Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, since last week, there have been over 20,000 members of the National Guard stationed here at the Capitol. They are here--and have been here and are still here--to keep us safe, keep the Members safe, Senators safe, staff, press--all of us. It seems that people are speculating that maybe this was overkill, maybe we didn't really need this many people here. They are wrong. This was a nice, successful inauguration and successful, peaceful transfer of power because they were there. I made that very clear to the ones I have been talking to in the field over the last 3 days. I know, firsthand, that they are really outstanding professionals, these guards. We have about 400 guards here from the Oklahoma National Guard. I visited with them--I guess it was on Wednesday--in five different groups. I went around and talked to them because they weren't all in the same location, and we thanked them for the service and the sacrifices they are making. Long hours. These guys are having long hours. They are the best of the best. The many I saw did deployments in Afghanistan. When I was talking to them, they would remember, and say: Well, Senator Inhofe, I remember we were together in Afghanistan; we were together in Ukraine. These guys--that was 10 years ago, and they are still on the job working. I don't know what we could have done without them. In fact, I asked several of them, how many of you in this group, from Oklahoma, in the Guard, have never been to Washington before, that this is your first trip. More than half of them had never been to Washington before. That was a great opportunity for them too. But I am really humbled and grateful for what they are doing for us, and I am sure all of our colleagues are. That is why I was so shocked and really angry last night--and I picked it up on TV--I didn't know anything about it--when I heard that the guards were being made to feel like they were unwelcome by some person in the Capitol Police, and they were to take their rest breaks someplace else and actually sent to the parking garage, of all places. Our Guard members are being lodged in hotels. They are working shifts, 12-hour shifts a day. They are long shifts, on their feet, so they need to have rest breaks. And they can't do that lying in the Senate garage. They have 2 hours on and 1 hour off, plus time for eating and that type of thing. We can all agree they should be comfortable on their breaks, a place to sit and lie down, eat, charge their batteries, and things they have to do--talk to their families at home. That is what they are supposed to be doing. That is precisely where they were. They were using the buildings here in the Capitol before they were made to feel unwelcome and pushed to the garage. I understand, and I am glad that they have moved back in and they are now well taken care of. And that is a good thing. But they should never have had to go through this in the first place. What we did, you have to find out--you get to the bottom of it. And that is what we are doing now. We are getting answers. I called the acting chief of the Capitol Police this morning. I called General McConville. General McConville is the Chief of Staff of the Army, and they are all working to find out how this happened. The acting chief, Pittman, says the guards were never asked to leave yesterday. I know that she believes that. But several--multiple members of the military said, no, they were told to leave. We know one thing; that whether it was confusion from the fog and the friction and the environment or whatever it was, the troops didn't move on their own, so they were asked by somebody. This isn't a blame game. But I do want to know what happened to make sure it doesn't happen again. This is what happened. There was one uniformed police officer who issued an order without authority or without going through the chain of command. I am glad that the U.S. Capitol Police and the Guard are talking and trying to figure this out. We are going to be able to identify who that person was, and we will make that public. But, ultimately, one message for our National Guard up here: You are appreciated. You are welcome. We are very, very grateful for the sacrifices that you made. And if you are ever told at any point that you need to vacate and don't have a comfortable place, just go to Russell 205, and I will make sure that you will be very comfortable in my office. I know that there is bipartisan outrage about this, so I think you will have plenty of places to rest. You have done a great job. You will be returning home soon. And you will be able to say: Job well done I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, at the top of the list was my chief of staff, Ryan Jackson. Like Andy, Ryan also went on to be my staff director of the EPW Committee, Environment and Public Works, where he helped negotiate bipartisan bills for highway, water, and infrastructure to environmental bills like TSCA. Remember, that was the one that had the chemical regulations. In his role he helped me negotiate with former California Senator Barbara Boxer. This is kind of interesting. I think the Presiding Officer would find this to be interesting. Barbara Boxer and I--for many, many years, every time the Republicans were in the majority, I was the chairman of that committee, and she was the ranking member. Every time the Democrats were in control, she was the chairman, and I was the ranking member. So we worked together, and we accomplished more. I won't divulge where the meeting is, but there is a meeting that Republicans have historically had at 12:15 p.m. on a Tuesday with all the members of the committees, the chairmen. We would talk about what we have done, and when it was my turn, I would say: Now from the committee that actually gets things done. That was Barbara Boxer and I. No two people could be further apart philosophically than Barbara Boxer and I, yet we were able to do that with the help of Ryan Jackson. I actually hired him when he was still in college. He left my office early 2017 to go to work as Chief of Staff at the EPA, where he was a central player in the implementation of the last administration's policies. In February, he left the EPA, which was when Mandy Gunasekara took office as chief of staff. Mandy worked for me in the EPW Committee for several years as the majority counsel. In that role she helped me craft air and other policy priorities. While at the EPA, she has been instrumental in advancing priorities like the ACE rule that I mentioned earlier. She is a skilled and devoted public servant, and I am proud of all that she has done to advance policies that benefit all Americans. A number of others of what I refer to as my ``has-beens'' have served at the EPA over the last 4 years. Susan Bodine was the chief counsel on EPW and went on to serve as Assistant Administrator in the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Brittany Bolen was counsel for the EPW, Environment and Public Works Committee, and went on to serve as Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy. Byron Brown was senior counsel at the EPW and went on to serve as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Then there is Daisy Letendre. She was communications director in my office and went on to serve as a Senior Advisor in the Office of Policy. So I am proud of all my ``has-beens'' and the big impact that they have had on our country. We are grateful for their service, past and present--especially that of Andrew Wheeler and Ryan Jackson. I say to our friends Wheeler and Jackson: Thank you and good luck in your next endeavors. You did great work. Let me just mention one last thing. I urge the Biden administration not to repeal a lot of the rules and regulations and deregulation initiatives that gave us the economy that was unprecedented during the time before the pandemic set in. It would be devastating to our country, which is already trying to recover from the pandemic. Now is not the time to impose costly new regulations on Americans and the job creators in this country. Everyone knows that this pandemic has wreaked havoc on our economy, and I am certain that, had we not had the virus, we would have broken even more economic records than we already had. Prior to the pandemic, we had the best economy of our life. We set records, with small business optimism reaching the highest level on record in its 45-year history and unemployment hitting a 50-year low of 3.5 percent. We have always said in the past that full employment is 4 percent. We brought it down that entire year, and in February of 2020 it was down to 3.5 percent. It never had happened before. The median household income rose to a record high in 2019, the highest since 1967. The wealth of American families rose. That is an indicator. It rose to the highest level in history. So these good things were happening, and I would urge this administration not to repeal some of these regulations. Repealing some of these regulations would simply reverse gains like these. I urge the Biden administration to work with me and others to reach compromises on regulations that would benefit all Americans. That seems to be pretty reasonable, and I think that is a good program to do. Let's give it a try. OK? With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, we recently said goodbye to a lot of really good, hard-working men and women from the previous administration, and I want to highlight a few of them. We refer to them--some of my friends and some of my enemies refer to them as the ``Inhofe mafia.'' It comes from the committees that I have chaired, both the Armed Services Committee as well as the Environment and Public Works Committee. But anyway, they are really a great bunch of people. I am going to start with Andrew Wheeler. Andrew Wheeler was with me for a number of years--14 years--before he became the Director of the EPA. Here is a guy who was nominated to be the Administrator. At that time, I said that there is no one in America who is as qualified as Andrew Wheeler for this job. The first job he had out of law school was with the EPA. When he was nominated to be Administrator, I kind of gave his whole life history. All of my Senate colleagues know Andy and have known him for a long period of time--Democrats and Republicans. He has worked for me in the Senate as well as becoming one of my ``has-beens,'' as we refer to people who used to be with me and are still my good friends. Andy started in my personal office as chief counsel and went on to serve as the staff director and chief counsel during my time as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. He has decades of experience and is one of the most skilled energy and environmental policy experts I have ever come in contact with, and I am immensely proud of what he has been able to accomplish throughout his career, but particularly as EPA Administrator. Andy understood that the EPA's mission is to implement the laws that are passed by Congress for the American people. The EPA's job is not to legislate. A lot of people think that. That is our job, to legislate, and then he carries it out, and he did really just a great job with that. Contrary to what many on the left say Republicans want, we do want clean air and clean water and clean land, and Andy proved that he could accomplish that without burdensome overregulation. During his time at the EPA, he spearheaded a number of the rules and deregulatory actions that brought important relief to American job creators while protecting our environment. He rolled back the economy standards on cars that were created to try to force Americans to drive vehicles they don't want to drive and that they can't afford. In its replacement, Andy developed the SAFE vehicles rule, which expands consumer choice and lowers the price of vehicles. Andy also repealed and replaced the waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS. On the WOTUS rule, if you talk to any of the agricultural groups--I am talking about the Farm Bureau and other agricultural groups--they would say that was the rule we really had to do something about. States like mine don't need Washington bureaucrats imposing their radical regulations like WOTUS on people who know the waters better than they do. It is not an overstatement when I say that this was probably the greatest regulatory burden facing Oklahoma's farmers, landowners, and ranchers during the Obama administration. I was proud to see WOTUS repealed by the navigable waters protection rule, which provided a clean and lawful definition of waters of the United States and doesn't try to overregulate the arid parts of the State. Oklahoma is an arid State. If you go out to the western part of Oklahoma, the panhandle of Oklahoma, it is really arid. If you take that regulation out of the hands of the States and give it to the Federal Government, there is always a concern by our farmers and ranchers in Oklahoma and across the Nation that they would turn these arid areas into wetlands. Another of the regulatory overhauls accomplished by Andy was for the affordable clean energy or the ACE rule that replaced the illegal Clean Power Plan, which regulated emissions of coal-fired powerplants. I had long been critical of the Clean Power Plan and led the charge against it in the Senate. Like most of that era of the rules, it was a Federal power grab, and it would have sent Americans' electricity bills soaring, and we all knew that. But we made it history when we repealed and replaced the Clean Power Plan with the ACE rule. It was good. Not only did this rule help Americans' electricity costs be affordable, it is expected to benefit the environment as well. Just last month, the EPA finalized another big rule that requires EPA to prepare a cost-benefit analysis before coming up with new regulations. How is that at all unreasonable? Americans shake their heads, and they wonder why we would pass things that don't have any kind of a cost-benefit analysis. What is it going to cost? What kind of sacrifices are we going to have to make? Well, we put that into effect, and I think it is something people are very thankful for. Throughout his tenure, Andy has been focused on what is in the best interests of the taxpayers and not just the Washington bureaucrats. That is clear with this rule and countless others. You know, one of the good things about Andy, as I already mentioned, is that he knows more about the process than anybody else does--more about the EPA. He has always been a star, and he started at the bottom. When he was first put into that office and was confirmed as EPA director, he gave a speech over at the EPA. He didn't know I was there. I went over there to hear it. He had 300 people at the EPA all listening to him and looking at him and saying: There is room at the top for me. Here is a guy who started at the very bottom and ended up as director of the EPA. It didn't go unnoticed. Everybody realized that. So I would ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an E&E News article from July 2018, which details a number of the former staff people and their backgrounds

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me just say to my good friend from New Jersey how wholeheartedly I agree with him. I have known Tony Blinken for a long period of time. I have worked with him in different venues. I talked to him today at some length, and we talked together on many issues that I think are significant. One issue out there is the one we have been talking about in the Western Sahara. He understands the issues. So I join my friend from New Jersey in encouraging a fast and quick confirmation.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, these are the last few words that Senator Reed and I will say before the vote, and I want to mention something that I haven't talked about as much as I probably should have. First of all, the cooperation and working with Senator Reed and his staff--this is a long enduring thing. It is hard for people to believe, but we are actually starting on next year's bill now. We have already started. I thought I would mention something that hasn't been talked about as much as it should have been talked about since we have suffered arguably the worst cyber attack in American history. This is the most significant piece of cyber legislation in American history. It contains 27 of our Cyberspace Solarium Commission recommendations. All 27 are in this NDAA, to include provisions that are directly relevant to the SolarWinds attack that would have allowed us to get ahead of this--most notably by allowing decisive cyber security measures in DHS to begin hunting for threats on dot-gov networks. We have other recommendations to enhance our cyber resilience for our nuclear command and control systems in this NDAA. Establishing a national cyber director is in the NDAA, strengthening the size and elevating his leadership, giving him more resources. I fear that the SolarWinds attack is a harbinger of things to come. I am very proud of the work our Commission has done, and the provisions are absolutely critical. The final thing I would say is that this is arguably the most serious piece of legislation when it comes to deterring China that we have had in decades, if not ever, including provisions such as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. This is kind of a followup to last year's European Deterrence Initiative, where we are concentrating more on Russia, but this is specific to China. That is what the whole division of this bill is about--to enhance our presence and our deterrence posture in the INDOPACOM provisions for protecting against Chinese industrial espionage, more transparency for Chinese military companies, reporting on Chinese United Front Work Department in the United States and abroad, and the list goes on and on. It is a very serious piece of legislation when it comes to deterring China. That is one of the things we are concerned about. China is our No. 1 threat and will be for perhaps, regrettably, decades to come. So this bill brings us along to where we should be. Once again, I want to say thanks for the effort that has gone into this bill, the weekends, the hard work. Liz Cheney and John Bonsell, I have to say, along with Jack Reed--they probably worked more weekends than they have not worked weekends. So it has been a real effort. It is the most important and significant piece of legislation that we will pass, and this next vote is a very critical vote. I will yield to Senator Reed for any comments he would like to make about this. Keep in mind that this is a real--people talk about how the Democrats and Republicans don't do things together. This has been an example of what can happen in government.

Mr. INHOFE. I suggest that this is the most significant bill we have passed in the last 59 years. Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived with respect to the motion to invoke cloture on the veto message on H.R. 6395, the NDAA.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are going to go on to final passage, and I just want to make one comment that this is a really significant vote, not just because it is the NDAA and many of us contend, as I do, every year that the NDAA is the most significant vote that we have, but this year especially so in light of all the disruptions and problems that we have had. Once again, I want to say how great it has been to work and show the American people that Democrats and Republicans can work together and get significant legislation passed. I am very proud that we had this bill, and I am proud to have worked with Senator Reed and his staff.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, 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, let me elaborate a little bit on something that my good friend from Rhode Island said about China. I think it is very, very significant that we realize that this is the toughest bill on China that has ever been passed. That didn't come just from me; that came from the American Enterprise Institute, which has all the credibility in the world. They talk about the serious things that are going on, and they actually said this bill has the most substantial and consequential China-related provisions since--in, probably, history. That is significant because all of us remember--I know that Senator Reed and I have both spent time in the South China Sea, the seven islands that they are doing right now. China--it is illegal, but they have taken over--no, they have created seven islands in the South China Sea. When you go down there, it looks as if, on those islands, they are preparing for World War III. A lot of our allies in that area are very much concerned because they are making a lot more noise than we are, and they are demonstrating very clearly some of the things that they do that we haven't done. Hypersonics is an example. That is a state-of- the-art thing that we do in modernizing our military equipment and abilities. It has been very successful, but they are still ahead of us, so we are in catchup mode. I would say this: When you go and you look and you see the buildups that they have--I can remember--it wasn't long ago that every time China got involved in any kind of an effort, they did it from their own city limits there. Now they are all over Djibouti, Tanzania, and all around the world. We made this bill to establish the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. That is $2.2 billion for foreign posture to put ourselves in the position where we are going to pass, with this bill--we will pass China, and then we will be shifting the supply chains away from China-- semiconductors and printed circuit boards, the pharmaceuticals-- stimulating the U.S. economy, protecting weapons systems and our troops, and bringing China's malign national security activities into light to make sure everybody knows what they are doing there. We have a new report in this bill on the true China defense security spending, new assessments of China's industrial base, new list of Chinese companies operating in the United States and making it more difficult for them to do that. It is all in this bill. There is a new report on the fishing fleets they have out there. It extends the successful China Military Power Report, supports Taiwan and a new plan against--that is better than anything we have ever done before. Yesterday, I put this into the record--all the things that we are doing just concentrating on the threat that is posed to the United States from the country of China. It is all in this bill. So this is something we have taken great pride in because we recognize the threat that is posed to our country from the Chinese. This is a good bill. It is one that deserves overwhelming support. I will say one more time that a lot of work went into this from both sides of the aisle. We were in agreement on it with huge margins of support in both Chambers of the House and the Senate. We will have a chance to move procedurally toward that and make that a reality before the end of the week. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this is what I have considered to be--and I have heard my friend from the Democratic side, the minority side, say the same thing, that this is the most significant bill that we pass every year. It is the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act. This will be the 60th year--is it the 60th or 61st year?

Mr. INHOFE. OK. It is the 60th year that we have passed this, and it has passed every year. There were a few moments there where I thought maybe it wasn't going to pass this year and we would set a record. Senator Reed and I don't want to set that kind of record. We want to make sure we get this done. The reason this is important is this is the blueprint. This tells us what we are going to be doing with our troops. I could make an argument that it is really--we are in the most dangerous situation, I think, that we have been in before. I have often talked about the good old days when we had the Cold War with two superpowers. We knew what the Soviet Union had; they knew what we had. Mutually assured destruction meant something at that time. But now it is different in a lot of respects because you have rogue countries out there that have weapons and have abilities to wipe out nations. That is why it is so significant. So, anyway, we suffered through a little bit of a problem back during the Obama administration, during the last 5 years, which would have been from 2010 to 2015. In his budget, he downgraded the military by 25 percent, and that is the same time, during that timeframe, that China increased theirs by 83 percent. So it is a scary world out there, and it is one that, to me, I have no doubt that this is the most important bill that we will pass all year because we have got our kids, and they are out there right now. They are in the trenches, and we have to support them. That is what it is all about. I do want to mention how many people are involved in this thing. We are actually starting this right now. We are starting next year's NDAA. So this started a year ago. The ones working on this--you have Liz King and John Bonsell heading up the minority and majority part of the committee, doing a great job and working every weekend--almost every weekend--with a very large staff, all specialists in certain areas. And they have got the bill. So I am very proud of the bill that we have this year. I think that it passed, when it passed in the Senate, it was 84 to--I think it was 84 to 14, I think it was. I think there were a couple of people not here. But that is the largest--that doesn't happen very often, to pass a bill with those margins, and we did. So this is a long tradition. We have got to support our troops. They are in there doing the right thing. It has been a joy, personally, for me to be working with Senator Reed, and we have, together, kind of provided the leadership on this thing. We didn't work as hard as the staff did. I admit that. But we were there, and I am very proud of this bill. So right now we have kids that are overseas, and they deserve the pay that was increased--that would be increased when this bill is passed. Right now, we have critical areas like pilots and engineers, doctors, that are in short supply because of the fact that we have had, up until the pandemic, a good and probably, I would argue, the best economy we have had in my lifetime. Well, that is good news, of course, but it is bad news in one way because it is hard to keep the people in those critical fields--pilots, for example. They have an opportunity to get out and do things that are--there are jobs out there that are paying a lot more. So we have to have them on the flight hours if something happens. And they are out-- there are a lot of jobs on the outside that are paying more. So we just have to make sure that we keep the resources in the right place to do the right job. So I think this is the--I know this procedural vote today is going to bring us, in the next couple of days, to pass the Defense authorization bill. It is all about the guys and gals in the field. We owe it to them. This is going to be the 60th year. I anticipate that this is going to pass with very large numbers. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I was disappointed last week when President Trump vetoed the NDAA. This will be the 60th year that we have had the NDAA. The NDAA is the National Defense Authorization Act, and I have said so many times, countless times--on the floor of the House and on the floor of the Senate--that this is the most important bill that we have. Some people don't agree with that, but I do. That is what we are supposed to be doing here. We are supposed to be defending America. And there is a lot to do. We are in the most threatening situation that we have ever been in. I sometimes look back and think of the good old days of the Cold War when you had two superpowers out there. We knew what they had; they knew what we had. Mutual assurance of destruction meant something at that time. If you kill us, we kill you, and everyone is happy. But that is living in the past. But anymore now, with the weaponry that is out there, you can get one outside group that doesn't have any resources at all, and they have the ability to wipe out another country. So it is a real threat that we are up against. I do chair the committee called the Senate Armed Services Committee, and, of course, I have been very active in the National Defense Authorization Act every year since--well, since 1987. It is a long time. So I am proud of the conference report that we had. The NDAA right here--our vote in this Senate was 84 to 13. Wow. You can't find that kind of togetherness in a cause anywhere else. But it puts members of the families of the military first. I share President Trump's frustration about section 230. I know that it is a complicated thing. The majority of people in America don't know what that is all about, but section 230 is something that has nothing to do with the military--nothing at all. The committee that I chair is the Armed Services Committee. That would be found in the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee is chaired by Senator Lindsey Graham. He does a great job of chairing that. That is where any kind of reform in section 230 should come from. I agree that the President should have the authority to determine troop levels. That is what we have in this bill. We have the President making those decisions. That is why we made sure that the final NDAA gave the President very broad authority in determining troop levels all around, and we have looked at them in Western Europe and Eastern Europe. We have looked at them in Ethiopia--in Afghanistan and other places around the world. So we look at what we have done, and I was going to mention--I have been down here several times talking about the President and what he has done and the great job that he has done for the United States. And I am going to wind up with some comments on a card that I put together. I put this card together back 2 years ago, talking about the top 10 Trump accomplishments. I think it is important that people remember that. We have a lot of people down here forgetting about all the really good things that have happened, so I am going to talk about that in a minute. But I am here today because we have to pass the NDAA. This would be the 60th year in a row that we have the NDAA, and it is necessary to have. It is the most important bill of the year. I have believed this for a long time. You have heard me say it before. I always stand with our troops. The military servicemembers and their families will suffer if we don't enact it for the 60th year. If the NDAA is not passed, more than 200,000 military families will see smaller paychecks in January because the special pays and the bonuses for hazard pay are all part of this bill. Additionally, it would hurt the areas where the military is having the most serious problem. In a way, it is kind of a mixed bag because we have--prior to the pandemic coming along, and that was in about March of this year--before that happened, we had the best economy, I could argue, that we have had in my lifetime, and all these things were very, very good. Then, of course, when that happened everything changed. Now, one of the problems you have when you have such a great economy is that you have a lot of competition. We have to have a military force. That military force has to have resources. They have to have the ability to step in because we don't know where the next threat is going to come from. And with people with special abilities--now I am talking about pilots, cyber experts, engineers, and doctors--that is where we have a problem. We don't have enough of them--pilots. I have been an active pilot now for longer than most Members here have been alive, and I know that back during the previous administration, the Obama administration, we had a real serious problem because we were not able to attract the pilots at that time because that was when we had a President who--he wasn't ashamed of it--his top priority was not defending America. He had other priorities. So, consequently, we went through a period the last 5 years--the last 5 years of his administration were the years 2010 through 2015, and during that timeframe he reduced the funding for the military by 25 percent. At the same time he did that, China was increasing theirs in that same timeframe by 83 percent. So we have China increasing their military expenditures by 83 percent at the same time we are reducing ours by 25 percent. So we had serious problems there. One of the areas, when people are cutting the military, that they do it where it won't be as noticeable is in the flying hours. So we had pilots out there, but they weren't flying the hours that they needed to fly to keep their proficiency up, and, consequently, a lot of them left and went to the airlines and went other places because they were wanting to be flying the hours. That is one of the problems that we had during that time. So we have the military's ability to recruit and retain servicemembers who are in the shortest supply. As I mentioned, that would be things like cyber experts and engineers and doctors, so they have the skill sets that need to be done out there. Of course, this President came along, and we started rebuilding the military. I will always remember being at the White House during a time that we were talking about what we were going to do with the military, and he actually looked over at me, and he said: What do you think we need to do with the military? I said: We are going to have to rebuild the military. It is going to cost something like $750 billion before it is over. He said: That is what we should do; we need to start with that. And this President, with his leadership, took us with a new priority in defending America and building our military, and it happened. So we have the things that will happen if we don't pass this thing-- the education of children for military families. There is a thing called the impact aid. Impact aid comes about when you don't get the tax base increase with the added enrollment into the schools of the children of military families. So they have impact because they don't pay the taxes. So the impact aid is the amount of money that supplements that. It is not just in my State of Oklahoma but throughout the country. It ensures that children of military families receive a quality education by supplementing the school districts, the budgets, where they are required. If the NDAA is not passed, military construction projects--I have one in my State of Oklahoma that is one that would--let's see; where is that? Yes, we have a thing where we have an ammunition depot, a demolition shop, for one. This is something where we have gone through a lot of BRAC rounds--that is Base Realignment and Closure Commissions--and we have increased the size of our ammunition demolition activities substantially. And we are doing most of it now right there in Oklahoma. Well, this has a new demolition shop in there so we can get rid of a lot of these things we were not able to get rid of. So we have military construction projects in 38 States, and one happens to be in the State of Maine. It is very significant that they be able to do these projects. If the military construction doesn't happen, both an authorization and appropriation--people don't understand this because it is kind of talked around, but in order for something to get done, you have to have it authorized. That is what the committee that I chair does--authorizes the military projects. Then it has to be appropriated. The appropriators come along, and they put the money in there. That is how this system works. If the NDAA is not passed, the military won't be able to increase the end strength--or the total number of troops in the military services-- where that is needed to address the growing threats. End strength increases don't happen without authorization. You can't appropriate it. So if the NDAA should not be passed, the Pentagon loses the ability to quickly and efficiently process security clearance investigations. Right now there is a backlog because it takes a long time to do this, but this has a streamlining provision in it that is going to make that a lot easier so we will be able to get security clearances. All these things are tied into this bill. The DOD, if we didn't pass this thing, would lack the authority to pay the nonmilitary personnel on hospital shifts. They are the ones who are doing the great job right now with the COVID response. That is just kind of a snapshot of what we are counting on to support our troops in the field, the bare minimum we need. Without the NDAA, we lose all of that and also lose all the other policies. Right now, this bill makes China the primary strategic threat. I think we all understand that. We have strategic threats from Russia and China. Last year, we had the European part addressed. This year, the bill that is pending right now that we are going to try to get passed for this year--and I think we will successfully do that--is going to be concentrating on the Pacific area; that is, China and the things that China is doing that people don't--many people don't realize the threat that is out there. Right now we are up, as I understand it, to seven different areas where the Chinese are actually building, creating islands in the South China Sea. This is something that is different than has ever been done before. I contend and have always contended it is illegal, but they are still doing it. They are doing it, and that is the effort that they are making there. If you go into these islands where they are rebuilding, it is almost as if China is preparing for World War III--all of it. This is what is happening right now. Right now we know about this SolarWinds hack, the hack that we are facing. That is something where we have language to deal with that in the Defense authorization bill. The new ``hunt forward'' authority that allows our cyber operators to do more work to find malicious actors proactively, this is something that we need to get done for the defense of our country. It implements the Cyber Solarium Commission and the recommendations. There are 27 recommendations that they have in this commission. And it establishes a new National Cyber Director. These are things where it is a moving target. There are a lot of things that we are doing now that we should have been doing before, and it took China and Russia to kind of forge ahead of us, as they did in the previous administration, to remind us that we have these very serious problems. Our troops need the NDAA. It is our responsibility to make sure that they have the equipment, training, and resources to complete the mission and return home safely. I will close with this one reminder. On December 29, 1777, 243 years ago today, General George Washington wrote to the Continental Congress imploring that they needed to provide the resources his troops needed. He wrote: I hope that the supplies they will be able to furnish in aid of those, which Congress may immediately import themselves, will be equal and competent to every demand. If they do not, I fear--I am satisfied the Troops will never be in a situation to answer the Public expectation and perform the duties required of them. That is as true today as it was in 1777. We have to do that. We look at the national security wins of this President. I think people don't talk about that as much. We have identified China as the No. 1 adversary. That was in the NDS, the national defense survey. It was put together by 12 of the real experts--6 Republicans, 6 Democrats. It has been the blueprint for our military ever since that time, about 3 years ago. They identified China as the major threat. There is $2.5 trillion to rebuild the military. That is what we were able to get done. We increased the size of the military, replaced obsolete equipment, and made new investments in future tech. Hypersonics is a good example. Both Russia and China are ahead of us in the area of hypersonics; it is the new ``state of the art.'' There is a pay raise for the troops. They took out the terrorist leaders. How many people remember Baghdadi and Soleimani? They were the top terrorists in the world. They are gone now. This President, this administration took care of that. We established the Space Force. The Space Force was the first new force that was established in many, many years. I wasn't really sold on it at first because I thought we were doing a pretty good job. It wasn't coordinated. You had different military units doing it, and they weren't even really talking to each other. That is what we put together. This President provided the leadership in doing that. There is the widow's tax. Everybody remembers that. That was something that had to be done. Others talked about it. This President did it. Then the ISIS caliphate was destroyed. There is the Abraham Accords. They supported Israel through new security assistance. We know that is going on today. All these things this President has done and has done a great job. I do want to mention this, and I think it is worthwhile, really, because we know what won't happen if we don't pass this bill. We won't get the bonuses necessary; I already mentioned that. The impact aid, I mentioned that. Military construction project authorizations, we would not have that. Full pay for DOD civilians, that has to be done. That has been talked about by a lot of administrations but not really done. I will finalize this by talking about China. Nothing in the bill helps China any way at all. There is a group called the American Enterprise Institute. That is a group that is kind of the conservative conscience that evaluates programs that come along. They said: ``This bill has the most substantial and consequential China-related provisions since the 2000 NDAA.'' They are talking about this bill and what it does for China. It establishes the Pacific Deterrence. We talked about the European Deterrence last year in the NDAA bill. This is the Pacific Deterrence. That is China we are talking about. It shifts the supply chains away from China in semiconductors, circuit boards, and pharmaceuticals, and it stimulates the economy in those ways. It brings Chinese malign national security activities into light so we know what they are doing--who the good guys are, who the bad guys are. This supports Taiwan. We have talked about that for a long period of time. This bill accelerates that program. It prevents Chinese intellectual property theft. I have a whole list here. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this list be inserted after my comments. What I would like to wind up with, if I brought it--I did. Two years ago, I put this card together. This is when I realized the media hates Trump. People are not aware of all the good things he did in those first couple of years. People were not aware of it. First of all, on the card--I am going to run over these. Biggest tax cuts. We learned a lesson back there during a Democratic administration. John Kennedy said the best way to get more revenue in for the Great Society programs that they were advocating at that time was to reduce marginal rates and that would increase revenue. It did. Unfortunately, John Kennedy died before he could reap the benefits that came with that, but it worked. Of course, others followed him, including Presidents Clinton, President Bush, and others, by reducing the rates. That also increased the revenue. What this President did that was different than the rest of them is that he did not just decrease the rates--the tax rates--but he also decreased all the overregulation. How many people know that, back during the Obama administration, we had a rule that we were adhering to that said if you were a domestic oil and gas producer in the United States of America and you were in competition with China or somebody else, you had to give them our whole playbook on how we put together our system over here and all the elements. And that put us at a disadvantage with our competitors in China and in energy. I was happy that I used to say, after Obama got out of office, that the war on fossil fuels was over for a while. Look at the energy dominance now. We are the global leader in oil and gas production: a 277-percent growth in crude exports, a 132-percent increase in coal exports, a 52-percent increase in natural gas exports. These are exports. That is what we are doing now in the United States as a result of the efforts of this President and bringing our economy around. Crackdown on illegal migration. Nobody wanted the wall, they said. Now people realize that is where a lot of the bad people were getting in. We moved the Embassy. Every Democrat and Republican President, in my memory, tried to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. They all talked about it. This President went in and did it. He enacted the infrastructure bill, the WRDA bill, or the Water Resources Development Act, and the FAA reauthorization. And on the judges we have, not just Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, but I think our number is up to about 225 new judges. He repealed the overregulation of the Dodd-Frank rules. Anyone in business will tell you that that was one of the major accomplishments of this President, President Trump--and the record employment. But then I would say that the 10th and last one I mention to everyone who will listen is what he did for the military. We went from the time of dropping down in the last 5 years of the Obama administration by 25 percent, while China was increasing 83 percent. Now we have rebuilt that military. That is why the NDAA is so significant right now and to make sure that that gets passed and that we are able to have that. That is what this vote is all about. The NDAA, or National Defense Authorization Act, is the most important bill of the year. That is why we are doing it, and that is why we are here today during this holiday season

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I first went to meet with the then- Republican nominee for President of the United States, Donald Trump-- that was October of 2016. I was really struck by his commitment. It was kind of an interesting meeting. It was in the Trump Tower, and they had 10 people. Ten of us were meeting, each one in one particular area of expertise, supposedly. We had people there on energy. We had one on healthcare. I was there for the military. And I was very honored to be the one to advise him as to some of the issues and to talk about that. The thing that surprised me is his commitment at that time to listening. You have to keep in mind, here is a guy who has been a giant in the industry for many, many years, but he has never had anything to do with politics or government, really. So it was a learning experience for him, and he was actually listening. That was not his reputation, but he was doing it. I remember he--we had a lot of questions that we asked and comments were made. Our conversations that day started a very strong friendship that I had with the one who would become President Trump. The President was listening closely. He asked good questions. Our conversations that day started a strong friendship, where I have been honored to offer him friendship, advice, and guidance in the area of the military, and I think it serves him well. One good example of one of the areas where he was listening to me, against the advice of many of the people in his administration, was on the issue of Ligado. The President's advisers were trying to convince him to go ahead with the deal to sell off the GPS-adjacent spectrum; that it was a good thing and so forth. I talked to the President and made it very clear that allowing the Ligado deal to move ahead would jeopardize our Nation's GPS system, impacting not just the military and commercial aviation but farmers who rely on GPS to maintain fields and so many more. The results would be devastating, not to mention costly. The President got it, and we worked together on that issue. I remember telling him how that happened. The FCC--the Federal Communications Commission--they were to issue and to give a spectrum to Ligado at that time. We were in recess, so I went to them, and I said: Don't do anything until we get out of recess so we can be in on this. There was a lot of objection to Ligado. So without listening to me, the FCC just went ahead and did it--on a weekend, I might add. It had never happened before. They never did it on a weekend before, but they did in this case. And they gave the order to Ligado. Now, the interesting part of this was--this had to do with protecting our low-band spectrum from interference. It has nothing to do with good work the administration has made to make the bands of spectrum available to further our 5G development. That was all there. But that is how this happened. The largest group I have seen ever come together in the years I have been in the House and the Senate on one issue was this issue--and I am talking about everyone. You had not just DOD and almost every bureaucracy but the airlines, the Farm Bureau, and everybody else. They were all in on this thing. The President made the comment. He said: You know, anytime you are dealing with a bureaucracy and they tell you that something has to be done, and it has to be done on a weekend, has to be done at night, then you know something is wrong with it. Well, they rushed into it before they had the opportunity to do it with everyone being present at the time. But that is just another example of how close we were. Another example was the Space Force. He wanted to do the Space Force, and I understand that. I was not, initially, all that concerned about it and supportive of it. But, on the other hand, you have countries like China and Russia--our main opposition out there--they have their space forces. And I think it is really good that we consolidated all of our efforts. We were really working well by consolidating that thing. We did that, and we did that together. That was one of the areas where we worked together. I remember another one was the area of Western Sahara. It is something I have been on the floor talking about now for the last couple of weeks because Western Sahara has been--we have had the same position with Western Sahara since 1966; that is, they were rejected from their land in that area of the world, way back during the colonial days. In fact, at that time, it was the Spanish Sahara. We were devoted, at that time, for a right of self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. I explained that to the President. At that time, he didn't have a lot of interest. He didn't know where Western Sahara was. He didn't really have a lot of interest in that. But then he did, and he became committed to the idea that we have had a policy for over 30 years in our country that we would recognize their right of self-determination. So he went along with that. We tried to convince him this year's National Defense Authorization Act, as someone had told him or advised him wrongly--I am talking about maybe some of the people in the President's administration--that somehow the NDAA--now, the NDAA has now been passed by the House; it has been passed by the Senate; and it is going to be signed into law eventually. The President has talked about he might veto it, having something to do with that it wasn't strong enough against China. I want to get it on the record right now on the Senate floor and make sure everyone understands that this is the toughest thing on China. Well, in fact, it is not just me saying it. The American Enterprise Institute, which is sometimes referred to as the conservative voice of government, said that this bill, the NDAA of this year, the one that we passed, we just passed, is the toughest bill on China in 20 years. Here is why. The national defense strategy--now, this is the book. We have to remember, this is something we need to adhere ourselves to. This was put together by 12 of the most knowledgeable people in America--six Republicans, six Democrats. They got together. This is providing for our defense for the future. It is a short book, but it is one that we have been living by. And they are very specific in their strategy as to where China is. So last week, President Trump's Director of National Intelligence said this--this is a quote--``The People's Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.'' That was what the Director said. And from everything I have seen and everything our military leaders have told me, Director Ratcliffe is spot-on on this. This is another quote. He said: ``Beijing intends to dominate the [United States] and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.'' I believe that is true. We have already seen evidence of the strategy. Within the last few years, China built its first military base outside of its own territory. This is kind of interesting because this is a major deviation, what China has been doing for decades. They have always initiated any kind of a military activity from their own city limits. It all starts in China. And this has been going on for a long period of time. So this is a major deviation from that. This is a threat that China has, and they are against us. China has changed. They had this major advance in Djibouti. That is the first time that they started a military operation outside of China itself. So they did it from Djibouti. I have been down there several times. I have flown over the area that they have. China is not just in Djibouti, but it is all over the world. But down in that continent of Africa, they are as far south as the further extremes of China and all throughout. And in Tanzania, Southern Tanzania, they are very active down there. This is something that is new. China is turning islands and reefs in the South China Sea into military bases. It is another part of the world. And they have been doing this. You all know about this. It has been going on for a long period of time. In fact, they now are up to seven islands. These are not legal islands in their possession, but they took them--they created them. They didn't take them; they created them. They made islands out there in the ocean. If you go and look at what they have proudly displayed on those islands, it is as if they are preparing for world war III. That is China. A lot of our allies in that area are wondering where is America while China is doing all of these things. So we are very strongly attuned to this. This is what is happening today, as we speak. And this is what we are addressing in the National Defense Authorization Act on China. In South America, China is working to secure a port access to the Panama Canal, El Salvador, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and all throughout that area. That is right next door to us. They are giving the Chinese Communist Party an advantage right in our neighborhood. In all these cases, this is not just about military influence but economic influence as well. Meanwhile, we are watching as China steals our intellectual property and uses it for their own gain. A perfect example of this is in hypersonic weapons. Hypersonic weapons--a lot of people are not familiar with that. That is state of the art. That is a new thing. That is what we have been racing with against our two adversaries, both China and Russia. And guess what. China and Russia are both ahead of us in hypersonic. People have this idea that America has the very best of everything. Now, I have to say--and I don't say this critically of the Obama administration, but during the last 5 years of the Obama administration--that would be between 2010 and 2015--he reduced the funding for the military by 25 percent. This is the Obama administration. I don't say it critically. He had different priorities than I have and other people have. And so at the same time he was reducing ours by 25 percent, China had increased in that same period of time by 83 percent. Stop to think about that. That is what is happening right now. The threat they pose is real; it is urgent; and it needs a strong response. That is what the NDAA bill does. It takes strong action to push China back, to limit their influence, to counter their malign behavior, and to balance their military aggression. Now, we know the best way to protect American security and prosperity in Asia and to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open for all is to maintain a credible balance of military power. There again, this is what the NDAA does. It specifically singles out China in that effort. Until now, the ability to do this was at risk. Now, with the NDAA, we are achieving the ``urgent change at significant scale''--again, going back to the NDS, what it requires--and we do so by establishing the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. Remember, the last NDAA we had a year ago was the European deterrence. This one we have shifted to the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, and that is China and to dissuade China from its current trajectory of increasing aggression in the area and in that region. The PDI--that is the Pacific Deterrence Initiative--will enhance our forward posture in the Pacific and push the Pentagon to get our commanders in theater what they need. That is what we are doing now. That is what the NDAA is doing specifically against China. It will help us put in the right capabilities and the right forces so China understands that there is no quick and easy way to have victory against us because of the NDAA and the efforts that we are making. As we speak right now, the Pacific Deterrence Initiative also deepens our cooperation with our allies and partners in that region--building up the capabilities that we need to protect ourselves and our allies in that area so that they know that we are with them. We are a team with them. The NDAA authorizes $2 billion this year for that Pacific Deterrence Initiative. But more than the investment, we also include the tools that will help us make better long-term strategic decisions about missions and priorities. We saw how well this worked in the European Deterrence Initiative. That was last year. Last year, we were concentrating more on Russia. This year, it is China. So we saw how well it worked in the European initiative, and we can now track our efforts and do the same thing with China in the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. Now, with the PDI, we are sending a strong signal to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as our partners and allies, that the American people are committed to defending our interests and values in the Indo- Pacific. Now, that is China we are talking about. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative isn't the only way that we send this signal. Elsewhere in the bill, we take steps to strengthen our relationship with our critical allies and our partners in the region, including Taiwan, India, Vietnam, and Japan. The bill requires the Department of Defense to assess how we can improve our operations to prevent China and other strategic competitors from seizing control of Taiwan and threatening the territorial integrity of our defense partners, our partners in that area. The NDAA also invests in the equipment that will help us counter China, to attack submarines--this is equipment that we have in the NDAA: the attack submarines, the precision-guided munitions--many of those, I might add, come from our State of Oklahoma--the air and missile defense systems, electronic warfare equipment, counter-ship capabilities, and a lot more. All of that is in the NDAA. The reason I am saying this right now is that I think someone has misled the President in thinking that we were not really as aggressive as we should be in China, and we are. These are specific things we have never seen before. This is all against China. It invests in the innovation that will help us build the capabilities we need to take care of China in the future--the artificial intelligence; hypersonic weapons, where they are still leading us right now, as we speak; quantum computing; and directed energy and beyond. It is all in the NDAA bill that just passed through the House and through the Senate. So the NDAA takes these steps to support a forward posture and favorable balance of power, but we also have to defend against the full spectrum of their malign behavior. Part of the problem with China is not just that they are modernizing equipment; it is that they are stealing our ideas, our technology, and then building on it. They are taking a shot at us and, in all of this, doing so illegally, but they are doing it very effectively. That is what China does. To protect our intellectual property, the NDAA--this is the bill we are talking about--creates the mechanisms to restrict employees or former employees of the defense industrial base from working for companies owned by or under the direction of China. Now, this is something that has not been done before. We wake up and we find out that some of our industries that we are depending on for our defense are very close to China, so we are taking steps to stop that now. Further, we are requiring universities to, No. 1, share information on defense-funded research; No. 2, disclose external funding for Federal grant recipients, so those recipients of grants are not working with the Chinese; and No. 3, limit funding for universities with Confucius Institutes. The NDAA also directs the President to create a whole-of-government strategy to deter China's industrial espionage and large-scale theft of personal information. For the first time ever, we will impose real costs on the PRC for this behavior. We know a big part of China's strategy is to fly under the radar. They don't want us to know what they are doing, so we also establish numerous provisions that will give us a better look at just what China is up to--all of this in the NDAA. Right now, for instance, we don't have a great sense of exactly how much China is spending on their national defense. They lie a lot. So we task the DOD and federally funded research and development centers to conduct a full study of China's defense budget. Now, this is something we haven't done before. That is in the NDAA. We also establish an ongoing assessment of China's industrial base, require a list of Chinese military companies operating in the United States to be publicly shared in the Federal Register, and mandate that recipients of Federal contracts disclose beneficial ownership. We need to know who those people are, and that is set up in the NDAA. Over the past few years, it has become clear that we are too reliant on China for everything from critical materials to complex manufactured items, like parts of naval vessels--and even for medical supplies, as we saw just this year. The pandemic really showed us what happened and how vulnerable we are. And we are. Everybody knows that. The NDAA protects and reforms our defense industrial base to mitigate these risks and to attract new performers to replace China, in other words, to get out of China any dependence that we have on China. It is all in the NDAA. That is why the American Enterprise Institute, which has always been the conscience, declared that this is the toughest legislation on China in the last 20 years. Lastly, the NDAA takes steps to protect the U.S. bases overseas by requiring the Secretary of Defense to notify Congress of how host countries using 5G networks from companies like Huawei and ZTE are mitigating the security risks from these networks before we base new major weapons systems there. The last two NDAAs set the ball in motion when it comes to countering China, and with this NDAA, I am confident that we are finally achieving the irreversible momentum we need to effectively implement the national defense strategy against China. There is no turning back now. With this NDAA, we are sending China an unmistakable signal that, whether it is today or tomorrow, there will never be a good time for China to test America's military. I will never forget that 4 years ago we had that meeting in Trump Tower, and we had 10 of us in there. We were talking about the military at that time. That is when the President became convinced--that is why I know that it is not President Trump who is saying this about the National Defense Authorization Act; it is advice that he is getting from advisers who just are not telling him the right thing. Mr. President, I want you to know we have got our foot on the throat of China with our NDAA, and we are not going to let it up. And if any of your advisers tell you any different than this, they are not serving America well. That concludes--well, not quite. Today is a very special day. I tell everybody who cares or not--not many people do, but I do--this is my wife's and my 61st wedding anniversary--today, December 19. On the floor of the Senate yesterday, I talked a little bit about that and made the comment that I don't want to be here on my wedding anniversary, implying that I was not going to be here to vote. These votes that we are having right now are among the most critical votes that we have had, and I assure you I am going to be here until the last vote is cast. With that, 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 want to make an observation here because I have been serving for quite some time in the U.S. Senate, and a lot of the things that are said on the Senate floor are not really all that significant, and yet the Members who are delivering messages believe they are or they wouldn't be doing it. This is what it is all about. This is a deliberative body. Some things are maybe not all that significant, but what I am about to say is significant, so I would like to have the attention of anyone who wants to know that in the midst of all of the problems that we are facing now, some good things are happening. I want to mention something that is significant that I don't think you have thought of, I say to the Presiding Officer; that is, tomorrow is the 354th day of the year, and that is very significant. That is December 19. People have not stopped to realize the significant things that have happened on December 19 throughout our history and the history of the world, going all the way back to December 19 of the year 1154. That is when Henry II became King of England. We haven't really thought about what that means to us today, but we will before long. In 1843, December 19, Charles Dickens wrote ``A Christmas Carol.'' That is the most watched, listened to, and sung event every Christmas. And it has been for all that time. In 1932, December 19, the British Broadcasting Corporation--that is the BBC; we are all familiar with that--but that is when it started. On December 19, they began transmitting overseas. That was the beginning of a whole new world of knowledge and understanding. In 1950, December 19, NATO named General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of the Western European defense forces. Then, in 1972, December 19, Apollo 17, the last of the Apollo moon landings, returned to Earth Then, in 1984, December 19--I remember this well because I was in Hong Kong when this happened--that was when China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to the Chinese sovereignty. A lot of people thought it was a good idea at the time to accept the people from Hong Kong. I was there, and look what has happened now after all these years. I would have to say that created a hysteria that has continued to this day. Then, in 1998, December 19, U.S. President Bill Clinton was impeached. I was there for that one too. That was December 19, 1998. The event that is more significant by a landslide is what happened on December 19 of 1959. On December 19, 1959, my wife Kay and I got married. That makes tomorrow our 61st wedding anniversary. Just look at all of the beauty that has followed us--20 kids and grandkids, all of that in a 61-year period of time. What I want to say is the beautiful life that we are still having together--and, Kay, I love you more now than I did 61 years ago. I say to the Senate leadership that you better get this last vote done by tonight or you will have to do it without me because I am going to be with Kay on our anniversary on Saturday, our 61st wedding anniversary. To everyone else out there, as you celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmastime, I am going to say to you: Merry Christmas and God bless you. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, 6 days ago, on the 10th, I came down to the floor after having discovered something that happened. I think it really was not intentional the way it happened, but I would like to share that with you and share the frustration that I have. There is a situation that is taking place and has taken place for 30- some years in Western Sahara. This is an area where after a colonial period, the different colonies in there were attached to other countries. In the case of Western Sahara, that actually had been attached to Spain. It was called Spanish Sahara at that time. This was way back in pre-1966. One of the many good things that President Trump has done is that he has put together this program called the Abraham accords, and that is bringing the Arab population and the Jewish population in the Middle East together. This is something that Presidents have tried to do for a long period of time--both Democrat and Republican, not successful. And this has become successful because the thing that was announced just 6 days ago was that Morocco was going to salvage a relationship with Israel. I don't know how many or what kind of detail went into that, but, inadvertently, I think, they agreed to something that Morocco has been trying to do for a long period of time, and that is, to have the United States recognize that they have rights to the land that is known as Western Sahara. Now, as for Western Sahara, back after the colonial days, they started getting their independence in various parts of that world. They had been attached to Spain at that time. Well, anyway, what the President did--and I say I think this was inadvertently done--was to give Morocco claims to the land that rightly belongs to the Western Saharans. Now, I think that he could have secured the agreement with Morocco without giving away and reversing 45 years of our longstanding foreign policy. Now, I have to confess that when I came down to the floor last week, I was feeling shocked and deeply saddened by the announcement. The news about the United States recognizing Morocco's claim over Western Sahara took me by surprise because I had been involved in that issue for a long period of time. And we have had a policy in the United States since pre-1966 that we firmly supported the rights of the Saharans--the Western Sahara people--to their own land that was taken unfairly from them. Now, this came as a surprise to me, and I came down to the floor. That was 6 days ago. And I want to tell you what has happened since that time, just to refresh the memory of those individuals. There are a lot of people out there who are concerned about this. Remember what happened historically and kind of a chronology of what happened in Western Sahara. First of all, in 1966, the United Nations General Assembly resolution agreed that a resolution of self- determination should be held, and that is, to allow the United Nations endorsing the idea that a resolution of self-determination be made for the population of Western Sahara. That was 1966, and we are in full agreement with that here in the United States. Then, because of the fact that Morocco was trying to claim some ownership of the land that belonged to the people of Western Sahara, in 1975 the International Court of Justice denied Morocco the right to territory of Western Sahara. Now, this was the International Court of Justice. That is supposed to be a final thing. And Morocco then invaded Western Sahara. Now, keep in mind that you have Morocco--a very, very wealthy country with all kinds of resources--taking on a group of people who had been sent out of their homes, out and living in the bush. I have been there several times. The conditions are just not livable conditions. And then, of course, they were invaded by Morocco as a result of the International Court of Justice decision. Then, in 1991, the U.N. ceasefire mission began to provide a referendum of self-determination. So that is the United Nations coming in again and saying that they need to have the right of self- determination. That is something that was restated over and over again. Well, that was a ceasefire in 1991 that was supposed to stop all kinds of brutality and the bad things that were going on in that part of the world. I became very close, many years ago, with James Baker. James Baker, back during the Bush 1 administration, was Secretary of State, and he was Secretary of Treasury, and he took this on, back during the first Bush administration, as a personal thing. He went and became familiar with this and tried to put together a special envoy to Western Sahara and worked at it for a long period of time. James Baker is still around and still committed. I remember when I called James Baker--this was several years ago--and I said: I have been watching what you did--what you tried to do--in Western Sahara to free these people up, and I just want you to know that I have been there, I have seen it, and I agree with you, and I want to get your advice as to how we can best make this happen. All we want is a referendum of self-determination so people can decide for themselves what they want their land to be a part of. So James Baker responded to me, and he said: That was one of the very few failures that we had during that administration. He said: I was Secretary of State, and I worked hard on it and did everything I could, and I feel sorry. I wish you the best of luck. Well, then, in 2004, the United States and Morocco signed a free- trade agreement. This is interesting because we signed the free-trade agreement with Morocco, and the agreement explicitly--explicitly-- excluded Western Sahara because Morocco does not have sovereignty over it. So they agreed. They signed the same thing that we signed saying that that land did not belong to Morocco, and it was specifically agreed that it be excluded. That was the United States and Morocco way back in 2004. So you have, in 1966, the United Nations making that declaration. In 1975, the International Court of Justice denied the right of the territory to Morocco; 1991, the ceasefire; 1997; then again, in 2004, the United States and Morocco signing a free-trade agreement--which all of this was agreed to. So this isn't news for me. I have been involved in this issue for decades, as well, and I have visited the refugee camps in that area. About 10 years ago, I met with Aminatou Haidar. It was someone who would become well recognized and some of the abuses that had been taking place for a long time. She was here in Washington and came to my office. She is from that area, and she was here to accept an award from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights for her work on behalf of her people in Western Sahara. I remember her so well. She had been arrested by Morocco for demonstrating peacefully in Western Sahara. She was in prison for 4 years. She was blindfolded the entire time for 4 years, and she was tortured and treated terribly, and she lost her eyesight as a result of that. And all that was for peacefully protesting on behalf of her homeland. But it didn't stop her work. She kept fighting for her people, even facing arrest again. Additionally, 15 years ago, I did something that is kind of unusual here in Washington. People don't realize this--that Members of the House and the Senate don't always testify before the other body. And 15 years ago, they were having a hearing in the House on international affairs, and I asked if I could be a witness. So I went there and testified, and I gave the history that is similar to what I just stated--the history of what has been going on there--and why the referendum for self-determination was so necessary. But I also called out a hidden part of this, and that is the lobbyists. You know, it seems like every time someone has a cause that is unjust, they go and hire all the lobbyists in Washington. We are having that right now with an organization in another subject area. But at that time, that was 2005, and at that time, the following lobbyists had been hired by Morocco: the Livingston Group, Tew Cardenas, Edelman public relations, Miller & Chevalier, Gabriel and company, Robert Holley, and Whiton Case. Those are seven lobbyists that were hired by Morocco. And now, that hasn't changed. Today, right now, they are represented by JPC Strategies, Third Circle, and Neale Creek, and average over $1 million each year. So all these lobbyists in Washington have been hired by Morocco. And whom do the Western Saharans have to lift up their voices? They have no one--no one at all. So, given my personal history, you can forgive me for being shocked and deeply saddened at having their future so harshly stolen from them after they spent three generations waiting for the promise of a referendum for self-determination. I have to say this. I am quite sure that our President was not even aware of that. He is doing the right thing in terms of the accords that we are doing in that part of the world, bringing the Arabs and the Jews together. It is a good thing. But this is an issue that should never have come up or been a part of it, and I am quite sure that he was not aware of this. So now, seeing the reactions around the world, it is clear that there is kind of a silver lining. I look at this as an opportunity. It is an issue that people are worn out on. We tried and tried and tried everything we could think of. And just from my coming to the floor 6 days ago, all these things have happened since that time. People have a new hope. And remember, the conflict in Western Sahara is what we used to call a frozen, forgotten conflict. That has a finality to it. There is something about a ``frozen conflict,'' you know--that nothing more is going to happen. They called it a frozen conflict and made it easy for the rest of the world to let the status quo continue, leaving the Western Saharan people in limbo, waiting for a referendum that had been promised way back in 1966. The forgotten conflict allowed Morocco to continue encroaching and getting away with human rights abuses like the one I just described-- torturing that young lady for 4 years, causing her to go blind. So those were the unintended consequences of this arrangement that was made with Morocco. So it has never been so clear to the international community. I have never seen the international community so united. Everybody is on our side on this thing--the side that we have had and will return to for some 30 years. The African Union said--this is just since the last 6 days: ``The position of the African Union remains unchanged, in conformity with relevant AU''--that is the African Union--``and United Nations resolutions.'' On the United Nations: ``The United Nations said Thursday its position was `unchanged' on the disputed Western Sahara region after the United States recognized Morocco's sovereignty there.'' That is the United Nations coming back again. In a news article, the European Union indicated last Thursday that ``the status of Western Sahara has not been determined and must be negotiated in a process led by the United Nations, after the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has recognized the Moroccan sovereignty.'' So the European Union is in full agreement with what we are about to try to do again. The United Kingdom said: ``Our position on the status of Western Sahara remains unchanged.'' It didn't change them a bit what we did here in the United States. Algeria. Algeria is right next door. I meant to bring a map down here to familiarize everyone with the area that we are talking about. Algeria said: ``The conflict of Western Sahara is a question of decolonization which can only be resolved through the application of the international law and the well-established charter of the United Nations and the African Union in this matter, which provides for the authentic exercise by the Sahrawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.'' That is Algeria. And, by the way, every one of the 52 nations in Africa is in full agreement with what we are talking about right now. And James Baker hasn't gone away. This is way back in the first Bush administration. He was Secretary of State. This is his statement just the other day--yesterday, it was. He said: While I strongly support the Abraham Accords, the proper way to implement them was the way it was done with the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan, and not by cynically trading off the self- determination rights of the people of Western Sahara. I agree with Senator James Inhofe-- That is me-- when he characterized this development as ``shocking and deeply disappointing.'' It would appear that the United States of America, which was founded first and foremost on the principle of self-determination, has walked away from that principle regarding the people of Western Sahara. This is very regrettable. That is James Baker. Even more, these are other opinions. These are opinion pieces. This came out, and I just read them this morning. David Keene--we all remember David Keene. He was with the Washington Times. He was with the American Conservative Union and with the NRA. His quote was this: The United States has sometimes quite properly, given our interests, stayed out of controversies like this, but one is hard pressed to find another situation in which we have virtually announced that justice doesn't matter and that those like the Western Saharans who have sought their rights peacefully rather than [by way] . . . [of] terrorism and . . . [guns] are fools. John Bolton, in Foreign Policy, said: [T]he Polisario is at a crucial juncture. It would be fully justified if it chooses to return to the battlefield, but much depends on the positions of Algeria, Mauritania and others--and what resources are available. Now, that gets back to the question of resources. We have unlimited resources by the very wealthy nation--one of the wealthiest nations in the world, Morocco. Stephen Zunes--I got to know him a long time ago. He is a scholar with the University of San Francisco. He specializes in this area. This is his quote just in the last 2 days: Morocco's claim on Western Sahara is rejected by the United Nations, the World Court, the African Union and a broad consensus of international legal scholars that consider the region a non-self-governing territory that must be allowed an act of self-determination. This is why no country had formally recognized Morocco's takeover--until now. This is still Stephen Zunes. He said: ``Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other reputable human rights groups have documented widespread suppression of peaceful, pro-independence activists by Moroccan occupation forces, including torture, beatings, detention without trial and extrajudicial killings. Still quoting the scholar, Stephen Zunes: ``Since the Polisario''-- Polisario, of course, are those fighting for their freedom and for their reclamation. ``Since the Polisario proclaimed the establishment of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1976, 84 countries have recognized Western Sahara as an independent state.'' Everybody agrees with this. It is one of the few things in foreign policy where there is no opposition. They all agree with that self- determination for the Western Sahara people. I am so saddened by the betrayal toward the people of Western Sahara for unilaterally recognizing Morocco's claim. Yet I am seeing the unexpected results from the proclamation. If highlighting the injustice of these people pushes the rest of the world to finally get them the referendum they deserve, it may be worth it, and that is what I am seeing right now. I remember so well--it has now been some three or four generations of Western Saharans and the little kids you see in the camps, in the refugee camps, living under conditions that we can't even imagine in this country, but they are happy little kids. They carry around a sign. I don't have the pronunciation in their language, but it says: ``We will fight till we get back our homes.'' These are little kids. They all know--the fourth generation of those who have been abandoned. So I remember--and I called, and I found out--what was the year? Was it 2007? Yes, in 2007, Mark Powers and I--he has been with me on a lot of things in Africa that we have been interested in. He and I met with all of the elected leaders of the Western Saharans in a room that is out in the desert. We actually heard all their stories. They are all Muslims out there, and we all prayed together. We prayed to the Lord for mercy in this case. And I think that maybe it is closer than we thought it was. That is what is happening right now. It is something that--we have to move back to our original position that we have held since 1966 in supporting people--the right for a referendum of self-determination. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the RECORDS on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the postcloture time on the conference report to accompany H.R. 6395 expire at 12:30 today.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Senator Reed. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the minority leader was going to be here, but we are getting very close to the time we actually cast our vote at 10:30--just 20 more minutes. In the event that the minority leader comes, I will dispense with my remarks and defer to him. It is my honor to present the 60th annual National Defense Authorization Act. For 59 straight years--you can't say this about any other piece of legislation, all year or anytime, except the Defense authorization bill--we have passed this bill. We have passed this bill every year for 59 years, and this will be 60 years, and I anticipate that we will pass it now. There isn't much that happens around the Capitol that has a track record like that. Maybe I am biased, and maybe in some people's minds I am wrong, but I think this is the most important bill of the year. I really believe that. I have believed that since 1987, and this is something that we have to do. There is an old document nobody reads anymore called the Constitution. In there it tells us what we need to be doing, and that is exactly what we are going to be doing today: providing for our defense. So it is simple what this bill does. It makes our country more secure. It supports our troops who defend it. Right now this couldn't be more important. As President Trump's national defense strategy tells us, we are up against the most serious threats we have seen maybe forever. This is coming from China and Russia, these countries who stand against everything America stands for. It bothers me that we went through the last 5 years of the Obama administration--that would have been from 2010 through 2015--where he criticized the military. We didn't have to have the military, he felt. At this time, I would suspend with my remarks.