry for the industrial base. Then they say: This is the amount that you get credit, but this is what you are going to have to eventually come up with. That is the difference, that is what they are going to have to pay. In the case of the auto industry, it will be $65 billion worth of credits. They offer fossil fuel-fired powerplants an average of $7 billion a year in assistance, ignoring the fact that in the first year alone they will have to purchase over $20 billion in allocation credits. Even worse, the sponsors play the same shell game with workers' jobs. They promise a whole host of new so-called green jobs in exchange for good paying manufacturing jobs. The problem is, the good jobs created under Lieberman-Warner are in developing countries such as China, India, and Mexico. The American worker is left with an empty shell. Dr. Kenneth Green, with the American Enterprise Institute, stated in testimony before our committee, when I asked him if global warming initiatives create new green jobs: The short answer, I would say, is that they might do so, but only at the expense of other jobs that would otherwise have been produced by the free market. Further, I would suggest that the end result would be significantly less jobs on net, less overall economic growth on the net, and most likely, the loss of existing capital as a by-product. That was in our committee. That was a testimonial from someone who is very knowledgeable. Even the so-called green jobs will be going overseas. Just last month the California-based SunPower Corporation, the second largest solar cell manufacturer in the world, announced it is building its new manufacturing plants in Malaysia. I am sure one of my colleagues might say the financial incentives in the bill for solar power will keep more of these jobs here in the future, but we already subsidize them by $24 dollars per megawatt hour compared to 44 cents for coal and 25 cents for natural gas. How many more subsidies do they think they need to keep the green jobs here? Another victim of the shell game is the American farmer. They are promised funds for carbon offsets. Yet they aren't told of the increased prices they will be paying for everything from electricity to propane to natural gas to diesel fuel, fertilizer, chemicals, tires, batteries, belts, bearings, farm machinery, spare parts, and everything else they use. That is the reason you have all the farmers groups opposing this, saying: We can't be dealt one more bad hand. I know my farmers in Oklahoma are having a problem, in addition to a lot of the overregulation they are suffering through. We have something that is probably not very prevalent in the State of California. It is called the burying beetle. It is about that big. That stops farmers from being able to cultivate their fields, and it is a serious problem. Now they look at this and say: Wait a minute. It is going to be even worse in the future. Farmers have serious problems. In addition, this empty shell promise will come with increased regulations and inspections by the EPA as they set up, monitor, and then annually verify farmers' activities. My farmers always use the phrase, they don't want more bureaucrats crawling all over their farms. It is almost as if the sponsors are playing a shell game in hopes of distracting farmers with new regulatory programs and higher costs. This is kind of funny. I happened to be chairman at the time, back when the Republicans were the majority, of the Environment and Public Works Committee, when there was an effort to make propane a hazardous material. I remember seeing a bunch of people wearing red coats walking in the back. They were young people. I didn't know who they were. I said: We can document that this will cost the average farmer in my State $700 a year more than they are paying now in excessive regulatory costs. We defeated that. When we defeated it, all these young kids stood and applauded. I didn't know it, but it was the ag youth committee of the State of Oklahoma. There must have been 40 of them there, bright young kids. Of course, every shell game someone comes out ahead. In this case, the magician is the Federal bureaucracy. The bill creates a host of new Federal programs, boards and funds, all of which will require new regulations, staff and resources. To give you an idea, when people talk about the amount of money, this net amount of money is out there. We talk about the $6.7 trillion. We talk about a period of time that will extend 38 or 40 years out right now and some 45 bureaucracies. I want you to look and see. This is what we would be creating. People who vote for this bill are voting for all these bureaucracies: A Federal greenhouse gas registry, efficient buildings program, a super efficient equipment and appliances development program, a clean medium and heavy duty hybrid fleets program, research on the effect of climate change on drinking water utilities program, the Rocky Mountain center of the study of coal utilization, the Sun grant center for research on compliance with the Clean Air Act, the outreach initiative on revenue enhancement for agricultural producers, the agriculture and forestry emissions distribution program, the carbon market oversight and regulation working group. These are all going to be staffed with people. It is all going to be paid for by the results of this bill, if it should pass, which I am quite sure it will not. The carbon market efficiency board, the climate change technology board, the climate change worker training and assistance fund, the efficiency and renewable energy worker training program, the climate change worker assistance program, the multiagency steering committee, the national climate change advisory committee, the office of climate change adjustment assistance. I have to read these out so people know this monster we are talking about. The workforce training and safety program, the climate change consumer assistance fund, the transportation sector emission reduction fund, energy efficiency and conservation block grant program, tribal climate change assistance fund, State wildlife adoption fund. People say: What are you going to do? Let's assume that all this stuff is supposed to go back to taxpayers which we have calculated to be something less than--at the very most it would be $2.5 trillion, that that would leave $4.2 trillion. This is where it is going, for all these bureaucracies: The early action program, the efficient manufacturing program, the low and zero carbon electricity technology fund, the carbon capture and sequestration technology fund, the liabilities for closed geological storage sites task force, the climate change transportation technology fund, the cellulosic biofuel program. This is kind of interesting because right now my State is a leader in the cellulosic biofuel programs. It is Oklahoma State University and the Noble Foundation. I would like to see this happen. I stood on the floor of the Senate--I think this is one of the rare things we agreed with, I say to my good friend, the Senator from California. All these ethanol mandates that we went through, initially all the environmentalists were for these mandates. Now people realize that with the mandates and with the increase in the mandates in the energy bill of 2007 that we passed in December, now it has doubled or tripled the mandates that were already there. What is happening? They produce a dirtier fuel that is less efficient. It is not good for the engine. It takes the life of the engine down. But worst for me in my State of Oklahoma, it is competing with feedstocks. Our feedstocks in Oklahoma have tripled since all this stuff started because they are using this. The cellulosic biofuel program was a result of that because that is something that is not going to be used to compete with. On with the list: The Bureau of Land Management emergency firefighting program, the Forest Service emergency firefighting program, the Federal wildlife adaptation program, the national wildlife adaptation program, the science advisory board, the climate change and natural resources science center, the international climate change commission, the international reserve allowance program. These are all bureaucracies, you guys. I hope somebody is watching. The capacity building program, the clean development technology deployment fund, the international clean development technology board, the international climate change adaptation and national security program, the interagency climate change task force, and finally, the Climate Security Act administrative fund. Here we are with all 45 new bureaucracies, programs that are created. I guess we know who the winner is in the Lieberman-Warner shell game: The Federal Government, at the expense of families, workers, and taxpayers who are going to pay for all this fund we will be having. I don't recall, in the years I have been here, seeing more interest from more different areas in a piece of legislation. I would like to share some of the things that I thought were of interest. A lot of these are from, I think it was the senior Senator from Ohio, who was talking about one of the medias I will be quoting. I will get to it. I am not sure which one it is. The Associated Press: With gasoline at $4 a gallon and home heating and cooling costs soaring, it is getting harder to sell a bill that would transform the country's energy industries and, as critics will argue, cause energy prices to rise even more. That was from ``Economic Cost Drives Senate Climate Debate.'' The Wall Street Journal: This is easily the largest income redistribution scheme since the income tax. The New York Post: The only thing it will cool is the U.S. economy. In effect, the bill would impose an average of more than $80 billion in new energy taxes every year. Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post: Let's call it by its proper name: cap-and-tax. George Will, a little more intellectual on this one: Speaking of endless troubles, cap-and-trade comes cloaked in reassuring rhetoric about the government merely creating a market, but government actually would create a scarcity so that government could sell what it had made scarce. Charles Krauthammer, this is one that was a few days ago. There is another one in this morning. I would invite anyone out there who wants a lot of details on how bad this legislation is, I had an op-ed piece in this morning's Wall Street Journal. I covered all these things in much more detail with documentation, and you can only do it in print. So I did it. Charles Krauthammer: There's no greater social power than the power to ration. Other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society. Human Events: It will significantly increase the price Americans pay for gasoline and electricity. Cap and trade is an economy-killer. The Hill: A bill that the senate will debate after Memorial Day could add about 50 cents more to the price of a gallon of gasoline, according to a study. There are several studies in this area. It is far greater than that. I think the EPA actually had the study that said that it would be 53 cents a gallon increase. The Wall Street Journal: Boxer climate tax bill would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s. Investor's Business Daily: The bill essentially limits how much gasoline and other fossil fuels Americans can use, as Klaus puts it . . . Talking about one of my real heroes, he is the President of the Czech Republic. He said: . . . in the name of the planet. A study by Charles Rivers Associates puts the cost (in terms of reduced household spending per year) of Senate bill 2191-- which is the present source on this-- to $1,300 per household by 2015, rising to $1,500 to $2,500 by 2050. Electricity prices could jump by 36 percent to 65 percent by 2015 and 80 percent to 125 percent by 2050. By the way, we have another chart which I do not have with me which I will be showing tomorrow that has the breakdown by CRA, showing what each State has. It happens that the highest States in terms of the problems are the States of Oklahoma and Texas. The average cost for the average household in my State of Oklahoma and the State of Texas is $3,300 a year. So it is far greater than average, so naturally I am a little more concerned than some of the others are. The Las Vegas Review Journal: Consumers are already struggling with gasoline approaching $5 a gallon and other utility costs that have been moving steadily higher for the past few years. New mandates placed on producers in the name of ``global warming'' will only make matters worse. The Plain Dealer--this is the one that is in Cleveland, OH, so I am sure the Chair knows a little bit about this newspaper. This is the one that was characterized by the senior Senator from Ohio as normally being moderate to liberal as opposed to being conservative. It says: The bill, as conceived, will just bore new holes into an already battered economy. That was an editorial by the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, OH, called: ``Carbon Cap-And-Trade Bill Is Going Nowhere, For Good Reason.'' Mr. President, it is my understanding I have 30 minutes. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my 5-minute rebuttal time I would normally use be added to my statement after the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Idaho since he has time allocated now.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am going to just take a second on the rebuttal time, and then I am going to go ahead and yield to the Senator from New Hampshire. But my distinguished colleague, the junior Senator from California, several times talked about tax relief. I think it is time that we take this out, look at it, and put this issue to sleep. At a press conference on June 2, the distinguished Senator said: Today is the day to say yes to clean energy, yes to green jobs, yes to science, yes to energy independence, yes to tax relief. Later on in the same news conference: We also have in this bill a very large piece, almost $1 trillion of tax relief so that when we do see some energy increases in energy costs in the early years, electricity, for example, we can offset that. In other words, send that back to those people as tax relief. This bill has one of the largest tax cuts we have seen around this place in a long time. What does the bill say about this? It says the tax relief in the bill is a nonbinding sense of the Senate that says some funds ``should be'' used to protect consumers from the coming ``increases in energy and other costs.'' Here is the quote: It is the sense of the Senate that funds deposited in the Climate Change Consumer Assistance Fund under section 583 should be used to fund a tax initiative to protect consumers, especially consumers in greatest need, from increases in energy and other costs. Now, I only say here that this does not direct any money to be paid. It doesn't authorize any money to be paid. Besides, if it did, it would have to go to the Finance Committee. So there is no tax relief in the bill. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. INHOFE. So it would take a unanimous consent request for him to have more time; is that correct?

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, that was a 5-minute rebuttal. The question I will ask the Chair, has the 5-minute rebuttal time expired?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. My unanimous consent request, I say to the distinguished leader, would postpone the 12:30 recess for lunch for about 10 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. All this takes place prior to the break for lunch.

Mr. INHOFE. Let's just try a new one. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Virginia be recognized for 3 minutes, followed by the Senator from Pennsylvania for 15 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. I object.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, the understanding was that Senator Specter would be next for 15 minutes, and after that, the Senator from Massachusetts. If it is the Senator's preference to wait until afterwards, I have no objection to that.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Yes. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have agreed to give Senator Enzi some time.