Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Vermont for his excellent statement. I agree with all of it. I see the Senator from New Jersey is not in the Chamber, but let me make one comment. When I was talking about the withholding of funds and the Federal mandates, he is accurate in the fact that funds would not be withheld. It would mandate that 3 percent of the money of the portion of funds that would go to his State would be taken from the surface transportation program, the National Highway System, and the interstate maintenance programs. That is the problem I have. In a way that is withholding money. That is a mandate that is backed up by withholding funds. It is my understanding we have two Members who are due to bring their amendments. We encourage them to come. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I move to table the Corzine amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments, even though I disagree with them, of the Senator from New Jersey. I know he is sincere. I know there is a problem and he is trying to correct the problem and there is an honest difference of opinion. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposing the Corzine amendment, a letter from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association opposing the Lautenberg- Corzine amendment, and also a letter from the Transportation Construction Coalition, which is, I believe, almost every labor union in the United States, be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, regular order. Amendment No. 606 to Amendment No. 605

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE. May I inquire of the Senator about how long he will be taking for his opening remarks?

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that at the completion of the remarks of the senior Senator from New Jersey, the junior Senator be recognized.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding rule XXII, all first-degree amendments to the highway bill must be filed at the desk no later than 3 o'clock. We are extending it from 2 o'clock to 3 o'clock because of the evacuation.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I do have a statement I wish to make in opposition to the Corzine amendment; however, the junior Senator from South Dakota is here. I would like to yield to him for up to 6 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, I agree with the comments of the Senator from South Dakota. He has dramatically shortened my speech against the Corzine amendment because he said some things I would have said. I emphasize that the problem is not with sealed bids, it is with no bids. It could be that they have unique problems in New Jersey, but I would not want those problems that are there to encumber what we are trying to do in States such as Oklahoma and New Hampshire and South Dakota. There had been abuses that are pretty well known in New Jersey. An example is the case of the law firm of DeCotiis, FitzPatrick, Cole & Wisler, which has reportedly thrived by exploiting a system that encourages politicians to reward their political contributors with State contracts that are no-bid contracts--not low-bid but no-bid contracts. The Record, a New Jersey paper which did an extensive investigation into this DeCotiis firm and their relationship to public officials, stated in a December 2003 article that: A sweeping review of DeCotiis's work for towns and public agencies shows how high rollers in this pay-to-play sweepstakes reap huge returns from investments in the right politicians. In a study of DeCotiis's legal bills for towns and public agencies across New Jersey, as well as interviews with dozens of elected officials, the Record has found that the DeCotiis firm billed at least 128 government entities for nearly $26.6 million during the 2\1/2\-year period starting January of 2001. From Alpine to Atlantic City, in 15 of New Jersey's 21 counties, and in many departments of State government, DeCotiis's lawyers are charging the taxpayers for contracts that, under Jersey law, can be awarded without competitive bidding. I have other examples of corrupt kinds of dealings, but I believe my point has been made that here the issue is with no-bid contracts, not sealed-bid contracts. I question, also, the constitutionality of something in terms of the first amendment, but that has not even been discussed. There could be a problem. I would be sympathetic to the problem and perhaps the Senator from New Jersey will be holding a position in the not too distant future where he can deal directly with some of the problems that are within the State of New Jersey but are not all over the country. So I join my colleague from South Dakota in urging the defeat of the amendment, and at the appropriate time I plan to move to table the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, there has been a great misunderstanding around here as to how we came up with offsets, how we are going to take care of paying for an additional amount of money in this package. I compliment the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, along with the ranking minority member of the committee, Senator Baucus, for the hard work they have put in on this legislation and, quite frankly, disagree with the criticism to which they have been subjected. I want to reemphasize, if I could, that it is important we get this legislation done. I am very pleased we have two more amendments that are down here. The deadline for the filing of amendments is now over as of right now. We do have several amendments. We are going to invite these people to bring their amendments down. I am pleased there are two amendments that are already down here. We look forward to taking up those amendments. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from New Jersey for bringing his amendment to the Senate. We have been urging Members to bring their amendments to the Senate. I thank him also for the very thoughtful, sincere, and articulate way he expressed and explained his amendment. I disagree, but I know he has strong feelings, and we are anxious to get a vote on his amendment. It is my hope--and I know the ranking minority member, Senator Jeffords, agrees--to get as many of these votes lined up for, perhaps, stacked votes. We do not have a time yet, but I assume that would be acceptable with the author of this amendment to stack these votes with perhaps some other amendments. Currently, 21 States and the District of Columbia have helmet laws; 26 States have limited helmet laws, including my State of Oklahoma. Ours are for 17 and under. Only four States, as I understand, have no helmet requirement. As recently as last year when we were discussing the highway bill, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a statement in which they said: The administration opposes sanctions and withholding State funds, both of which would jeopardize important State level safety programs in infrastructure maintenance programs already in place. Let me share a personal experience. Many years ago, back in the middle 1960s, I believe 1967, my first year in the State legislature, my first act in January of 1967, I came to Washington, DC, to testify before the Environment and Public Works Committee chaired at that time by Jennings Randolph of West Virginia. I was impressed with myself coming up to testify before this lofty committee that I now chair. I was protesting Lady Bird's Highway Beautification Act of 1965. The reason was it was withholding funds, our funds, in order to accomplish a policy which we could agree or disagree on. I have to admit to the Senator from New Jersey that I come from a little bit of a prejudiced perspective because I would be concerned about mandates for quite some time. The highway bill is important for addressing real transportation infrastructure needs, but I question it is a place to spend a lot of time for other policies. I will share with the Senator from New Jersey a study done last year of the California Motorcycle Safety Program, designed by Dr. John Billheimer, completed in 1996, that found that rider training dramatically reduces accidents and thus eliminates injuries and fatalities. Specifically, the study stated: An analysis of statewide accident trends shows that total motorcycle accidents have dropped by 67 percent since the introduction of the California Motorcycle Safety Program with a drop of 88 percent among those under 18-year-old drivers. There is much that can be done to dramatically reduce fatalities. I can recall we were debating a motorcycle helmet law in the State senate many years ago in the 1970s when testimony came forth that a helmet will impair one's vision to some degree, that there are sometimes accidents that have occurred because of the restriction. I know there have probably been studies on that, but it is something to be considered. I fundamentally oppose this type of approach. I know consistency is not always something we have in this Senate, but it is consistent with my feelings over the last 30 years in addressing this type of situation. I believe the Senator from New Jersey has every right to get a vote to measure the Senate, so at the appropriate time it would be my intention to table the amendment, call for the yeas and nays, and stack this with perhaps some of the other amendments, maybe the amendment of Senator Harkin, who is prepared to offer his amendment now.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, again, I am hoping that Senator Harkin is on his way and is prepared to offer his amendment. I look forward to considering that. In the meantime, let's keep in mind we now have a limited period of time in which to work. The time is here. We are open for business. We want to have the amendments sent to the Senate. We invite our Members to do so. In the meantime, I will reconfirm and restate one of the reasons for the urgency of this bill. Not only is this one of the largest bills of the year, it is thought by many to be the most important bill we will consider in that it is a matter of life and death. We have core safety programs. If we were operating on an extension we do not have in this bill, we will not have the core safety programs and people will die. It is as simple as that, if we do not get this done. Consequently, it is always worth repeating how important it is to get the bill completed and what would happen if we do not. We are in our sixth extension. This extension expires May 31. On May 31, if we do not have something in place, we have another extension. If we have an extension as opposed to a bill, there is not a chance to improve the donor status. There are many States that are donor States, like my State of Oklahoma. Under this bill as it is now, the minimum donor State of 90.5 percent would be increased to 92 percent, which does not sound like a big increase, and is not as large as I would like, but it means hundreds of thousands of dollars to each State. Without the bill, we will not have that. We will just have an extension of what we have today at 90.5 percent. We would have no new safety core programs if we are not able to pass this bill. Again, we have talked about the difficult job in putting together a fair formula. The fair formula is one that no one thinks is fair. Perhaps we have a fair formula as a result of that type of analysis. One of the factors in the 20-some factors of a formula is the fatalities of the States. My State happens to be a high-fatality, per capita State, so there is a consideration in the formula for that. If we do not pass the bill, we will not have any of the safety programs. Right now, we have some streamlining provisions that took us--and I am sure the distinguished ranking minority member, Senator Jeffords, would agree with this--we spent 3 years coming up with what we can do to protect the environment and at the same time streamline the process of building roads so we do not come into delays that are costly delays and use up our mile dollars. We have done that. We have come to a lot of compromises. It is kind of interesting, I think those of us on the committee, who all supported these streamlining provisions, did not really like the way they turned out. I thought they were not strict enough. Some thought they were too strict. Nonetheless, they are there. But if we do not pass a bill, we do not have them, so they are still going to be stumbling along trying to build roads with all kinds of obstacles out there that are obsolete. If we do not pass a bill, we will not have the ability to use the innovative financing that is given to the States. This bill, for example, has recognized something that I believe is very important; that is, we should expand the opportunity of the States to have more chances to get involved, more opportunities to use innovative financing methods that may work. My State of Oklahoma is different from the State of Vermont, for example. What works in Vermont may not work in Oklahoma. But we recognize that. This bill will allow the States to be able to start being creative in expanding their ability to pay for more roads in a way that is a custom that would be workable within their States. That is a very important aspect of this legislation. If we are operating on an extension and do not have a bill, we are not going to have this program called the Safe Routes to School. The Safe Routes to School Program is one that is certainly supported strongly by the Senator from Vermont, as well as many of the Members of the other body. This is something that many people feel very strongly about, that some people think is one of the most important parts of this bill: the Safe Routes to Schools. This will save young lives in America. If we do not pass this bill--and we are not going to pass it if we are working on an extension--young lives could very well be lost. One of the biggest problems we are having right now--I know my State of Oklahoma is not a lot different from other States--is we are sitting back there with the department of transportation, we are sitting back there with highway contractors who have the labor set up, all ready to go to work, all ready to repair roads, to build roads, to build bridges, and there is no certainty. They do not know for sure we are going to pass a bill. If we do not pass a bill, we may be on a 1-month extension, we may be on a 2-week extension, we may be on a 1-year extension. There is no way we can plan ahead and get the most from our dollars if we do not have a bill. There would be 5 years remaining on this bill for people to be able to plan for the future. So that certainty is very important. A lot of the States are border States. My State of Oklahoma is not a border State, but a lot of them are. They have to deal with the NAFTA traffic. This bill has a borders program as well as a corridors program built into it to take into consideration some of the unique problems that come with the expanded traffic from trade. If we do not pass a bill, we will not have any help for these people. If we do pass a bill, we have provisions to be helpful to them. The bill calls for a national commission to explore how to fund transportation in the future. There are some ways, if you look way down the road, maybe 5 years from now or 10 years from now, where maybe-- just maybe--we can do something different for a change. We have said several times here, and others have mentioned it, that this interstate highway program initially came into being many years ago, back in the 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower was President of the United States. He observed during World War II, when he was General Eisenhower, that he was not able to get the troops and supplies moved around the country, to get them in place, to be shipped over to fight our battles. When he became President, what is the one thing everybody remembers about Dwight Eisenhower? They remember the roads program, the highway program. It was funded in a way with taxes the same way we are funding it today. So we are talking about a half century, nearly, that we have been funding this program the same way. With this bill, we have established a commission that will look at new ways of partnering, new, creative ways of funding roads. I can tell you, many people have come to our committee--we have had hearings on this--and they have talked about how much better we can do it if we just have a chance to get away from this mold we have been living in, the methods we are using and have been using for the last half century. If we just operate on an extension, we do not have a chance to do any of that. This bill is more than just a highway bill. We have talked about bridges and highways a lot. But this is an intermodal transportation bill. A lot of people do not realize it, but my State of Oklahoma is actually a navigable State in terms of barge traffic coming in and out of the State. We have chokepoints with regard to train travel, channel travel, air travel. This bill addresses those chokepoints. At the present time, without this bill, that is not going to happen. Lastly, and this is probably the most important thing, the bill has firewall protections to make sure people--I have always thought of this as a moral issue. If somebody is driving up to the pump and he or she pays that tax, I never hear anyone complaining about the high taxes on motor fuel because they recognize and believe all that money is going to go to road improvement, to new roads and new bridges. But, in fact, that is not the case because, like any trust fund, the propensity of people in elected positions--whether it is State or Federal--to spend the taxpayers' money is insatiable. They will go and rob these trust funds, whether it is the Social Security trust fund, the highway trust fund, or any of the other trust funds we have, and put it in other programs. It is when nobody is looking. Well, we have firewalls in this bill that would preclude that from happening. One of the things I liked about the bill we had last year was that we changed all those provisions where they had been using trust fund money to support policies that have nothing to do with transportation. We are, to a great extent, going to be doing that with this bill, too. So the urgency of passing this bill is upon us. We have to do it this week. It would be Monday at the latest, but this week, I would say, in order to get it to conference, come back from conference, have the conference report adopted in both the House and the Senate, and then signed by the President. We can do that if we move expeditiously now, but if we do not, it is not going to happen. We have a May 31 deadline. What is today? May 11. Today is May 11. So we have 20 more days to get this all the way out of the Senate, into conference--of course, the House has already passed the bill, so they are waiting for us now--have it considered in conference, and then have it sent back here. That is not much time. Things do not happen very quickly around here. But I know Senator Jeffords and I will do everything that is necessary in that conference to make sure we come out with a good bill, get that bill back here, passed the House, passed the Senate, and to the President's desk, to have a highway bill. If we do not do it, none of these 10 things I mentioned are going to happen--none of them. There may be parts of the bill you don't like. There are parts of the bill I do not like. But I hope people realize that just operating on an extension, after we are on our sixth extension now, is no way to do business. We are here to do a better job for the American people. Hopefully, some people will be coming down to the Chamber. I yield the floor to Senator Jeffords.

Mr. INHOFE. We are encouraging Members to come to the floor. The Senator from Iowa is prepared to offer an amendment, and another behind him. I am hoping we will be able to get these amendments so we can perhaps have some stacked votes tonight--maybe 6 o'clock or so-- whenever the leadership on both sides agrees that is the appropriate time. I will state again how significant it is we pass this bill. It will be very costly in terms of dollars if we do not get it completed. There are a lot of programs incorporated in this lengthy bill that I do not agree with and we debated them for 3 years. I had to lose some and I won some. This is one I don't think there is one member of the committee I chair of 10 Republicans and 8 Democrats who will say they got everything they wanted. Maybe that is a sign that we did a pretty fair job. We need to have the bill passed. We need to do what we can to avoid another extension. An extension causes all of the 10 problems I outlined a few minutes ago. There is a clear right and wrong in this case. 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. Mr. President, we do have at least one amendment, the Lautenberg amendment, that is ready for a vote. It might be that the Harkin amendment will be ready for a vote also, if the Senator can get ready in the next 30 minutes. I announce it is our intention to have a vote at 5:30, and there will be either one or two or even three votes, depending on what comes down between now and 5:30. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. We are trying to lock in votes for tonight, and I was preparing for a unanimous consent request, but to do that we would have to give--I think the Senator needs to give the other side at least a couple of minutes to respond. The request would be to have two votes take place beginning at 5:30 on the Lautenberg amendment and the Harkin amendment. Could I interrupt the Senator to make that unanimous consent request?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we do want to hear from the Senator from Arkansas, but in fairness, we should go back and forth. The chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Bond, wants to be heard first. Does the Senator from Vermont have an objection to that?

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, before the chairman of the Committee on the Budget leaves, there are some areas where an honest disagreement can take place. One is on the idea that if we try to establish a policy in this country that addresses something that is an emotional need or desire of any of these Members and it has nothing to do with transportation, that should not be borne on the backs of the highway trust fund. We talk about the ethanol provision which I opposed, but nonetheless we had that, the Senator is right, and the cost of that. If they want to pay for it, let them pay for it out of the general fund. Why should the highway trust fund be paying for policies? And the same is true on the deficit reduction. I stood in the Senate at that time that took place saying I was for deficit reduction but not on the backs of the highway trust fund. The reason I say that is because I have considered this to be somewhat of a moral issue. People go to the pump and they pay tax for gasoline. There is an assumption, as wrong as it is, that money should go to repairing roads and highways and bridges. I do disagree in that respect.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Montana for his comments and a very excellent explanation as to how the Finance Committee is coming up with some more money to try to make this a better bill. Senator Jeffords and I have been trying to get people to come down with amendments for several days now. We are pleased that Senator Hutchinson and Senator Nelson of Nebraska have an amendment. It is one to which we have agreed, but there may be others who want to be heard on it. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wish to make one comment. We are on the bill, and I compliment Senators Grassley and Baucus for the great work they have done. We have put together a good bill, and it is necessary to go out to the proper committee, the Finance Committee, to see what we can do to enhance this bill and make it a little bit more robust. They have done a great job, and I compliment them on that. I yield the floor.