Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. INHOFE. I have no objection.

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will yield, we should emphasize we will not have more 38-minute votes. It could help the situation to be prepared for perhaps two more votes, if that is necessary.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. It is my understanding Senator Dorgan is here and will speak. If he could confine his remarks to less than 10 minutes, we would have no objection to accepting his amendment.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have the managers' amendments that we have talked about for a long period. I ask unanimous consent that they be agreed to.

Mr. INHOFE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the cloture motion on the bill and then ask the bill be read for a third time.

Mr. INHOFE. I would like to engage the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Voinovich, on the intent of his amendment regarding the preservation of parks, recreation areas, wildlife and waterfowl refuges, and historic sites. The amendment would require the Secretary, when making a finding of de minimis impact, to consider all ``avoidance, minimization, mitigation, and enhancement measures'' that have been incorporated into the project. Could you explain how this provision would be implemented?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Why did they have them if they weren't wanting to use them at some point?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, is the Senator aware that 13 months ago they found 11 chemical rockets with warheads that would hold 140 liters of any kind of chemical? They found with that VX gas enough to load these 11 rockets. Subsequent to that they found 36 more. That is 47. Each rocket, with 140 liters of VX gas, can kill a million people; is the Senator aware of that? Would the Senator call that a weapon of mass destruction?

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the summary of the Finance Committee's highway trust fund proposal.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, may I make a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. INHOFE. Which of the two distinguished Senators from Virginia has the floor?

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, as always, the Senator from Virginia was very courteous yesterday to modify his amendment to give States more time to comply with the requirements of his amendment. I sincerely appreciate his willingness to do so. Unfortunately, my underlying concern with imposing sanctions still requires that I oppose the amendment. Two days ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a statement on sanctions and withholding Federal funds from States which do not have a primary seatbelt law. The statement reads as follows, and I quote: The Bush Administration's continuing efforts to increase local enforcement and education have boosted safety belt use to the highest level in U.S. history. The Administration opposes sanctions and withholding state funds, both of which would jeopardize important state-level safety programs and infrastructure maintenance programs already in place. The Administration is working hard to help pass primary safety belt laws throughout the country, and we're seeing results. Twenty states and the District of Columbia already have primary laws. And many other states, including Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, Arizona and Virginia are currently considering primary laws--with our help, not with mandates. The Administration calls on Senator Warner to join us in helping Virginia state legislators understand the need for a primary safety belt use law. As I said yesterday, I support the use of seatbelts, and I would suggest that instead of threatening the states with a stick the better approach would be to induce them to achieve better performance in this area with some kind of incentive. Title IV, Surface Transportation Safety, of the pending substitute, contains an incentive grant program. As proposed by the Commerce Committee, this $100 million per year incentive grant provision would go a long way to achieving the goals that I believe my colleague from Virginia is trying to accomplish in his amendment. Offering incentive grants to States that pass a primary seatbelt law or increase their seatbelt use rate is a much better approach to this problem than combination of mandates and penalties. History has also shown that so far, no State has been able to achieve the benchmark level of a 90 percent seatbelt use rate without enacting a primary law. Ultimately we all know that the decision to pass a primary law is up to each state individually. Although neither a sanction, nor an incentive approach is guaranteed to prod every State to produce results, the incentive method is the much better option. In a bill where money is tight, I am grateful that the Commerce Committee saw fit to apply some of those limited funds to this purpose. With that in mind, I question what the benefit would be of having both an incentive and a penalty, where just an incentive would do. Currently, only 20 of the 50 States meet the requirements laid out in the mandate offered by the good senator from Virginia. I can't get over the fact that 30 States would be immediately thrust into noncompliance and subject to a possible cut in Federal funding under this plan. As I have said before, my home State of Oklahoma is already in compliance with the requirements proposed in this new sanction, but I fundamentally oppose any imposition of new sections. As much as I personally agree with using seatbelts, I have to recognize that the only proper place for this decision to be made is in each State legislature, not in Washington, DC. Mr. President, I move to table the Warner amendment No. 2286, as modified, and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, could you repeat this unanimous consent request?

Mr. INHOFE. I object.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. INHOFE. I think we are in a highly charged political season right now. Everyone is talking about this, and the subliminal picture that is trying to be painted here is that somehow this President may have not known something he should have known or knew something and he didn't act appropriately. Let us remember what David Kay said. He said, when he came in, we all thought there were weapons of mass destruction. We acted accordingly. And, quite frankly, I contend there were weapons of mass destruction. I asked him that question. I don't think either one of the two Senators in the Chamber--I am about to finish my question--were at that hearing. I asked him this question: I said, If in January, 13 months ago, they found 11 chemical rockets with a capacity of a warhead of 140 liters, and they had enough VX on hand to do that, and that one chemical rocket with 140 liters of VX could kill a million people, and subsequent to that, 3 months later, they found 36 more--that is 47 weapons of mass destruction that were found--I asked him: Aren't they truly weapons of mass destruction? He said: Well, yes, if they put the chemicals in the warheads. The other thing people keep talking about, What did they know or what did they not know about a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. That should have been put to rest about a month ago when there was a leak to the Weekly Standard. They specifically drew that connection and said, yes, in fact, there is a connection. In fact, two of the passports of the pilots were gotten by Saddam Hussein and his people. Just this morning in the New York Times there is an article stating the connection is there. This is the New York Times, not a Republican operation. It says: ``Found, Smoking Gun.'' That is the name of this article. We are enjoying this very much, but the political season is on us. I hope we will keep cool heads and do the best we can to improve our intelligence. Right after September 11 we had the bicameral commission look at this. We came a long way. I ask the assistant leader if that is not correct.