Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I was hoping the assistant majority leader would stay on the floor so I could tell him I was very pleased with what happened last night. I have dealt with the assistant majority leader and majority leader for several weeks now in an attempt to get an energy bill to the floor. I understand an agreement has now been announced that the majority leader and assistant majority leader will bring one to the floor. I started to say to Senator Reid, when I saw him walk out--I wanted him to be here so he could hear me compliment him on this action. I think it is critical. I believe we should have gone through an extensive committee markup. On the other hand, as the weeks go by and we get closer to adjournment, I think this would be an impossible thing to do at this point. Second, I am hoping when this bill comes to the floor--and there is now a commitment from Senator Daschle to bring it to the floor during this Congress, before adjournment--that we get it in time to be very deliberative, in time to consider all the amendments. I do not know what this energy bill will look like when it comes to the floor. I will read this now to make sure it is in the Record in case someone else hasn't done so: At the request of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman today suspended any further markup of energy legislation for this session of Congress. Instead, the chairman will propose comprehensive and balanced energy legislation that can be added by the majority leader to the Senate Calendar for potential action prior to adjournment. While it did not have a chance to go through the committee process, which I would have preferred, when it became apparent that it was not going to go through, I thought the next best thing was to go ahead and send it straight to the floor; let us work on it here. We need to put amendments on it. We need to be in a position where we are able to offer the amendments to make sure it has the necessary provisions to do something about an energy policy for the future. I do not say this in at all a partisan vein because I started, in the 1980s, trying to get the Reagan administration to have an energy policy. Then I tried to get the Bush administration, the Bush I administration, to have an energy policy for this Nation. They would not do it. I thought surely he would, coming in from the oil patch, but he did not. Then of course we tried during the Clinton administration, and they decided they were not going to do it. So this is our chance right now. As long as we have lip service, saying, yes, it is important; yes, it is important for our national security to have an energy policy, but not doing anything about it, we are doing a great disservice to our Nation. Here we are in two wars for all practical purposes right now. In Iraq you may have noted this morning another one of our Predators was shot down, and of course what is happening in our war on terrorism around the world. This is no time to be playing around with what is probably the single most important aspect of our ability to defend America, and that is our current reliance upon foreign sources for our ability to fight a war. When Don Hodel was Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Interior, back during the Reagan administration, he and I went around the Nation giving speeches as to why our dependence on foreign countries for our ability to fight a war is not an energy issue; it is a national security issue. We went, I remember, to New York and Chicago and different places to try to explain to people we cannot be dependent upon foreign sources for our oil and still be able to fight wars and defend America as the American people expect of us. At the time that Don Hodel and I went around the Nation, we were 37 percent dependent upon foreign sources for our ability to fight a war. Today that is now 56.6 percent. What I am saying is we are importing 56.6 percent of the oil we are using to run America and to fight wars. Today, in this current environment, it costs much more, in terms of amounts of oil, to fight a war than it did in the past. Of the 56.6 percent that we are dependent upon for our ability to fight a war--we have to say it in that way--half of that is coming from the Middle East. Do you know who the largest contributor to our dependency is, in the Middle East? It is Iraq. Here we are at war with Iraq. They just shot down one of our Predators, a third one, this morning. We are sending battle groups over there to defend America, sending them into combat situations with Iraq, yet we are dependent upon Iraq for our ability to fight a war against Iraq. That is preposterous. It is not believable that this could be happening. That is why I say we have to get out of this position. We have to establish a national energy policy that is comprehensive, that does have as one of its cornerstones the maximum that we are going to be dependent upon foreign sources for our ability to fight a war. And that is not just the Middle East; that is other parts of the world also. To be in a 56.6 percent dependency--and, incidentally, by the end of this decade, if we don't do something to dramatically change it, it is going to be 60 percent. That is 60 percent dependent upon foreign governments for our ability to fight a war. What happened last night is a major breakthrough because we now have the majority leader stating that he will have a comprehensive bill before us to vote on before we adjourn. That is major. We are going to have to consider all aspects. I don't want to see something coming down that is not comprehensive. It is going to have to talk about where our untapped resources are in this country. I can see right now all the lobby of the far left environmental extremists are going to say this is an ANWR bill. It is not an ANWR bill. Of the comprehensive bill, H.R. 4, from the House of Representatives, that passed--and that is the one we will probably go into conference with--out of 200 pages, only 2 pages talk about ANWR. That is a very minuscule part of it. It covers a lot of items. For example, we have untapped resources in the United States other than ANWR. We have some offshore opportunities, where we have tremendous reserves. I happen to be from the State of Oklahoma. We had huge stripper well production. When we talk about stripper wells, we are talking about small wells, shallow wells that only produce 15 or fewer barrels a day. But if you had producing today, right now, all of those stripper wells, or marginal wells that we have plugged in the last 10 years, then it would equal more oil than we are currently importing from Saudi Arabia. That shows it is out there. Why can't they do it? They can't do it because to lift a barrel of oil out of the ground, it costs us 10 times as much in the United States in marginal production as it does in Saudi Arabia, for example. So it is not the price of the oil so much as, when they make this decision as to whether or not to explore for these marginal wells, they have to have some idea of what the price of a barrel of oil is going to be when it is ultimately produced--and that will be a period of a year. We have jumped around from $8 to $35 a barrel in less than a year, so how can they predict that? That has to be included in a comprehensive energy policy so we can exploit all of these opportunities. The other day I was on a program with one of our well-respected Senators, and I made the comment almost in jest that you can't expect to run the most highly industrialized nations in the history of the world on windmills. He said, in fact, you can. He talked about this wind technology. Fine. We want to go after these other technologies and exploit other opportunities out there--hydroelectric, the sun, and the wind. But until that comes along, we have to look very seriously not just at oil and our dependency upon foreign nations but almost nuclear. I can remember back in the 1960s when people would protest nuclear plants. Now they realize there is a serious problem with the quality of our air. A lot of those people are saying: Let's go back and reexamine nuclear energy. No. 1, it is the cheapest; No. 2, it is the cleanest; and, No. 3, it is the most readily available. I think we should address that in a comprehensive energy policy. That is what I hope will be on the floor. We have something that is very significant. I am sure the American people, since the days of my going around the Nation with Don Hodel back in the 1980s, and since we went through a very large Persian Gulf war in 1990, now realize we can't be dependent upon the Middle East. That is the hotbed. That is where the problems are today. We are concerned about North Korea and Afghanistan and about many areas, but the Persian Gulf region is where there is a tremendous threat--yes, almost a terrorist threat. I commend the majority leader for making the agreement to bring up a comprehensive bill. But I am asking him, since it is in his lap--he is totally responsible for keeping his word on this--that he bring something to the floor early enough so we can go through the process, debate it, and have amendments. Then we can go to conference with the House. They have already passed theirs way ahead of us. We can come up with an energy policy, which we have been trying to get through. The President, I am sure, will be happy and anxious to sign it. He already stated that he would this year before we adjourn. It is something that we must do. It is something that is long overdue. But the opportunity is here today. I feel very strongly that this is an opportunity we cannot bypass. I commend the majority leader and am anxious to see what that product looks like. I hope we are able to work on that product and get it to conference so we get an energy policy and get it signed. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to be recognized to bring up an amendment. Prior to that, I yield no longer than 5 minutes to the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am going to reread that because this is very simple. This is not the comprehensive amendment I had which would have put H.R. 4 into the Defense authorization bill. There is no one in this Chamber who wants to have a Defense authorization bill more than I do. I will not jeopardize that. However, this amendment is simply a sense of the Senate on availability of energy-related supplies for the Armed Forces. It is the sense of the Senate that the Senate should, before the adjournment of the first session of the 107th Congress, take action on the comprehensive national energy security legislation, including energy production and energy conservation measures, to ensure there is an adequate supply of energy for the Armed Forces. The reason I am bringing this issue up is I cannot imagine that someone would not want to support it. Right now we are, as we all know--you have heard me say this many times--56.6-percent dependent upon foreign sources of oil for our ability to fight a war. Roughly half of that comes from the Middle East and the largest, fastest growing contributor to energy, to oil that is imported by the United States, is Iraq. So what we are saying is we are dependent upon Iraq for our ability to fight a war against Iraq. Now, that is insane. The very least we can do is recognize that energy is a national defense issue. So I ask for the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have asked to be recognized to bring up an amendment that is at the desk. However, in deference to the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Oregon, I have yielded them 5 minutes, but I want to retain my right to the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1735, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. INHOFE. Not to exceed 10 minutes. I amend my request.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I say to my friend from Delaware, that is exactly what this amendment does. It is a sense of the Senate to do exactly what he has suggested. I certainly think it would be appropriate at this time to include this sense-of-the-Senate amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I understand what the Senator from Nevada, the distinguished assistant majority leader, said. The problem is that we have been talking about this now--I personally, since the eighties when then-Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel and I would tour the Nation to explain to the Nation that our dependency on foreign sources of oil for our ability to fight a war was not an energy issue; it was a national security issue. At that time, we were 37-percent dependent on foreign sources of oil for our ability to fight a war. Now it is much more serious. We have gone through the 1990 Persian Gulf war. I think everyone realizes that. The problem I have is the statement of the Senator from Nevada that nothing is going to happen, that this is merely a sense of the Senate. I know the Chair has ruled it is not germane. I will not challenge that and put in jeopardy the Defense authorization bill. I don't want to do that. I only say this: Talk is cheap. We have been sitting around talking about it. The statement made by the Senator from Nevada is the same statement they made back in the 1980s and all during the 1990s. Every time we try to bring up an energy bill, they say: Yes, we all want it. Yet do they really want it? We will continue in our efforts. I will continue in such a way as to not jeopardize in any way the Defense authorization bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I don't know what the order is right now. The Senator from Delaware may have the floor. Is that correct?

Mr. INHOFE. I assure you, if you make the motion and the Chair rules it is not in order--I think if the Chair read it very carefully, it would be in order, but if it rules that it is not in order, I will not challenge the ruling of the Chair for obvious reasons. I do want as much as anyone in the Senate an authorization to pass, and pass quickly. I know if we had that motion and overruled the ruling of the Chair, that would open it up and it would be disaster and we would not get a bill. So I would not do that. I am not going to. I ask you not make that motion, but if you do make the motion, I encourage the Chair to realize and read--this is not the amendment I had before. This is merely directly relating to defense.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator withhold that motion for just a moment so I can ask a question?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, before we recessed subject to the call of the Chair, I called up amendment No. 1735. I want to read it again because, as I stated before, to even consider that our energy dependence upon foreign sources is not a defense issue I think is ludicrous. Instead of offering the long amendment, I have merely offered a sense-of-the-Senate amendment that says: Sense of Senate on Availability of Energy-Related Supplies for the Armed Forces.--It is the sense of the Senate that the Senate should, before the adjournment of the first session of the 107th Congress, take action on comprehensive national energy security legislation, including energy production and energy conservation measures, to ensure that there is an adequate supply of energy for the Armed Forces. I think the strongest point we can make about our dependency upon the Middle East is the fact that the most rapidly growing contributor to our energy supply in the Middle East, Iraq, is a country with which we are at war. It is absurd not to at least make this commitment as a sense of the Senate to get this done. I ask this amendment be agreed to.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Is the Senator aware that since back to and including the First World War the outcome of every war has been determined by energy? Is the Senator aware that we are now 56.7-percent dependent upon foreign countries for our ability to fight a war and that half of it is coming from the Middle East? And is the Senator aware that the largest increase in terms of our dependency on any one country is Iraq, a country with which we are in war right now?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have talked about the amendment that is under consideration, No. 1594. We have agreed to change it. I send to the desk the amendment, No. 1594, as modified.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes.

Mr. INHOFE. Amendment No. 1594.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have reached agreement on the amendment having to do with depot maintenance. We have made two modest changes from that which was introduced. One is, instead of sending it to the President in lieu of the service chiefs, it now goes to the Secretary of Defense. No. 2, it says we need to have the report from the Secretary of Defense as to the future use of depots. That is essentially it. It is agreed to, and I ask it be accepted.

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been trying to get an amendment up, amendment No. 1595. That is the Vieques amendment, not the energy amendment. And this somehow got in front of me.

Mr. INHOFE. I understand that. After that vote, could we then take up this amendment?

Mr. INHOFE. OK.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have amendment No. 1595 before the Senate. I am very distressed right now over some things that are happening. I have an amendment before the Senate that will change our relationship with and the understanding many people have concerning the island of Vieques. The island of Vieques has been a live range for us for over 50 years. It has had a very successful record. There has only been one civilian killed during that time period. Contrast that with a range in the State of Oklahoma. In the State of Oklahoma we have had a live range much longer than that, and we have lost eight civilians during that period of time--because of purely political reasons and in a lust for the votes and a mistaken notion that if you vote to close a range as a result of people who are protesting, breaking the law, people who are former terrorists, such as Mrs. Lebron, who led a bunch of terrorists into the House of Representatives many years ago and opened fire, wounding five of our Members of the House of Representatives, and others now protesting, trespassing on property that we own, property owned by the U.S. Navy, where we train our troops for their deployments from the east coast to the Persian Gulf. When we deploy battle groups to the Persian Gulf, those troops are going to see combat. The chances are better than 50-50 they will see combat. They have relied on this live-fire training for a long time. It has always been there. It is the only place we can do that type of training. We have had all kinds of committees to find another place that is just as good, but they cannot do it. The reason they cannot find a new range is because there has to be unified training: a battle group of aircraft carriers and the F-14s, F- 18s, using live munitions, bombing, and at the same time our Navy using live munitions, and at the same time our Marine expeditionary units going in under that live fire. For those of us in this room--and I do not know how many besides the two I am looking at have actually been in the service --there is a huge difference between inert and live ammunition. I can remember when I was in basic training. It is easy to crawl under that barbed wire when it is not real bullets, but when it is real ammunition, that is different. That is exactly what we have to have to train these people who are going off to the Persian Gulf. We have been unable to do it because of these protests. This is the first time in the history of America we have allowed a bunch of illegal protesters to change our policy. They will not be successful, but if they were successful, think about our other ranges. I have talked to the chiefs of every service. The Air Force is in desperate need of ranges right now. I have talked to people in Lawton, OK. There are 100,000 people who live right next to a live range, and a few of them said: All you have to do is protest and they close the range? There is a clear right and wrong. I have 2\1/2\ years of my life in this issue. I have been around the world. I have looked at every possible area where we could have an alternative training source. Some people say let us send the F-18s over there and let them go to England or some place and drop their loads. Let us train over here with live fire and let us let the marines train over in this area, and I was suggesting at least that notion to some of the Navy pilots that were on one of the--this is probably over a year ago--on one of the aircraft carriers on which they were supposed to be training, and he said, well, wait a minute, that is like having the very best football players you can have anyplace in the world; you have the best quarterback, the best halfback, the best defense but they never scrimmage together. So what happens on the day of the opening game? They lose it. They have to train together. Now, people say you get the same training with inert. You do not get the same training with inert, but when we allowed that bunch of illegal trespassers to take us out of live fire and put us in inert, we lost five American lives. Did we lose these lives because of that? Yes, we did. They had to go over and they were trying to carry out an exercise in Kuwait. It did not work, and six people died, five of whom were Americans. I have the investigation. It shows clearly those individuals who were unable to have live fire training--they had inert training on Vieques but not live fire training. There is a huge difference. Talk to anyone in the Navy who has to handle those live missiles. When they are deploying them, when they are handling live ordnance, it is a big difference from inert. Anyway, we have already lost that many, and I am hoping we will be able to resolve this problem. Senator Corzine is going to offer an amendment if I bring up my amendment. It is a second-degree amendment, and that amendment would have the effect of killing what I am trying to do. That would make it so we would not have a range to practice at or to train on on these deployments from the east coast. I have had to think long and hard about this as to whether or not it is better not to have an amendment at all and resolve this problem in conference, or whether we go ahead and succumb to the second-degree amendment. I say to Senator Corzine, I think the votes are there to pass his amendment. If we did that, we would be closing the range and at the same time we would be giving that responsibility to the President on a year-by-year basis. If one stops and thinks about the 200-and-some ranges we have, if the President had to go through and debate this every year as to whether or not to allow that range to stay open as a live range, he would not have time to do anything else. That would not work. Secondly, that puts politics right back in it. My amendment is a good amendment. It said call off the referendum. We should never have had a referendum. Then it says we will use the range we own--and at this very time we are in the middle of war--to train our troops until such time as both the CNO of the Navy and the commandant of the Marine Corps certify we do not need it. Those are military people. They are not political people. I have this gnawing feeling that the way this is worded I would lose that amendment, and rather than have the Corzine language in there, we are far better off not to have any language at all. I regrettably say I think we will end up in the same situation as we would be if we passed this amendment, or if we did not pass it or if we just left it like it is in conference. As we speak, in Puerto Rico they are considering a resolution. That resolution says we, Puerto Ricans, as proud American citizens with the same responsibilities as our brethren in the continental United States, have the obligation of contributing to this fight, allowing and supporting military training and exercises in the island municipality of Vieques. This may not pass. It is being debated right now. But certainly there is a very large number of people saying--and that number is much larger today after September 11 than it was before--we are American citizens first. We have to train our people and we have to train them with quality training so they do not lose their lives when they get over to the Persian Gulf. That is my situation. That is the dilemma that we have right now.

Mr. INHOFE. I will be glad to yield.