Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first I say to the Senator from Colorado, we miss him on the committee. He was an excellent member of the committee. However, he was replaced by some excellent freshmen who are as enthusiastic as was the Senator from Colorado. While we miss him on the committee, it is still a great committee, and we certainly appreciate very much the comments he made this morning and the contributions he has made to the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding the regular order is the amendment offered by the Senator from Indiana. He has agreed to set his amendment aside for the consideration of other amendments as they come to the floor, with the understanding he will regain the floor after those amendments are considered and action taken, if action is taken. We do have an amendment from the chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation, Senator Bond, who has worked tirelessly for years on this bill. I am sure he wants to offer it at this time.

Mr. INHOFE

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont brings up a very sensitive subject to me, and that is one of bridges. It seems to me we do have one covered bridge in Oklahoma. I am going to have to check on that to make sure they get a share of this, whatever it is. We do have a serious problem. The FHWA ranks various States and the conditions of their bridges, roads, and highways. Oklahoma is ranked dead last in the condition of its bridges, and it is a very serious matter. It is also a very serious problem in terms of the number of deaths we have. One of the considerations that was involved in putting together a formula--and I state again how much work goes into a formula approach. I have said several times that it would be very easy to do it the other way where we just come up with a bunch of projects and satisfy 60 Senators and pass a bill and go home. That is not what we tried to do. One of the considerations we have is the risk in the various States, the number of mortalities. Once again, at this point it is important to stress why we need to have a bill. We are now on our sixth extension, and extensions do not work. There is not a State of all 50 States that is not very anxiously awaiting this bill because with extensions there can be no planning. If we do not get this done, we will not have any chance to improve our donor States. Oklahoma is a donor State. We have many donor States, and that is probably the most sensitive single issue in the formulas, is how the donor States are treated. But if we do not get this done, there is not going to be any change. We are right now at 90.5 percent. If we had passed the bill we had last year, which was a little more robust than this bill, by the end of that 6-year period, every State would have achieved at least a 95-percent return. That is the return of money they have paid into the trust fund. As it is right now, in a lower amount, this would raise it a modest amount but not that much further above 90.5 percent. It would be an improvement, though. If we do not have a bill and are operating under extensions, there will not be any new safety core programs to help the States respond to the thousands of deaths each year on the highways. In that respect, I think you have to acknowledge that this bill is a matter of life and death. There will be many more deaths if we do not have a good highway bill. If we don't have a highway bill, there will not be any streamlining of the environmental reviews. Critical projects will still be subjected to avoidable delays that can be avoided with the passage of this bill. Along that line, I think with all the provisions of this bill that was 2\1/2\ years in the making, there are a lot of provisions that my good friend from Vermont accepted that he would have preferred not to accept. There are many provisions I accepted that I would have preferred not to accept. But this was a give and take in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation, and I think that is something people are starving for right now. That is what they have in this bill. If we do not have a bill, there is not going to be an increase in the ability to use innovative financing, giving us a chance to do something differently than we have been doing it before. Where innovative partnership types of financing have taken place, it has extracted a lot of money from the private sector that is willing to get in there and participate in the TIFIA provisions of this bill, allowing them to do that very thing. There are a lot of members on our committee who were concerned about the Safe Routes to Schools Program. That is in here. Again, if we are operating under an extension, if we do have an extension, if we do not have the bill, we will not have that. It could be we will have young people killed and injured on the way to school without this bill. Without this bill, with just another extension, States would continue to have uncertainty in planning and delay in projects. I hope this doesn't need much elaboration. It is only logical. If you know in advance what is going to happen over the next 5 years or so, you can start planning. You can plan your resources, plan your labor, plan the amount of construction that is going to go on in each State so each State will get far more for each dollar spent than they would get on just an extension. If we just get an extension, we are not going to have any new border program. I think the border States, many of them, should be the first ones down here to encourage that this bill be passed, particularly those who are affected by NAFTA traffic. We have a special provision in here that takes care of borders as well as corridors. In the absence of this, with just an extension, we are not going to have any of these provisions. Without the bill, we are going to have delay in the establishment of the national commission to score how to fund transportation in the future. We have been doing it the same way for many years. There are better ways of doing it. This bill establishes this commission to study what innovative suggestions might come from the States, ways we can do a better job of financing and getting private participation and get a lot more efficiency into the system. When you look at what we are faced with today, we have an unusually high price of gasoline. As a result of that, people are not driving as much. If we had a gas tax that was geared to a percentage basis, it would not make any difference. In fact, we would probably increase revenues. But that is not the way it is. It is just a number of cents per gallon, so if there are fewer gallons bought, then there is less money that goes into it. If we do not have a bill, if we just go on an extension, there will not be any opportunity to address the chokepoints at intermodal connectors. People think this is just a highway bill. They think back in the early days, back when Eisenhower, in World War II, was a major, he realized the inefficiencies we had in this country in transportation when he was trying to move troops and move military equipment around the country. When he became President, he drew upon that experience and established, for that reason, this National Highway System. This goes all the way back to the Eisenhower administration, but this goes further than it went at that time. Now we have chokepoints. A lot of people are not aware that my State of Oklahoma actually has a port. We have the port of Catoosa, about 10 miles from my home in Tulsa. But there are chokepoints in any transportation system. You can have a channel, air transportation, rail transportation; it has to marry up and be consistent with the movement on the roads. This bill does that. That is why we call it intermodal. Last, the firewall protection of the highway trust fund would not be continued, thereby making the trust fund vulnerable to raids in order to pay for other programs. In every State, all 50 States, we have experienced problems of people seeing an opportunity to steal money out of the trust fund and raid it, and they do it. They have certainly done it in my State of Oklahoma--not just the highway trust fund but other trust funds, too. I know there are many States that have their own individual highway trust fund where money is coming out of it. This is something we can protect at the national level by having firewalls. The firewalls are intact in this bill. There are a lot of reasons we have to do this other than just having a highway bill and getting more construction. We have had the opportunity to talk about the complexities of a formula and all the things that are in a formula. I believe it is worthwhile repeating some of them. Formulas are not just, Are you a large State or are you a small State? They take into consideration many things. There are the interstate maintenance programs that are a part of the formula, as are the interstate lanes, the number of miles to be maintained, your National Highway System miles-- that is part of the formula--the Surface Transportation Program, the total lane miles, the Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program, the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, which is very important. It has taken a lot of time in committee to come up with something on which we could agree. We have low-income States. Oklahoma is a low-income State. We have low-population States, such as Wyoming and Montana. We have low- population-density States. We have high-fatality-rate States. Everything I mentioned is part of the formula we are working on. We have guaranteed minimum growth States, where growth is very slow, but there is a factor that provides for a floor. We have guaranteed minimum rate of return donor States. All are part of the consideration of a very complex, very difficult formula that is the proper way to do it. Again, we have said several times in the last 3 days, it would have been a lot easier for Senator Bond and Senator Baucus and Senator Jeffords and myself to have put together a bill that did not have a formula; it just would do projects. But we elected not to do that in order to get the most miles for our money and to be the most fair with all 50 States. Our forefathers were great when they talked about putting together this system where you have the House and the Senate. One is on population, the other is geographic areas. It is our responsibility to be sure that each of these States is treated properly, is treated fairly. This bill has done that. The Senator from Indiana, Mr. Bayh, has the pending amendment on the floor. As I stated before, he has agreed to set his amendment aside as soon as there are any coming down. We have a list of about seven or eight amendments that different Members wish to offer. This is the time to offer them. As Senator Jeffords said, come on down. We want you to come down and offer it. You have much more time to spend on your amendments. You can explain them. We have all day today, and we need to have these amendments on the floor and considered. I know what is going to happen if we do not. We are going to get down toward the end of it. Who knows, there may be cloture invoked where you are almost out of time and everyone is going to be yelling and screaming and crying they didn't have adequate time to consider their amendments. So let me get on record right now and say you have adequate time. We invite you to come down and present your amendments for consideration. As I said, Senator Bayh has agreed to set his amendment aside should you come down and want an amendment considered. Come on down. We are open for business. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, right now the pending business is the Bayh amendment. I stress again that both Senator Jeffords and I are inviting anyone to come down with amendments they have. Senator Bayh has graciously agreed to set his aside for the consideration of any other amendments, and then we would go back to his amendment. So I would not want any Members who are watching the proceedings to believe they cannot get their amendment in. We do encourage them to bring their amendments down. I would hate to have all of these stacked up at the last minute. Now is the time to get consideration for amendments. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 568

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the pending Bayh amendment for the purpose of adopting an agreed-to amendment, the Talent amendment, and go immediately back to the Bayh amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me repeat one more time, we are going to be open for business, as we were today, tomorrow. We will invite people to come down. I want to get on the record right now, very often we go through this exercise and when we get close to the end of the consideration of the bill, when cloture has been filed, everyone comes running and screaming, saying they want to offer an amendment. Now is the time to do it. Members can bring them down anytime tomorrow. I certainly invite any Member to come down and offer the amendment tomorrow.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank Senators Shelby and Sarbanes because we cannot really entertain amendments that affect these titles until we have them done. We are anxious to get the other two titles on the bill. I will repeat our plea for people to come over with their amendments because the Senator from Indiana has agreed that he would set his amendment aside when people come down, with the understanding we would return to his amendment upon completion of those amendments. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me reemphasize to my friend from Indiana, as soon as this amendment is disposed of, we will return to the regular order, which is the pending Bayh amendment. This amendment, which was crafted on a bipartisan basis in the Senate Banking Committee, provides $51.6 billion to address growing public transportation needs across the country. It provides for record growth for public transportation and for the first time recognizes the growing needs in rural communities across the country, including my State and the State of the Presiding Officer, Oklahoma, which has a rural population of greater than 57 percent. In fact, in the final year of this bill, the rural transportation program is doubled over its TEA-21 levels. Additionally, it creates a new formula within the urbanized area formula called the ``Rural Low Density'' formula. Rural transit is as challenging to provide as the distances between employment centers and health care centers are great. This amendment also creates a formula to recognize ``growing States''--those locations which are forecast to grow more quickly than the average over the course of the next 15 years. This change will allow those States, which includes Oklahoma, to be proactive with regard to their transportation needs. Finally, this amendment makes several modifications to enhance the role of the private sector in public transportation. By creating opportunities for competition, public transportation services can be provided more efficiently. I am happy to have had the opportunity to work with Senator Shelby on the development of this amendment. I look forward to working with him on final passage and a successful conference report. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be agreed to, that the language be considered as original text as part of the substitute for the purpose of further amendment.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Shelby, I send an amendment to the desk, the Federal Public Transportation Act of 2005, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I will say this: It is unprecedented, that for 200 years there has never been a circuit court nominee by any President who had the majority support in the Senate to be filibustered. It never has happened until now. Exhibit 1 [From the LA Times, April 26, 2005] Nuke the Filibuster These are confusing days in Washington. Born-again conservative Christians who strongly want to see President Bush's judicial nominees voted on are leading the charge against the Senate filibuster, and liberal Democrats are born-again believers in that reactionary, obstructionist legislative tactic. Practically every big-name liberal senator you can think of derided the filibuster a decade ago but now sees the error of his or her ways and will go to amusing lengths to try to convince you that the change of heart is explained by something deeper than the mere difference between being in the majority and being in the minority. At the risk of seeming dull or unfashionable for not getting our own intellectual makeover, we still think judicial candidates nominated by a president deserve an up- or-down vote in the Senate. We hardly see eye to eye with the far right on social issues, and we oppose some of these judicial nominees, but we urge Republican leaders to press ahead with their threat to nuke the filibuster. The so-called nuclear option entails a finding by a straight majority that filibusters are inappropriate in judicial confirmation battles. But the Senate shouldn't stop with filibusters over judges. It should strive to nuke the filibuster for all legislative purposes. The filibuster debate is a stark reminder of the unprincipled and results-oriented nature of politics, as senators readily switch sides for tactical advantage. Politicians' lack of consistency on fundamental matters--the debate over the proper balance of power between Washington and the states would be another case in point--is far more corrosive to the health of American democracy and the rule of law than any number of Bush-appointed judges could ever be. For one thing, it validates public wariness about politicians professing deep convictions. Liberal interest groups determined to keep Bush nominees off the bench are in such a frenzy that they would have you believe that the Senate filibuster lies at the heart of all American freedoms, its lineage traceable to the Constitution, if not the Magna Carta. The filibuster, a parliamentary tactic allowing 41 senators to block a vote by extending debate on a measure indefinitely, is indeed venerable--it can be traced back two centuries. But it is merely the product of the Senate's own rule-making, altered over time; the measure was not part of the founding fathers' checks and balances to prevent a tyranny of the majority. The Senate's structure itself was part of that calculus. The filibuster is a reactionary instrument that goes too far in empowering a minority of senators. It's no accident that most filibusters have hindered progressive crusades in Washington, be it on civil rights or campaign finance reform. California's Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, one of those recent converts to the filibuster, embarrassed herself by hailing Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) as her inspiration at a pro-filibuster rally. At least Byrd is being consistent in his support--he filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A showdown is looking increasingly likely, though it isn't clear that all Republicans want this fight. Some of them realize they will again be in the minority someday and that the filibuster is a handy brake on the federal government's activism. If their caution prevails, or if Republicans take on the filibuster only in the narrow context of confirmation battles, we will happily weigh in again in the future, still on the anti-filibuster team.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, this is the third day we have been on a bill we have been working on for 2\1/2\ years. It is the same bill essentially that was passed last year by a margin of 76 to 21. We are anxious to get people to come down to the floor for amendments. I don't know of anyone coming down at this time. But I encourage all Members on both sides of the aisle to come down and utilize this time so we can get the amendments behind us. I understand the Senator from Illinois has some comments he wishes to make. I yield to him some of our time at this time.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, the chairman of the committee has advised me that they have been working on this bill for quite some time. As chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and author of the highway bill, I suggest there are titles of the bill that are not within the jurisdiction of my committee. One is the Finance Committee title. The title is not yet here, so we do not have that to consider at this time. I think it would be more appropriate later on, after we receive the title, to debate that in the normal process of legislation.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, as we said over and over again, I have a list of about eight amendments people have said they want to come down and offer. This is the third day now we have been inviting them to come down. So far only Senator Thune has brought his amendment in. We did adopt that amendment. I encourage others to come down. I think this could very well be considered by most people the most significant vote on a bill we will be considering on the floor this entire year. We want to make sure, while we have the time, that we give adequate consideration and time for the amendments that different Members may have. I invite them to come down at any time during this process. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I am anxious to yield the floor to the distinguished Senator from Indiana, who has an amendment to bring up at this time. But before doing that, I have sat and listened very carefully while Senator Hatch was talking about the constitutional option and the response from the Senator from Illinois. Sometimes you have to leave the individuals and hear what is being said outside this Chamber. I have a couple editorials I am going to read at this time. The first is from yesterday's Investors Business Daily. Granted, that is generally a fairly conservative publication, and the next editorial I will read certainly is not one that would be identified as even moderate or conservative. Investors Business Daily says: Rules of order: The Democrats would have us believe filibustering is a time-honored constitutional and Senate tradition. It's not. And it wasn't that long ago that they felt quite differently. A showdown now looms after Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee used their 10-8 majority to move the nominations of Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen for federal appeals court seats to the full Senate. Democrats threaten to filibuster these picks, Majority Leader Bill Frist threatens to employ the unfortunately named ``nuclear option'' restoring the quaint notion that 51 votes constitutes a majority, and Vice President Dick Cheney says he's willing to be the tie-breaking vote to ban filibusters of judicial nominees. Democrats are trying to portray GOP efforts to restore majority rule to the Senate as it relates to judicial nominations as an assault on the traditions of the Senate and the Constitution itself. As if the filibuster were James Madison's dying wish. As a practical matter, the filibuster didn't even exist until the 1830s, when it was used to block legislation and not judicial picks. It was used by Democrats to defend slavery and oppose the Civil Rights Act--hardly noble purposes. In 1841, the filibuster was used by Sen. John Calhoun to defend slaveholding interests. In 1957, then-Democratic Sen. Strom Thurmond held the floor for 24 hours straight to block civil rights legislation. And in 1964, 18 Democrats and one Republican blocked the Civil Rights Act for 2\1/2\ months. In 1916, Senator Robert La Follette, a Republican, used it to block legislation to let merchant ships arm themselves against German U-boats. This prompted the Senate in 1917, at the behest of President Wilson, a Democrat, to adopt the first cloture rule, rule XXII, requiring a two-thirds to end debate. This was amended 60 years later by none other than Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the Senate's constitutional guardian and conscience, who reduced it to a three-fifths requirement. In sum: For the first 200 years of our republic, Senate ``tradition'' never required 60 votes to approve judges. Filibusters are neither an idea of the Founding Fathers nor a historical tradition of the Senate. Cloture rules are a 20th century phenomenon, with the current rule less than 30 years old. Systematic filibustering of a president's appellate- court nominees is totally unprecedented. Democrats didn't always love the filibuster. In September 1999, in a debate over Clinton appellate-court nominees, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont thundered on the Senate floor: ``Vote them up or down! That is what the Constitution speaks of in our advise-and-consent capacity.'' An up-or-down vote, he said then, was a ``constitutional responsibility.'' The year before, none other than Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts solemnly intoned: ``We owe it to Americans to give these (judicial) nominees a vote. If our Republican colleagues don't like them, vote against them, but give them a vote.'' In 1995, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa proposed a plan to end filibusters identical to one now proposed by Frist. The Harkin plan was supported by 19 Democrats, including Sens. Kennedy, Barbara Boxer of California, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and John Kerry of Massachusetts. Harkin proposed to establish a declining vote requirement for cloture so that by the fourth cloture vote, a simple majority of the Senate would suffice to end debate and allow a floor vote on the matter at hand. In the Constitution, when the Framers intended more than simple majorities, they explicitly said so. For example, they require a two-thirds majority to convict in an impeachment trial, expel a member, override a presidential veto, approve a treaty or propose a constitutional amendment. Senate Democrats once opposed the filibustering of judicial nominees; they now support and rail against a ``nuclear option'' they once proposed themselves. Republicans should expose this hypocrisy, stop worrying and learn to love the bomb. I will not read the whole editorial from the L.A. Times, from yesterday. I will read the first two paragraphs, in deference to my good friend from Indiana. They said: These are confusing days in Washington. Born-again conservative Christians who strongly want to see President Bush's judicial nominees voted on are leading the charge against the Senate filibuster, and liberal Democrats are born-again believers in that reactionary, obstructionist legislative tactic. Practically every big-name liberal senator you can think of derided the filibuster a decade ago but now sees the error of his or her ways and will go to amusing lengths to try to convince you that the change of heart is explained by something deeper than the mere difference between being in the majority and being in the minority. At the risk of seeming dull or unfashionable for not getting our own intellectual makeover, we still think judicial candidates nominated by a president deserve an up- or-down vote in the Senate. We hardly see eye to eye with the far right on social issues, and we oppose some of these judicial nominees, but we urge Republican leaders to press ahead with their threat to nuke the filibuster. The so-called nuclear option entails a finding by a straight majority that filibusters are inappropriate in judicial confirmation battles. I ask unanimous consent that this entire editorial be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. INHOFE. It is my understanding the junior Senator from Missouri would like to have the floor for consideration of an amendment. But I will yield the floor at this time.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, the amendment of the distinguished Senator, it is my understanding, is one that has been in consideration in the Finance Committee. There is a freestanding bill called ``Stopping Overseas Subsidies Act of 2005.'' Is that correct?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I proudly rise to introduce The Natural Gas Production Act of 2005. One of the challenges facing our economy is increasing energy prices. Take, for example, natural gas that accounts for 22 percent of American energy consumption. According to the Energy Information Administration, over the next 20 years, U.S. natural gas consumption will increase by over 50 percent. At the same time, U.S. natural gas production will only grow by 14 percent. At a time when natural gas prices are already at an all time high, it is critical that we increase our supply by developing our domestic natural gas. This legislation will provide an incentive to increase the supply of domestically produced natural gas, which in turn will help alleviate high natural gas prices. The Natural Gas Production Act of 2005 will add natural gas produced from formations more than 15,000 feet deep (Deep Gas), to the list of qualifying fuels for the Section 29 non-conventional tax credit. Experts consider deep gas drilling at more than 15,000 feet to be a non-conventional source of energy production. Studies show the resource potential below 15,000 feet for natural gas is great. The Department of Energy's Strategic Center for Natural Gas has estimated there to be 130 trillion cubic feet below 15,000 feet in the lower 48. In comparison, that is equal to the proven and potential reserves on the Alaskan North Slope. While these vast reserves remain, very little production is occurring from depths greater than 15,000. Deep gas wells require a considerable amount of time and money. On average these wells cost more than $6.1 million, and for wells deeper than 20,000 feet costs can exceed $16 million. Add to that the minimum one-year and longer drilling time and you can clearly see that Federal drilling incentives are needed to help promote and speed production of this enormous potential resource. To drill a deep well, a drilling rig will employ about 25 people directly. In 1979, 128 deep well completions in Oklahoma created 2,630 jobs. In addition to direct jobs, economists estimate that 60 to 75 indirect jobs will be created as well. Due to changes in the regulatory governance of the industry and cyclical market conditions over the next two and one-half decades, deep drilling activity all across the country has declined substantially. I am introducing this legislation, along with Senator Vitter, today to encourage more domestic production in an area of proven reserves that will increase our supply. I thank Senator Vitter for his work and I urge members to support us in this effort. I ask consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. If you have any questions, please contact Mike Ference on my Staff at 224-1036.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent we now go into a period of morning business, where each Senator may speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

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