Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this really wasn't the week of the Senator from Vermont. In an article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, ``The Myth of the Climate Change `97%,' '' they say the 97 percent figure came from 79 respondents out of 3,146. Secondly, today is the day they finalized the annual Gallup poll. The Gallup poll came out and made the statements that came to the conclusion that the current level of worry on global warming and climate remains at record lows, right behind the loss of tropical rain forests. So don't vote for this based on the assumption that the 97 percent figure is accurate or that people care that much.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, despite the repeated statements and warnings from our military and some of our congressional leaders, including myself, we are again staring down the barrel of sequestration. This has been the great fear we have had, and I think we have come to a compromise here that might be liveable--not ideal, not where we should be, but where we are at this time. Each service chief and each Secretary--and I have never seen this before--has testified that no service will be able to meet the wartime requirements under sequestration--that is in the event we have to have sequestration of the military portion. Let me just mention that it was done wrong from the very beginning. When you talk about sequestration, it would seem to me that we would want to be sequestering or reducing in a relationship or proportion as to what that is of the budget. For example, our military is 16 percent of the budget, and yet we have had to take 50 percent of the cuts. So sequestration has gotten us to this point. This budget we will be voting on has kind of a temporary solution or relief from sequestration. Secretary Carter, our new Secretary of Defense, testified that ``readiness remains at troubling levels across the force'' and ``that even with the FY16 budget, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps won't reach their readiness goals until 2020 and the Air Force until 2023.'' This was interesting because we had a hearing where we had faces from the past--Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and Madeleine Albright. So we had Democrats and Republicans, and they all agreed. Madeleine Albright testified about her concerns about the deep cuts to the Defense Department, saying that it ``jeopardizes America's military reach.'' This is a Democrat talking--Madeleine Albright. Over the last 6 years, significant cuts to the national security spending have forced our men and women in uniform to endure a steep and damaging drop in capabilities and readiness. All of them testified that our readiness is dropping. When you are talking about readiness, you are talking about risk. When you are talking about risk, you are talking about American lives. Our naval fleet is at a historical low level of ships. The Air Force is the smallest in its history. The Army is shrinking to a force not seen since before World War II. At a time when our security is being increasingly threatened by terrorism, a rising China, ISIL, ISIS, and rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea, the men and women charged with protecting this Nation are being undermined and forced to endure devastating cuts to the tools they need to keep America safe. What we are talking about is something that has happened up to this point--not the potential of sequestration, which hopefully we can avoid and I think we will avoid, but what has happened up to this point. The President believes the world is getting safer. He is negotiating a bad deal with Iran. He thinks global warming is a bigger threat to Americans than terrorism, but top leaders inside and out of the administration disagree. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper--James Clapper has been in this kind of capacity for well over 40 years--said: When the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled. . . . Roughly half of the world's currently stable countries are at some risk of instability over the next two years. The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, before our committee just a couple of weeks ago, stated: A confluence of global, political, military, social, and technological developments, taken in aggregate, have created security challenges more diverse and complex than those we have experienced in our lifetimes. That was Lt. Gen. Vincent Stuart, the DIA Director. Over the last three decades, we have built the most powerful fighting force in history and filled it with the most talented men and women ever to wear our uniform. We can't break our promise to them or our responsibility to protect the Nation. I believe our military--our men and women in uniform--will not accept failure and will do everything they can to succeed no matter how constrained they are by inadequate budgets. However, there will come a point when, without the training, equipment, and force size, it will fail because it was not given the resources to succeed. We cannot let our military get to this point, but that is what we are risking should we have another level of sequestration. Before sequestration even came into effect, the President cut some $500 billion from our military. We stood on this floor and talked about it at that time, about how we can't continue having cuts just to the military. That is what happened from this President before sequestration. Because of sequestration for fiscal year 2013, the Army had to cancel seven combat training center rotations, deferred maintenance on aircraft and vehicles, and postponed reset of weapons and equipment. The Air Force stood down 17 combat squadrons, cut 40,000 flying hours for its remaining units, cut training, and deferred maintenance activities. This is a problem that we have, too, because we have to consider the difference between retraining and retaining in the Air Force. The pilots--to train a pilot to F-22 standards costs in excess of $9 million, while retentions are something like $200,000 over a 9- or 10- year period. Because of the sequestration in 2013, the Navy and Marine Corps canceled deployments, deferred maintenance on ships, aircraft, and vehicles, reduced purchases of spare parts, and reduced training activities. All the services had to cut or delay weapon system and infrastructure modernization. Modernization is one of the first things they do when they cut. They really can't do the readiness, they can't cut the personnel who are out there, the force strength, so modernization is what suffers because that is not something people are aware of today. Yet that is where the cuts were. They are still attempting to recover from all of these cuts. But recent budget turmoil has forced our generals and admirals to worry about our military's ability to fulfill its critical national security role in, arguably, the most dangerous time in our Nation's history. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--that is General Dempsey-- warned that continued national security cuts will ``severely limit our ability to implement our defense strategy.'' He means there the defense strategy to defend our country and to save lives out there. ``It will put the nation at greater risk of coercion, and it will break faith with men and women in uniform.'' That is General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Our Nation relies on less than 1 percent who volunteer to risk their lives on its behalf. I was trying to get a comparable figure to put that in perspective, but we are talking about 1 percent of our population is involved in protecting the other 99 percent. When these brave men and women are ordered into harm's way, they will salute with courage, they will go and do their job, their mission, and very effectively, but they do not have the right equipment to do it with. In return, they rightfully expect a supportive nation to provide them with the best training, technology, and equipment to accomplish their mission and then to come home safely. Tragically, we are not doing that. Put simply, top military leaders are telling us that continued cuts to national security spending are making this country less safe. These cuts are making it more likely that our military men and women will not return from the battlefield alive, and this is immoral. We must increase our defense budget, and I prefer to increase its base budget in fiscal year 2016 and over the next 5 years to give our military leadership the required and predictable funding they need. Because of Senate rules, however, we aren't able to do this without changing the law. I am committed to working to the point where we can replace sequestration with cuts to mandatory spending, as was originally planned with the Budget Control Act. We went through the Budget Control Act assuming some of these things would happen. For the purposes of a Senate budget resolution, however, I am proud of the Budget Committee and the hard work they have done for adopting an amendment during their markup to provide additional funding for the Department of Defense through overseas contingency operations. That is OCO. This is far from ideal. OCO money is better than no money at all, and until we provide the solution to sequestration we need, this is the best we can do. Our country is at war and will be for the foreseeable future and we are going to have to do something to keep America strong. I don't like this alternative. We have had nothing but a series of bad alternatives and this is the least bad alternative. So I salute Senator Enzi and others who are responsible for coming up with something that still is going to defend our Nation, particularly as we are faced with another potential round of sequestration. We can't let that happen to our men and women in uniform nor to America. I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 1 minute in opposition.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, as I said a few minutes ago, I agree with Senator Sanders, the author of this amendment, in terms of what is the problem we have. We have to have a transportation reauthorization bill and we are going to have it. I know Senator Sanders has characterized his bill as being paid for by closing tax loopholes, but I would still say that, in my opinion and my analysis of this, this would equate to nearly a half a trillion dollar tax increase, and this is not the way I want to have a transportation reauthorization bill. Let me remind my colleagues that there is a reserve fund in Chairman Enzi's budget that serves as a placeholder for Chairman Hatch to address a long-term highway bill later this year. We have a deadline of May 31, and I think we can meet that deadline. We are working with Senator Hatch right now to come up with that plan. So I urge my colleagues to vote against the Sanders amendment and pursue our bill.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, I want to thank my good friend from Vermont for drawing attention to the critical importance of passing a long-term Transportation reauthorization bill. This is one that Senator Boxer and I have been working together on for a long period of time. We have gone through these reauthorizations for many years, and we know this is the way to do it. The reauthorization bill is far superior to just the short-term efforts for extensions. I think we all realize extensions cost about 30 percent off the top. And while I can't support the specific proposal of my good friend from Vermont, passing a bipartisan long-term fully funded bill is my top priority as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. As we all know, the current Transportation reauthorization expires on May 31, and EPW will be prepared to move on a reauthorization bill before that deadline. That is our goal. My staff has been working closely with the staff of my good friend and partner from California, the ranking member, Senator Boxer, and we are getting close to having our bill ready. I know my colleagues on the Committees on Finance, Commerce, Science and Transportation, and Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs are also committed to passing a long-term bill as soon as possible, because this does involve not just the Environment and Public Works Committee but the other two committees as well.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me say I agree and look forward to that. Sometimes people forget some of the things we are supposed to be doing around here. The Constitution says roads and bridges. That is what we are supposed to be doing. So I will work closely with my friend from California to achieve this.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, in a few minutes we will be voting, and while I sincerely appreciate the effort of my good friend Senator Sanders, I will be opposing this approach mostly because I don't think we need to go through what I consider to be a massive tax increase in order to do this. But just for a moment, I wish to talk about the seriousness of the transportation reauthorization bill. I know this issue has been talked about during the budget conversation and debate, but I think sometimes we ought to drag up that old document that hardly anyone pays attention to anymore--the Constitution. The Constitution specifically says in article I, section 8 that there are some things we are supposed to be doing here. The two major things that are mentioned in the article I, section 8 are, No. 1, defending America--that is our military--and the other is roads and bridges. I think we are concentrating and working very hard. A minute ago I had a colloquy with my friend from California, Senator Boxer. Senator Boxer observed that she is a proud liberal and recognized me as a proud conservative. Yet here is something we agree on, something we can do, something that is very important and that we need to take care of. Now, I won't say anything about the defense problem. We have a serious problem in our defense system right now, but that is not the discussion for today. I do believe that while we have an amendment that would address a highway reauthorization bill--and how critical that is--we are working on that. I have to remind people that there is a reserve fund in Chairman Enzi's budget that serves as a placeholder for Chairman Hatch to address a long-term highway bill later this year. The last bill we had was a 27-month bill. Again, that was to setup this idea of having a long-term bill. The last good bill we had was in 2005, and that was a 5-year bill. It was really produced very well. The problem with extensions--and I think we all know this--is that extensions take about 30 percent off the top because short-term extensions--and anyone who has been in business knows this--are things you cannot do in the short term. You cannot get the streamlining. Our 27-month bill had a lot of really good streamlining provisions in there. You cannot do that on short-term extensions. I look forward to having a very large bill. We have a deadline at the end of May to make this a reality, and I believe we are going to be able to do that. We are meeting on a regular basis, including a meeting today with Senator Hatch. We will be coming up with ways that we can pay for this. Again, I can remember in the very beginning we used to have a problem in the highway trust fund because we had too much surplus. Well, it is not that way anymore. We all know how we got in the mess we are in right now. We will have to address that, and I look forward to doing that and providing some of the leadership, right along with Senator Boxer and Senator Sanders, in making this a reality. With that, noting that 12 noon is here, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Wyden, I ask unanimous consent that the following fellows be granted floor privileges for the first session of the 114th Congress: Rebecca Farr, Elizabeth Rigby, and Patrick Bussard.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to make a comment about some legislation that we introduced last week that is going to be of supreme interest to a relatively small number of people--those people in America who are general aviation pilots. It actually affects other people too. This is something which is very significant, and I want to talk about it for a minute. It is important to pilots and aviation enthusiasts all over the Nation. But over the course of my time, I can recall when there were so few of us who were active commercial pilots, and those individuals who had problems--particularly in our State of Oklahoma--would all come to me because they knew I had understanding of this. So people have come in for help. One such person was Bob Hoover. Bob Hoover arguably may have been the best pilot of his time. He is still flying today. I guess he is in his nineties by now. But about 10, 15 years ago, one inspector didn't like something he did, and he took away his license. There are literally thousands of people who make their living as airline pilots. In the case of Bob Hoover, he is the guy who would go up in a Shrike--Chris, do you know what a Shrike is? A Shrike is a twin-engine airplane. I used to own a Shrike. It is made by Aero Commander. He would put a glass of water up here on the top of the dash. He would do a barrel roll, and the water would not tip over. This guy was just incredible. Anyway, it took an act of Congress that I introduced and passed to get him back into the air. That is why this is so important to a lot of people. I never realized, even though I personally helped a lot of people who were having problems with their regulations and with an alleged offense by the FAA until it happened to me--when it happened to me, all of a sudden I realized just how frustrating and drawn-out the process could be. In 2011, I introduced the Pilot's Bill of Rights. I did that to address some serious deficiencies in the relationship between pilots and the FAA. There are a lot of really great people, certainly, in the FAA. The occupier of the chair right now and I both are aware of this. In Oklahoma City, we have several hundred such people. They are easy to get along with and are not overbearing. But any bureaucracy can have a few people who merely want to create problems and say no. So we introduced the Pilot's Bill of Rights--this was in August of 2012--to ensure that pilots, like everyone else, would be treated fairly and equitably in our justice system. I think pilots are the last group of people who fall into that category we see so prominently in other countries where you are guilty until proven innocent. Anyway, we passed the Pilot's Bill of Rights, and there are a few things in there that did not get the congressional intent that was originally meant to be. To remedy this, we introduced S. 571. It is the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2. It is bipartisan. Right now, we are sitting on 12 Republicans and 12 Democrats who will be cosponsors of this bill. There are eight sections in the bill, three general subject areas. First, the legislation reforms FAA's overly burdensome medical certification process by expanding an existing exemption for light sport aircraft pilots to include more qualified, trained pilots. Let me speak for a moment on the safety concerns. There is a small minority of people who think that expanding an exemption like this automatically decreases safety. That is not true of this bill. I have the numbers to show it. In 2004, the FAA issued a medical exemption for pilots of light sport aircraft. These are aircraft which weigh less than 1,320 pounds and only have two seats. They had several restrictions. In the entire country, there are about 9,500 of them. It has been over 10 years since the FAA issued this exemption, and since then, not a single accident by a light sport aircraft has occurred that was related to a medical deficiency. A joint study was done by the AOPA, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, and the EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association, on the 46,000 aviation accidents that occurred from 2008 to 2012. Of those, only 99 had a medical cause as a factor. That is less than one-quarter of 1 percent of all accidents. Of those 99, none would have been prevented by the current third-class medical screening exemption that was in the process at that time. Extending that medical exemption for light sport aircraft to include planes weighing up to 6,000 pounds with up to six total passengers, including the pilot, would add airman and aircraft to an existing FAA- approved medical standard--without degrading or creating substandard safety. This approach has been endorsed by the Flying Physicians Association and the AOPA Medical Advisory Board. Both organizations are made up of pilots who are also medical doctors. This bill does not change the certification standards to obtain a pilot's certificate, and all pilots still have to possess a pilot certificate and pass the required practical test in flying. The bill does create consistency for aviators across the country, where inconsistency has been felt. The second thing is--in fact, I would say this: We have documented cases where you have two people who have the same medical problem--one in Detroit and one in Tulsa, OK--and they are treated completely differently by the medical doctors where they are examined. The second thing it does is it extends the due process rights preserved in the original Pilot's Bill of Rights to all FAA certificate holders. This would be other people who are holding FAA certificates, and it is not necessarily a pilot's certificate. When Congress passed the original Pilot's Bill of Rights, we intended to allow pilots to appeal a decision by the FAA to the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, and then pilots could appeal to a Federal court. We did this because the review by the Federal district court is a de novo. That means they start with the pilot getting a whole new trial, not using the same evidence as was used before the FAA or the NTSB. In two separate cases, Federal district courts ruled that my original bill did not require a full hearing of the facts. This legislation explicitly spells out the option to appeal an FAA enforcement action to Federal district court for a guaranteed de novo trial, meaning a new and independent review of the facts is guaranteed for these individuals. This legislation also increases transparency for all FAA certificate holders subject to an investigation or enforcement action by holding FAA accountable for communicating with certificate holders. The FAA is now required to articulate a specific description of an accident or incidents under investigation to parties involved in the investigation and provide specific documentation relevant to the investigation. While this is something that has happened in many cases, it has not happened in all of them. This bill ensures that certificate holders-- these are pilots who are under investigation--are afforded basic fairness. They know why they are being investigated. They have the appropriate documentation to prepare a proper defense and can respond to the FAA from a position of knowledge and certainty in all cases. I speak from personal experience. This happened to me when I was trying to land in South Texas. They claimed I was not cleared to land. It took me 4 months to get a recording of the particular person who happened to be at the approach control and cleared me to land. I am a U.S. Senator, and it took 4 months for me to get it, so I figured others might not ever be able to wait this out, and they would have lost their certificate. As I say, it is not a big deal to the general public, but it is to anyone who is a pilot. I am expanding the original Pilot's Bill of Rights to increase transparency for pilots and certificate holders so they have information and resources to defend themselves should it be necessary. The third thing it does is it expedites the updates of the notice to airmen--a NOTAM. A NOTAM is a notice to an airman, and it is something that has historically been the responsibility of the FAA. If there is a problem on a runway where we are going to land--if it is going to be closed or they are doing repairs or something like that--they have to publish a NOTAM, in theory. However, in practice, it doesn't work that way. In my case they claimed there was a NOTAM indicating that the runway I had to land on was closed. However, there was never a NOTAM. They said there was a NOTAM, and you just have to take their word for it. The Pilot's Bill of Rights No. 1 was supposed to force the FAA to publish NOTAMs in a common place where people would know where they are, and they just have not done it. Now we have strengthened that to say if a NOTAM action is not placed where it can be found, then they cannot use that as an enforcement action against a pilot. So that should resolve the problem. Fourth, the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2 extends liability protection to individuals designated by the FAA, such as aviation medical examiners, pilot examiners, and other individuals. That was the intent of the original one, but it was not specific. This has given a lot of individuals willing to serve as designees a disincentive. My bill removes the disincentive, ensuring increased access to medical professionals and designees to sign off on check rides and flightworthiness of experimental aircraft and all of that. So they would get the same protection. It is kind of the Good Samaritan law. There are a lot of times when pilots are notified and asked to use their aircraft to help some worthy cause. I can remember one time down on the island just off of Caracas, Venezuela, it had been wiped out by a tornado. This was many years ago. So I took 14 airplanes down there to help those people out. If something happened to one of the airplanes and caused someone's injury or something, then they would not be protected. They didn't have a Good Samaritan law. A lot of people will not do this. People have actually lost their lives because they didn't get the help they needed because people would not volunteer their equipment to help people. So we have a Good Samaritan law and that should take care of that problem. Many times I have seen when people are inspired as a volunteer--I have done the same thing myself--but there is a disincentive to do that. So the Pilot's Bill of Rights 2 is sensitive to the needs of pilots, airmen, and the general aviation community, and they have worked closely with me on it. I have to say that the OPA and the EAA have worked all the way through this thing and they are fully supportive, as are all their individuals. In fact, I don't know of anyone in the aviation community who is not fully supportive of this. We have introduced this bill. It is bipartisan. It is something that Senators Manchin and Boozman--they are the cochairs of the Senate General Aviation Caucus, and they are cosponsors of this bill. I encourage Members--hopefully this will go to the commerce committee and we will be able to get a hearing on it very soon. The House Members are waiting for it to come over, and we are anxious to get this bill passed. I know this is something that is not of concern to an awful lot of people in this country, but I can tell you it is a big concern to people who are pilots. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. INHOFE. Is there any way the time could be changed from 2:30 p.m. to 2:20 p.m., otherwise there are four people who may miss their planes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am reminiscent, with the snow on the ground, of 5 years ago. The Presiding Officer was not here at that time. He does not have the advantage of knowing the story of what is behind this. The story that is behind this is that back when they started all the hysteria on global warming, there happened to be another snowstorm that was unprecedented. It set a record that year. There is a charming family of six, I say to my friend in the chair, who built this. Their picture is here. That happens to be my daughter and her family of six. At that time it got a lot of attention. It actually got a lot of national attention. In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the Chair: Do you know what this is? It is a snowball. That is just from outside here. So it is very cold out, very unseasonable. So, Mr. President, catch this. We hear the perpetual headline that 2014 has been the warmest year on record. Now the script has flipped. I think it is important, since we hear it over and over and over again on the floor of this Senate. Some outlets are referring to the recent cold temperatures as the ``Siberian Express,'' as we can see with the snowball out there. This is today. This is reality. Others are printing pictures of a frozen Niagara Falls. And 4,700 square miles of ice have formed on the Great Lakes in 1 night. That has never happened before. Let's talk more about the warmest year claim. On January 16, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, concluded that 2014 was the warmest year in modern record, which starts in 1880. NASA relied on readings from over 3,000 measuring stations worldwide, and only found an increase of just two one-hundredths of a degree over the previous record. Now an important point that was left out of the NASA press release was that the margin of error, which on average is 0.1 degree Celsius, was several times greater than the amount of warming. So, in reality, it is so far within the margin of error that it is not really recordable. This discrepancy was questioned at a press conference, and NASA's GISS Director backtracked. This is the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He backtracked on the warmest year headline saying there was only a 38-percent chance that 2014 was the warmest year on the record. Another recent report issued by the Berkeley Earth surface temperature project, using data from more than 30,000 temperature stations, concluded that if 2014 was the warmest year on record, it was by less than 0.01 degrees Celsius-- again, below the margin of error ultimately making it possible to conclude that 2014 was the warmest record on year. Additional climate experts, including University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, have stated that the warmest year on record statement is only as relevant as when the record actually began. Others state that record-setting conclusions issued in January require the use of incomplete data because the preponderance of the data arrives much later from underdeveloped and developing nations. The media was quick to ditch the warmest year on record claim as cold weather has left most of the country experiencing record low temperatures. Tuesday's Washington Post highlighted all of the longstanding records that were broken in the Northeast and Midwest. My State is Oklahoma and that is not even included in this article. But we set 146 records--alltime records--in my State of Oklahoma just during that time. According to the National Weather Service, 67 record lows were broken on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Whether news cycles or climate cycles, variations in hot and cold are really nothing new. Recent climate change discussions like to focus on climate trends post-1880, but the reality is that climate change has been occurring since the beginning of time. The chart behind me is very interesting because it shows two things that everyone agrees with. The first is that we had the medieval warm period. This is a period of time starting about 1000 A.D. and going to about 1400 A.D. This is a major warming period that led into what they call the little ice age, which was about 1500 A.D. to about 1900 A.D. The interesting thing is that many of us in this room remember that when they first started talking about global warming, a scientist named Michael Mann developed what they call the hockey stick theory, and that had a hockey stick showing that for a long period of time we had temperatures that were level, and then all of a sudden they started going up like the blade of a hockey stick. The problem was they neglected to note that the two periods were, in reality, in his sketch of a hockey stick. So in his opinion then, as portrayed by the hockey stick, there was no medieval warm period or little ice age. By the way, this Michael Mann is the same one who was featured as the main person who was guilty of violations that created this term called the climate change, which was characterized as the most outrageous. I don't have it in my notes, but one of the publications in England talked about the worst scientific disgrace in national history. Time magazine had a chart, and this is interesting because people who look at the weather and get concerned about all the warming periods and the cold, to them the world is coming to an end. This one shows that in 1974 another ice age was coming. That is the actual cover of the magazine. So everyone is concerned that the world is coming to an end, and at the same time they were talking about the fact that there is going to be another ice age. In the past 2000 years there was the medieval warm period followed immediately by the little ice age. These two climate events are widely recognized in scientific literature. No one has refuted these. These are incontrovertible. In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences released its study ``Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years,'' and that acknowledged that there were relatively warm conditions during that period of time. So that is history, and that is behind us. While that is still up, I will go on and fast forward. That same magazine, Time magazine, had as its cover a short time after that this poor, typical, polar bear that is standing on the last piece of ice-- and we are all going to die because global warming is coming. This is something that has been happening over long periods of time. Every time it does, everyone tries to say that the world is coming to an end and that somehow man is so important and so powerful that he can change that. In 1975 Newsweek published an article titled ``The Cooling World,'' which argued that global temperatures were falling and terrible consequences for food production were on the horizon--and all of that. Well, we know about that. This highlights that the climate is changing, and it always has been changing. In fact, our recent vote during the Keystone XL Pipeline debate showed that 97 of us in this Chamber--Democrats and Republicans--agreed that climate has always been changing. I made a little talk on the floor at that time and I said: You know, I think this is something on which we can all agree. If we look at archaeological diggings, history, the Scriptures, climate has always been in changing. Despite a long list of unsubstantiated global warming claims, climate activists and environmental groups will cling to any extreme weather- related headline to their case for global warming and to instill the fear of global warming in the American people. People sometimes ask me why. Why do you suppose they are doing this, spending all this time? They tried it through legislation. We defeated it. Now it is through regulations that would cost between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. Yet it wouldn't have any effect on what they perceive to be global warming. So that is the question. Why is it? There is a scientist by the name of Richard Lindzen. Richard Lindzen is with MIT. Some of us have argued he is the most knowledgeable of all the climate scientists. He answered that question. He said: You know, regulating carbon is like regulating life. If you regulate carbon, it is a bureaucrat's dream, because regulating carbon regulates life. So it is a power struggle. I think that is probably the best answer. I am not a scientist. I don't claim to be. But I quote scientists, and they have the answers to these questions. Terrorism Now, President Obama is using a similar tactic in order to scare Americans into supporting his extreme climate change agenda. In a recent interview, President Obama agreed that the media overstates the dangers of terrorism while downplaying the risks of climate change. His Press Secretary, Josh Earnest, later reiterated that President Obama believes climate change affects far more Americans than terrorists. Now, that is the first time we heard that. But wait until we hear later what the President himself and his Secretary of State said. According to the President, the biggest challenge we face is not the spread of Islamic extremist terrorism in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen or Nigeria. The greatest threat that we face is not Russian aggression in NATO and the United States, as well as its invasion of Georgia and Ukraine. It is not the expansion of Iranian influence and sponsorship of terrorism throughout the Middle East or its pursuit of a nuclear weapons system to deliver it and to be able to hit the United States of America. The greatest threat is not North Korea's continued development of its nuclear weapons stockpile and the improving of their delivery systems to include the January 23 launch of a sea-launched ballistic missile that was called the KN-11. I think we are all aware of that. And the greatest threat is not the continued capture and killing of reporters, missionaries, businessmen, Christians, and other non-Muslims in what has clearly been a religious confrontation being pursued. The President's position is that global warming is our greatest threat-- greater than all the things I just mentioned. It is underscored by the fact that he won't even publicly state that the 21 Egyptians executed by ISIL in Libya were Christians. He won't recognize that, and he won't recognize that it has anything to do with radical Islam. He goes out of his way to downplay the actions and dangers of ISIS even though the group continues to terrorize the world. Just this past weekend, ISIS abducted over 70 Syrian Christians, including women and children from villages in eastern Syria. To my knowledge, we don't know what they have done with them yet. But there are 70 of them, and the previous 21 were killed because of their Christianity. According to the President, our biggest threat is not the continued threats made by extremists against the United States and its citizens. It is not the successful attacks carried out in the United States and other places such as New York, Boston, Fort Hood or potential attacks of lone wolves or sleeper cells against soft targets such as the Mall of America, which is the most recent subject of an ISIL threat. Even as these atrocities are taking place, President Obama is telling the world that climate change is a greater threat to our Nation than terrorists. This is just another illustration that this President and his administration are detached from the realities that we are facing today and into the future. His repeated failure to understand the real threat to our national security and his inability to develop a coherent national security strategy has put this Nation at a level of risk that has been unknown for decades. His failure of leadership and his gutting of our military have weakened our ability to influence and respond to crises. This all comes at a tremendous cost to our national security. The President has accused the media of overstating the problem, heightening the fears of the population. As he downplays the threats, we see photos of young children standing in military-like formation, being brainwashed into ISIS or ISIL extremism. We shouldn't be surprised. It is a natural outgrowth of the President's failed leadership. In 2012 and 2013 President Obama spoke of helping Libya and Yemen fight terrorism. Yet as he addressed this Nation, both countries spiraled toward chaos, creating terrorist safe havens. Just days after his speech, Yemen's Prime Minister and his Cabinet resigned amidst a coup by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The administration aided instability in Afghanistan by releasing the most senior leaders of the Taliban, the Taliban dream team. We all remember that. We had just passed a law saying that the President cannot release anyone from Gitmo--from Guantanamo Bay--without giving 30 days' notice to Congress. Yet he totally ignored that and let these people go. Some of the terrorists out of Gitmo--I carry this card with me because it is really not believable. Of the five that he turned loose, one was named Mohammed Fazil, and the Taliban commander said that Mohammed Fazil's release ``is like pouring 10,000 Taliban fighters into the battle on the side of jihad. Now the Taliban have the right lion to lead them in the final moment before victory against Afghanistan.'' Now, I don't know where these are. I suggest that all five have returned to the battle. The record is that of those who have been released, some 29 percent have gone back to the battle. So that is taking place. Mullah Omar, the Taliban's leader, called the release a great victory. This action allowed these men to rejoin the fight against our service men and women. This is a big deal. The President quickly withdrew from Iraq, leaving a vacuum for ISIS to fill, which is now requiring our military to return. The President wants to repeat our errors with a speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan, and that is despite the advice of his commanders on the ground and the request by Afghanistan's newest President, Ashraf Ghani, to reexamine our withdrawal plan. He has de-Reaganized Europe by drastically cutting our forces, acquiescing to Russian influences by cutting our ballistic missile defense site in Poland and our radar in the Czech Republic. I remember when that happened. I was so concerned about that because we put the radar site and the ballistic missile defense site in Poland and the Czech Republic because--that was for the protection of Western Europe and Eastern United States because we don't have the capacity to offer protection the American people should expect. But the President did that anyway. He failed to provide assistance--apart from the MREs and blankets. Instead of sending weapons to the Ukrainians, he sends blankets. We had Poroshenko, the President of Ukraine, come in and give a speech to a joint session of Congress. In that speech he said we need to have some defense against what Putin and the Russians are doing with the separatists in his country of Ukraine. I happened to be over there. I was over there during the parliamentary elections. Not many people in America realize that in the Ukraine--our very good friends in Ukraine had their parliamentary elections in October, and President Poroshenko looked me in the eyes and said very proudly how good the outcome was. This was the first time in 96 years that the Ukraine had parliamentary elections and didn't elect one Communist to a seat in the Parliament. That was the first time that had ever happened. Yet the President said in his State of the Union message: We're upholding the principle that bigger nations can't bully the small--by opposing Russian aggression, supporting Ukraine's democracy, and reassuring our NATO allies. That is what he said, standing in the House Chamber, in his State of the Union speech. Yet, under the President's failed leadership, we have seen two ceasefire failures in the Ukraine, thousands of civilians displaced, and approximately 5,000 people killed. America's assistance is vital to denying Putin's attempts to destabilize the region. Yet it is not happening. It is not happening under the Obama administration. This administration is overwhelmed by world events and blind to the fact that terrorists are at war with America and our way of life. We now live in a world where our allies don't trust us and our enemies don't fear us. When will the President and his administration take the steps required to minimize the risk to Americans and our allies by providing this country with a national security strategy--one that addresses today's global security environment, grows back our military and its readiness, and deals with our enemies from a position of strength, not weakness and not appeasement? These are the biggest threats facing our Nation today. It is decidedly not global warming. The threat of war, terrorism, and extremism has plagued the Earth for centuries. The United States is not immune. We must take all threats seriously and take every responsible action to secure our freedom. Threats to our national security are always the most serious threats we face. Issues such as global warming or global cooling 40 years ago are simply not what we need to be worrying about in the same breath when we are talking about national defense. I say this because I have a deep concern. I was the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and I am in a position to see what is happening around the world. The threats we are facing are unprecedented. Just yesterday we had a hearing, and we had James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence. This is one of the things he has been quoted as saying: Looking back over my now more than half a century in intelligence, I've not experienced a time when we've been beset by more crises and threats around the globe. In the hearing we held yesterday, the Director said: When the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled. So this goes on and on. This is what the military says. This is the threat we face. Everyone understands it except the White House. On February 25, just yesterday, Secretary of State Kerry said--and keep in mind he said this with all these threats we are facing: Today is actually, despite ISIL, despite the visible killings that you see and how horrific they are, we are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally--less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century. We all know better than that. We know how threatened we are. Everyone knows it except the White House, and they are going to have to wake up to save our Nation. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak as in morning business for such time as I shall consume.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to use a visible example of the cold weather during my remarks.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am introducing a bill today because there is something going on that people are not as aware of as they should be. We don't have a better friend than King Abdullah in Jordan. I have been pleased to get to know him as a personal friend as well as a friend of America. I was over there with him last October. We were on the Syrian border looking at all the things that are going on right now with ISIL and ISIS, and it has been a real tragedy. Last week King Abdullah was in the United States for the National Prayer Breakfast. While he was here, there were several of us who were with him when he got the news that his friend and relative, an F-16 pilot, had been caged, soaked with gasoline, and burned alive. America and the whole world saw what happened and asked: What kind of monsters are these people who are doing this over there? They are beheading children and pregnant women and burning people alive. Yet this is going on. People have to understand this. They do understand it in terms of ISIS. But what I want to share with you, and introduce legislation to correct, is that it is not just happening there, it is also happening in Ukraine right now. I happened to be in Ukraine in late October of this year. I went over there because they were having their parliamentary elections at the time. Ukraine has been such a good friend to us--not just Poroshenko, but the rest of the administration that went through the parliamentary election has also been a friend. Let's keep in mind that the Presidential elections were way back in May. This last election was the parliamentary election, and we were there to see what was happening in the Ukraine. In the Ukraine they have a constitutional requirement that you cannot have a seat in Parliament unless you have 5 percent of the vote. This is the first time, after the vote when we were there in October, that they had a parliamentary election and not one Communist got a seat in Parliament. This is the first time in 96 years that not one Communist has a seat in the Parliament. As bad as things are with ISIS, I suggest that what is going on--and I only preface what I am saying so I can demonstrate what a good friend Poroshenko and the leadership of the Ukraine is to the United States. We have the Russians in there with the separatists doing horrible things--things that are just as bad as what is taking place in Syria with ISIS and in other places. To demonstrate this--it is not a very fun thing to look at, but you have to understand what is happening. These are T-72 tanks. Putin keeps saying: We don't have any Russians in there with the separatists. It is not us. We are not doing it. Well, here they are. These are the pictures we brought back with us. All those tanks are lined up within Ukraine, and that is clearly what they are. If you want to see how brutal Putin and everyone else is--it is not something anyone enjoys looking at, but you have to know this is going on. The tragedies that are taking place in Syria and in other parts of the world are also taking place in Ukraine. This is a picture of the murders and torture that have been taking place there. These people have been disembodied, their heads cut off. These are Ukrainian citizens. They are legal citizens. They are the ones whom Putin and the rest of them are fighting. For that reason, I have introduced legislation to require that the United States offer the weaponry. By the way, I was making a presentation about this issue and Senator McCain was there. He said: If you look at all of those tanks, they don't have one piece of equipment that could offer a defense against those tanks. What have we been giving them? We have been giving them MREs and blankets. When Poroshenko was here in the United States, he made a speech to both Houses. He said that ``one can't win the war with blankets. . . . Even more, we cannot keep the peace with a blanket.'' In other words, we have to share the very best defensive weapons or weapons that can be used offensively with them. They cannot be left naked there when facing this kind of abuse. We know that shortly after the heavily armed Russian soldiers invaded and took control of the Crimean region in February of 2014, the Ukrainian Government and its people faced and sustained a deadly force from heavily armed rebel separatists who were equipped, trained, and supported by the Russian Federation. We have seen pictures of that. This is the first time we have shown pictures that document, No. 1, that the equipment came from Russia and Putin, and, No. 2, the type of things they are doing over there. We passed a law last year that said we would give defensive weaponry to the Ukrainians, but it fell short because of one thing--it was prescriptive. It said what kind of equipment it would be. The bill I am introducing today does two things. It offers the equipment we can give them with no restrictions whatsoever, and secondly, it does something else I think is very significant, and that is we require the President to come up with a strategy. People always say: Well, the President doesn't have a strategy against ISIS. It is true he doesn't have one, and it is deplorable that he doesn't have one. He also doesn't have a strategy for Ukraine. Without a strategy, it is not going to work. Last week we had a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was kind of funny because we had people from the past. We had George Shultz, Madeleine Albright, and Henry Kissinger. We were talking about the Ukraine at that time and talked about offering some equipment we thought should go there, and they said: Well, you have to do that, but you can't just send them equipment. You have to specifically demand a strategy. In this bill we are saying to the President of the United States to not only send over equipment but we need to also provide a strategy we can massage as time goes on. On February 2, 2015, eight of the former senior ranking diplomatic and military officials testified. They included the former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine, Steven Pifer; former Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy; former Supreme Allied Commander ADM James Stavridis, and former Deputy Commander to the U.S. Command, Gen. Charles Wald. They all served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. They released a nonpartisan report calling on President Obama to provide Ukraine with lethal weaponry, and this is what we talked about in the bill. They encouraged other NATO countries to do the same, particularly those that possess and used former Soviet equipment and weaponry. On January 25, when President Obama stated at a news conference in New Delhi, India that the aggression by the rebel separatists in eastern Ukraine had Russian backing, Russian equipment, Russian financing, Russian training, and Russian troops--so he finally agreed. It is not something that is debatable or might be happening; it is something that is happening. You can see the horrible things that are going on there, and you can see the reason it is necessary to get this done. Some time ago, back when Carl Levin was still here--he is retired, and he did such a great job as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee for so many years when I was the ranking Republican on the Committee on Armed Services. At that time, a year ago in October, we wrote the following in the Washington Post: We believe that the United States should begin providing defensive weapons that would help Ukraine defend its territory. Such weapons could include anti-tank weapons to defend against Russian-provided armored personnel carriers, ammunition, vehicles and secure communications equipment. This would present no threat to Russia unless its forces launch further aggression against Ukraine. In other words, these weapons are lethal, but not provocative because they are defensive. That came from Carl Levin and me. This is back before we knew the results of the parliamentary election that was so successful and so complementary to the West. This has been long overdue. There is no one who disagrees with it, and even the President recognizes they have the equipment and we are not doing the job we should be doing. So, with that, I am going to introduce S. 452, and we are going to ask for cosponsors to come down and speak on this topic. We have quite a long list of cosponsors. It doesn't bother me if other Members want to introduce like resolutions because we need to get something passed. We need to raise the visibility so the people of America know this is not just going on in Syria and some of these other countries, but it is also in the country of one of our very best friends worldwide, and that best friend is the Ukraine. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it is my understanding that we have someone coming down in about 10 minutes. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized shortly after 2:25 p.m. I wish to lock that in--Senator Hoeven and then me.

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

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I was listening very carefully to the Senator talking about our situation with the pipeline, and there is something else I was going to talk about, but I want to make sure we say it as often as we can. I have sent for a poster which I want to share with the Senate. My State of Oklahoma is more than just passively interested in the pipeline. In the center of Oklahoma is a town called Cushing. Cushing, OK, happens to be the central location for the pipelines going throughout the United States--east, west, north, and south. The picture, if it does arrive, that I wanted to share with everyone is of this President who is trying to, I guess, insult our intelligence by having it both ways. I think the Senator from North Dakota made it very clear that the President is dragging his feet and that he has been able to successfully stop the pipeline from coming through. The picture I will show is a picture of President Obama coming into my State of Oklahoma and standing with all the barrels behind him in Cushing, OK, announcing that he is not going to stop the pipeline from going south from Oklahoma down to the Texas border. That is very good because he cannot do it. The only place he can stop it is when it crosses the international border. Of course that is where he is continuing to stop it. I have to say he has lost the war of words on this because people know we have an opportunity--that everything the Senator said is correct. We can be totally independent in no time at all. We are not talking about years, we are talking about weeks and months. We can have our total independence just by lifting all the restrictions we have right now, not just the pipeline but what is happening on Federal land. It is interesting. We have gone through this shale revolution in this country, and it has been so overwhelming. In the last 5 years it has been in spite of the President because he continues in his budget to have all kinds of punitive provisions for the oil and gas industry. Yet because of what has happened with the shale revolution, the use of hydraulic fracturing, the horizontal drilling, we have increased our production over the last 5 years by 61 percent. All of the 61 percent is in private land or it is in State land. We have on Federal land a reduction. While the rest of the country has increased 61 percent, it has been reduced by 6 percent. That is the dilemma we have right now. It goes far beyond just the pipeline. We have an opportunity to be completely free--and I am talking about our Northern Hemisphere--being free from dependence on anyone in any part of the world for our ability to produce the energy necessary to run this machine called America. (The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 452 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')