Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. 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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the adoption of amendment No. 4979, as amended, the following amendments be reported by number, called up, and agreed to en bloc: Isakson No. 5075; Sanders No. 5063, as modified; Cochran No. 5076; Paul No. 5068; Cardin No. 5069; Hoeven No. 5074, as modified; Tester No. 5077; and Sasse No. 5066, as modified.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, I will be very brief. What we just passed is a major bill. It took a lot of effort from a lot of people. Many times the Members get more credit than they should because the real heroes are the ones who are back there doing the work. I want to thank the staff who are responsible for the hours and a lot of late nights. I want to thank my chief of staff, Adrienne Jackson, as well as Alex Herrgott. They do a lot of late night work on these things, as well as many on the other side. In the case of Alex Herrgott, who was driving this thing, he has been doing this for me for over a dozen years. We have had a lot of successes. I also wish to recognize Susan Bodine, who is sitting right here. She is a long-time WRDA expert, going back to 2 years ago when we had the WRDA bill, in 2014. She actually worked on WRDA on the House side for 11 years. I thank, as well, Charles Brittingham. These are the two who actually spent the time on my side of the aisle who put in the hardest and the longest hours. He was originally on loan to me from Senator Vitter, but now he is a full member of the EPW Committee. Few, if any, have better expertise on the core operation than Charles. I want to thank Joe Brown for his long hours, as well as Jennie Wright and Andrew Neely for their work on the Oklahoma priorities on this bill, along with Carter Vella and Amanda Hall. I want to thank Jason Albritton and Ted Illston on Senator Boxer's staff for their hard work with my team, and I thank Bettina Poirier, as always, for the hard work she did. I thank the hard-working Aurora Swanson at CBO. We really put the burden on CBO. They had to respond immediately on short notice in order to get this done. Everyone said it was going to be impossible during this work period, but she played a major part in that. I also recognize the scoring and work that was necessary from the Senate legislative counsel Deanna Edwards, Maureen Catreni, and Gary Endicott. Finally, I thank Neil Chatterjee for his work from the leader's office. It was very, very helpful. Of course, I already mentioned the hard work of my colleague Senator Boxer for making this bill a reality. It was a project that couldn't have been done any other way with any other people, and I am proud to have that behind us now. With that, I will yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me say that I agree with my friend from Wyoming that we must not allow bills to move forward that are not fully paid for, but this is not the case for the substitute. What we are talking about right now is the Inhofe-Boxer substitute, which would become S. 2848. But let me be clear. The substitute, S. 2848, does not add to the debt or the deficit, which CBO has verified. The issue with this point of order involves a disagreement between the Senate Budget Committee rules and the CBO as it relates to the ATVM spending offset used. While CBO gives us credit for rescinding it, the Budget Committee does not. The fact is that when we reported this bill out of committee in April, CBO verified that the rescission of spending authority for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program generates $300 million in real savings to the U.S. Treasury. In this substitute, we are taking those funds from a program that many believe is wasteful and unnecessary and we redirect the funds toward a crisis across the Nation that involves failing and outdated critical infrastructure, which we address in this bill. Another issue is that the Budget Committee is concerned that the substitute is not budget neutral over 5 years based on how ATVM loan authority is rescinded. However, over a 10-year budget window, CBO says we actually reduce the deficit. The Budget Committee does not want to count the rescission of an unnecessary ATVM program as real money because of how it was authorized, but the fact remains that it is real money and will be used to offset other spending if not used now--or at some other time--for this urgent and real need. After the 90-to-1 cloture vote yesterday to end debate on this bill and a voice vote to adopt this fully paid for substitute, I urge Members to waive this budget point of order, which I will make at the appropriate time. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of amendment No. 4979, as amended, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, right now the reason there is this long wait is we are trying to get everything in place to pass a major piece of legislation, one that is quite significant. It is comparable to our Transportation bill, comparable to our TSCA bill on chemicals, and it is one that came out of our committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee. It is one I am very proud we were able to get done. Yesterday I talked about the WRDA bill and why it is so important to pass now, the WRDA bill being the water infrastructure bill. It gives recent real-world examples of the problems our Nation is facing and how this legislation can address them. Today I remind everyone of the process that got us here today. I think it is important because people are saying we don't go through the daylight very often, where everybody has a chance to participate-- everybody. We are in that process right now. Back in December of last year, Senator Boxer and I sent our ``Dear Colleague'' out to Members letting them know we were going to do a WRDA bill--Water Resources Development Act--in 2016. This was back in 2015, in December. Well, before the introduction of our bill and our markup in the EPW Committee, we sent out another email asking Members about their priorities, and we got them. We marked up WRDA on April 28, 2016. That means we actually worked on it for 4 months prior to that time, taking up the priorities that people were sharing with us. We then let all offices know once again that we were preparing to go to the floor with the goal of passing WRDA in the Senate before the August recess. Well, that didn't happen, but my staff continued to work over the August recess with offices on their priorities, and we brought a substitute amendment that was the result of that work to the full Senate on September 8. That was on a Thursday, and we announced that we were going to close the amendments and that everyone should get amendments to us that could be included in the managers' amendment by noon the next day--the next day being Friday--and they did that. That amendment included over 40 provisions that were added after the committee mark. That is a lot of daylight. Finally, last week I came to the floor to let everyone know that Senator Boxer and I needed to see all the amendments by noon of last Friday if they wanted them to be considered in the managers' amendment. To date, we have included hundreds of the WRDA priorities from Senate offices, which are included in the substitute, and we were able to clear over 40 additional provisions this weekend. That is just from those that came in prior to noon on Friday. So we had 40 additional provisions just as a result of that. We hope to adopt that by voice vote today. I say hopefully, but I think people are pretty much in agreement that can happen now. Everyone has had a chance. By the way, when we adopt that, we can entertain other amendments, and we will work with Members on those amendments. This has been a very open and collegial process, and all Members have had their concerns and priorities heard. We have done our best to address Member priorities. And after we are on the bill, we will continue to do our best to clear germane amendments--only germane amendments. What we have in front us is a bipartisan bill that will help us modernize our water transportation infracture and keep up with flood protection and environmental restoration needs around the country. The problems the WRDA bill addresses are not State or regional problems, they are problems that face the Nation as a whole. It is clear that people are frustrated with the current political climate. Passing WRDA is a chance for us to start to regain the trust of the American people and prove to them we can do our job and get things done. I often refer to the EPW Committee that I chair as the committee that gets things done. And we do. So far we have been very successful. We passed the highway bill. Many people were saying: You will never pass a highway bill, a 5-year bill of that magnitude. Yet we did. That hadn't been done since 1998, so it ended 17 years of stagnation. Then we passed the TSCA bill. Everyone said: You are not going to get that. Remember, that was the Frank Lautenberg bill that he had worked on for quite a number of years. We said: Well, we are going to get it done. We got it done. Senator Boxer and I do not always see eye to eye. She is one of the most liberal Members of the Senate and I am one of the most conservative Members of the Senate. But we have shown over a period of time, time and time again, that when we work together on an issue, we can accomplish our goal. Now we have the WRDA bill before us--something we have both worked very hard on and a bill we are very proud of. So I am here today to say not passing the WRDA bill is not an option. There is just too much at stake. If we don't pass the WRDA bill, 29 navigation, flood control, and environmental restoration projects will not get done. If we don't pass it, there will be no new Corps reforms to let local sponsors improve infrastructure at their own expense. We would think there would be an easy time getting something through, where we were going to spend somebody else's money, but this has been difficult. Now we are able to do that--let local sponsors take and improve their infrastructure at their own expense. If we don't do this, there will be no FEMA assistance to States to rehabilitate unsafe dams, there will be no reforms to help communities address clean water and safe drinking water infrastructure mandates. This is very significant to those of us in Oklahoma and to any of the other smaller populated rural States because the communities cannot afford the unfunded mandates. That is what this is all about. Those mandates come from the clean water and safe drinking water infrastructure. Without this, there would be no new assistance for innovative approaches to clean water and drinking water, and there would be no protection for coal utilities from runaway coal ash lawsuits. As I have reminded as we have gone through this process, the bill is tremendously important. It is time to do our job and do what we were sent to do. We have that chance now. This afternoon we need to agree-- and we can do this by voice vote--to adopt the managers' amendment, and then we can consider any other amendments. There may not be that many. There is no reason in the world we can't pass the bill through final passage by noon tomorrow. That is our effort. We are going to try to make it happen. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendment be called up: Inhofe-Boxer No. 5042, as modified, with the changes at the desk.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on this amendment.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this is a very significant piece of legislation. What we just now moved forward on is the managers' amendment. Senator Boxer and I are the managers. I want to, first of all, compliment her for working very hard with us and our staff. I mean, they really did drill on this thing. So it is a major bill. We are supposed to have a WRDA bill, or the Water Resources Development Act, every 2 years. We went through a 7-year period from 2007 to 2014. Now we are back on schedule. I am happy to say that we are on schedule now to get this passed tomorrow. We are going to stay on a 2-year schedule. Senator Boxer did a great job. It was great teamwork. We have moved a long way. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, before I make a very brief comment, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for such time as I may consume.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are going to have a vote here shortly, and it is going to be one of the major, significant votes. First of all, I know the occupier of the Chair is very aware of the things we have been doing in the committee called Environment and Public Works. Most of the stuff we have been doing is very meaningful, including the highway bill, the chemical bill, and now the WRDA bill. These are all things that have to be done. Last week I talked about the WRDA bill and why it is important to pass it now. Just to take a look at some of the major news stories from the past few months, earlier this summer we saw algae wash up on the beaches of Florida. This is a problem that will have significant impact on the health of Floridians, as well as negatively impacting Florida's biggest industry--tourism. The WRDA bill 2016 has a solution to the problem. We have a project that will fix Lake Okeechobee to prevent this problem in the future. I know a little bit about this because a lot of people are not aware that in my State of Oklahoma we have more miles of freshwater shoreline than any of the 50 States. That is because most of them are manmade lakes. They have a dam down here with lots of shoreline going around them, but, nonetheless, I had a personal experience with what they call blue-green algae. You think you are on your deathbed when you are there. This chart behind me shows a plume in St. Lucie, FL. It is a picture of an algae plume caused by deteriorating water conditions. Not only are these plumes environmentally hazardous, but they also are economically debilitating to communities living along South Florida's working coastline. Communities along the coast depend on clean, freshwater flows to drive tourism. Just weeks ago, we saw historic flooding in Baton Rouge, LA, and we have seen communities destroyed and lives turned upside down. In this WRDA bill, there are two ongoing Corps projects that will prevent the damages we saw. WRDA 2016 directs the Corps to expedite the completion of these projects. The second chart shows the flooding in Baton Rouge, LA. We can no longer use a fix-as-it-fails approach as it concerns America's flood control. There is just too much on the line. We are not just talking about economic loss but devastating floods. We have all seen that, experienced that, and we are talking about loss of human life. So this is not an option. Last year there were several collisions in the Houston Ship Channel. Due to a design deficiency, the channel is too narrow and the Coast Guard has declared it to be a precautionary zone. The Houston Ship Channel collision in 2015 was a serious one, and without this bill, the navigation safety project to correct this problem will not move forward. Last week I spoke about what we will lose if we don't pass this important legislation. There are 29 navigation flood control and environmental restoration projects that will not happen. There will be no new Corps reforms to let local sponsors improve infrastructure at their own expense. I am talking about this for a minute because this is significant. They are willing to spend their own money and yet it is not legal for them to do. We correct that. There will be no FEMA assistance to States to rehabilitate unsafe dams. There will be no reforms to help communities address clean water and safe drinking water infrastructure mandates. This is something that those of us from rural States--in my State of Oklahoma, we have a lot of small communities, and there is nothing that horrifies them more when they have an unfunded mandate. They say we are going to have to treat the water and it is going to cost $14 million. They don't have any access to that kind of money. I suggested last week that there are a lot of similar problems. So this goes a long way to correcting these unfunded mandates. When I was mayor of Tulsa, the biggest problem we had was unfunded mandates. Without this bill, there will be no new assistance for innovative approaches to clean water and drinking water needs, and there will be no protection for coal utilities from runaway coal ash lawsuits. We will be addressing this and recognizing that there is a great value to coal ash if properly used. These are not State problems or even regional problems, but what we have is a bill that addresses problems faced by our Nation as a whole. To reiterate how important this bill is, I want to give a few more real examples to show how the problems we are facing now are affecting our citizens, the people who sent us here, and in Washington, this is what we are supposed to be doing. The water resources of this bill expand our economy and protect infrastructure and lives by authorizing new navigation, flood control, and ecosystem restoration projects, all based on a recommendation from the Corps of Engineers and a determination that the projects will provide significant national benefits. The Corps has built 14,700 miles of levees that protect billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure and homes. These are referred to as high-hazard dams or high-hazard levees, and that definition means that if something happens to one, people will die. It is not saying people will be hurt; people are going to die. We have many examples of that so the Corps projects nearly $50 billion a year in damages. Many of these levees were built a long time ago and some have failed just recently. Chart 4 is the Iowa River levee breach. If that doesn't tell the story, the significance of this--this is a levee in Iowa that was overtopped and eventually breached by disastrous floodwaters. In many cases, levees like this one were constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers decades ago but no longer meet the Corps' post-Katrina engineering and design guidelines. WRDA 2016 will end the bureaucratic nightmare local levee districts face by allowing them to increase the level of flood protection most of the time at their own expense when the Corps is rebuilding after a flood--something they can't do now. Let's look at the economic benefits of investing in our Nation's port and inland waterway system. We need to invest in our ports and inland waterway system to keep the cost of goods low. If we don't do that, costs will go up, and of course we want to keep creating good-paying jobs. WRDA 2016 has a number of provisions that will ensure we grow the economy, increase our competitiveness in the global marketplace, and promote long-term prosperity. These provisions include important harbor-deepening projects, such as those in Charleston, SC; Port Everglades, FL; and Brownsville, TX. Take Charleston as an example. They have a 45-foot harbor. Now that they have expanded the Panama Canal and we have the boats called Panamax vessels going through--those are the great big vessels, and this poster gives you an idea of what can be carried on those. The problem with the Panamax vessels is that they take up 50 to 51 feet in the harbor. What happens to Charleston, SC, if they have the big vessels coming through the Panama Canal, coming up to come into our harbors in the United States, they have to instead go into one of the harbors in the Caribbean and divide up the containers. It is very expensive. That is just one of several of the harbors we are working on. Everyone knows the Corps' maintenance budget is stretched thin, but WRDA 2016 comes up with a solution. This is a solution that we have in the bill we will be voting on, and we will have the major vote tonight. In the WRDA bill, we will let local sponsors, such as ports, either give money to the Corps to carry out the maintenance or get in and start maintaining using their own dollars. That is something you would think they could do now, but they can't. That is in this bill. That was the major thing the ports were pushing for in this bill. What about in communities? I mentioned that in my State of Oklahoma, we have a lot of rural towns that don't really have the resources to do a lot of these things in the form of mandates. The bill provides Federal assistance to communities facing unaffordable EPA safe water and clean water mandates. WRDA 2016 targets these Federal dollars to those who need it the most. I know that years ago when I was the mayor of Tulsa, that was the biggest concern we had, and it is even more of a concern in these small communities. So we do it by having assistance for smaller, disadvantaged communities, with priority for underserved communities that lack basic water infrastructure; assistance for lead service line replacement, with a priority for disadvantaged communities; and assistance to address the very costly sewer overflow system. It is worth noting that all the money in this bill is either subject to the Budget Control Act caps that govern the annual appropriations bills or is fully offset. This is an introduction to economics. By passing this legislation and securing the appropriate funding, we can improve economic opportunities for all Americans. This is a critical moment. We must get back to regular order, passing WRDA every 2 years. We went through a period in 2007--we didn't have a WRDA bill following that until 2014. The year 2014 was the last time we did it. We decided then that if we are supposed to do it every 2 years, then starting in 2014, we are going to do it. The best evidence of that is that we are going to do it tonight. So we will have a 2016 budget. Doing this will help us modernize the water transportation infrastructure through flood protection and environmental restoration around the country. The process we follow in this is very open. I think one of the reasons we have been successful in our committee doing the Transportation bill, the chemical bill, and now this bill, is because everybody knows what is going on and they have time to determine what is the best thing for their State. Way back on December 9, we sent this bill from the committee to all Members of the Senate saying: We are going to do the WRDA bill, so go ahead and start working on amendments. They did that, and then, of course, for the last few weeks, we have been talking about getting amendments down to the floor, and we have done that. We brought a substitute amendment that was a result of that work to the full Senate on September 8. That amendment included over 40 provisions that were added after the committee markup. Finally, last week I came to the floor and let all of you know that Senator Boxer and I needed to see your amendments by noon on Friday for the managers' package. By noon on Friday, we had amendments in. We considered some 35 provisions, and we have addressed most of these--I think to some degree all of them. Now those provisions are in the Inhofe-Boxer amendment that we filed today and hope to get consent to adopt shortly after the cloture vote tonight. This has been a very open and collegial process, and all Members have had their concerns and priorities heard. We have done our best to address Members' priorities. After cloture this evening, we will continue to do our best to clear germane amendments until final passage this week. I am very excited that we are going to be able to get this done. A lot of people sit back and say that nothing ever gets done in Washington. I have to say that in our committee we get things done, and we are going to get this done tonight. With that, I yield the floor. 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. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 12, 2016, at 5 p.m., to hold a classified briefing entitled ``The Failed Coup in Turkey and the Future of U.S.-Turkish Cooperation.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, we have a couple of votes coming up that are very significant, and the occupier of the chair is fully aware of it, having served on the committee that has worked on this legislation. I have to say one thing about the stuff we crank out of our Environment and Public Works Committee, and that is that it has been pretty significant. We had the FAST Act, the first highway reauthorization bill in 17 years, which was a major one. Then we did the chemical bill, which was great, and now we are going to do the WRDA bill. One of the things that is interesting about it is the number of ports we are talking about. I often prided Tulsa as being the most inland port; however, it could conceivably be that Omaha may be giving us competition. Nonetheless, it gives you an idea of the significance of this legislation. Yesterday I talked about what would happen if this legislation doesn't become a law this year. If that happens, 29 navigation, flood control, and environmental restoration projects will not happen. There will be no new Corps reforms to let sponsors improve infrastructure at their own expense. There will be no FEMA assistance to States to rehabilitate unsafe dams. There will be no reforms to help communities address clean and safe drinking water infrastructures, which is a serious problem in my State of Oklahoma. There will be no deal on the coal ash, which has plagued the coal utilities for years with lawsuits. Finally, we have a very difficult issue that we have dealt with to most people's satisfaction, and so we want to get this done in fast order, and today is a very important day in accomplishing that. Here are some other reasons why the bill is so important. The bill gets us back to every 2 years. At one time when the first WRDA came out--and I was there when it happened--we were supposed to have a Water, Resources, and Development Act every 2 years, but then we started slipping. During the last 8 years, prior to our coming back as a majority, we really didn't address this issue. This puts us back into our schedule of doing it every 2 years. These reforms can't wait any longer. Secondly, we have recently been reminded several times of the need for Corps projects. We saw the algae wash up on the beaches in Florida this summer. The project that will fix Lake Okeechobee and prevent this problem in the future is in WRDA 2016. I generally don't like everglades projects. In fact, I can remember-- it wasn't that many years ago--when I was the only one voting against the Everglades Restoration Act. However, let's keep in mind that at that time there was not a chief report on it, and now that there is, we have something very significant that does affect that. This chart shows the algae blooms in St. Lucie, FL. This is a picture of the algae blooms, which were caused by deteriorating water conditions. Not only are these blooms environmentally hazardous, but they are also economically debilitating to the communities living along south Florida's working coastline. Communities along the coast depend on clean, fresh waterflows to draw in tourism. As these blooms spread along the coast, economic development is negatively impacted. If we don't authorize the Central Everglades Planning Project, those communities will cease to exist. We also saw historic flooding in Baton Rouge, LA. There are two ongoing Corps projects that could have prevented much of the damage that we saw last month. WRDA 2016 directs the Corps to expedite the completion of these projects. This chart shows the Baton Rouge, LA, flooding. We can no longer use the ``fix as it fails approach'' as America's flood protection. It is not about economic losses that communities face after a devastating flood; it is about loss of human lives. We are talking about human lives, and not acting is just not an option. Last year there were several collisions in the Houston Ship Channel because of the design deficiency. The channel is too narrow, and the Coast Guard has declared it to be a precautionary zone. This chart shows the Houston Ship Channel collision that happened in 2015. Without this bill, the navigation safety project to correct this issue will not move forward. The Corps of Engineers projects that these projects help generate $109 billion in annual economic development and generate $32 billion in revenue for the U.S. Treasury. Few understand the economic benefits associated with WRDA. As I noted yesterday, expansion of the Panama Canal is complete, now allowing the larger--I think they call them the post-Panamax boats--to pass through the canal. Look at the comparison of the two vessels. This is what they can use today, and that is what is happening now. This chart shows the pre- and post-Panamax ships. By not passing this bill, many of the important deepening projects for our nations will go unfunded, making it difficult for them to accommodate new Panamax shipping vessels. One port that I pointed out yesterday was Charleston, SC. They have a 45-foot channel. With this bill, they will now be able to get to the 50- to 51-foot channel range that is necessary for this ship to be able to come in. The alternative to that is going somewhere in the Caribbean so they can break down these loads and put them on smaller ships. That increases the costs dramatically, and we are not going to allow that to happen. The investments in drinking water and other investments are important, but let's not forget the fact that there are ports we can't use right now because they can't accommodate the big ships. The investments in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure will benefit both public health and our economy. Earlier I mentioned that this is really significant for my State of Oklahoma. We have States that are not wealthy States and are primarily rural areas, and the unfunded mandates that come in are just unbearable. I say this from experience. I used to be mayor of a major city, Tulsa, OK, for a number of years. At that time our biggest problem was unfunded mandates, and that is what we are separating from today. We can pretty much correct that with the changes we are making in our WRDA bill. A recent study by the Water Environment Federation shows, just as this chart shows, that for every million dollars of Federal spending on drinking water and clean water infrastructure, we get $2.95 million in economic output for the U.S. economy. Due to the ripple effect through the economy, these investments will result in new Federal tax revenues nearly equal to infrastructure investments. That is why we need to pass the WRDA bill now, and we have it in front of us today. It is a bill that will help protect America's working people and has major economic benefits. The main reason I wanted to come to the floor--this is the second time that we have made this. It is not a mandate. It is just that the managers of this bill--that is Senator Boxer from California, the leadership, and I--all agree that in order to finally get people to bring their amendments to the floor, we need to have a deadline, which will be noon tomorrow. We ask that you get your amendments down here this afternoon. We are talking about amendments to the managers' package. We will not be able to consider those not in our package. That doesn't mean we are shutting them off because next week we will have the opportunity to present some, but if you want to have them seriously considered, they need to be in our package. This should come as no surprise, as our committee had asked for any and all amendments in July, prior to the August recess, in preparation for consideration in September. Last week, the Inhofe-Boxer substitute to S. 2848 was circulated, and our office stands ready to assist in any technical capacity in answering questions. I have to say that Senator Boxer and I have worked very closely together. There are a lot of amendments that have come up and have been discussed. Some have been accepted, and others are being considered. Some are popular with Democrats but not Republicans, and the reverse is also true. This is our opportunity to do it. If Members are unable to make the noon deadline tomorrow for our managers' package, we will still work to ensure that all amendments receive equal consideration as we work to clear as many amendments as possible and work to move amendments in regular order prior to the amendment-filing deadline for the underlying bill next week. We have the opportunity to do this. We are now operating on deadlines. It has been my experience in the Senate that until you have a deadline where you have to do it, people, generally speaking, find other things to do. We are going to hold their feet to the fire this time. Let's try to get this through. Let me just comment on Senator Boxer. We have worked on so many bills that are very meaningful to the American people. I can remember when they said on our side that we were not going to have a 5-year massive highway reauthorization bill. Yet I tried to explain to my conservative friends that that is the conservative approach because the only alternative to that is extensions. If you have extensions, that doesn't work at all. We have worked very well together on that legislation, and of course we also were able to work on our chemical bill and do that, and now we are going to get this done next week. I wish to yield to Senator Boxer and then retake the floor for the motions that will be necessary.

Mr. INHOFE. I think Senator Boxer's side has done a better job of getting their amendments in than our side. In talking to her and the leader over there, the Democratic side is down to about seven amendments that are being considered. I encourage our Republicans to do the same thing and get this thing done so we can make it happen. I take this opportunity to thank the Senator from California for the hard work we have done together. Amendment Nos. 4981 and 4991 En Bloc to Amendment No. 4979 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up en bloc: Heller No. 4981 and Merkley No. 4991.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now vote on these amendment en bloc.

Mr. INHOFE. I know of no further debate on these amendments.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, being one of the managers of the bill, the WRDA bill that we are all anxious to consider, along with Senator Boxer--she and I as well as the leadership, are in agreement, that we should take this bill and consider it. I do have a talk I want to give concerning the bill but with the understanding that I have been asking for amendments to come forward from the Republicans primarily. She has done the same with Democrats. I believe there are a number of amendments that have come forward. However, the way we are going to run this is that any amendments that are going to be considered, No. 1, must be germane and, No. 2, have to be acceptable by both managers of the bill--Senator Boxer and myself. With that, I ask that we move forward on this bill and yield to the leadership.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. On behalf of the committee, I withdraw the committee- reported amendments.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4980.

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