Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold an oversight hearing on Wednesday, March 29, at 9:30 a.m., on the impact of the elimination of MTBE. Subcommittee on National Parks

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me say to my friend from Alabama, I do not think we have ever been in disagreement on anything. I have a little different take on this issue than he does and a little different background because of an experience I had when I served in the other body. First, I think realistically, looking at this, you may say ``in writing,'' but if you call your leader and tell him, ``I plan to go ahead and object to this,'' and he knows it is going to come in writing, unless you don't get along with the leader very well, I don't think that would be a real serious problem. But I do agree with the Senator from Alabama that passing laws is not necessarily a good thing. My feeling is we have too many laws, not too few laws. I have said that many times. But let me share with you an experience I had in the other body. When I was first elected in 1986 to the House of Representatives, I found there was a process used to keep the signatures of a discharge petition from being open to the public. So there could be something very popular. For example, a gun control bill might not be popular in West Texas, but there might be a West Texas Democrat whose party tells him for the national scene, ``We want lots of gun controls, and I know it is not popular in the State, but there is a way you can go home and say you opposed gun controls and at the same time you can get by with appeasing the leadership.'' That is what they did. They would put the discharge petition in the drawer of the Speaker's desk, and you could not get it out unless a majority of people signed the discharge petition. Consequently, they would go ahead and tell people they had signed it when, in fact, they had not. I had a one-sentence bill that totally reformed that. It stated that all signatures on a discharge petition shall become public record. We actually had seven editorials by the Wall Street Journal. We had all these things saying: Finally, there is light. All I want--all I want--is to be able to have everyone being accountable for what they are saying. I have two holds right now, and I have said publicly that I am the one who has the holds. I have never, in the 12 years I have been here in this body, not specifically stated that I had holds when I did. So I think that is the main thing. There are similarities between the situation that occurred in the House, and I agree with Reader's Digest, the Wall Street Journal. They said that was the greatest single reform in the last 60 years. So when I first came to this body, I made this statement: that it appeared to me that being able to put on holds without being accountable is a very similar practice to the inability of knowing what the signatures were on discharge petitions. Consequently, I started back 12 years ago working on this issue. I am very happy to join Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley in what I consider to be a reform that is badly needed in the Senate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a November 1994 article in Reader's Digest by Daniel Levine be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE. My request would be that I be acknowledged to speak on the Wyden-Grassley-Inhofe amendment in whatever order you are prepared to give me.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for an inquiry? Is there a unanimous consent in terms of Members speaking?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me say to my friend Senator Sarbanes, there is no stronger supporter of our State revolving funds than I am, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. But I wish to say this is a $2.9 billion tax increase. There are ways of doing it by eliminating some unnecessary programs. Regarding the portion also affecting the Corps of Engineers, I understand they are underfunded at this time and we are working right now in our committee to see what we can do to come up with some money by striking some of the less important, less necessary programs. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Sarbanes amendment.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this is kind of a litmus test amendment. We have had it up a couple times before. We do intend to pick up votes each time. It is an amendment to get into some of the big spending we do around here. With the exception of trust votes and national defense, it says that any vote on appropriations that exceeds the previous year has to have a two-thirds majority. This amendment is endorsed by a number of groups, including the American Conservative Union, Christian Coalition, and other groups. It will be a scored vote. It is a very significant vote. I think it is really the only meaningful vote to do something about curbing spending that we will have the entire day. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, how much time is divided on this amendment? I didn't get that.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. While the Chair is thinking----

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, I ask to bring up my amendment, No. 2934.

Mr. INHOFE. Let me go ahead and propound that.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes. My request would be in conjunction with the Wyden amendment but also to bring up my amendment and set it aside so I would be in the mix, if that would be all right. So a couple minutes would do it.

Mr. INHOFE. I would only say that the amendment has been at the desk as of 8 this morning. I assume you have already gone over the amendments.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2933. I ask the Senate to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. So I will be following the Senator from Delaware. Thank you.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, there is an amendment I had submitted on holds, and we have been trying to do this for quite some time. My good friends, Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley, have been trying to do the same thing, and I think Senator Lott from Mississippi. So what I will do is not offer my amendment No. 2933 in favor of the Wyden-Grassley now Inhofe amendment that will be considered. That is my unanimous consent request.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding there is a unanimous consent we are operating under, but my only request is if the Senator from Delaware goes next, I be recognized after the Senator from Delaware for my amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. If that is what you recall--that is certainly not the intention of this Senator.

Mr. INHOFE. This would be an amendment having to do with COLAs.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment No. 2934 be called up for its immediate consideration.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, this amendment is very simple. I have always felt that the greatest single hypocrisy every year is when Members come up and vote to exempt Members of Congress from a cost-of- living increase. The hypocrisy comes in when all the press releases hit the home State and they talk about how great this is, saying they are great reformers and then, of course, it is defeated and they end up taking the increase anyway. Basically, what this does is say if you vote in favor of an increase by voting against an exemption of Congress, then you are not entitled to the increase. It is as simple as that. I say this, too: I love the Kennedys and the Rockefellers, but I don't think you should have to be a Kennedy or a Rockefeller to serve in this body. I can think of many people, such as Senator Dan Coats--Democrats and Republicans alike would hold him up and say there is a guy who was an outstanding Member and he had to quit because of his kids getting up to college age, and he knew he would be able to make enough money to send them to school outside of serving in the Senate. If there is ever any transparency in stopping hypocrisy, that is what this would be. I am glad to have this in the mix, and when the appropriate time comes, I will call for a vote. It doesn't necessarily have to be a rollcall vote. I will leave that up to the leadership. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Well, my request is to go ahead and bring it up now, but that is fine.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. The situation is exactly the same here, Mr. President. In fact, the very stated reason for this whole bill is to require Congress to do the people's business in the open. A Senator may have a hold on a nomination or a bill or a unanimous consent agreement, and that hold is secret. It is just as possible for a Senator to keep his constituents and Americans in general in the dark now about their holds as it was for House Members before I successfully led the charge for transparency in discharge petitions. Indeed the Wall Street Journal was strongly in favor of my House efforts at that time. Toward that end, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Wall Street Journal's six editorials on the issue of discharge motions.

Mr. INHOFE. As the Wall Street Journal mentions, neither the Constitution nor the Senate Rules mention holds. We need this legislation to correct the current situation. One of the many times I personally have run into this problem of holds was in the case of the nomination of Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee I was trying to shepherd the nomination of Governor Leavitt through my committee. At that time in 2003, Governor Leavitt was being run through unprecedented hoops by the Democrats to obstruct his nomination even though we had an affirmative statement from my Ranking Member Senator Jeffords that he considered Governor Leavitt a friend and admission that he was going to receive the vote of Senator Jeffords. Pursuant to this situation, Roll Call wrote the following piece that I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.