Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 61, S. 1124.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Alexander-Murray substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to. I further ask 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. INHOFE. Senators should expect a cloture vote on the pending substitute amendment at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions, which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 170, National Travel and Tourism Week; S. Res. 171, National Charter Schools Week; and S. Res. 172, National Small Business Week.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am a little confused about our scheduling. I know I was supposed to be speaking at 5:05 p.m. We do want to get back to where we are going back and forth. I know my good friend from Ohio wishes to be recognized next for a short period of time. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that he be recognized now and that he be followed by my good friend from Delaware to be recognized for his time, and then I be recognized at the end of his remarks for such time as I would consume as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. I am sorry about that.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, before I propound my unanimous consent request, let me just applaud my friend from Texas. I had a hard time believing it when they said they were going to be negotiating with a terrorist, they were going to negotiate with Iran. Have these people forgotten our unclassified intelligence way back in 2007 said that by 2015 Iran was expected to have a weapon and a delivery system that could actually reach the United States of America? Here it is--what year is it, 2015--and they are talking about negotiating. I happened to be out on the USS Carl Vinson during this negotiation just a couple of weeks ago, and at the same time we were out there, Iran was sending to Yemen the different weapons, and our sister ship, the USS Roosevelt, had to go down and turn them around. At the same time that they are negotiating with Iran, we had Putin sending down to Iran the S-300 rocket. That S-300 rocket--and it is not even classified--it can go up and kill something 98,000 feet above the ground. Yet here we have Israel and the United States, and if the time would come that we would want to take out some of the nuclear activity in Iran, our proven enemy, we would perhaps be unable to do that. So I do applaud my friend for bringing this up. Not many people are talking about this. I remember so well, though it has been several years ago now, when President Bush was first elected and he talked about the triad, those dangers, and he put at the top of that Iran. How much do they have to do before we realize that is the greatest threat facing America today. With that, I ask unanimous consent--to straighten out the confusion in the order of things--that my friend from Ohio be recognized for a short presentation; after that, my friend from Delaware would be recognized; and that I be recognized at the conclusion of the remarks of my friend from Delaware for such time as I shall use.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Delaware, I appreciate his remarks. It is seldom people will thank people for the time and effort they spend and the successes they have. Even though he is located so close to Washington that he is not exposed as much as I am--twice a week--I actually learn personally to know these people. I feel the commitment they make. Certainly in Tulsa, Dallas, and here are the ones whom I know well. So I appreciate the fact that the Senator is paying attention to them. That means a lot. Climate Change Mr. President, since 2002, I have come to the floor to talk, after we discovered the truth about the whole global warming thing and who is behind it and all this stuff. I don't want to say anything that would be interpreted as not respectful, but I can remember back in 2002, it was a difficult thing to tell the truth about this to the American people because at that time most of the American people felt that--yes, they bought into this idea that the world is coming to an end, and it is all manmade gases that are causing this. So it was difficult. The Gallup poll of 2002 said at that time that, of all the environmental concerns, No. 1 was global warming. Now, that is not true today. Today, it is almost dead last. Last March, there was a poll that came out from Gallup, and it was next to the last. It was down from some 20 different environmental concerns. So the people have realized that this largest tax increase in the history of America, if it were to take place, is not going to solve a problem--a problem that really doesn't exist to the extent it has been represented. Today, they are still debating this. I want to bring people up to date on where we are now--the fact that climate change is not based on hard evidence and observation, but rather on a set of wishful beliefs, a well-scripted dialogue with which President Obama and the environmental alarmists are intending to scare the American people into accepting this thing that would be so devastating economically to America. The other day a good friend of mine, Lamar Smith from the House--I like Lamar. He and I were elected actually the same day many years ago. Lamar is the chairman of the committee that has a lot of this jurisdiction, and he published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that was entitled, ``The Climate-Change Religion.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. I thank Lamar Smith for his continued leadership and support on this issue. As Lamar highlights in the op-ed, the debate about global warming is predicated more on ``scare tactics than on fact based determinations.'' Global warming alarmism has evolved into a religion where one is either an alarmist or a skeptic. Some people are not aware of those two terms. Someone who has bought into this ``the world is coming to an end''--they are the alarmists. People who do not believe that, as myself, are skeptics. And being a skeptic is akin to heresy of the highest order. Good policy has to be based on good science, not on religion, and that requires science free from bias, whatever its conclusions may be. The modern-day religion of climate change has been very artful in establishing and controlling carefully scripted talking points intended to scare the American people under the guise of environmental protectionism. There are three main tenets of climate change alarmism that can be found in any related speech, which we heard the President recite during his recent Earth Day speech. Those three tenets are: No. 1, climate change is human caused. No. 2, climate change is already wreaking havoc across the globe. And No. 3, we must act today--now--before terrible things happen--the world coming to an end. These three main tenets of climate change can be found on just about every administrative agency page, and they are creeping into every Federal policy determination. As wise as the Presiding Officer is, something that he is not aware of that is happening in America today is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, adjusted its policy for receipt of disaster preparedness resources to require States that are to be accepting these FEMA funds to first accept the undeniable ``challenges posed by climate change'' and then spend State resources figuring how to plan for them before becoming eligible for disaster preparedness funds. Look, I come from Oklahoma, a State that has tornadoes, called Tornado Alley. When this happens, as it did very recently in the south- central part of Oklahoma, for us to get the funds that we are entitled to from FEMA, the State of Oklahoma has to accept the policy that we as a State accept the undeniable challenges posed by climate change and then spend our State resources figuring out how to plan for them before becoming eligible for disaster relief. That is impossible. People can't believe that is true when I tell them this is being done through the administration and this is adopted by these agencies. FEMA is supposed to be there to assist States in areas of the country for disaster relief. But they cannot get it. They are held hostage until they say something that they know is a lie and are held to that and spend State money. Again, that is not really believable, what I just stated, because it is so inconceivable that that could happen. Now, the reality of this debate, however, is that the climate has been changing since the Earth was formed. I said the other day--a good friend of mine had an amendment on the floor. The amendment made comment to the fact that the climate is changing. Yes, it is changing. I think what the proponents of this idea are trying to do is to try to change it over to say that those people who are not blaming human emissions as the cause of all these problems are denying that climate changes. I said on floor at that time, all evidence, archeological evidence, scriptural evidence, historical evidence is that climate has always, always changed. We all accept that. The big issue is, is it because of human emissions. That is where the science now shows clearly that it is not. You are going keep hearing it, though, but it is not. Further, the scientific debate around the role of climate change, its causes and projected impacts, is ongoing. There is no consensus, and the Wall Street Journal recently produced a great opinion piece that highlights a multitude of discrepancies in the assertion that 90 percent of the scientists believe this to be true. This is kind of interesting because any time you do not have science behind you, what you say is science is settled, science is settled. And sooner or later, people believe it, and they have not offered any evidence that would support that. That is what has happened. This item really suggests that the Wall Street Journal opinion piece that highlights the discrepancies in the 97 percent, when they say 97 percent of the scientists believe manmade gas is causing global warming--the article points out that the myth of a scientific consensus is predicated on--and I am quoting now--``a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research.'' Over the years, I have quoted a number of scientists. In fact, my Web site way back in the--probably 10 years ago, I started accumulating the number of scientists and their credibility and their qualifications and statements they have made. One I remember, from my head now, is Richard Lindzen. Richard Lindzen is a professor from MIT. He is recognized as one of the top climatologists in the country. When asked the question, he says, of course it is not true. But the reason people, the bureaucracy, are so concerned about it is that regulating carbon is a bureaucracy's dream. If you regulate carbon, you regulate life. That is what the motivation is around this. I think that is a good article to read so people will realize that there is no consensus, scientific consensus. Some of them believe it, some of them do not. As climate research continues to develop, limitations in the overall understanding of our climate and the limitations of scientific research have become increasingly evident. This could not be more evident than by the growing discrepancy between climate model predictions and actual observations. For example, alarmists failed to foresee the ongoing warming hiatus. What is a warming hiatus? There has not been a change in that temperature in the last 15 years. This is something that is incontrovertible. Everybody understands that. They admit they didn't foresee this happening, but that hiatus is actually going on today. It is still continuing. It further explained that the source of such a discrepancy could be caused by the ``combinations of internal climate variability, missing or incorrect radiative forcing, and model response error.'' In other words, climate modeling cannot accurately project, much less predict, the climate of the future as climatologists and the broader scientific community have yet to fully understand how our climate system actually works today. There is also a growing body of scientific studies suggesting that variations in solar radiation and natural climate variability have a leading role in climate change. Surprise, everybody, the Sun warms us. That is a shocker to a lot of people. It is not manmade gas. It is not CO2 emissions. It is the Sun. A number of independent studies assessing the impact of clouds have even suggested that water vapor feedback is entirely canceled out by cloud processes. Yet when the facts of reality do not appropriately align with the religion of climate change, the alarmists will simply try to explain these things away or conveniently exclude any science that shows they are wrong. A favorite talking point of the climate change religion that is often used by senior officials within the Obama administration is that hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods--you name it--are proof of harm being caused by global warming. They all say that. I have yet to hear a speech by any of the alarmists where they do not talk about the fact that all the hurricanes and tornadoes--the nature of them, the severity of them, the occurrences--are proof of harm being caused by global warming. But the global data shows no increase in the number or intensity of such events, and even the IPCC itself acknowledges the lack of any evident relationship between extreme weather and climate. This is interesting because the IPCC--I know most people are aware of this who are into this issue. But the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change. This is the United Nations. I even wrote a book about it. The longest chapter is talking about the United Nations, how they put this together. But they are the ones who have supposedly the science behind this whole thing, and they are the ones who are now admitting that there is no increase in intensity or occurrences of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or floods. In fact, Roger Pielke was before our committee in July of 2013. He said the oft-asserted linkage between global warming and recent hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and drought is ``unsupportable based on evidence and research.'' I am still quoting now. It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. Hurricane landfalls have not increased in the United States ``in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least the year 1900.'' That is now an accepted fact. But in spite of that, every speech you hear, they talk about all the hurricanes and all the disasters taking place and the intensity that has come to us because of global warming. The IPCC--again, this is the U.N. 2013 ``Fifth Assessment Report.'' Now, the assessment report that they come out with is--they will come out with a long, complicated report every so often, but then they will have kind of abbreviated ones for people like us to use to spread their propaganda. Their ``Fifth Assessment Report'' concluded that ``current data sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century. . . . No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricane counts have been identified over the last 100 years in the North Atlantic Basin.'' But let's just keep in mind everyone is now in agreement on that. Yet you still hear in the speeches that the world is coming to an end, and all the tornadoes--all this intensity is going to be disastrous to America. Counter to the doomsday predictions of climate alarmists, increasing observations suggest a much reduced and practically harmless climate response to increased amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Also missing from the climate alarmists' doomsday scenarios and well- scripted talking points are the benefits from increased carbon that has led to a greening of the planet and contributed to increased agricultural productivity. People do not realize that you cannot grow things without CO2. CO2 is a fertilizer. It is something you cannot do without. No one ever talks about the benefits. The people are inducing that as a fertilizer on a daily basis. Despite admitted gaps to the scientific understanding of climate change and a track record of climate modeling failures, President Obama and his environmental allies are holding fast to their bedrock beliefs. They are intent on selling the President's so-called Climate Action Plan to the American people that is less about protecting the environment and more about expanding the role of the government while enriching, I should say, some campaigns of some of our friendly Democrats. There is a guy named Tom Styer. Tom Styer lives in California. He is very, very wealthy. He is all wrapped up in this issue. He claims that he spent in the last election to elect people who go along with global warming $75 million of his money. Originally, he was going to spend $100 million, $50 million of his money and $50 million that he was going to raise. He found out he couldn't raise it, so that did not work. I would say that his effort was not all that successful, judging from the results of the last election. But he is still out there. He still has a lot of money. He will not even miss the $75 million. For the President's core domestic plan policy, the Clean Power Plan, let's look at what this is. Starting back in 2002, when it was perceived to be a very popular issue, Members of this Senate started introducing bills that would be cap-and-trade bills that would address this issue. It is very similar to the plan the President is putting out now. At that time, I was the chairman of the committee--I think it was the Subcommittee on Clean Air in the Senate. I was a believer because everybody said that was true, until they came out--and there is a study made by the Charles River Associates and MIT that said if we comply with the cap and trade, the cost to the American people would be in the range of $300 billion to $400 billion every year. That, again, would be the largest tax increase in history. I thought, if the world is coming to an end, maybe we need to do that. I started questioning the science behind it. I started getting responses from scientists all over America. First of all, 10 of them came in. Then it went up to 400 and then 1,000. I started publishing these on my Web site so people would know that there is another side to what they were calling this determined science by IPCC. They tried from that time--this is 2002--until last year to pass legislation that would legislatively give us a cap-and-trade system, but it got defeated more and more each year because the people have actually caught on. They have caught on that it is not a real thing, the science is not settled. That has led the President to say, all right, if you guys are not going to pass legislation, I am going to do it through regulation. Where have we heard that before? That is everything the President has been doing that he can't get through in his policy that is through the legislature. Right now, you probably cannot get 20 votes in the whole Senate on this issue. He is trying to do it through regulation. We have a Clean Power Plan. We had a hearing on this just last week. The President is no longer satisfied with the fact that he can now tell you what doctor you can use under ObamaCare, what type of investments you can use under that regulation or how fast your Internet will be. I understand that is coming up next. He would like to dictate what type and how much energy you can use. With such high costs on the line, one would think there must be an equal amount if not greater number of benefits. What are the benefits? In reality, according to various impact assessments, the environmental benefits of the Clean Power Plan--again, admittedly, it is going to be $479 billion initially, the cost of this, and the core domestic policy of the President's Climate Action Plan that is supposed to protect this country from the impending impacts we are facing, the climate change-- all of these costs will reduce CO2 concentrations by less than 0.5 percent. The global average temperature rise will be reduced by only 0.01 degree Fahrenheit, and sea level rise will be reduced by 0.3 millimeters. That is the thickness of three sheets of paper. Further, these minuscule benefits would be rendered pointless by the continued emissions growth in India and China. The chart is up now. It is very significant. Because we look at this and look at what China and India are contributing to the atmosphere by their emissions. Now, there is the United States. In fact, the figure is that China alone produces more CO2 in 1 month--that is 800 million tons--than the Clean Power Plan will reduce in 1 year, and that is 500 million tons. Perhaps what is most telling is that President Obama's EPA didn't even bother to measure what impacts the proposed Clean Power Plan would have on the environment. This is something which has been very well documented. I guess what we are saying here is that it doesn't really matter what we are doing here in the United States. This is not where the problem is. But that is to be expected under the religion of climate change. When the science doesn't add up and the projections don't pan out and the weather won't cooperate, alarmists will refer to their commitment to a higher moral authority or obligation. As evidenced by the Clean Power Plan, it doesn't matter if these policies provide any benefit in climate change; crusaders certainly will not be dissuaded by the exorbitant costs. It is ironic, however, that while touting a commitment to a moral obligation, which we have heard time and again from this administration, the resulting policies will cause real economic hardship to this country and to the most vulnerable populations. This is something people need to pay attention to. The increase in the cost of fuel for Americans would be--and it has already been documented--the electricity cost will go up by double digits in 43 States. And whom does it hurt the most? It hurts the poor people. Those individuals who spend the highest amount of their expendable income on heating their homes will be hit the worst. This hypocrisy is kind of akin to jetting around the country in a 232-foot private plane on Earth Day to warn global citizens of the harm caused by increased CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. The President's international discussions around climate change stand to be equally harmful to the American people. The President likes to point to his recent agreement with China as evidence of international cooperation on climate change, but this agreement is nothing more than an exercise in theatrics. China is sitting back right now licking its chops and hoping America will start reducing its emissions and drive its manufacturing base overseas to places where they don't have these emission restrictions. The farce of an agreement lets China continue business as usual, and that is 800 million tons of CO2 a month until 2030. Boy, that is until 2030, while hard-working American taxpayers are going to foot the cost of the President's economically disastrous climate agenda. Despite what the President might say to the international community, without the backing of the U.S. Congress, which the President does not have, he has no authority to reach binding or legally enforceable agreements with other countries. I will remind the President of this again in December. Some people don't know that the United Nations has a big party every year in December, and it has been going on now for 15 years. Every year, they invite all the countries--this is all through the United Nations--from all around the world, some 192 countries, to this big party. I am talking about caviar and all you can drink and all that. All they have to do is say they will agree to try to lower their emissions of CO2. I remember the party in Copenhagen 2 years ago. As I recall, Obama was there, Kerry was there, Pelosi was there, and Boxer was there. All the far-left liberals were there to try to convince the people from these other countries that we were going to pass a cap-and-trade bill, so they better do it too. Well, I waited until they were all through with their things, and I went over to Copenhagen. I tell the Chair, I was the one-man truth squad. I went over to explain the truth to the other 191 countries. I told them that these people are lying to them by saying we will pass legislation. I said we are not going to pass legislation, and of course we did not pass legislation. I have to say this. The 191 countries over there all had one thing in common: They all hated me, but they all understood that I was right and that there weren't the votes in this country to pass it. The American people are starting to catch on, and that is why I am not surprised, as I mentioned, that the Gallup Poll that was released just last March concluded that the current level of worry on environmental issues remains at or near record lows, and among those concerns on the environmental issue, global warming is second to last. What Americans do care about is the economy and Federal spending and the size and power of the Federal Government. The disintegrating case for climate alarm coupled with an American public that is quickly losing interest does not pan well for the President's climate agenda or his self-acclaimed environmental legacy. Climate alarmists have spent just as much energy, if not more, convincing the world that it is bad to be a skeptic of what was once referred to as global cooling and then became global warming and is now global climate change. The tenet of the modern climate change religion cannot withstand the scrutiny of the merits, primarily because it is a result of political design and not scientific revelation. And that is why anyone who is willing to point out discrepancies within the climate change debate or raise legitimate concerns will be subjected to a barrage of arrogant sarcasm and personal attacks. Whether the alarmists call it global warming or climate change, the American people understand that the President's climate agenda is not about protecting the public; it is about a power grab. I will make three final points. First of all, I think we all know that the climate is always changing. I remember--and I will go from memory on this. We have cycles, and the cycles have been taking place all throughout history. In 1895, we went into a period of cooling, and that was when they first started saying that another ice age was coming, and that lasted 30 years, until about 1918. In 1918, a change came about. It started getting warmer, and we went into a 30-year warming period. It was the first time the phrase ``global warming'' was used. In 1945, that changed, and we went into a cooling spell, and the same thing has happened since then. Right now, of course, we are in kind of a remission era. This is what is interesting: No one can deny that 1945 was the year when we had the largest surge in the emissions of CO2 in the history of this country, and that precipitated not a warming period but a cooling period. That is first. The second thing is, in Australia--I wasn't going to mention this until I talked yesterday to one of the members of Parliament in Australia. Several years ago, Australia bought into this argument and said: We are going to lead the way, and we will start restricting our emissions. They imposed a carbon tax on their economy a few years ago, and it cost $9 billion in lost economic activity each year and destroyed tens of thousands of jobs. It was so bad that the government recently voted to repeal the carbon tax, and their economy is better for it. In fact, it was announced just following the repeal that Australia experienced a record job growth of 121,000 jobs--far more than the 10,000 to 15,000 jobs economists had expected. There is a country that tried it, and they found out what it cost, and you would think we could learn from their mistakes. The third thing is to ask the question. What if I am wrong and they are right? There is an answer to that. I remember when President Obama was first elected. He appointed Lisa Jackson, and she became the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. During the time she was there, they were building this thing up, and we were holding hearings in the committee I chaired at that time. I asked her: In the event that one of these bills passes on cap and trade or the President comes up with some kind of proposal or a regulation that does the same thing, will that have the effect of lowering CO2 emissions worldwide? Her answer: No, it wouldn't. And the reason it wouldn't is because this is where the problem is. The problem is in China, Mexico, and India. So the mere fact that we do something just in our country has a reverse effect because as we chase away our manufacturing base and it goes to one of those countries--and China is hoping to be one of those countries--where they have no emission requirements, it would have the effect of not decreasing but increasing emissions. If you bought into this and you agree that I am wrong and they are right, just keep in mind that by their own emission this would not reduce CO2, and that is what we are supposed to be concerned with. The people of America have awakened. The economy and the Obama foreign policy of appeasement have captured their interest, and these are concerns that are real concerns and things we ought to do today. With that, I yield the floor.

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. 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. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, May 7; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following leader remarks, the Senate then resume consideration of H.R. 1191, with the time until the cloture vote equally divided in the usual form; finally, that the filing deadline for all second-degree amendments to substitute amendment No. 1140 and H.R. 1191 be at 10 a.m.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was not going to be talking right now, but I understand some of the people who are going to be reserving time are not yet here. Pilot's Bill of Rights 2 Mr. President, I want to remind my colleagues on the floor that we have a piece of legislation that is coming up that no one is really plugged into right now, but it is going to be coming before us in a very short period of time. Back in 2011, I introduced a bill and passed a bill called the Pilot's Bill of Rights. It was something that was very meaningful to a relatively small number of people, but these are single-issue people, and it strove to correct a problem in our justice system that existed for as long as I could remember. Having been an active commercial pilot for the last over 50 years-- and there are not too many in the Senate; and in our delegation in Oklahoma, I was the only one until a couple years ago--it is only natural that I receive comments from a lot of people concerning problems they have with the FAA. There are a lot of great people in the FAA, and a lot of them I have worked with for many, many years. But there are also some--and this is true with any regulatory body, anyone who has authority over individuals. I remember back many years ago when I was the mayor of Tulsa. We had a great police force. But all it takes is two or three of them who are the bad guys. We are seeing some of that around today, and that gives a bad reputation to a lot of people. The same thing is true with some of the people who are working with the FAA. I can remember helping others, and I always did come to their aid when they felt they were not getting proper justice. But it really did not register with me until it actually happened to me. Back about 3 years ago, flying an airplane into a Texas airfield that is not a controlled airfield, there was an activity going on on the runway without any NOTAMs that had been advised--and nobody actually had any way of knowing this--and with permission I landed on that runway. This is a runway in far South Texas called the Cameron County Airport. It has a 9,000-foot runway. They were working on just a couple thousand feet of it, so it was very easy to come in. Now, because of certain individuals who had some other reasons to be critical of me, all kinds of things happened as a result of that. In fact, just recently they have even had some cartoons talking about how I landed on a runway and was chasing people off the runway. None of that was true. But this is what happened. They proposed to have a violation against me, and I was totally helpless, knowing--and many hundreds of others have had this experience; I never had--that I could lose my license on the whims of one individual in the field. Now, it would not have been as critical for me. That is not how I make my living. But look at some people who do make their living that way. They could lose their license just because of one individual who did not like them. Bob Hoover is a good example. Bob Hoover, who I guess is in his nineties now, arguably was the most gifted pilot I can ever remember. He was the one, I say to the Presiding Officer, who would put a glass of water up on his dash and do a barrel roll and not spill the water. I have been with him when that happened. Well, one guy in the field did not like him for some reason, and they staged a violation. He could have and did lose his license. Now, I had to come to this body--and it took a year and a half--to pass a bill to allow Bob Hoover to get back in. That is an extreme example, but nonetheless, that happened. And that is what was happening to me. So anyway, we passed the Pilot's Bill of Rights. The main thing there and what we are trying to do is to extend to pilots the same protections under the law that other people have. We have heard the phrase many times: You are guilty until proven innocent. Well, in one area in our society that is true--it has historically been true--and that is for violations or alleged violations against pilots. So anyway, we passed this. We corrected some things that have not really come to fruition. For example, what is called a NOTAM is short for a notice to airmen. A NOTAM is something that has to be published. It is supposed to be published by the FAA if there is anything going on at an airport such as construction on a runway that would create a hazard. So the pilots have to look up the NOTAMs. The problem with this is, there are no guidelines as to where they can find a notice to airmen. So we corrected this, we thought, in the Pilot's Bill of Rights. However, it was not as good of a correction as we thought it would be. So now we are coming back with a Pilot's Bill of Rights 2. By the way, I have to tell you, Mr. President, I had 67 cosponsors out of 100 Senators. So this is something that was very popular and passed with overwhelming majorities. So what we are doing now with the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2 is about four things. First, the medical certification process is one that is kind of interesting because there is no uniformity. Someone can have a physical problem, a medical problem, and he might be in Chicago, IL, or he might be in Tampa, FL, and they will have a completely different interpretation by the medical examiner as to what should be the remedy of that person's problem. So this puts uniformity back in there. Then it does something--and this is going to be something that people who do not understand and are not listening to me right now might state that this would be something that could be a hazard or might be some kind of a danger--and that is, we passed in 2004, a rule creating a medical exemption for pilots of light ``sport pilot eligible'' aircraft. That is for airplanes that weigh under 1,230 pounds and only have 2 seats. There are about 34,000 of them around. It has been over 10 years since FAA issued this exemption, and since then the medical safety experience of these pilots has been identical to those with medical certificates, which begs the question of the value of this expensive and burdensome requirement for pilots who fly for recreation. A joint study was done by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the AOPA, and the Experimental Aircraft Association, the EAA, on the 46,976 aviation accidents that occurred from 2008 and 2012. Of those 46,976, only 99 had a medical cause as a factor. That is less than one- quarter of 1 percent of all accidents. And of those 99, none would have been prevented by the current third-class medical screening standards and the medical certification process. So it does not offer any protection. It does not serve any useful purpose. Now, we are proposing in the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2 to extend that medical exemption that is currently in place for light sport aircraft to include planes weighing up to 6,000 pounds with up to 6 total passengers, including the pilot. That would add airmen and aircraft to an existing FAA-approved medical standard without degrading or creating substandard safety. What I am saying here is that of all these almost 47,000 aviation accidents, only 99 had a medical cause, and of those 99, not one would have been prevented by the current third-class medical screening standards and the medical certification process. So this is just another burden on the public--not individuals, but specifically on pilots, and it does not accomplish anything. What we will do now is have consistency in the application of the medical certification process, and it is something that is overdue. It should not be a problem getting that bill passed, and yet it does need explanation. The second thing it does is extend the due process rights preserved in the original Pilot's Bill of Rights bill to all FAA certificate holders--not just those who are certificate holders who fly airplanes. There are others who are examiners and work in other fields. They should have the same benefits. What it does is--and this is kind of hard to explain--but if someone is accused of a violation, that individual has a process that has been in law prior to the Pilot's Bill of Rights; and that is, you go through and the FAA makes a judgment. Then you can appeal it to the NTSB. The NTSB historically has been a rubber stamp for the FAA. So it does not really qualify anything. What we did in the Pilot's Bill of Rights 1 is allow an individual then to go into the court system and get what they call a de novo. A de novo means they have a whole process that starts from scratch. They do not just take what the FAA says, the NTSB says, but the courts treat it as a new case and look at it. This has not been happening. So we put some teeth in that so that will be something that will be workable. So I really feel we are going to be able to do this, and it is really getting the things done that we tried to do in the Pilot's Bill of Rights, but there have been some problems getting the courts to understand it. In fact, in two separate cases, the Federal district courts ruled that my original bill did not require a full rehearing of the facts. This legislation explicitly spells out the option to appeal an FAA enforcement action to the Federal district courts for a guaranteed de novo trial. But they have not been doing it. So this puts teeth in it so they are going to actually have to do it. By the way, there are things that are in there that people are not aware of. For example, in my case, I allegedly did something that was not in compliance with FAA rules and regulations, but they did not say what it was. They did not give the evidence. So you did not have access to your evidence. The new bill ensures that is going to happen. The third thing is on NOTAMs. A NOTAM is a notice to airmen. It is a pilot's responsibility--this has been true for decades--to know if a NOTAM has been filed by the FAA. That is a notice to airmen. But there is not any way of knowing where to find that. In my case, they claimed there was a NOTAM saying that the runway at Cameron County Airport was closed. That was a lie. There wasn't. There was no NOTAM out there. Finally, we proved that was the case. So now we are going to have it enforced so we know where these notices to airmen are filed, and it is going to be the responsibility of the FAA to put them in a central location where they would have access to them. This is something that was addressed in the Pilot's Bill of Rights, but somehow it was not specific enough. The teeth we put in this bill is that in the event they do not have it, the NOTAM is published where it can be found in a central location. Then the FAA cannot use that as an enforcement action. That will get the job done. The fourth thing it does is to extend the liability protection to individuals designated by the FAA as aviation medical examiners, pilot examiners, and this type of thing. What this does also is address what we call and most people would refer to as the Good Samaritan law. I have a lot of pilots--and I have been in the same situation--who want to help. They want to get a patient to a doctor in an emergency situation. I can remember one time many years ago when a tornado went through and destroyed the island of Dominica, north of Caracas, Venezuela. I got 12 pilots together with 12 of their airplanes, and they volunteered to take all the medical supplies down there. Now, if something had happened in the meantime, they would have had no protection. Yet out of the goodness of their hearts, at their own expense, they were out there trying to save lives. I was there. I know. So this actually is one that is going to give liability protection to individuals other than just the pilots--other people who own FAA certificates--and at the same time give protection to those people who are trying to help other people. So I believe this bill should be coming up in the next couple of weeks. It will be going to the commerce committee. I would encourage Members to--and particularly those 67 Members who were the cosponsors of the original Pilot's Bill of Rights should be on this one too. In fact, most of them are right now. I know Senators Manchin and Boozman were the first two to get on. They happen to be the chairmen of the General Aviation Caucus in the Senate. By the way, we have equal support over in the other body, in the House of Representatives. Last summer, at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh fly-in convention--that is the largest fly-in convention anywhere in the world--I hosted a public forum to solicit input for the legislation we are having, the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2, and I received over 400 comments from individuals. These are people who were present at the Oshkosh event. So we have solicited their input, and we have all the organizations behind it. I would say, insofar as the one that might become controversial; that is, the exemption on a third-class medical--doctors have unanimously voted in favor of it--they are called the doctors in aviation--and others. This is one of these rare opportunities we have on a bipartisan basis to pass something that is going to offer legal protections to one class of people who currently don't have it and have not had it in the past. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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, I am going to have, later on--I was hoping we would be able to do this today--a couple of amendments that I can't imagine will be any problem on the floor. But it has been a problem that has been with us for a long period of time, and we are in a position to do something about it. Due to a couple of Supreme Court cases, ICE cannot detain convicted criminal aliens awaiting deportation beyond 6 months. So what they have to do is--they have no choice--they have to put them back into the community, and they are back where they can continue to commit the same crimes that they committed before. In 2013, over 36,000 criminal immigrants with over 88,000 convictions were released back into our communities, including convictions of over 100 commercialized sexual offences, over 700 sexual offences, and many others. But that is 36,000, all in 1 year. Now, since that time, 176,000 of nondetained convicted criminals have gone back into our society. This is something I can't imagine anyone would want to continue. My amendment would allow for the government to renew detention of these criminal aliens every 6 months to determine, should they be returned to society, what the risk is. Then we can let justice take place. But it does away with that prohibition of anything over 6 months. So we have people out there right now--167,000 alien criminals--who very likely could repeat their crimes. That is my amendment No. 275. Amendment No. 276. Last summer, we saw tens of thousands of kids come across our southern border. Some were housed in my State of Oklahoma at Fort Sill. This summer, experts are predicting another wave of children from Central America. This is the problem. If these were kids who came over from either Canada or Mexico, we could do something about it. We could actually send them back and have some authority. But as it is right now, if one of them comes from Central America, even though they come through Mexico, they are citizens of a Central American country, and so we cannot do that. I have an amendment that would--well, in fact, our situation in Oklahoma is that we had several hundred who were just put there, and what do you do with a bunch of kids? So they put them in Fort Sill, and they had a place where they could temporarily put them down. Then they kind of disappeared. I had occasion to go into Los Fresnos in southern Texas. That is one of the largest centers where they will put these kids. I went in there. They didn't really want me to go in there, take pictures, and see what was going on. But in that particular center--I am going from memory now. I think they had a total of 80 beds--only 80 kids at the time. I asked the question: How many kids have come through here in the last 6 months? And they said: Over thousands and thousands. I said: Wait a minute. If you had thousands, where are they now? They couldn't answer that. So what happens is the kids come in, they temporarily identify them, and then they disappear into society. Now, with this change, all we are doing is treating these kids who would be coming into this country by giving our enforcement officers the latitude and the opportunity to send them back or to let them go back voluntarily. Right now, they can't even go back voluntarily once they cross the line coming into this country. That is amendment No. 276. It is one that we will be considering and hopefully getting a vote on when we return early next week. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 649 be brought up, as modified.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, everyone in here knows what the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty does. It doesn't infringe upon our Second Amendment rights. We all know that. It also limits our ability to help our allies like Israel in building their weapons system. President Obama has signed the treaty but has not submitted it for ratification; for one reason, he knows the votes are not there. Two years ago, at 5 a.m. in the morning, 53 Senators, from both parties, voted for my amendment very similar to this. My amendment would prevent funds from going to the treaty Secretariat or any other organization that is working to implement this treaty. I ask for your support and retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, how much time do I have?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is very simple. If you are for extreme gun control and against the Second Amendment rights, you ought to vote no on this.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, just Wednesday of this week, the new annual Gallup poll came out. It said very clearly that among the six environmental concerns the Gallup poll included in its survey, global warming polled at the very bottom, right after the loss of the tropical rainforests, I might add. Gallup also found that a majority believe that the seriousness of global warming is overstated. The Obama administration and others on this side like to claim 97 percent of the world's scientists believe in manmade global warming. Monday's Wall Street Journal op-ed debunked the 97 percent and the survey represents the views of only 79 respondents out of 3,149. Lastly, the agencies they are talking about that claim that 2014 was the warmest year on record, such as NASA--NASA now has reduced that to 38 percent. They have retreated from that position. So the people have caught on to this hysteria, and I ask colleagues to oppose the amendment.