Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I would.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, in these 2 minutes, let me suggest two things I don't want to happen. I don't want my good friends who are conservatives on the Republican side to vote for this Sessions amendment with the idea that this is a conservative amendment. If you want to prove yourself and your conservative credentials as this being the way to do it, it is not. I am looking at the current rating of the American Conservative Union. I am very proud of Senator Sessions because he is the ninth most conservative Member of this Senate. But guess who the No. 1 most conservative is. It is me. I stand here opposing--though I hate to do it--this amendment for that one reason. The second reason is, this is very important. Inadvertently, I know it was not the intent of the Senator from Alabama, they omitted the wrong sections. So the sections of title I they amended are section 1101 and 1103 and nothing in title III. If you want to give guaranteed spending, you have to get to title III or section 102 of title I. That is where it is. So all we have done with this amendment is attempt to reduce the contract authority which does not make any difference in terms of how much money is going to be spent. It is very important for people to understand that because I would not want them to be thinking you will be able to reduce something by doing it. Second, the other point I want to make is, we have a Finance Committee. It is headed by Senator Grassley, and the ranking minority is Senator Baucus. They have done a great job. We have gone to them with this bill and said we need to be able to pay for this, but we need a little bit more money. Can you find it? They found it. The Joint Tax Committee validated what they said and, consequently, we have something that will not add to the deficit. It will do a little better job of taking care of donor States that will not be taken care of if this amendment should pass. I ask Members respectfully to reject the Sessions amendment. Have the yeas and nays been requested?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, no. I am not going to make any additional remarks. I was going to put us into morning business. I understand the Senator had some things she wanted to talk about.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are 12 minutes away from the vote that will be taken and then recessing until 2 o'clock and coming back and finishing probably two votes and then final passage. There won't be time to debate the point. There will be a couple minutes equally divided. The Senator from Arkansas wants to participate in that. Since I will not be able to talk about the Sessions amendment, let me make a couple of points. I don't have a better friend in this body than Senator Sessions. He and I are both very conservative, always ranked that way. He has an amendment to cut the transportation bill by $10.7 billion and the intent is for $5 billion of that amount to be taken from mass transit and $5.7 billion to be taken from the highway program. The interesting thing about this is the amendment would only cut contract authority, which is the upper limit of what may be spent on the program. There is no reduction in guaranteed spending. Everybody knows last year in our bill, there was $318 billion in contract authority and $303 billion in guaranteed spending. That is the figure you are concerned with. There is no reduction in guaranteed spending on the Sessions amendment. Guaranteed spending is the amount the bill requires to be spent on the program. So there is no change in actual spending or the deficit. The amendment also ignores the complexity of the formula. As a result, the amendment drops the contract authority of some donor States below the minimum rates of return identified in the bill. For example, Arizona's rate of return would drop below 90.3 percent in 2005 and 90.9 percent in 2006 as opposed to 92 percent. It is a huge difference. Keep in mind that is contract authority. It is not just the donor States that are hurt by the amendment. Pennsylvania, an older State, for example, would lose $258 million in contract authority and drops from a 15-percent increase over TEA-21-- that would be 7 years ago--down to 11 percent, undoing the gains they received at that time. Finally, I remind everybody that Senators Grassley and Baucus increased the amount of money. The Sessions amendment is supposedly going to take back that $11.2 billion increase. But when we passed that amendment, the Finance Committee--and it is their job; read the Senate rules, that is what the Finance Committee is supposed to be doing, go in there and find the money--they said: Yes, we know we can spend the additional $11.2 billion. It is not going to increase the deficit. And then they came along, and that fact was verified by the Joint Committee on Taxation. They are the ones who said what the Finance Committee said is right. Senator Sessions and I are always in the top three most conservative Members when the ratings systems come out of all 100 Senators. I want people to know my view on the amendment. I know the Senator is well meaning, but it is one I will be opposing for those very reasons. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am very happy we finally got to this point. We are operating under unanimous consent at this time. We will have for the next 45 minutes a discussion and then a vote on the Allen amendment at 12 o'clock. We will have this 45-minute period of time to talk about the highway bill, and hopefully we can confine arguments to that, with the exception of 5 minutes for Senator Landrieu right before the vote takes place. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, yesterday when we passed our substitute amendment, which was No. 761, there were some technical inaccuracies in obligations and limitations for the 5 fiscal years. I ask unanimous consent to make those technical corrections to the amendment 761. This has been agreed to by both sides.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I know there are a lot of Members interested in the Allen amendment. We are close to final passage. We may have a couple of amendments after we return at 2 o'clock, at which time we will want to debate those. We will be limited to 2 minutes on each side for those amendments. I encourage Members who want to be heard on those amendments that we will be considering after 2 o'clock, this is the time to do it. This is the only time Members will have.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the consecutive votes in relation to the pending amendments on the highway bill begin at noon today, with the additional time equally divided as before, and that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the votes in relation to the pending amendments; provided, that following the first vote, the Senate then stand in recess as under the previous order, with the remaining votes occurring after the recess. I also ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided before each of the votes in the stacked series.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 706 be withdrawn.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that following the first vote, Senator Landrieu be recognized for 5 minutes as in morning business prior to the recess.

Mr. INHOFE. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Retirement Security and Aging, be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 10 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``The Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Strengthening Our National Security'' on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. in Dirksen 226. Witness List Panel I: the Honorable Asa Hutchinson, Chair of the Homeland Security Practice, Venable, L.L.P., Former Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC; Margaret D. Stock, Assistant Professor of Law, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY; and Mark Reed, Border Management Strategies, LLC, Tucson, AZ.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a closed hearing regarding nuclear security. Only Members and staff with Top Secret security clearance are able to attend. The Hearing will be held in S-407 in the Capitol.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 17, 2005 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a business meeting.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 17, 2005, at 9:30 a.m., for a hearing entitled ``Oil For Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians and Terrorist Entities Under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program.''

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on the Commission on Africa report.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on Tuesday, May 17 at 9:30 a.m. to consider pending calendar business.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, May 17, 2005, at 10 a.m., on Port Security.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 17, 2005, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on ``Examining the Current Legal and Regulatory Requirements and Industry Practices for Credit Card Issuers with Respect to Consumer Disclosures and Marketing Efforts.''

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I have no objection.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent there now be a period for morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes on any subject, with Senator Boxer going first.