Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. It was January 7 of 2013 that I was there on the DMZ. That is the largest active DMZ that is out there now--160 miles long, 2 miles wide. Even at that time, we were talking about the necessity of immediately getting sanctions in there to stop the threats. Because our intelligence--while it can be good and it cannot be so good, still there is speculation that they had that capability, and that capability has to be stopped. I applaud the Senator and his team for moving forward with this issue.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my defense fellow, SGM Travis Votaw, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this calendar year.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, by vetoing Senator Ernst's Congressional Review Act resolution, President Obama is ignoring the pleas of States, local governments, farmers, small businesses, and property owners all over this country. He is ignoring the conclusion of legal counsel for the Corps of Engineers that the rule is ``inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in Rapanos and SWANCC.'' He is ignoring determinations by two Federal courts that EPA's ``waters of the United States'' rule is likely illegal and therefore should not go into effect until the 32 States that have sued to stop this rule have their day in court. Finally, he is ignoring a legal decision issued by the Government Accountability Office that, in developing this rule, EPA broke the law. According to GAO's December 14 decision, EPA's attempts to defend and promote their rule were not legitimate. In fact, GAO found that EPA's actions constituted illegal covert propaganda and grassroots lobbying. EPA conducted covert propaganda when they drafted a message of support for the WOTUS rule and then convinced 980 people to send that message to their social media network. GAO estimates that this message reached about 1.8 million people who had no idea that they were receiving a message that was written by EPA. In fact, the public was encouraged to send the EPA-written message back to EPA--the ultimate echo chamber. This is covert propaganda taken to a new extreme. EPA engaged in grassroots lobbying activity when they posted messages on their official government website that directed the public to visit the websites of environmental activist groups who were soliciting opposition to congressional efforts to send this WOTUS rule back to the drawing board. In fact, EPA linked their government website to ``action alerts'' issued by these activist groups. Because EPA's covert propaganda and lobbying efforts are illegal, they also violated the Anti-Deficiency Act. This act prohibits the unauthorized use of taxpayer dollars. EPA issued a statement disagreeing with GAO, but their opinion is irrelevant. We live in a world of law. Federal agencies don't get to decide what laws they chose to obey. EPA does not get to decide what constitutes a violation of the ban on propaganda and lobbying. EPA does not get to decide what constitutes a violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. GAO does, and GAO has issued its legal decision. If EPA continues with this illegal activity, they will do so knowing and in willful violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act, and a knowing and willful violation is a crime. By vetoing S.J. Res. 22, President Obama is aligning himself with an illegal rule and is encouraging illegal agency activities and the unauthorized use of taxpayer dollars. This has to stop. No Member of this body should associate himself or herself with these activities. Please join me in voting to override this veto.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Inhofe substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, be read a third time.

Mr. INHOFE. I know of no further debate on this measure.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 143, H.R. 2576.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we had a very dear friend in Frank Lautenberg. He was a Democrat; I am a Republican. I chaired the committee he served on, and we had a very close relationship. The bill we just passed began with a meeting to gather stakeholders. It happened in my office with Frank Lautenberg. Senator Vitter and Senator Udall--whom we will hear from in just a moment--and their staff have put together the first reform of TSCA in 40 years, which will create more regulatory certainty for American businesses and uniform protections for American families. We have a real opportunity to enact reform to a major environmental statute. It is the result of over 3 years of work and negotiation, and I thank those responsible for spending countless hours to produce this product. Dimitri Karakitsos began working for me while I was ranking member, stayed with Ranking Member Vitter working on this bill, and then back with me as chairman of the committee. He has shepherded the drafting and negotiation of this bill the entire time. He is the guy in charge. I thank Jonathan Black in Senator Udall's office as well as Andrew Wallace, who took up the TSCA reform leadership following Senator Lautenberg. I thank Zack Baig in Senator Vitter's office, Colin Peppard with Senator Carper, Michal Feedhoff in Senator Markey's office, Adam Zipkin in Senator Booker's office, Adrian Deveny in Senator Merkley's office, and Emily Enderle with Senator Whitehouse. Thanks to all the staff. People don't realize how much work the staff does. When we passed the Transportation reauthorization bill, it was hundreds and hundreds of hours. This one, because of a technicality, has been held up for about a month and a half. That has been worked out, so I am just pleased we are able to do it. I think that is a tribute to Frank Lautenberg and his wife Bonnie. I say to my friend from New Mexico, I think Frank Lautenberg's legacy has been fulfilled.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, in response, let me say that Senator Udall is far too generous to me, but I can assure you right now that Bonnie Lautenberg is watching this. We would not have been able to do this if you had not provided the leadership in the Democrats. You kept bringing more and more people in, making modest changes, and I was quite shocked at some that came in. But you and Bonnie were the leaders. This bill is so significant to every manufacturer, everyone who does any kind of business. We will now finally get a handle on and be able to analyze what chemicals are in the best interest of America and the best safety interests of our people. I thank Senator Udall so much for his participation and bringing the group together. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, we have joint remarks from myself and the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Udall.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator of Nebraska and the Senator of Georgia that I be recognized along with the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I will not go into the detail I was planning to go into as to what we are faced with and what we are going to be voting on tomorrow, but I think it is very important--because I have heard a lot of erroneous things coming out of various talk radio shows and elsewhere--as to how we got into the mess we are in where we are going to be looking at a major spending bill instead of the normal way of doing things. Historically, in both the House and the Senate, the order has been to do an authorization bill, and that is followed by an appropriations bill. That works out fine in the House. In the Senate, it is not quite that easy because we have some rules in the Senate that allow the minority--whether that be Republican or Democratic--to object to a procedural basis. So it actually takes 60 votes, not 51 votes, to pass appropriations. This has created a real problem. I remember that on June 18, we passed the Defense Authorization Act. Given that we are in a time of war, it was incredibly important to provide our Defense Department what in the regular course of business would be appropriated to it. However, we have been trying to appropriate that since June 18, and the minority has kept us from doing that. I can say the same thing about other appropriations bills, such as Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Energy and Water, and others. One might say: Why would they be doing this? In the case of the appropriations bill for defense, it is very simple: The President and a lot of the Democrats want to make sure that as we are coming out with additional spending to avoid sequestration, an equal amount be used for domestic purposes instead of military, where we really have a crisis right now. Let me say something about the House. This morning on a talk show, I heard everyone criticizing the House and the new Speaker of the House. In reality, they did their job over there. That is a bum rap for those guys. They passed their appropriations bills. They passed them on the floor. They passed appropriations bills on the floor. So they did what was supposed to be done. However, you can't pass legislation with just the House; it has to be in the Senate also. So I think we need to look at that. I don't like the idea of a situation where we are faced with a ``take it or leave it'' deal at the end of the year. That doesn't really allow us to offer amendments. It is done behind closed doors by a limited number of people. This is not right. This is not the way it is supposed to be. I would just say there is a way out. I am going to suggest that this should be the last time we should have to do this. If we had a system where we could reform it and have it so you could make an exception to some of the motions to proceed for appropriations bills, then we would be able to go ahead and get this done. That is the simple solution. That is what I would recommend. However, there is a lot more detail in that. It happens that there is a committee taking place right now in the Senate. James Lankford, my junior Senator from Oklahoma, Cory Gardner, Lamar Alexander, and I think two other Senators are looking to propose rule changes, and I think it is overdue. I want to mention one other thing too. I said back in 2006 that I would never vote for another omnibus bill like the one we are preparing to vote for. I said: That is the last one; I am going to serve notice-- thinking that if enough people did this, we wouldn't find ourselves in this position. However, we are still in this position. The reason I am standing here today is to get on the record why I am going to support this. Back when I had the highway bill, we were trying to put additional things on the highway bill. One was to lift the ban on exports of oil and gas, and we were not successful. So at that time, I made the announcement--we had a couple of other chances, the last one being the omnibus spending bill. We got a commitment that would be on that bill. So I said at that time that if that is the case, if we end up lifting the ban on that bill, then I will change from my original 2006 commitment and I will vote for and support this. When we stop and think about what we are doing, does it make good policy that we in the United States can say to Russia and say to Iran, people who don't look after our best interests: It is all right for you to do that, but we in the United States cannot export oil. We have all the former Soviet Union countries. I went to Lithuania and participated in an opening of a terminal there so they could get out from under this restriction. It was a joyous occasion. In my State of Oklahoma, we have lost 20,000 jobs because since we have had success in getting oil and gas out, we have been encumbered by the fact that we can't export it. This has been a real hardship. I would say the most important thing in this bill in terms of my State would be that we are going to be able to correct that and we are going to be able to do that. So with the changes that are being made, I am looking forward to supporting it. I certainly think we should all look and see what is in the best interest of the United States and should be aware of the fact that what they are seeing out there in terms of the cost of this bill is exactly the same cost as if we had done it the way we were supposed to do it. If we add up the total number of appropriations that we passed out--all 12 appropriations--add them up, and that is the same amount as this bill we will be voting on tomorrow. So that criticism is not a genuine criticism. With that, I will move to another subject that I think is very significant, and then I want to join with my friend from New Mexico.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this past weekend, the officials from the administration traveled 3,800 miles to Paris to attend the international climate negotiations in Paris. As a reminder, this is a program that has been going on now for 21 years. The ones who started this whole idea that the world is coming to an end because of global warming came from the United Nations. I have gone to several of these meetings. I didn't go to this one because even John Kerry, our Secretary of State, said publicly that there is not going to be anything binding. If there is nothing binding, then why are they even there? In fact, it was interesting because when he made that statement, President Hollande of France was outraged. He said: He must have been confused when he said that. But that changed the whole thing. It was on November 11 that he made that statement. Anyway, they went ahead and they had their 21st annual conference. I remember one of them I went to. I ran into a friend of mine from a West African country. I said: Luke, what are you doing here? Why are you over here? You don't believe all this stuff, do you, on global warming? He said: No, but we stand to be able to bring back literally billions of dollars to Benin, West Africa. Besides that, this is the biggest party of the year. The worst thing they said happened at the South America meeting 3 years ago was they ran out of caviar. Anyway, we are paying for all that stuff. When they went over and said that wonderful things were going to happen in Paris, we knew it wasn't going to happen. The COP21 conference has nothing do with saving the environment. With no means of enforcement and no guarantee of funding as developed countries had hoped, the deal will not reduce emissions and it will have no impact on global temperatures. When they say they had this historic meeting, everyone was scratching their heads wondering: What happened? Did they win anything at all? James Hansen is the scientist who is credited with being the father of global warming. I can remember when I got involved with the issue when they came back from Kyoto and wanted to ratify a treaty, and that was at the turn of the century, 1998. James Hansen has been working on global warming--he is a NASA scientist--for years. It goes all the way back to the eighties. He characterized what happened in an interview he had with the British newspaper the Guardian. He said the agreement is a fraud. Here is the guy who is the father of global warming, and he said it is a fraud and it doesn't accomplish anything. This is likely because the only guaranteed outcome from the Paris agreement is continued growth in emissions. According to a study from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, global emissions will increase by 63 percent through--that is assuming that everyone complies with their commitments, which obviously they will not and they can't--global emissions will increase by 63 percent through 2050 compared to the year 2010. By the end of this century, the MIT study projects, temperatures--if they were successful--would only be reduced by 0.2 degrees Celsius. Even the 26 to 28 percent greenhouse gas emission reductions which President Obama committed to on this agreement is really a fraud. There is an environmentalist witness who came before our committee. He was the Sierra Club's former general counsel, and his name is David Bookbinder. He testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee--the one that I chair--this year saying that the President's power plan does not add up to the 26 to 28 percent target; it is totally unattainable. When asked to explain the targets in corresponding regulatory actions to Congress, the key administration officials refused to do that. In fact, something happened. It may be the first time this has happened. People wonder how the unelected bureaucracies go off and do things that are not in keeping with the majority of the American people, and we see this all the time. To preclude that from happening, every bureaucracy has a committee in the Senate and in the House that is supposed to be watching what they are doing and they are supposed to be overseeing. They have jurisdiction, just like my committee has jurisdiction over the EPA. I tried to get them to come in and tell us when it was announced by President Obama that they were going to propose the 26 to 28 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2025, and they refused to testify. I would ask the Chair, in the years you have been here, have you ever seen a bureaucracy refuse to come before the committee that has the jurisdiction? They did. We are the authority in Congress to approve such--it has not only not pledged the money that has been committed as our price to pay, we haven't actually appropriated any money at all. So while proclaimed as historic, this agreement did little to overcome the longstanding obstacle that has plagued international climate agreements from the start where responsibility is unequally divided between the developed and the developing world. I can remember back in about 1999, I guess it was, around the Kyoto time, we had a vote here, and I was involved in that vote. It was called the Chuck Hagel and Bob Byrd vote. It said that if you come back from any of these places where you are putting this together with a treaty--whether it is Kyoto or another treaty--we will not vote to ratify a treaty that either is bad for the economy of America or doesn't treat China and the developing countries the same as it treats us. That passed 95 to 0. So when they go over and come back, it is dead on arrival. The thing is, everyone knows it except for the 192 countries that were over there. So we can't figure out why they would call this a historic event. While the administration is pushing forward with economically disastrous climate regulations before the end of his Presidency, China gets to continue business as usual, including emissions growth through 2030--each year. That is about 15 years of increase. They came back saying: Well, we have to increase our CO2 emissions for 15 more years. Yesterday morning, just 3 days after India signed off on the final Paris agreement, the Guardian--that is the big newspaper in London-- reported that India is targeting to more than double its output of 1.5 billion tons through 2020 because ``coal provides the cheapest energy for rapid industrialization that would lift millions out of poverty.'' At the historic meeting they had, the top official from India's Coal Ministry said: Our dependence on coal will continue. There are no other alternatives available. India is not alone; there are numerous other countries that will continue to do that. Even though the temperature level set is misleading, a 1.5-degree cap on global temperature increase is no more realistic or technologically feasible than the 2 degrees they used before this. The fine print remains the same. For any agreement to have legal significance within the United States, it has to be ratified by the Senate. People in other countries don't know that. They think someone, particularly a very strong President like President Obama--that he can just pretty much mandate anything he wants. It doesn't work that way in the United States. In what was literally the final hour--this is very interesting--they had to delay the announcement of their agreement by 2 hours because they wanted to make one change in the agreement. They had language that said ``developed country''--that is us, the United States--``parties shall continue taking the lead by undertaking economy-wide. . . .'' and then explained how to do it. They wanted to replace the ``shall'' with ``should'' because they discovered in their discussions that if they left ``shall'' in there, it would have to come to the U.S. Senate for ratification, and they would all be embarrassed because we would know what the results of that would be. Missing from the administration's top 21 celebratory speeches is the fact that neither the American people nor the U.S. Senate supports the international agreement and that the centerpiece regulatory commitment--the so-called Clean Power Plan--faces significant legal obstacles in the Congress--in fact, not just obstacles, but it has already been voted on. There is a CRA--that is the Congressional Review Act--and the Congressional Review Act is saying that we are going to reject the Clean Power Plan, and it passed with an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans in the House. What they agreed on has already been rejected. Missing from almost all of the Paris agreement coverage before and after is that the basis for this agreement is not scientific but political. Ninety percent of the scientists do not believe the world is coming to an end because of global warming, as environmental NGOs and the U.S. administration officials claim. A Wall Street Journal op-ed examined what constituted this misrepresentation of 97 percent. We always hear that 97 percent of the scientists say that this is true; it must be true. Anytime you have something that is unpopular, if you keep saying over and over again that the science is settled, a lot of people out there believes it is. But when they did the analysis of the 97 percent consensus and explained it, it was simply based on fractions of respondents. For example, in a commonly cited 2009 survey of over 3,100 respondents, only 79 were counted because they claimed their expertise was solely climate-related. Well, the 97 percent consensus was reviewed just a few weeks ago by one of the news stations in their poll----

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

Mr. INHOFE. The poll found that 97 percent of Americans don't care about global warming when stacked against issues such as terrorism, immigration, health care, and the economy. I remember when it used to be the No. 1 concern of Americans, and following the same March Gallup poll over the years, it has gone from No. 1 or No. 2 over that period of time to No. 15--dead last. They have a lot of work to do, and it is not going to work. Before I yield the floor, let me thank my friend from Connecticut for all of his help last night. We worked late, and we did the right thing. I appreciate that very much.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I couldn't help overhearing my friend from Massachusetts talking about something really good that is going to happen; that is, we are going to lift the caps off our exports on oil and gas. I just can't understand why we ever had caps on exports. It seems like this administration is perfectly willing not just to approve of but to encourage countries like Iran and Russia to export their oil and help them and yet preclude us from doing the same thing. Right now one of the problems we have with Russia is they have a hand up on us because there are so many countries over there dependent on them for their ability to have energy. It is just pretty amazing that is going on. So I am really glad. Hopefully, this will go through. I know in my State of Oklahoma it has cost literally hundreds of jobs in just three companies because they could no longer afford to drill here. That is a big issue. I remember I was invited to Lithuania back when the President of Lithuania wanted to dedicate and open their first terminal so that they would be able to import gas and oil, some of that being from us. Everyone there was so joyous of the fact that they were not going to have to rely on Russia any longer, that they could rely more on us. We do have friends out there whom we want to be able to take care of.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 319, S. 571.

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

Mr. INHOFE. This is the request to move to the calendar number, and the next request would be for the consideration.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the Feinstein amendment be agreed to; that the committee-reported substitute, as amended, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank the Senator from Connecticut, because it is complicated. This is something that--it is also very difficult to actually explain a bill to 69 people and get that many cosponsors. But it is something we have been concerned about for a long time. Ten years ago, on the light aircraft, we actually had this language--even stronger than it is now. In that period of time, there hasn't been one accident that can be related to a third-class medical. I think the time has proven itself in 10 years. To respond, I would be very happy to work with the Senator from Connecticut on problems that may rise that I don't envision right now. I appreciate very much his cooperation and also his staying around this late at night. Thank you so much. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

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