Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. All right. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion since last week when MoveOn.org, with a very liberal antiwar stance--which we understand has been their position for quite some time, raising millions of dollars for various Democratic Party candidates--ran an ad. Up until the September 10 ad in the New York Times calling General Petraeus ``General Betray Us,'' MoveOn.org seemed to be in line with the Democrat's public statements supporting the troops but opposing the war. It is my understanding my good friend, the junior Senator from Texas, is going to be having a resolution that will be coming up shortly. I want a chance to talk a little bit about that resolution. I believe that MoveOn.org's ad crossed the line by attacking the character and integrity of America's top military leader in Iraq. General Petraeus is a man of honor, honesty, and integrity. He is a West Point graduate. He has held leadership positions in airborne, mechanized, and air assault infantry units in Europe and the United States, including command of a battalion in the 101st Airborne Division, as well as a brigade in the 82nd Airborne Division. He was the aide to the Chief of Staff of the Army; battalion, brigade, and division operations officer; he has done it all. He was the Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the top graduate--not one of the top graduates, but the top graduate--of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He earned M.P.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. We are talking about a Ph.D. from Princeton University. This is not an ordinary officer. This is a man with incredible credentials. He has won multiple awards and decorations, including being recognized by US News & World Report as one of America's 25 best leaders in the year 2005. He is our top military commander in Iraq and commander of the Multi- National Force-Iraq, confirmed by the Senate as the right man for the job. He was confirmed, I might add, unanimously by the Senate. The very day General Petraeus sat before Congress to offer his latest report, MoveOn.org ran a full-page ad in the New York Times attacking his message before they even heard his message. The ad accused General Petraeus of ``Cooking the Books for the White House'' and called him ``a military man constantly at war with the facts.'' Their shameless attack on his character did not stop there. They accused him of being a traitor, calling him ``General Betray Us.'' Well, anyway, MoveOn.org's attempt to discredit General Petraeus is deplorable, and I join with other Members of the Senate in condemning its actions. I have no issue with news agencies or individuals offering and debating opposing views. That is what we do on this floor every day. However, MoveOn.org crossed the line when they ran the ad attacking the motives and honor of our No. 1 commander on the ground in Iraq. I support Senator Lieberman's condemnation of MoveOn.org's attempt at character assassination, and I call on them to retract their scurrilous ad with another full-page ad apologizing for their error in judgment. But they would not do it. You know they would not do it. Still, we can try. They don't have the character to do it. While no American is above scrutiny, this was clearly a calculated move on the part of this organization to undermine the noble efforts of this patriot to execute his duties that we in Congress unanimously sent him to accomplish. It amazes me how far some will go to root for American failure in Iraq. MoveOn.org clearly placed their political agenda ahead of the best interests of the United States and particularly the men and women of the military when they chose to run that ad. Now, something interesting happened. A reporter from the Washington Post came up with this, did a little research. According to the director of public relations for the New York Times, the open rate for an ad of that size and type is $181,000. According to a September 14 Washington Post article, the New York Times dramatically slashed its normal rates for the full-page ad. A spokesman for MoveOn.org confirmed to the Post they paid only $65,000 for the ad. The Post reporter called the Times advertising department without identifying himself and was quoted a price of $167,000 for a full-page black-and-white ad on a Monday. The New York Times refused to offer any explanation for why the paper would give them a rate one-third of their published rate. Now, my first visit to Iraq was in August of 2003, and my latest visit was on the August 30, 2007. The Iraq I saw last time is not the Iraq I visited in 2003. I would like to say also that between those years I have actually been to the Iraqi AOR, area of operations, some 15 times. During that period of time I have seen these things. I knew what General Petraeus was going to say when he came here last week because I was with him a few days before that. I read General Petraeus's and Ambassador Crocker's prepared statements and listened intently to their testimonies. I compared their assessment with the assessments I have made over the past 4 years visiting Iraq. It appears our assessments are based on similar events that have occurred in Iraq. I watched Ramadi as it changed. You might remember a year ago they claimed Ramadi was going to become the terrorist capital of the world. Ramadi is now totally secured. I visited Fallujah. I have been there several times. I was there during all the elections. I watched those Iraqi security forces go and vote. I watched the American marines go door to door World War II style. Fallujah now--which was the hotbed in Anbar Province of Iraq--is now under total security, and not with U.S. forces but with Iraqi security forces. I visited Patrol Base Murray, south of Baghdad, and met with local Iraqis who came forward and established provisional units of neighborhood security volunteers. These individuals heard the Americans were coming and were there and cheering, waiting for them to arrive. I watched these Neighborhood Watch and Concerned Citizens groups take root in Anbar Province and slowly make their way to other cities spreading across Iraq--local civilians willing to stand up and take back their neighborhoods, their cities, and province. Citizens are marking IEDs with orange paint--undetonated IEDs and PRGs--identifying al-Qaida in their towns and testifying against them. It is something that was not happening a few months before or prior to the surge. They are guarding critical infrastructure and working side by side with the U.S. forces. I saw the anti-American messages at the mosques. Our intelligence goes into the mosques for each of their weekly meetings. Up through December of this past year, they averaged that 85 percent of the messages were anti-American messages. Since April of this year, there have been no anti-American messages. I guess I learned something that no one else seems to agree with; that is, we spend entirely too much time talking about the political leaders, when the religious leaders are the ones responsible for these major changes. These are the ones who are standing in the mosques and talking about Americans and the coalition forces as their allies, not as adversaries, as they were before. I visited the Joint Security Stations in Baghdad. It used to be our kids would go out on a mission during the daytime, and they would come back at night to the green zone. They do not do that anymore. These Joint Security Stations--even as to the report that came in, our goal was to have 34, and there are now 32 of those Joint Security Stations. These guys go out, and instead of coming back, they sit and become friends with the Iraqis and actually sleep in the homes of the Iraqi security forces. I watched the surge operations take effect, visited a former al-Qaida sanctuary, and saw a strengthening of Iraqi forces resulting in an increase in burden sharing. I observed a steady decrease in the number of attacks in Anbar from 40 to less than 10 a day. I visited the markets. There is a lot of talk about that. A lot of people go and visit the markets with all kinds of protection. I went to the markets without any protection, and I talked, through an interpreter, to people. I picked out people holding babies, and they were all glad to see us. I met with U.S. and coalition leaders and commanders, Iraqi leaders and commanders, and local civilian groups on each trip. I watched the political, economic, and diplomatic growth over time. It has been uneven and frustrating, but it has been a movement in the right direction. I guess the bottom line is Iraq is achieving progress. No one can debate that. It is not just General Petraeus. It is what the Iraqis say. It is what they are saying, the religious leaders and the political leaders. It is happening, happening since the surge. The surge is clearly working. The coalition forces are handing back control of Iraq to the Iraqis and to the Iraqi security forces. Local leaders who want better lives for their people are bravely standing up and rejecting the fatalist, cynical, and hate-filled diet fed to them by al-Qaida and other extremists. Iraqis are realizing that al-Qaida does not offer a long-term vision of hope or an opportunity for them any more than it would for the average Californian or New Yorker or Oklahoman. A backlash and rebellion against al-Qaida has been going on over the last 6 months in places such as Anbar Province and Babil Province south of Baghdad. When the tribal leaders and clerics in Anbar made the conscious decision to reject al-Qaida, they virtually overnight transformed their province into a model for the rest of the country to emulate. The ``concerned citizens'' of Babil Province--I was there-- recognized the progress made in Anbar and decided they wanted to do the same thing. So it is spreading. It is spreading into areas even up toward Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. So al-Qaida understands the importance of the collective American will when it comes to prosecuting the war on terror. They understand they have absolutely no chance of winning this war over the long run militarily. They understand their only chance of achieving victory is to get the American people to call for a withdrawal. If we pull out of the fight, they win. There is no other way to characterize it. This is a strategic military objective for them. Like with any military objective, they have developed a tactic to achieve it. Their tactic in this case is to tear away the American will to win by committing horrific and brutal attacks against innocent victims. They understand that Americans agonize over the pictures and the news reports of those atrocities. Let there be no doubt about it, our will as Americans to fight for freedom and democracy around the world is under attack by a brutal and ruthless enemy. That enemy would be emboldened by a victory in Iraq. Iraq would become a safe haven for terrorists and extremists from which they can launch their wicked atrocities around the world. We could accept the offer of Iran's President to step in and fill the vacuum. He has clearly said: If the Americans pull out, we go in. However, this offer comes from a man who has vowed the extermination of the Jewish State of Israel, and he has vowed to expand his nuclear program and clearly puts us in jeopardy of being held hostage. It is not in the American ethic to turn our back on people who are striving for a better way of life for their children. It is not in our national interest to leave a failed Iraqi State. The surge is working, largely due to the leadership of one great American--GEN David Petraeus. MoveOn.Org should just once retreat from their attack on America and apologize to that great American hero, GEN David Petraeus. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, let me say I applaud both of the Senators who are working in an exemplary way to try to achieve something that is very difficult to achieve. I applaud them for their effort. Madam President, what is the pending business?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. INHOFE. No. I would respond to the Senator from Montana that we just adopted my amendment, as modified, and that is the reason I was on the Senate floor at this time.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, there is some confusion about my amendment. I think we have reached an agreement, and we will shortly be sending up my amendment No. 2796, as modified. I believe it will be accepted on both sides. So we will stand by for that to happen. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am going to wind the clock back to 1994. I had the occasion of voting twice against NAFTA, once when I was in the House and once when I was in the Senate, in the same year because I came in in a special election. I remember at that time we had a delegation of six, four House Members and two Senators from Oklahoma, and I was the only one out of six who voted against NAFTA. Ironically, the very arguments I made in the House and Senate back in 1994 are the same things we are hearing now. I said at that time I could see what was going to be happening in the future; that we would be having Mexican truckers coming in; that they would be competing in a way where they would not have to qualify with all of our environmental standards, our safety standards, our wage and hour standards. It appears to me that is the case. I listened very carefully to my good friend from Missouri, but I have not seen--and having reviewed the IG report--that all of these questions have been answered. I have to say I am inclined to agree with the Senator from North Dakota that the problem that existed in 1994 still exists today, and I would probably oppose this amendment. I would like to also make a comment, a request. When I have a chance, after the disposition of this, I would like to bring up amendment No. 2796 for its immediate consideration. I will wait and see if I can get in the queue. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the test language, the IG said, apparently has been corrected. I only remind my friend from North Dakota and my friend from Missouri that when I had the English language amendment up, we used the same definition I believe they are using right now in order to make sure there is adequate knowledge of English language by Mexican truckers. I will read what it said: Applicants have up to three chances to read and write one sentence correctly in English. That is the test, which doesn't give me a very high comfort level. The amendment I am offering, No. 2796, would prohibit the FAA from using any money in fiscal year 2008 to implement their proposed new ATC training system. It is called the ATCOTS. The FAA has sped up the schedule for transition without giving sufficient attention to the transition from the old to the new. By prohibiting the FAA from using fiscal year 2008 funds to implement this new training system, there will be additional time to plan for the transition, if we decide the transition at that point is something we want to do. Finally, there has been no explanation on why the existing system does not work. This additional time can be used to examine the current system and determine where it needs to be changed, if it needs to be changed. This is how the current system works. This is how the FAA wants to change it. Currently, candidates must enroll in an FAA-approved education program and pass a preemployment test which measures his or her ability to perform the duties of a controller. Let's keep in mind, we are talking about controllers who have our lives in their hands. It happens that I am in my 51st year of aviation. Just as recently as 2 days ago, I was flying, and I have a great deal of respect for these people. To me, the training must absolutely be perfect. The candidates currently must enroll in an FAA-approved education program and pass a preemployment test which measures their ability to perform the duties of a controller. Then the FAA has designated 15 institutions around the country for preemployment testing. The candidates must also have 3 years of full-time work experience and have completed a full 4 years of college. These have to be people who have a college education, have to have 3 years of on-the-job training. Then they have to, of course, have gone through this preemployment test. Then if the candidate successfully meets those three tests, they are eligible for employment as an air traffic controller. Successful candidates attend the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City for 12 weeks to learn fundamentals of the airway system, the FAA regs, controller equipment, and aircraft performance characteristics. Upon graduating from the academy, the candidates are assigned to an air traffic control facility as ``developmental controllers'' where they receive training on specific controller positions. Generally, it takes 2 to 4 years, depending on the facility and the availability of facility staff or contractors, to provide the on-the-job training. Currently, there are two separate contractors that provide training for potential controllers: one contractor at the academy and one contractor for on-the-job training at the facility. What the FAA wants to do is to combine these two contracts into one, thereby speeding up the training, they believe, and getting more controllers to train faster. Because controllers hired--and most of us have been around long enough to remember this--after the PATCO strike are now eligible for retirement, the FAA estimates they need to hire and train approximately 15,000 new air traffic controllers over the next 10 years. They believe the air traffic control optimum training solution, which is called ATCOTS, will accomplish this because it will, No. 1, leverage current industry best practices to develop innovative training services delivery solutions; No. 2, achieve efficiencies by reducing time and the cost it takes to certify professional controllers; No. 3, institute continuous improvement within the training program; and No. 4, establish a performance-based contract management system. That is what the FAA hopes to achieve, but I have yet to understand how. Recently, the FAA announced that they plan to issue a request for proposals for this new single controller training contract in January of 2008, with an expected award in June of 2008. That is less than a year from this month. This is despite assurances to the Oklahoma delegation that there would be a multiyear transition to ATCOTS. In other words, it is going to take several years to make the transition, if it is desirable. Now it appears ATCOTS could be fully implemented within 1 year, although there is no clear transition plan. The winning bid is supposed to provide the transition plan. Furthermore, there is no clear assurance that the millions in taxpayer dollars already invested in the FAA training academy in Oklahoma City will continue to be used. Per the documents I have seen, if the winning bidder should choose to conduct the initial classroom instruction elsewhere, they have that option. I question why we would abandon the academy and our Federal investment there. Finally, I do not believe there has been sufficient examination of the cost benefits of this new training program. Rather, there has been a rush to fix a system that no one has been able to explain, at least to me, how or if it is broken. My amendment merely slows down the process so Congress can have more time to examine what are the shortfalls of the current training system and how the proposed ATCOTS system will improve the training. This is like so many things we rush into. We lay out the predicate that we are going to spend all this time and be deliberate in making sure we are not getting into something that is not, in fact, a lot better than the old system, when we have yet to see anything to at least convince me or any plausible argument that there is a problem with the existing system. While I could have introduced an amendment to stop this, I didn't want to do that because I thought if it is more efficient, then it might be something we may want to consider. But I can assure my colleagues that nothing has been done so far that would convince me that it is a better system. I don't think we should be using 2008 funds. My amendment would give us another year to determine whether this is the wise thing to do. I believe it is a reasonable approach. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside for consideration of amendment No. 2796.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I will yield to the Senator.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me mention something else I think is critical. I have heard ugly rumors that the President of the United States might end up vetoing what we call the WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act. Let me say I don't understand. I am coming from a conservative perspective. I am ranked by the American Conservative Union, No. 1 out of 100 most conservative Member. Yet I am saying to you there are two things we ought to be spending money on in this country. One is national defense and the other is infrastructure. We have a crisis in our infrastructure. The big bill on transportation infrastructure we passed a year ago is going to do nothing more than maintain what we have now, and it is anticipated in 20 years we will increase our traffic by 50 percent. What are we going to do? The same thing is true with the Water Resources Development Act. We have not had a reauthorization in 7 years. It should happen every other year. When you say I don't care if this thing is $10 billion or $20 billion, the amount is not significant because it is not spending money, it is authorizing. If we authorize something--hopefully, we will pass this bill today. If we authorize something, it may never be appropriated or it may be appropriated 10 years down the road. So it does not have any remote effect on the budget today. I think it is dishonest for people to say this is somehow a spending bill and therefore we should vote against it. That is not true at all. I have the history of this body right here in my hand, and I have given several presentations on this recently. I say to my friend from Montana, who is new in this Chamber, this discussion has been going on between appropriators and authorizers since 1816. In 1867, they realized they needed to segregate the functions of authorization and appropriations so they established the appropriators, the Appropriations Committee. That was a good thing. But what happened on that, which has been the case for a long time, the appropriators slowly took over a little bit at a time so they ended up authorizing their own appropriations. That is what we don't want. Let me give an example. In the Senate Armed Services Committee, on which I am honored to sit, we go through all types of items, such as missile defense, as an example. We will have the boost phase and the midcourse phase and the terminal phase and we will have maybe two systems on each one. They are not redundant, but there are many people who say: Wait a minute. Maybe we should do away with that system because we can save this much money. But take the midcourse. We had the Aegis System and then we had the THAAD system in the terminal phase. These are not redundant because they take care of an incoming missile from different areas with different technologies. You would not know that if you are just an appropriator because you don't have the staff to go in and study and get into the details. But we authorize, in the Senate Armed Services Committee, because we do have that expertise. I say the same thing is true in my other committee that I used to chair. It was the Environment and Public Works Committee. As it applies to this particular bill, the WRDA bill--we have a set of criteria and evaluated equally all these projects. There will be many projects that have been authorized that I will come on the floor and oppose vigorously when appropriations time comes. But at least we will know they have gone through a process and they meet certain criteria. That is what is important. If you take that away, that is the first line of defense, doing away with superfluous types of earmarking. This is the only part of that system that offers discipline in the whole appropriations process. That is what this is all about. That is why the WRDA bill is so significant. Yet people who are liberal, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans who come together and realize we have an infrastructure in this country that has been sadly neglected, and we are going to have to do something about it, our opportunity will be today and I hope we can do the responsible thing and pass it. Then, during the August recess, you are going to hear this person, who is rated the most conservative Member of this body, out talking all over the Nation why this is the conservative approach to logically authorize these projects and then determine which ones are worthwhile. At least we know these have met a certain criteria.

Mr. INHOFE. It is. Reclaiming my time, I think you are being very generous when you say we don't always agree on every issue. In fact, there are no two people who probably disagree more. That tells you something. That tells you we have to do this. This is something this country cannot do without. Let me give you an example. I spent several years as the mayor of a major city, Tulsa, OK. The greatest problem we had was not crime in the streets, it was not prostitution, it was unfunded mandates. Now, what we do in this is go back to some of these small communities and say: We have mandated that in your drinking water system, your wastewater system, you do these things. And we should be responsible for helping you to comply with these mandates. It is very important. There is a group called Citizens Against Government Waste. I have right here--and I am going to submit this as part of the Record. For 16 years prior to right now, they have identified 76,000 projects they thought were--that fall into this category of being earmarks. Do you know the interesting thing about this, I ask my friend from California, Senator Boxer. It is interesting that all of these projects, with very few exceptions, were not authorized. Now, if you look at what the Congressional Research Service comes up with, around 115,000, those include the ones that were authorized. So that tells you where the problem is. The problem is not in projects that were authorized, it is in projects that are not authorized. That is why we are doing the responsible thing today. I am hoping there is no one on either side who will hold up this bill because we have to keep moving with it before the recess.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, consistent with our policy of going back and forth across the aisle, I ask unanimous consent following the remarks of the Senator from Ohio, that I be recognized for up to 10 minutes and that I be followed by the junior Senator from Montana.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this morning we did a great thing in the confirmation of Tim DeGiusti to the Federal court. Understandably, we are short of time this morning because of what is happening at the White House, but let me finalize a couple of ideas and some comments I was going to make. First, when you have someone who has the highest rating, whether it is from Martin Dale Hubbell or the American Bar Association, which this candidate did and does, and he also as a military lawyer is familiar with courts-martial procedures--there are a lot of people out there with these qualifications. This individual goes far beyond that. It is interesting that while he is a Republican, our Democratic Governor in Oklahoma, Gov. Brad Henry, is a very strong supporter of this now-confirmed nominee. Also, my predecessor, David Boren, who is now President of the University of Oklahoma, was a very strong supporter of this individual. I quoted him a few times during this process, as to how outstanding this candidate is. I would like to share an experience I had 41 years ago. A man named Ralph Thompson, who is currently a senior status Federal judge in Oklahoma in the same Western District in which his son-in-law has been confirmed this morning, and I, and another person named David Boren, 41 years ago, were elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives. I remember it so well because in February of 1967, 40 years ago this year, we all three came to Washington, DC, for the first time. That is, State legislators Ralph Thompson, Dave Boren, and of course myself. David Boren's father was a Congressman so he had a pretty good entree into the Capitol. I remember so well the three of us were walking around the Capitol at night--my first time ever being in the Capitol area of Washington. I remember, after walking through Statuary Hall and all these great features we have in our Capitol, that we kind of professed to each other, we decided one day--Ralph Thompson and David Boren and I--we said we would like to be Members of the Congress, either in the House or in the Senate. But Ralph Thompson said: Or a judge in the U.S. district court. As it turned out, David Boren was a Member of the Senate; I am a Member of the Senate; and Ralph Thompson became--I believe he will go down in history as maybe being the outstanding Federal district judge in the history of Oklahoma. I have heard so many people talk about that. I knew Ralph so well at that time--keep in mind, this is 40 years ago--and his beautiful wife Barbara, whom I might add has been Mother of the Year and received every possible honor you could have. Lisa, Maria and Elaine--they cranked out three little girls, and Elaine was the girl who later married Timothy DeGiusti. Get the connection? You have a great judge and then you have a son-in-law who is going into the same Western District of Oklahoma to replace him. It is an unusual situation. But this is one of these wonderful things that can happen in this country of ours. I am so happy this is behind us now and it happened prior to the August recess.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. If the chairman will yield, I concur completely with your understanding. As I read the language, it clearly comes from the general fund and not the Highway Trust Fund. Given the precarious situation with Highway Trust Fund finances, it would be a mistake to place further burdens on it, and as per SAFETEA-LU, all additional emergency repairs come from the general fund.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I rise in support of the United Orphanage and Academy in Moi's Bridge, Kenya. As many of my esteemed colleagues know, Africa has a special place in my heart. I visit the continent several times a year to see a number of dear friends. My own granddaughter, Zegita Marie, joined our family through adoption from Ethiopia. As we hear virtually every day, Sub-Saharan Africa is in crisis; the statistics of devastation are staggering. In 2006, 2.8 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa contracted HIV and nearly 1 million children died from malaria, according to the World Health Organization. The United Nations estimates that in the same year, there were 12 million AIDS orphans living in the region. These pandemics are further compounded by famine, unsafe drinking water, corruption, and war. Much has been said of these heart-wrenching situations, but today my message is one of hope. During my travels, I have found Africa to be a place of beauty, courage, and ingenuity. Kenya alone is home to more than 42 distinct ethnic communities, the soaring heights of Mt. Kenya, and one of the largest drama events in Africa, the annual Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festival. Embodying these characteristics, the United Orphanage and Academy cares for 40 children impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Founded in 2001, this beacon of hope lies in rural northwest Kenya, near the Ugandan border. Children ages 4 to 14 are provided with food, shelter, clean water, and quality education. One hundred students are currently enrolled in classes from pre-kindergarten through second grade. Moreover, the home is a place of reconciliation and unity as children from five distinct ethnic backgrounds and numerous tribes learn to work, play, and grow together. The vision for the orphanage stemmed from humble beginnings, as conversations between Rev. Stephen Chege and Henri Rush, an elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church, evolved into a vision to ``develop a caring and spiritual space for children to live and grow when they come to the point of having no family or guardian support available to them.'' As a result, an ambitious roadmap has been set in place, encompassing everything from procuring a van for vital transportation needs to constructing additional classrooms. Today, I would like to highlight efforts to expand this mission. Great need requires great hope, and great hope requires great action. Reverend Chege, Mr. Rush and their partners seek to double the capacity of the orphanage to house up to 80 children. Furthermore, plans exist to expand the school to include grades K-12 and further vocational training. The philosopher Aristotle once said: ``All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.'' In my humble estimation, the fate of Africa depends, in large part, on the education of young men and women who learn to lead their communities with wisdom and integrity. I am filled with hope when I see individuals and communities coming together to respond to perhaps one of the greatest crises of our time, and I am encouraged when such initiatives emerge from transcontinental friendships. I believe the United Orphanage and Academy embodies the values and provides the tools necessary to equip Africa's youth to embrace a world of challenges and possibilities.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a small but important bill that seeks to improve the quality of the air we breathe and increase the level of public involvement under the Clean Air Act. The senior Senator from Rhode Island joined me in sponsoring an identical version of this bill as an amendment to the energy bill. Unfortunately, there was an objection to clearing that amendment for unknown reasons. The objection was a surprise, particularly given the widespread support across a variety of industries and advocacy groups. In fact, the Natural Resources Defense Council and American Lung Association sent Senator Reed and me a letter of support. Under current law, the Clean Air Act allows a petition for a new renewable fuel or renewable fuel additive, including mid-level ethanol blends, to be approved without EPA taking any action whatsoever, not asking for public comment, not conducting studies on the safety or emissions impacts and not reviewing existing emissions or safety studies. In fact, current law provides that a petition is deemed approved even if EPA fails to act or make a determination one way or another. Environmental law and the Clean Air Act specifically, is premised upon public input and involvement. It is critical that this section of the Act, as elsewhere, provide for adequate stakeholder involvement. My bill would force EPA to give public notice and seek public comment from all interested persons on any petition for a new renewable fuel or renewable fuel additive. Safeguarding air quality is critical, but guaranteeing that the engines that consumers rely on is important as well. Studies done by Australia's EPA found that mid-level ethanol blends can cause the following problems with motor vehicle and small, off-road engines: failure of exhaust components, for example catalyst, due to heat/ durability, engine damage and seizure, engine stalling and stopping, failure of engine cut-off switches, unexpected engagement of cutting blades/chains, and fuel leaks and blockage of fuel lines. My bill directs EPA, with DOE's and USDA's assistance, to study whether the use of higher ethanol blends pose safety, air quality, or engine operability concerns in motor vehicle and nonroad engines, and equipment. Ethanol proponents should support this bill. The ethanol industry cannot afford to have consumers turn against their product if higher levels of ethanol blends cause their snowmobile, chainsaw, or boat engine to shut down. If EPA's study shows that these higher blends are safe for all engines, then the ethanol industry will benefit from the study. This bill is about good Government and transparent Government. EPA should not be permitted to approve these petitions ``in the dark of night,'' without public participation. The bill that I am introducing today, like the amendment that Senator Reed and I offered during the energy bill, will simply make sure that EPA carries out its duty to protect human health and the environment, increase the public's role under the Clean Air Act, and shed light on a currently private process.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a small but important bill that seeks to improve the quality of the air we breathe and increase the level of public involvement under the Clean Air Act. The senior Senator from Rhode Island joined me in sponsoring an identical version of this bill as an amendment to the energy bill. Unfortunately, there was an objection to clearing that amendment for unknown reasons. The objection was a surprise, particularly given the widespread support across a variety of industries and advocacy groups. In fact, the Natural Resources Defense Council and American Lung Association sent Senator Reed and me a letter of support. Under current law, the Clean Air Act allows a petition for a new renewable fuel or renewable fuel additive, including mid-level ethanol blends, to be approved without EPA taking any action whatsoever, not asking for public comment, not conducting studies on the safety or emissions impacts and not reviewing existing emissions or safety studies. In fact, current law provides that a petition is deemed approved even if EPA fails to act or make a determination one way or another. Environmental law and the Clean Air Act specifically, is premised upon public input and involvement. It is critical that this section of the Act, as elsewhere, provide for adequate stakeholder involvement. My bill would force EPA to give public notice and seek public comment from all interested persons on any petition for a new renewable fuel or renewable fuel additive. Safeguarding air quality is critical, but guaranteeing that the engines that consumers rely on is important as well. Studies done by Australia's EPA found that mid-level ethanol blends can cause the following problems with motor vehicle and small, off-road engines: failure of exhaust components, for example catalyst, due to heat/ durability, engine damage and seizure, engine stalling and stopping, failure of engine cut-off switches, unexpected engagement of cutting blades/chains, and fuel leaks and blockage of fuel lines. My bill directs EPA, with DOE's and USDA's assistance, to study whether the use of higher ethanol blends pose safety, air quality, or engine operability concerns in motor vehicle and nonroad engines, and equipment. Ethanol proponents should support this bill. The ethanol industry cannot afford to have consumers turn against their product if higher levels of ethanol blends cause their snowmobile, chainsaw, or boat engine to shut down. If EPA's study shows that these higher blends are safe for all engines, then the ethanol industry will benefit from the study. This bill is about good Government and transparent Government. EPA should not be permitted to approve these petitions ``in the dark of night,'' without public participation. The bill that I am introducing today, like the amendment that Senator Reed and I offered during the energy bill, will simply make sure that EPA carries out its duty to protect human health and the environment, increase the public's role under the Clean Air Act, and shed light on a currently private process.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. That is correct. Let me reclaim my time and expand on that a little bit. There is still a continued troop presence in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and other places. There always is a troop presence. And after this is over--depending on what the outcome is--I would assume there will always be a troop presence there regardless of how we vote on any resolution today. Now, let me say a couple other things that were stated on the floor. I was sitting here at about at 5:15 or 5:30 this morning, when statements were made by the junior Senator from Massachusetts as to our troops who have been involved with IEDs, who have lost their lives, and that nothing changed after that, nothing was accomplished after that. That is another way of saying they have died in vain. Let me tell you, I have been in the AOR of Iraq, not always in Iraq, but this AOR, 14 times. I probably have talked to more troops, gotten a better feel as to what people are about over there than any other Member. I think to even suggest that someone has died in vain is totally outrageous. Now, one of the things that has been stated over and over again that I do agree with by the opposition over there is we have a problem with our equipment. We have a problem with the funding of the military. Let me suggest to you, in America, this is the only democracy where if people at home want to know how their Member of Congress--from the House or the Senate--is voting on issues, they can find out. I suggest to you that the worst way to find out how someone is voting on issues is to ask them. You do not want to do that. But if you are concerned, for an example, as to how we are voting on a tax issue--if you are for tax increases, you do not ask the guy, you do not say, Senator Salazar, are you for tax increases? No, you do not want to do that. But you can look at the ratings. We have ratings on every conceivable subject. The National Taxpayers Union will tell how each Member votes in terms of tax increases. Are you conservative or liberal? Well, I suggest to you the ACLU loves the liberals. The ACU loves the conservatives. I am proud of my rating. It happens to be No. 1 out of 100 Senators. So people will know. They do not have to ask me. If you are concerned about how a Senator is voting in terms of supporting small business, the National Federation of Independent Business rates all Democrats, Republicans, House and Senate, on those issues. If you are concerned--this is what I am getting around to now--if you are concerned about who is supporting the military, there are groups that do that. The Center for Security Policy, for example, says the average Democrat supports the military 17 percent of the time, the average Republican 79 percent of the time. Now, if you question that, let me show you the chart I have in the Chamber. For Democrats to stand on this floor and talk about the problems of the strained military, the problems of overdeployment, the problems we are having, look at what has happened. I do not think there was a month that went by back during the 1990s, during the Clinton administration-- when they were cutting the military, cutting our force strength, cutting money out of our military--when there wasn't this euphoric statement: Oh, the Cold War is over, so we do not need a military anymore. That actually was floating around these Chambers. So what happened during the 1990s? If you take what the benchmark was in 1993, fiscal year 1993--that would be this black line shown on the chart--and do nothing but consider inflation, then this goes up here. In other words, if we get nothing except maintaining what we had in 1993, this would be the black line. President Clinton's budget request came in at this red line. You see the difference between the red line and the black line: $412 billion less than just maintaining the status quo. Now, it was during that time that I was making statements on the floor: We have very serious problems in terms of our modernization program. We are going to have to do something about this. I was so proud of GEN John Jumper, and this is before he was the chief. He stood up as, I believe, a lieutenant general at that time and he made this statement. He said: Our potential adversaries have equipment that is better than ours. He was talking about strike fighters. He was talking about China having bought, I believe it was 240 of the SU-30, SU-35 series that the Russians were making and saying that they are actually better in many respects than our F-15s and F-16s. Back in the 1990s, we were cutting back on the modernization program. We were not moving forward with the modernization and going toward the F-22s and the F-35s and the future combat system and things we are doing today. This is what happened, and our troop strength went down, our ships went down from 600 to 300. It is the downsizing that we have been paying for. Now what happens? This President came in, and 9/11 took place in 2001. When this happened, all of a sudden we are faced with a situation where we had a downsized military. We had to start reembarking on our modernization program. But all of this we had to be paying for. We have had amendment after amendment that says we are going to have to do something about our deployments. Yes. Our deployments are unreasonable at this time, but it is because we went through this cycle back in the 1990s. I think it is very important that people understand where we came from and how we got in this position we are in today. Now, a lot of things have been lost in this debate. I think the other side--the Democrats, the liberals--would like to have us believe that this is just the United States. They have completely forgotten or disregarded the global nature of this problem, this war which is out there. It is global. Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, the United States, France, Morocco, Turkey, Spain, Indonesia, Great Britain, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Algeria, Yemen, and Tunisia are just a partial list of the countries which have had terrorist attacks. The National Counterterrorism Center reported that approximately 14,000 terrorist attacks occurred in various countries during 2006. Now, they say that half of those were in Afghanistan and Iraq. That means 7,000 terrorist attacks happened all over the world outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. We remember just in the last 30 days the terrorist attacks. A car bomb exploded outside Somalia's Prime Minister's residence, killing six people. These are all in the last 30 days. A bomb exploded in front of a crowded tea shop in Thailand, killing a woman and wounding 28; an explosion outside the Ambassador Hotel in Nairobi, killing a man and injuring 37 others. A bomb exploded outside a clothing shop in Istanbul and more in Peru and other places. So it has happened all over. The suicide bombers drove an SUV into the Glasgow Airport, injuring six people, just 2 weeks ago. A suicide bomber drove into a convoy of Spanish tourists, killing nine people. That was just last week. This is the global nature of this war. What has this President been doing after 9/11? People don't realize what has happened and the results, the very positive results of these things that took place. We passed the PATRIOT Act, which broke down the walls between Federal law enforcement and intelligence communities, created the Department of Homeland Security, created a position of Director of National Intelligence, created the National Counterterrorism Center, and worked with all of the intelligence systems. My predecessor--when I came over from the House to the Senate--was David Boren, Senator David Boren, who is now the president of Oklahoma University. After I was elected, he said he wanted to talk to me about a problem which he had been unsuccessful in resolving. You might remember that he was the chairman at that time of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said: We have a problem, a serious crisis in our intelligence system. He said: We have, the NSCA and the CIA and the DIA and all of these people, but they are not talking to each other. It is a crisis we started approaching, and it wasn't until this came along--the efforts of this President--that we got our intelligence act together to a much greater degree. What kind of results are we having? Well, the President made a statement, and I think it is worth repeating: The terrorists only have to be right once; we have to be right 100 percent of the time. Have we avoided, because of all of these efforts the President has made, a disaster here in this country? I really believe we have. We captured an al-Qaida operative named Ali Saleh al-Marri in the United States who was targeting water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange, and the U.S. military academies. We broke up two other post-9/11 aviation plots, one targeting the Library Towers in Los Angeles and the other targeting the east coast. Four men were indicted for an alleged plot to attack the John F. Kennedy International Airport by blowing up the jet fuel supply. We disrupted a plot by a group of al-Qaida- inspired extremists to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix. We have worked with the Brits and other countries. Together, we successfully broke up a plot in the U.K. to blow up passenger airlines going to America which could have rivaled the tragedy of 9/11. Of course, we know what happened down in Piccadilly Circus in the theater area, the plot, the terrorist plot that was planned there that we stopped. So I guess what I am saying is we know these things were going on. There is no way to say for sure that thousands of Americans are alive today because of the efforts of this administration, but I believe it, and everything I have mentioned here is all documented in terms of plots against this country that perhaps we would not have been able to defend ourselves against prior to that time. It does bother me when we talk about how this isn't a surrender resolution, this isn't a cut-and-run resolution. Sure, it is. We see al-Qaida--they see the victory in Iraq as a religious and strategic imperative, something they have to do. This is not something which is optional for them; they have to do it. In fact, Osama bin Laden called the struggle in Iraq a war of destiny. This is Osama bin Laden. That is how he characterized it. It reminded me, when I heard that, of one of the great speeches of all time. It was given by Ronald Reagan way back before he was even Governor of California. It was called ``A Rendezvous With Destiny,'' using the same words--the characterization of Osama bin Laden when he talked about the ``war of destiny'' that is taking place. ``A Rendezvous With Destiny.'' I have often said it should be required reading for all schoolkids. Every time I see the Senator from Florida, the junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Martinez, I think about his trip from Cuba over to this country, and it reminds me of the speech Ronald Reagan made when he said ``a rendezvous with destiny.'' He talked about the Cuban who had escaped from Cuba, and as his small craft floated up on the shores of Florida, a woman was there, and this Cuban started talking about the atrocities of Communist Cuba and of Castro and the problems that were over there, and she said: I guess we in this country don't know how lucky we are. And he said: How lucky you are? We are the ones who are lucky because we had a place to escape to. What he was saying is that we have been this beacon of freedom in this country for so many years. I can remember--and the occupant of the chair was there at the same time I was, in the other body, back during the war in Nicaragua. At that time, the Communists were trying to take over. One of the great things Ronald Reagan did was to kill communism in Central America at that time, and that endured for some 20 years afterward. But at that time, in Nicaragua, I was going down there quite often because we were watching Daniel Ortega and we were watching the Sandinistas and we knew what was happening down there. So we would go down to see these brave people who were fighting for their freedoms. I can remember going to a hospital tent in Honduras, just across the border from Nicaragua. I went down there several times. I would just look and marvel at these young kids. Keep in mind, at that time, those who were defending their freedom against communism were young people because all the older ones had been killed already. They had a hospital tent. I remember the hospital tent was about half the size of this Chamber. All the way around the peripheral of this hospital tent were beds. In the middle was an operating table with no shield or anything up, and they were operating on these young kids as they came back and getting them ready to go back into battle to fight for their freedom against communism in Nicaragua. I remember going around the room and talking to these individuals in their language and saying: You know, I admire you so much. You are just fighting against impossible odds. How can you keep driving yourself to go back? I remember getting the answers as I went around the room. I came to a little girl. Her name was Maria Elana Gonzalez. She was a little bitty girl. She might have been 90 pounds. It was her third trip to the hospital tent. She wouldn't be going back into battle because that morning they had amputated her right leg and the blood was oozing through her bandage. She looked up at me after I had asked that question and she said: Es porque han tomado los campos, han tomado las casas, han tomado todo de lo que tenemos. Pero, de veras, ustedes en los Estados Unidos entienden. Porque tuvieron que luchar por su libertad, por lo mismo que estamos luchando ahora. What she said was: How can you ask that question? We are fighting because they have taken our farms, they have taken our houses, they have taken all that we have. But surely you in the United States understand this because you had to fight against the same odds for your freedom. That little girl couldn't read or write. She didn't know her history. She didn't know if our Revolutionary War was 10 years ago or 200 years ago. But she knew we were the beacon of freedom, the beacon of freedom. I wonder what is happening to that beacon of freedom. We are looking at this war now, the serious nature of this war. Winston Churchill said--and I quoted this several times on this floor, but I think it is worth repeating. He said: Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance. That was just as true in World War II as it is today. So we are facing an enemy today that is adaptive. He is willing to do anything. You can't negotiate with him. It is not a country. In a way, it is more dangerous. We compare this war and certainly some of the terrorists who are running the other side with Hitler and with Stalin. Those things in some ways were not as dangerous because they were more predictable. This is not predictable. You can't defeat a country and say the war is over because it is not over. As I mentioned, this is global, the attacks that are taking place. Any plan to leave Iraq before we have had a chance to understand the outcome of the troop surge does two things: It tells the enemy that they have been successful and their methods worked, and secondly, it gives them the patience to wait us out. One of the things I learned in my many trips over there is the culture of the people is different. They don't think of today and tomorrow or next week; they think of long periods of time. Oh, we are not going to be there 2 years from now? Oh, fine. We will just go into hibernation. We will wait for 2 years. Everything is going to be fine. We will just wait until that happens. You can't win by--they can only win by attacking our resolve. When we talk about the resolve, I wonder about that beacon of freedom, when that little girl in the hospital tent looked at America. What has happened to it since that time? You look at our resolve that has been lost in Somalia. It wasn't until they dragged the naked bodies of our troops through the streets of Mogadishu that finally we didn't have the stomach for it, and so that beacon of freedom went out. We saw it in Vietnam, in Lebanon, in the Khobar Towers. I recognize, and everyone recognizes, there have been mistakes in this thing. The President recognized this in his speech on January 10. He said a lot of things that I think were very profound observations at that time that I will address in just a minute. But when you look at the consequences of a premeditated withdrawal, when the enemy knows what we are going to be doing in the future--one of the great generals of our time is General Maples. He was actually the commanding general down in Fort Sill in Oklahoma at one time. He is now the DIA Director. He said: Continued Coalition presence is the primary counter to a breakdown in central authority. Such a breakdown would have grave consequences for the people of Iraq, stability in the region, and the United States strategic interests. John Negroponte and General Hayden both agree with that. It is not too late to avoid this. I don't think it is time to start cutting our losses and just hope that all this goes away. If we can assist the Iraqis and reach that point of sustainable self-governance, then we can bring defeat to our enemies and stability to the region. We all want this. All those who have not personally seen the changes, the visible changes that are taking place in Iraq, seen the girls who can now get an education and seen that they can now have weddings in the streets without the fear of having troops come in there and kidnap all the girls and rape them and bury them alive--people have forgotten already how bad things were at that time in Iraq. So I just have to say this: Regretfully, I have been sitting here since 5 o'clock trying to get on the floor, and now we are running out of time. But I would say this, and I think it is something which is very significant; that is, the President, in his speech on January 10, talked about the necessity for victory in Iraq, but he used a term that nobody heard and nobody remembered and nobody listened to, and it is called from the bottom up. A ``bottom-up victory'' is what he wanted. This President is talking about it with the people. Let me tell you what has happened. On my last trip--keep in mind, I have made some 14 trips to the AOR, and the last trip was after the surge was announced. We saw a number of things. First of all, it didn't go unnoticed by the people over there that there are some resolutions like the one we will considering at 11 o'clock today, and consequently that got their attention. I think some good came from that. But that, along with David Petraeus going over there as commander in chief, along with the surge, has really had some results. For the first time over there, I saw changes. A few minutes ago, one of our Republicans was talking about the change in Ramadi. It was the senior Senator from Utah. In Ramadi, if you remember a year ago, that was getting ready--or, as we say in Oklahoma, that was fixing to be the terrorist capital of the world. It is now secure. In Fallujah--this is just less than a month ago, in Fallujah--it is secure, and it is secure by our security force--by the Iraqi security force and not by ours. In other words, they are taking care of their own over there. The joint security stations where our troops, instead of coming back to the Green Zone, will stay over there and bed down with the Iraqi security forces, develop intimate relationships with them, and learn to love each other--this is what is happening right now. I was mistaken. All these years, we have been talking about Maliki and all the political leaders. I am beginning to think really that the successes that are taking place and the bottom-up success right now after the surge are actually coming from the religious leaders. We monitor--and we do this as a matter of course--all of the mosque ceremonies. I think they meet once a week like most churches do, and up until December, 85 percent of the messages that were by the clerics and by the imams in the mosques were anti-American. They started dropping off until in April of this year, there wasn't one anti-American message. The results are there. As a result of that, we are having many of the citizens, just on their own, as the Senator from Utah mentioned--because he was there a short time after I was there, and he said they are doing things now that they haven't done before. Just as we have, in Tulsa, OK, and in all of our cities in Oklahoma and here in Washington, DC, a Neighborhood Watch Program where the neighbors volunteer to go out and watch, this is happening in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, all throughout Iraq right now. These are people who are going out and risking their lives with spray cans, spray-painting circles around undetonated IEDs, and it is being done successfully. I think there is a level of panic setting in on those individuals who have gone over there and seen that the surge appears to be working. I don't think we should be cutting and running at this stage. We have a huge investment there. We have taken out a ruthless leader, one who would rival Hitler in the atrocities he has committed. Now that we have an opportunity to do that--to have a different form of government in the Middle East--and people who say it wasn't Iraq all this time, sure, it was Iraq. There were training centers in Iraq training people to do different things. In the town of Salman Pak, they were training terrorists how to fly airplanes into targets. Did they train the 9/11 terrorists? There is no way of knowing that. Nonetheless, the training camps are not there anymore. We have had successes. I know people want to talk about the failures, but I will say to you this is a very critical vote. If we vote at 11 o'clock today to leave before the job is done, that would be a crisis and a slap in the face for our troops over there fighting so bravely for our freedom back here. I am a product of the draft of many years ago, and I believed you would never be able to have an all-volunteer force and have it with the quality we had in the draft. I realize now that I was wrong all those years ago, that we have the finest young people in the world in our military. They understand what the mission is. They understand the threat facing them. The first thing they asked me is: Why is it the American people don't understand, or the media? They don't ask that question now because they have the benefit of having talk radio. They have FOX instead of depending on CNN International, and they realize the American people are by their side. So this is critical. Is it worth staying up all night for? I think it is. I look forward to defeating the effort of the Levin-Reed amendment taking place at 11 o'clock today. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me say to the previous speaker, the junior Senator from Colorado, I reviewed what he and Senator Lamar Alexander have put together, and I think of a lot of the options out there, that is one that is fairly reasonable. But I disagree with the offensive nature that people have taken with some of the terms, such as ``resolution of surrender'' and ``cut and run.'' In reality, I believe that is what we are talking about. A couple things were said. First of all, it happens in the case of former Senator Max Cleland, he was one of my closest friends. We actually were in a Bible study together. We were together every week, spending quality time and intimate time together. Never once did anyone question his patriotism. Max Cleland--I heard the story from him, what happened to him in Vietnam. Then I also saw the campaign that came up. Yes, they talked about votes, how perhaps his votes were different than the person who was opposing him who was serving in the House at that time. Never once was his patriotism questioned.

Mr. INHOFE. For one question. Go ahead.

Mr. INHOFE. For a question.