Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago the President gave a beautiful speech on global warming. He said that the world is coming to an end if we don't act; that it is our moral obligation to make sure our planet is safe for future generations; that it is all up to us. And to be successful we must regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. For more than a decade environmentalists have been pressuring Democrats to do this--pressuring all of us to do this--and we all know why. I can remember years ago--and this would have been back when I was in the House--that my first observation when I looked at liberals in the House was that there were four flawed premises on which they based their decisions. One was--and I am going from memory now because this was many years ago--that the Cold War is over, we no longer need a defense; another one was that deficit spending is not bad public policy; the third one was that punishment is not a deterrent to crime; and the fourth one--and this is the big one--was that government can run our lives better than the people can. That is exactly what we are talking about here. The reason they have been wanting to regulate carbon is better articulated by a guy I don't think anyone will argue could be the most knowledgeable scientist in America. His name is Richard Lindzen, and he is with MIT. His quote was that regulating carbon is a ``bureaucrat's dream.'' He said, ``If you control carbon, you control life.'' You control life. And that is what bureaucrats want to do. That is what the environmentalists want to do. In controlling our lives, they want to determine what cars we drive, what kinds of houses we live in, how our cities are built, and all of that, and they can do all of this by regulating carbon dioxide. Democrats--particularly in the Senate--have been unsuccessful in passing legislation to accomplish this. And this is the key. Way back during the Clinton administration, when Al Gore came back from the Kyoto Convention, he said we need to pass and ratify the Kyoto Convention. The Kyoto Convention would do exactly that--it would allow us in this country and others around the world to regulate carbon emissions. In doing this, they would be able to control lives. It was way back 13 years ago that this took place. Anyway, they tried to pass legislation. The first bill actually was not necessarily a Democratic bill; it was the McCain-Lieberman bill, and it was one that was a cap-and-trade bill, quite frankly. At that time the Republicans were in the majority, and I chaired the committee called the Environment and Public Works Committee, so I was on the floor managing the opposition to that particular cap-and-trade bill. That was a carbon control bill. We won the debate, and as the years went by we continued to win over and over. I guess what I am saying is that the reason the President is doing this right now is because he can't get this done through legislation, by those who are held accountable to the people. He can't get it done through legislation so he is trying to do it through regulation. The most recent attempt, in 2009, was the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. By the way, I congratulate Senator Markey for winning his election. It is going to be fun for us because we have debated each other on this issue now for years and years, but now we are in the same Chamber. The bottom line is that in 2009 they did pass that bill in the then- Democratic-controlled House, but when it came over to the Senate, of course it was not even considered here. But that particular piece of legislation would have regulated only the largest emitters, and this is the hardest thing to get across to people. Everyone understands, after 12 years of repetition and listening to me at this podium saying it over and over again, that if we were to pass any kind of a cap-and-trade bill, the cost to the American people would be somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. The reason I say that is the Wharton School came up with the figure of around $350 billion, MIT came out with the figure of about the same, and so no one for 10 years has debated that the cost of regulating through cap and trade would have been somewhere around $300 billion to $400 billion. Now, as onerous as I think all these bills were in trying to do this through legislation, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad as what is happening today, for this reason. This gets into the weeds here, but it is important that we in this body understand what this is all about. The bills we killed, which would have cost $400 billion a year, would have regulated only the largest emitters--those emitters that emitted 25,000 tons of CO2 a year. That would have cost the economy $400 billion. We rejected that, and we all know that is what the cost was, but because the President owes this environmental base and he can't pass his legislation, he is now taking unilateral regulatory action to regulate greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. Keep in mind that this is not the same as one of the bills we defeated. That would have only caused the emission control on those entities that emitted 25,000 tons of CO2 or more in a period of a year. If it is done through regulation, then it has to be done under the Clean Air Act, and the significance of that is this would not just go after the big emitters, it wouldn't go after just those big emitters of 25,000 tons a year, it would catch people and individuals and organizations that emit 250 tons as opposed to 25,000 tons. That means it would apply not just to large emitters, such as powerplants, but every refinery, oil and gas well, every manufacturing facility, every plastics plant, the iron smelters and steel mills, every apartment building, churches, and every school. So that is everybody. So one thing that has never been calculated is what the cost of that would be. If the cost of just those emitting 25,000 tons would be $400 billion a year, then how much would it be if we applied this to everyone, all the way down to 250 tons? I do something in Oklahoma each year. I get the total number of people who file Federal tax returns, and I kind of do the math. So I will take the amount of a tax increase--in this case, let's use $400 billion a year--and I will say: How much will this cost the average family in my State of Oklahoma who files a tax return? It works out to $3,000 a year. So we are talking about a major--by far the largest tax increase this country has ever seen. So don't let the President fool you into believing he will stop at the powerplants. He is in an all-out war against fossil fuels and affordable energy. And legally, if he goes down this path, he will not be able to stop just at the large ones. This will apply to everybody out there under the Clean Air Act, and that would be those emitting 250 tons. He is also doing this unilaterally just for the United States. If you believe man is causing global warming--I don't, but if you do--then you should be concerned about worldwide emissions because who cares if it is just the United States of America? It is not just what is happening in the United States of America, it is all over the world. That is really where the problem--if there is a problem--would be. If all we do is lower our emissions without convincing China, India, Mexico, and other countries to do the same, then U.S. manufacturers, out seeking the energy to run their operations, would have to leave the United States and go to those other countries where they do not have regulations. So this would have the effect actually of increasing, not decreasing, emissions. I remember when Lisa Jackson was the Director of the EPA. She was my favorite liberal. I used to say I had three favorite liberals, and she was one of the three of them. And I liked her because even though I disagreed with her philosophically, she was always honest with me. I would ask her a question and she would answer it. I remember when I asked her live on TV, in a hearing, this question. I said: You know, if we were to pass this legislation that would regulate CO2 levels, would this reduce emissions worldwide? She said: No. Because this only affects the United States and it would not affect the other countries. So you won't hear the President talking about this. You won't hear him talking about the cost, even though they will shrink from our economy by more than $400 billion a year. We know that, and no one refutes that. It requires the EPA to hire an additional 230,000 employees and spend an additional $21 billion to implement the regulatory regime. And these are not my figures, these are the EPA's figures. You won't hear him talking about it because he knows it is a losing argument. In fact, the day before the President gave this speech, he had his campaign send out talking points to all of the activists he had working on his behalf. They told--``they'' meaning the White House--these people exactly what to talk about, what to say and exactly what not to say. We recovered this. We found these talking points the President sent out to people so this is what Americans would be listening to. I think it is worthwhile for us to go over this now. On this first chart, we have his overarching three-point strategy. Point No. 1 is, we have an obligation to act. The memo continues: We have a moral obligation to future generations to leave them a planet that is not polluted and damaged by carbon pollution. Notice that they are not talking about climate change anymore. They are not talking about global warming. The new words they are using now are ``carbon pollution.'' It is all the same thing. Global warming didn't work, so they discontinued that. They tried climate change. That didn't work. Now the new word is called carbon pollution. These are the President's talking points. I think this kind of wordsmithing is actually smart, and I compliment them on going to professionals and seeing what kind of words they can use to make the public believe something that isn't true. The second thing they have charged would be that communities all over America are already being harmed. The memo continues: Climate change is already harming Americans all over the country. Cleaning up after climate-driven disasters last year cost the taxpayer over $1,100. (Or cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion, one of the largest non-defense discretionary budget items in 2012.) These are the words coming from the White House for people to use in their talking points. These figures come from the total cost of all natural disasters. I am from Oklahoma. I think we all know we have tornadoes in Oklahoma. We have had tornadoes as long as I have been living in Oklahoma--all my life. So he is talking about that figure on all natural disasters that has nothing to do to with carbon whatsoever. He is attributing the cost of all natural disasters and its total costs to global warming or carbon pollution, as the President now says, even if you believe global warming is true. The President's third talking point was to his climate plan. This is what he is telling his followers, in this body and elsewhere, to use: That's why we applaud President Obama's climate plan, which is full of common-sense solutions, starting with his call for the EPA to limit the carbon pollution. While we set limits for arsenic, mercury, and lead, we let power plants release as much carbon pollution as they want. It's time to set a limit on pollution that affects public health, and that's why it's so important that the President is rising to this challenge. Those are his talking points that he wants people to say about his speech and about his program. What this demonstrates to me is that the President is no longer fighting greenhouse gases--which he says caused global warming--but is instead fighting against carbon pollution. But if carbon pollution is simply carbon dioxide--or CO2-- and is dangerous to our health, what are we going to do about the air we breathe? Don't we emit CO2 every time we exhale? Is this the pollution they are talking about? Also in the memo the President's alarmists are given a concrete list of things to talk about and things not to talk about. This is something we received just a few hours ago, and we are very pleased to be able to get a copy of it. This was only supposed to go to alarmists. Alarmists, for the benefit of my colleagues, are people who believe the world is coming to an end and it is all man's fault. It says what to do and what not to do. Look at this. It is amazing, what you can say and what you can't say. We will highlight just a few items. The first point is the instruction to not talk about the cost of regulations. The memo from the White House says, ``Don't lead with straight economic arguments.'' Why? Because global warming legislation will cost between $300 billion and $400 billion a year, and the regulations will cost much more than that. Charles River Associates is a credible group that to my knowledge no one has challenged. Their study of the Waxman-Markey bill reported that the policies would cost the economy $350 billion a year in 2030 and $730 billion a year in 2050. Again, go back to the figures consistent with what the Wharton School, 10 years before, and MIT came out with. The Heritage Foundation said the average family would see its direct energy costs rise by over $24,000 in the first 20 years following the bill's enactment. This is the Heritage Foundation said it is going to affect every family in America. The costs will be far higher under the President's unilateral regulatory action, thereby bypassing Congress, because they are talking about regulating down to much lower levels. This memo also instructs the President's alarmists to talk about his actions being ``the latest in a series of steady and responsible steps the administration has taken'' to combat global warming. In that vein, however, the memo instructs them to not overstate the magnitude of the action being taken. In other words, the President does not want his people talking about this as being the first of many steps in regulating every refinery, manufacturer, oil and gas wells, steel mills, plastics, and all the rest. The next memo instructs alarmists to ``discuss the impacts--carbon pollution is bad for the health of our kids and our planet'' but to not ``debate the validity or consensus of the science that is already settled.'' In other words, don't debate the science. Just say it has been settled. Because we have more and more people now questioning the science, and it is far from being settled. They don't want to bring that up. They don't want people talking about it. The science is far from settled, and since when does carbon dioxide--which we all breathe out every day--hurt our kids? The memo also instructs the alarmists to ``inform audiences about the nature of the problem, who is at fault, and what can be done,'' but to not ``debate the increase in electricity prices. Instead pivot to health and clean air messages.'' In other words, don't admit the truth; that is, overactive, unilateral regulation will do nothing more than increase electricity prices and unilaterally shut down our economy by imposing EPA regulations on every single industry and dramatically expand the Federal Government's role in our lives without doing anything to reduce global emissions. This is all instruction coming from the White House. I have to repeat this. If it were done by legislation or by regulation, we have already shown clearly it would not reduce CO2 emissions, even if that were your goal, because that is what Obama's Administrator of the EPA said. In answering the question, ``Is this going to reduce CO2 emission,'' the answer, ``No, it won't.'' Richard Lindzen and other scientists have talked about: Controlling carbon is kind of a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life. So keep that in mind. All this effort is being made, and we have made it very clear that it is not going to accomplish anything they want to accomplish in terms of reducing CO2 emissions worldwide. The last thing I will mention from the memo is that it says to ``discuss modernizing and retooling power plants and innovation that will create green jobs'' but to not ``try to suggest net job increases.'' In other words, don't mention this is going to shut down every coal, oil, and eventually natural gas powerplant we have in this country and kill thousands of jobs at manufacturers around the Nation. We don't want to talk about the job loss. The President only wants to talk about the benefits of his regulatory actions and not about the costs. But what we have to remember is that even the benefits are overstated because they do not rely on the true costs of the regulations. But we should not be surprised, this coming from an administration that thinks more regulations means more jobs. These are talking points, but the mechanics of these new and future EPA greenhouse gas rules will be done by the EPA. The reason I am here today is to first demonstrate in the speech he made how that relates now to the current EPA and perhaps the confirmation hearing vote that will be coming up. Gina McCarthy is currently being considered to take the top job at the agency. Remember, I said Lisa Jackson had that job before and how much I thought of her. I like Gina. I like her very much. I have worked with her. She has had a different job for several years. She was the Assistant Administrator of the EPA for air issues. It is very important people understand what we are looking at. We have a good personal relationship, but she is the one who is responsible for all of the worst regulations that have come from the EPA in the last 4 years under Lisa Jackson's leadership. Lisa Jackson was the director, but Gina McCarthy was the air director. It is from the air office, the Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation, where she has the most expertise and where all of the worst regulations will come from in the future. After President Obama's speech on global warming, it became clear that Gina McCarthy would be used as the tool of the administration for all these regulations that will destroy the American economy. I have listed these up here, and it is worth looking at. In the last 4 years, we have had Utility MACT. MACT means the maximum achievable control technology. That means what technology is out there to control emissions. She was able to get that through, and $100 billion and 1.5 million jobs were lost. The next is Boiler MACT, $63.3 billion and 800,000 jobs lost. Regional haze--another regulation regulating the air--will increase the cost of Oklahoma's electricity bills by over $1.8 billion. These are all figures that are incontrovertible, so people don't disagree with. In the next few years, even worse regulations are likely to come out. Greenhouse gas regulations may be the worst, but there are also the others listed. Greenhouse gas is the one we have been talking about, but you also have the ozone NAAQS regulations. Adjustments to that rule will put 2,800 counties out of attainment, including all of them in Oklahoma. We have 77 counties in the State of Oklahoma. I can remember when I was the mayor of Tulsa, they came out with new regulations that put Tulsa County out of attainment. When you are out of attainment, that means you can kiss any energy development, new manufacturing opportunity, any other business expansion goodbye. They will not be able to get a permit from the EPA. Gina McCarthy is the face of President Obama's overregulatory agenda that is threatening our energy independence and putting our economic future in peril. We can't allow these regulations to move forward. I think the key to that is the person who is responsible for all the regulations, all the costs, all the jobs I just enumerated, both during her tenure as the air boss of EPA and then these that would come in the future, that would be in her goal. She would be the tool that is being used by the administration. Yesterday was kind of interesting because Heather Zichal is President Obama's climate czar and she was on the Hill huddling in a secret meeting with some of the chief alarmists such as Barbara Boxer and the rest. In the meeting, they talked about the President's plan and presumably this memo--with wordsmithing talking points from the memo we talked about before. So the one we had up before is the same thing they talked about yesterday: This is how you are going to have to word all this stuff. Their goal is not to protect the American people; it is to control them. They want top-down control, and carbon dioxide regulations will give them this tool. Their talking points memo proves they are doing all they can to craft their message in a way that convinces Americans they are not trying to crush our economy but instead trying to help. But the truth is, their regulatory agenda will only cause more unemployment, lower economic growth, and lower take-home pay for the American people. President Obama delivered a beautiful speech on global warming. That is how I started this. It was well thought out, and he is very gifted. He had a beautiful speech, and he is embarking on the most devastating surge in regulation that will cost hard-working Americans millions of jobs and tax increases to accomplish this. Keep in mind, if you do all these things it is not going to lower CO2 emissions. That is proven. No one has denied it. That even came from the Administrator of the EPA. It is going to be devastating to the American people. This is big. It has a lot to do with the confirmation hearing of the very fine lady who has been a good friend of mine for a long time, but the one who is responsible for these air regulations that are killing jobs in America, and we cannot let that happen. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the Senator from Massachusetts makes his remarks that Senator Grassley be recognized, then I be recognized after him, and then Senator Kaine, those four in that order.

Mr. INHOFE. May I interrupt for a parliamentary inquiry? Mr. President, first of all, we are operating under a unanimous consent request, and I would ask if we can modify that to hear from the Senator from Massachusetts and then revert back to the unanimous consent request that has been granted.

Mr. INHOFE. Go ahead.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me just say kind of the same thing. I had occasion to research Senator Cowan. I do this because one of the things I enjoy doing every Wednesday morning, when we have our Prayer Breakfast, is introducing those who are speaking. He was speaking. When one researches someone like him and you find things out, you kind of redevelop a love for everyone, and I wonder: Are you sure you are in the right place here? I have to question that. But I hold you in the highest regard. I am very familiar with how you tick, how you think, what you said, and we will miss you in this place. Thank you so much.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have a unanimous consent request. Senator Grassley was going to be next, and I will go ahead and take his time. The unanimous consent request was that I be recognized as in morning business for such time as I shall consume. Let me share a couple of things. First of all, I am looking forward to serving with the Senator who was elected yesterday. I think he will find out something that I found out when I was first elected to the Senate after serving for several years in the House of Representatives: It is a more civil place. It is a place where we can have differences of opinion, where we disagree with each other, but we do so in a very friendly way. I am actually looking forward to that because there have been times when our discourse, our discussions with each other were not friendly, but I think it will turn out to be a total change. I wish to get on record to say that I am looking forward to serving with our newly elected Senator from Massachusetts. I look forward to being with him, although I think he has every reason and opportunity to change his mind on some of the positions he has taken in the past. Let me share something I didn't say when I had the floor yesterday and was talking a little bit about President Obama's talk. There were four things that I didn't hear, and I am going to repeat them. They are statements that were made by President Obama talking before an audience. I have to say I truly believe I know the reason for this long talk that he gave yesterday, because he had served for 4 years. He knew his far-left base was demanding some type of cap and trade. He knew he didn't have the votes to pass it. So he was not able to push that, knowing before the election, if this came out, what kind of a tax increase this would be on the American people. So he waited until after the election, and that is what we heard yesterday. Some of the things he said were a little bit insulting, but I can handle that. He said he lacks ``patience for anyone who denies that this problem is real.'' He is talking about global warming. He is trying to revive global warming. I say revive because it is interesting that when it started out 12 years ago it was global warming. Remember Kyoto? That is what it was all about, the Kyoto treaty. In fact, they came back from Rio de Janeiro and the treaty was never submitted by President Bill Clinton to the Senate for ratification. The reason was the votes weren't there. So time went by and they decided, since it is not warming and we want to keep this thing alive and we want to do all we can to destroy CO2 in our society, let's call it something else. So they called it climate change. A few other titles came along in the meantime. For the first time it has now reverted back, after several years, to global warming. Some of the statements he made were: ``We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society,'' and ``sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it's not going to protect you from the coming storm.'' Listen to this: The 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15 years. Last year, temperatures in some areas of the ocean reached record highs, and ice in the Arctic sank to its smallest size on record--faster than most models had predicted it would. These are the facts. Those aren't the facts. That is not even true, but it is interesting we would be trying to revive this. I know there are a lot of people all excited out there who have said: Oh, for the last 4 years we haven't said anything about global warming. Now we are talking about it and now something is going to be done. I would like to quote this from the Economist: Over the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth's surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750. Of course, we know that is true because we know the major surge came in the 1940s following World War II. Continuing to quote the article, which quotes James Hansen, who is one of the major movers behind this whole thing--the global warming movement: And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA'S Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, ``the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.'' This is a guy on the other side who has always been held up to be the authentic knowledgeable person. Here is a quote from the NASA Goddard Paper from January of this year: The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slowdown in the growth rate of the net climate forcing. A quote from Reuters in April, 2013: Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions. . . . Some experts say their trust in climate science has declined because of the many uncertainties. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had to correct a 2007 report that exaggerated the pace of melt of the Himalayan glaciers and wrongly said they could all vanish by 2035. All that sounded good at the time, but it was a lie. Still quoting from the article: ``My own confidence in the data has gone down in the past five years,'' said Richard Tol, an expert in climate change and professor of economics at the University of Sussex in England. I could go on and on. Yesterday on the floor I talked about Richard Lindzen with MIT, considered by many people to be the foremost authority on climate anywhere in the country, and he is talking about what the motive is behind people to promote this thing. He said controlling CO2--and I am quoting from memory now--is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control climate, you control life. That is exactly what we were talking about at that time, and it was true. We have covered all these things, and I have said for several years now that people understand the science isn't there. I can remember some of my Republican friends got upset with me because I often said good things about Lisa Jackson. Lisa Jackson was the first Administrator of the EPA under President Obama, and she is, of course, a liberal and all of that. But she has a propensity for telling the truth, and that is all I ask for in people who are serving in public office. In fact, she has done that, and I wish to share one thing with my colleagues. When they are unable to pass any kind of cap-and-trade bill--and keep in mind the last time they tried to do it was the bill that was introduced by two House Members, one of whom was elected to the Senate yesterday. In that cap-and-trade bill, people realized what the size of the tax increase would be and it went down in flames. So when the big U.N. party--by the way, when I talk about the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the IPCC--that is something a lot of people don't know about. That is the United Nations. They are the ones that put that together to fortify their position that we need to do something to equalize the wealth of nations worldwide. In fact, I wrote a book about that. I would not ask anyone to buy it because that would be inappropriate, but I will loan it to you, if you want to read it, and I cover that in a lot of detail. But on this subject, I asked Lisa Jackson the question, right before going to Copenhagen--and Copenhagen is the biggest party of the year. I am going to wind this up, and I will continue this later, but I would only say the science is not there, with what they were talking about yesterday. I think I pretty much made the point I came to make. But returning to Lisa Jackson, right before everyone was going to Copenhagen--and remember, IPCC is part of the United Nations and once a year they throw a big party. Friends of mine, I can remember one from Africa showing up at one of these parties and I said: You don't believe all this global warming stuff, do you? He said: No, but this is the biggest party of the year. So they all show up. At that time--I am not sure where it was, but the time I am talking about, 2 years ago, it was in Copenhagen. So I said, right before I left for Copenhagen to be a one-man truth squad there, I said to Lisa Jackson, the Administrator of the EPA serving at the time, in a hearing we had: I have a feeling once I leave town, since you can't pass any kind of cap and trade, you are going to try to do it through regulation and you are going to have to have an endangerment finding, and when you have an endangerment finding, it has to be based on some type of science. What science are you going to use? She said: The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--the United Nations. As luck would have it--it wasn't months after it or weeks after that--hours after that Climategate came in and they were exposed for lying about the science for all those years. So the timing could not have been better. I would only say I am glad this issue has opened up again because I had a dusty old file on climate change I haven't used for 5 years and I have gotten it out and we are ready to use it again. I just hope the American people will look at the beautiful political speech made by the President yesterday for actually what it is. Let's keep in mind the cost of this anytime we want to go into the extreme position of saying that CO2 is the cause of climate change or of global warming. We are talking about a tax increase to the American people. One of the Senators stood after I said this yesterday and said there is no evidence of that yet. That was the Wharton School of Economics and MIT that came out with those figures. The last thing I will say, God is still up there and climate is going to change and it has. I can remember studying this--and going from memory now, not reading anything--and reading about the first time they came out with this fact that we are all going to die because the world is going to freeze over. That was in 1895. In 1895, they talked about this disaster that was coming upon us--the coming ice age, they said. Then, in 1918, all of a sudden the climate started getting warmer. It was going through these cycles. It has been happening since the beginning of time. It got warmer. That is when global warming first came up, in 1918. Then, in 1984, the next cycle came in, and that was a cold cycle. But listen to this, because what is interesting about this is in 1944, after the Second World War, we had the largest surge in CO2 in our country's history. It precipitated not a warming period but another cooling period, which lasted until 1975. Then, of course, another warming period came in, which I disagree with all the statements that were made--certainly by the President yesterday and by many of the Members of this body--now we are precipitating going into a leveling off and perhaps a warming period. So it is going to be changing, and it is a little arrogant for us in this country to look at these God cycles up there and say we can do something to change that because we can't. It is a beautiful world we are in, and we are going to try to make it better, but we don't need the largest tax increase in America's history to make it better. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. I also wanted to mention even though I oppose the bill, I do think they have done a good job of trying to get some amendments out, particularly Senator Grassley and Senator McCain, who offered the opportunity to have my amendment. It was a good amendment. It was so good that the ACLU is scoring against it. Hopefully, we will get a chance to get those in.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Let me comment also, the Senator from Alabama has done a yeoman's job. He has studied this issue and looked at all angles. He has one great advantage over me. He is an attorney who understands the ramifications. Let me just mention two things about the bill which concern me. One is that I have been privileged, maybe as much as any other Member of this Senate, to speak at naturalization ceremonies. If my colleagues have never done it before, I say to my fellow Senators, do it. One has a totally different perspective on this whole issue we are talking about; that is, getting to know people who go through the legal channels. You look up and see that these are people who learned the language, who have studied the history and, I daresay, would know as much about the history of the United States of America as we know in this Chamber. Anything that is going to fast-track a citizenship is something that is of concern to me. This is not why I am here. I decided to come down knowing that the President of the United States was going to make a talk, and in this talk I wish to make sure people understand what he is advocating is the largest tax increase in the history of this country. It is something we know he has been trying to do, in terms of his global warming activities, actually a long time before he was first elected 4\1/2\ years ago. His speech on global warming indicates he has started delivering on all the promises he gave the environmentalists during his campaign. When I talk about the environmentalists, I am talking about all the groups--good, well-meaning, some are not, some are extremists. Leading up to his reelection campaign, the President had been given a pass by all these organizations because they knew if the American people thought he was going to do what we now know he is going to do, what he announced today, he would not be reelected because of the cost of it. So he had been given a pass by the environmentalist groups, such as the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund, moveon.org, George Soros, Michael Moore--you know the crowd. They said: Fine, but as soon as you are reelected, since you can't be reelected again, we want to get all these things done. So all these groups want the President to use his regulatory power to make traditional forms of energy so expensive there is no option but to use their preferred alternatives. They understood if the President wanted to get reelected he would need to delay many of these regulations until after his reelection, and that is exactly what happened. They were willing to do this because they believed it was that important to reelect Barack Obama for a second term as President, as opposed to Mitt Romney or any of the others who were running. So they gave him a pass, and they didn't talk about this. As a result, he delayed many of the most significant regulations the EPA worked on during his first term until after the election. One of those regulations was Boiler MACT. Let me explain MACT. MACT stands for maximum achievable control technology. It means what is the maximum in terms of something, such as emissions, that can take place where you have the technology to support it. This rule sets limits--this is on Boiler MACT--on emissions of industrial and commercial boilers that are actually impossible to meet because the technology required by this rule isn't even available yet. It would cost the economy--and the analysis that was done, by the way, no one has disagreed with--$63.3 billion and would result in about 800,000 jobs being lost. It is called Boiler MACT. Every manufacturer has a boiler, and these are the standards that would be required--an emissions standard--where there is no technology to reach that at this time. So the President waited to finalize the rule until the day after the election. He didn't want the rule to go out before then because he didn't want people to realize what it would cost until after election day. Another rule is the Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards. It is called the NAAQ Standards, but it affects everyone in America. The President tried to redo President Bush's 2008 update of this standard during his first term. But as the election neared, and the cost of the regulation became clear, he completely punted the effort. Now, however, we know he is actually considering an update of this regulation that could lower the standard from 35 parts per billion to 60 parts per billion. This is on emissions, and this would put as many as 2,800 counties out of attainment. Let me tell you what that means--and, by the way, we have 77 counties in my State of Oklahoma, and all 77 would be out of attainment. It means you can't go out and recruit industry or keep the jobs you have because you are out of attainment. That is an official standing. This would mean 2,800 counties would be out of attainment in the United States, including all in my State of Oklahoma. One thing the environmentalists want that the President has not been able to deliver--and it is even worse than all the rest of this stuff-- is to deliver on the CO2 regulations, which is the crown jewel of environmental regulations. In fact, there is an MIT professor named Richard Lindzen, who is supposed to be one of the outstanding and perhaps the premier climate scientist in America today, who said the regulations on carbon dioxide are a ``bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life.'' That is a pretty strong statement. This is because everything--every manufacturing process, every refinery, every hospital diagnostics machine, every home, every school, every church--would have to be regulated. If you can control carbon, you can control every decision anyone ever makes. This is what the liberals want. They want government to control everything, and their crown jewel is CO2. That is where the whole thing started. Remember, a lot of people are saying now: We never did say it was global warming, now it is climate change. They have changed it around quite a bit, as people realized some of these things aren't true. I can remember when people were talking about global warming--now we know we are actually in part of this cycle that is going down. But that is not important. What is important is they want to regulate carbon dioxide. That is their goal. So the President first tried to push greenhouse gas emissions on the Nation in 2010 when the Democrats had supermajorities in both the House and the Senate. The last bill they had was called the Waxman-Markey bill--two House Members. It was a cap-and-trade bill. We all know what cap and trade is. We have been talking about it now for 12 years. That is where they cap emissions and then they can trade those around. They can buy and sell them and it results in a huge tax increase. It would have regulated any source of emissions that emitted 25,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions or more. That is very important because what the President announced today is far greater than that. In other words, those bills were only going to regulate the emissions of industries that emitted 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year. That came to a total cost of about $400 billion a year. Again, I am using these without documentation now because I have been using them, and we have been documenting them for 12 years with no one arguing the fact that if we pass cap and trade at 25,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, it will cost about $400 billion. So that is a huge amount. While that may not be the largest tax increase in history, what the President proposed today would be. Congress squarely rejected that, and while the bill passed the House, it failed miserably in the Senate. That is because it would have lowered the standards of living for the American people across the country, forced businesses to shut down, and it would equate to the biggest tax increase in American history. And I think people understood that. That was what happened in the past. What the President wants to do is what they could not get passed in terms of legislation, so they are going to now do it by regulation. The American people knew what was going on, knew the impact this legislation would have, and they told their Representatives to vote against it, and they did. Many of those who voted for it are no longer in this Chamber. They were defeated in 2010. With the President's reelection squarely secured, the environmentalists have been crying for the President to act aggressively on global warming. It is payback time. We understand, Mr. President, you couldn't push this thing by regulation before the election because you wouldn't have been reelected. But now you are reelected, and we have a law that says you can't be reelected again, so it is payback time. So he is doing this unilaterally, bypassing Congress, and using the authority he is claiming under the Clean Air Act. In the words of a very prominent Democratic Congressman, John Dingell, this would be a ``glorious mess'' because instead of regulating only the biggest pollutants--such as in the Waxman-Markey bill, and those who wanted to regulate only industry that emitted over 25,000 tons a year--the Clean Air Act regulation would regulate any facility emitting over 250 tons. So it is not 25,000 tons that would be regulated, it is anything over 250 tons. You can't even calculate how much that would cost in terms of a tax increase. As the President announced today, he will begin this process with the regulation of greenhouse gases from new and existing powerplants. The President may have said today he will work with the State utilities to make sure they get a policy they like, but that is just window dressing. It is putting lipstick on the pig. Legally, the President cannot get around the requirements of the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act was passed a long time ago. In fact, I supported it. We had the Clean Air Act regulations back when I was serving in the House. They were good and they worked, but they do call for regulation of any facility emitting 250 tons of greenhouse gases a year. It wasn't meant for greenhouse gases that make those kinds of emissions. And while he might not be talking about it, the law he is using to justify greenhouse regulations would not let him stop with regulating just powerplants or allowing him to craft a policy that states that. He doesn't have a choice. The law requires him to eventually impose regulations on every single industry in the country--every single industry--one at a time, with unelected bureaucrats doing the heavy lifting along the way. This means every school, every hospital, every apartment will eventually be regulated by the President's EPA, and at a much greater cost than the $400 billion a year that was expected under Waxman- Markey. Keep in mind, the Waxman-Markey bill was the last cap-and-trade bill they tried to pass through, and it was soundly defeated. In fact, it is so hard, no one has ever calculated what the cost will be to the American people if they had to regulate down to 250 tons. Let me give an example. For my State of Oklahoma I always calculate at the first of each year how many Federal taxpayers we have in the State. Then I do the math every time something comes along. Well, in terms of regulating under those industries over 25,000 tons of emissions a year, that amounts to $400 billion, which is about $3,000 a year for each taxpayer in Oklahoma. That is what you have to stop and realize. The cost of this thing is not little, it is huge. Today's announcement doesn't come as a surprise. We have known they have been working on these regulations since the President was first elected, scheming to give his environmental base exactly what they want. Roger Martella, former general counsel of the EPA, recently said, ``Two years is about the minimal time it would take to go from soup to nuts on a rule like this,'' and ``these rules don't come out of the clear blue sky and involve lengthy internal deliberations before the public even gets the first peak at them.'' So we know what is going on right now has been happening for a long period of time. Further, the Congressional Research Service recently put out a report saying President Obama has spent $68.4 billion on climate change activities since he has been elected. This doesn't require a vote. This was all done by the President. So that has been taking place, and the CBO substantiated this by saying the annual spending on climate change has reached an annual level of $7.5 billion, with an additional $35 billion being provided in the President's $825 billion stimulus plan. The President has been intent on giving his environmental base this victory for a long time, and he is willing to bypass Congress to make it happen. And the reason is because it would not pass Congress. We have had his bills here and they have been defeated every time. I would look at the majority leader right now and say: I bet you couldn't come up with 35 votes to pass cap and trade in the Senate. But on regulations, he can do it without having to go out and get the votes. The impact is clear: It is the crushing of our economy. As I spoke on the floor last night, developments in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have resulted in a boom in energy production. Oil production in America is up 40 percent in the last 4 years. It is not because President Obama is President; it is in spite of his policies because all these things have happened in hydraulic fracturing. By the way, I know a little about that because the first hydraulic fracturing was done in my State of Oklahoma, and that was in 1949. There has never been a case of groundwater contamination in the years since then, in over 1 million applications. Now, the 40 percent increase in production in this country in 4 years all came from the private and State lands. None of it came from the Federal Government because this administration would not let us drill and produce in that area. In fact, the report I just quoted said that on Federal lands it has been reduced by 7 percent. So while overall oil production nationwide is up 40 percent, on the Federal lands it is down by 7 percent. The President is setting us on a course of unilateral disarming of our economy the same as he is doing to the military. He wants to impose costly regulations to our energy and manufacturing sectors that no other nation on Earth has. China, India, Southeast Asia, Mexico, all these nations know you need cheap reliable energy. They have to have it in their countries. They are never going to pursue these regulations, and they are waiting for the day America does it unilaterally. Why would that be? Because if we do it, they know our jobs are going to have to find energy someplace, and they will be after those jobs. Any unilateral greenhouse regulations we have in the United States will only shut down our domestic production. In fact, when Lisa Jackson was the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, I asked this question, and on live TV she gave me a very honest answer: If we were to pass any of these cap-and-trade bills--such as the ones I have been talking about--would this lower overall emissions of CO2? And she said, No. Because the problem is not here; it is in China and India and Mexico, and other countries where they don't have regulations. You could carry that argument out and say if you pass these things and we do it unilaterally in the United States, as the President suggested today, it is going to have the effect of increasing CO2, because people will seek those countries where they can actually do this, where they don't have any restrictions at all. So there is no need for the President to take us down this path. He is beholden to his environmental base which claims global warming is the biggest threat facing humanity. Many have said, even in recent months, that all the major weather events of the last decade have been the result of global warming. Some have even claimed Oklahoma's recent tornadoes are the result of global warming. This isn't true. Oklahoma University's weather center says this year has not been any different than years past. We have plotted our tornadoes since 1950. The majority leader doesn't have tornadoes in the State of Nevada as we do in the State of Oklahoma. But we have been tracking them since the 1950s and the trend is about the same. It is not any higher this year, last year, and the year before than it has been in the past. It is because we have been having these events since the dawn of time that many environmentalists now refuse to refer to global warming as global warming, so they call it climate change or anything else the public will buy. We will most likely not be hearing many of these environmentalists talk about the fact that during the last 15 years there has not been any increase in temperature, as reported in The Economist. But even if they did acknowledge this, with the term climate change, they have an alibi, because climate change by its name doesn't necessarily mean warming. It can mean anything. The President's announcement today of his new plan to regulate greenhouse gases to combat global warming does not come as a surprise. He has been working on it for years. I would conclude and say, let's remember what it was that Richard Lindzen--the foremost authority in America on this subject--stated when he said regulating CO2 is a bureaucrat's dream: If you control carbon, you control life. And remember the other thing, and that is all the expense, all the trouble we are talking about going through, and all that the President announced today is not going to reduce CO2--not according to a Republican, but to the Democratic former Director of the EPA. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield before he yields to the Senator from Hawaii?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I appreciate the majority leader making this arrangement. I was wanting to get a little more time than that. However, let me just mention two bills that I plan one to reintroduce, another to introduce, which I think are timely tonight because of something that is going to happen tomorrow. Tomorrow I am going to reintroduce a bill making it clear that States are sole regulators of the hydraulic fracturing process, and there is a reason for bringing this up in the next bill. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Vitter, Portman, Roberts, Enzi, Sessions, Coburn, Crapo, Risch, Scott, Cruz, Hatch, Johnson, and Lee. Since 2008, domestic oil production has increased by 40 percent. This has never happened before. That is just in the last 4 years. Because of the new applications for such processes as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, we have been able to do this. But the most interesting thing is that with a 40-percent increase, 100 percent of that has been in State or in private land. That is critical, because we keep hearing from this administration that they somehow want to take credit for the fact that we have had an increase in that period of time, when the fact is that has all been done on private land or on State land. None of it has been done on Federal land. In fact, the Congressional Research Service came out earlier this year: All of the increase from FY2007 to FY2012 took place on non-federal lands, and the federal share of total U.S. crude oil production fell by about seven percentage points. That means that while we increased 40 percent, that which was on Federal land decreased by 7 percent. It just goes to show the real consequences of the administration's all-out war on fossil fuels. The President has made it so difficult for anyone to lease Federal land or obtain drilling permits that many producers have simply stopped working on Federal lands altogether. For those who remain, the process is dysfunctional and unfriendly. For instance, it takes an average of 207 days to get a drilling permit on Federal lands. By contrast, in my State of Oklahoma it only takes 10 hours, and 83 percent of the Federal lands are off-limits. I think we need to understand all the benefits that could be out there are in spite of this administration and the policies of this administration. We shouldn't be fooled. The President may claim he likes natural gas, but he is actually taking every step he can to impose more burdensome regulations on industries so he can shut them down in favor of his beloved renewables. This war against hydraulic fracturing is part of that effort. I can remember when we had something that took place a few months ago called date night. A lot of the Democrats, on national TV at a joint session of the legislature, didn't like the idea when something came up that was not popular with the people at home and happened to be popular with Democrats, so they had date night, so individuals would be scattered out and they wouldn't have all the Republicans on one side and all the Democrats on one side. I thought it was kind of interesting because, I won't mention her name, but one of my very good friends who happens to be a liberal Democrat, when the President stood up and made the statement, he said: Now there is an abundance of good, clean, natural gas that we can have for the future. I nudged her and I said: Are you listening to this? And she said back to me: Wait a minute, you are going to hear something else. He came out, and this is what he said right after that: [we will be] requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. Because America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk. Which are other words for: However, we are not going to be doing hydraulic fracturing. This is kind of interesting because we cannot have natural gas production without having hydraulic fracturing. In response to this charge by the President, the Department of the Interior recently proposed new regulations that would apply to any hydraulic fracturing that occurs on Federal lands. These new regulations cover everything from chemical disclosure to water use and cement bonding requirements. They add a massive new layer of regulatory compliance to any operator looking to develop reserves on Federal lands at a cost of as much as $250,000 per well. It costs that much more with no environmental benefits. You might ask: Why no environmental benefits? It is because Lisa Jackson, who is Barack Obama's Director of EPA, stated on the record: In no case have we made a definitive determination that the fracking process has caused chemicals to enter ground water. In other words, in the last 60 years--and I can attest to the last 60 years because the first hydraulic fracturing took place in Duncan, OK, in my State, in 1949. Since then, over 1 million wells have been fracked without any ground water contamination. So why would the President want to take the authority away from the States if they have such an excellent track record? It is because of his war on fossil fuels. To combat this I am introducing the Fracturing Regulations Are Effective in State Hands Act. The bill I am talking about simply makes it clear that States are the sole regulators of hydraulic fracturing, as they have been for the last 60 years. It includes Federal lands located within the borders of a State, so my bill would render the President's new regulations moot and ineffective and keep States in the driver's seat, effectively regulating the process. I urge my colleagues to support this. This is something that would be a major effort. If you stop and think about the people talking about the bad economy and all that, you just go to the oil States and see what has happened. We could be enjoying this prosperity all throughout the country. We used to think of the oil and gas production as being primarily in the western part of the United States. However, that is not the case anymore. The Marcellus shale--talking about Pennsylvania, New York, and other States--could have great benefits by opening that area. To do that we want to continue the State regulation of hydraulic fracturing as it has been in the past. I have another bill I am going to be introducing, and I think it is important. It closely relates to this and the speech the President is going to make tomorrow. First of all, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution says: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. That is something we all know. We learned this many years ago when we were in school. Today the Framers would be shocked to know the government's annual budget is near $4 trillion a year, with consistent $1 trillion deficits under the Obama administration. They would also be astonished to know that the Federal Government is involving itself in nearly every facet of American life, ranging from the absurd, such as protecting the small burrowing beetle in eastern Oklahoma, to the offensive, such as mandating that private companies provide contraceptives to employees despite objections of conscience. I was reading a book written by a friend of mine, who is deceased now, Bill Bright. His book has a daily message. The one for today, which happens to be day 175, the 24th of June, is kind of interesting. It was written by Malcolm Muggeridge. He went back and talked about what we are--keep in mind this is 40 years ago. He talked about putting the frogs in cold water and then slowly heating it up, and of course they end up dying in the water. However, if you put them in, and it happened all at once, they would not notice. I think that is what he is talking about. Yet he said this is not happening today, but it could happen. If he were around today, I wonder what he would say. This is not the way it was supposed to be. The 10th Amendment was supposed to be robust. James Madison, in Federalist 39, wrote: In this relation then the proposed Government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects. He continues to say: The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and infinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce . . . The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. We talk about the Constitution a lot. Yet people seem to forget the very important parts of the Constitution. Given this, it should come as no surprise that for the first 100 years of our history, as States were added to the Union, the Federal Government sold off vast quantities of its land. If the Federal Government were to be limited, then why would they need to own a lot of land? In fact, we can see in this chart the Federal revenues from the land sales were a significant component in the total revenues until just before the Civil War, and then it dropped off. Today the Federal Government owns over 600 million acres of land, and this chart shows how much of the country it actually is. It is astonishing. If we look at this chart, it shows most of it being in the western part of the United States, but it is all over the country. This land is endowed with substantial natural resources. As we can see in this chart, a substantial amount of oil and gas is located in the tight shale formations on these Federal lands. These are Federal lands, and it shows the great potential out there which has recently proven to be highly productive because of the advances in technologies such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. As a result of these discoveries, oil and natural gas production has boomed across the country. In the last 5 years, oil production has increased by over 7 million barrels a day, which is 40 percent higher. As I said when presenting the bill right before this one, all of that was done in the private sector and in the State. While that increased by 40 percent, the Federal lands decreased by 7 percent. As the Congressional Research Service confirmed in the last report, it said all the increase in U.S. production from 2007 to 2012 took place on non-Federal lands. President Obama is the reason this land is locked up. He has made it impossible for new oil and gas production to occur on Federal lands, and in addition to working to shut down development in areas such as western Oklahoma by proposing to list the lesser prairie chicken as an endangered species, he made the process of drilling on Federal land so difficult that it takes 300 days to get a drilling permit from the Federal Government while it only takes 10 hours to get one from Oklahoma. Further, 83 percent of the land is off limits to oil and gas production. Today we are within striking distance of achieving energy independence. Due to this, we must be able to get to the resources on Federal lands because they are enormous. For instance, ANWR in Alaska holds 16 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The Rocky Mountain West holds 1.8 trillion barrels of oil equivalent. If we expanded oil and gas production to its potential in all Federal areas, the impact would be astounding. The Institute for Energy Research recently issued a report based on the most recent government data about these off-limits lands and showed that if we enacted policies that allowed aggressive development of these Federal lands, the process would generate $14.4 trillion in economic activity, create 2.5 million jobs, and reduce the deficit by $2.7 trillion. Had we stuck to the principles of our Founders as articulated in the Federalist Papers and ratified in the 10th Amendment, we would not be having this conversation because the States would already be in control. So what we are trying to do is make sure the States can go back and control and do something that has been successful. What we need to do is get back to the basics, which I am introducing in the Federal Land Freedom Act today. I want to thank Senator Vitter, and all the other Senators who are cosponsors of the previous bills are also cosponsors of this bill. This bill would reestablish the principles of Federalism when it comes to the energy policy of our Federal lands. The bill gives States the right to develop all forms of energy resources, including renewables, located on Federal lands located within their borders. To get the authority, all a State would need to do is figure out how it would release, permit, and regulate energy activities on its Federal lands. Upon a State's declaration to the Federal Government that this program has been created, the energy development rights would automatically transfer to the State. The Federal Government would retain ownership of the land and its resources. The royalty share would remain unchanged. It would be a split, 50-50, between the State and the Federal Government as enumerated in the Minerals Leasing Act. The Energy Information Administration on Friday said the United States could become a net oil exporter by 2040. This bill could make it happen much faster than that. There is a guy named Harold Hamm, the CEO of Continental Resources, arguably one of the most successful operators--maybe the most successful--in the country. I called him up because people in the administration keep saying if we are able to drill on public lands, it would take 10 years before this would reach the economy. They are talking about the high price of heating a home or cooling a home or the price of gasoline. So I said I am going to go on a national show, and they are going to ask me the question of about 10 years, because I know that is not true. So I told Mr. Hamm that I would like to quote him as an authority, and so he should be honest with his answer because I am going to use his name on national TV. If we had everything set and we are going to go ahead and start drilling now, how long would it take the first barrel of oil out of the ground to reach the market? Without hesitating he said 70 days. Then he went through and explained each step in the process from drilling to hydraulic fracturing to transportation and all of this. He said it would take 70 days. That was just a few months ago, and no one has challenged this since then. Energy independence today--this is a reality we could be living in, and it would dramatically improve our economy. Unemployment continues to hover around 8 percent nationwide, but in States such as Oklahoma and North Dakota we are at full employment. Why? Because of energy development. With greater development of Federal energy resources, we would see a dramatic improvement in our economy, and there is simply no reason not to do it. The States have clearly demonstrated they are capable of handling oil and gas development processes and regulations. They have been doing it for 100 years on State and private lands. Why shouldn't they be able to do it on Federal lands as well? I think the 10th Amendment trusts the States and the Senate should do the same. I bring this up now because tomorrow there is going to be a speech. President Obama is going to give a speech on--I would say global warming, but they don't call it that anymore since the globe isn't warming. It is a climate speech on the unilateral first steps to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act--now we are talking about powerplants--new and existing plants; energy efficiency of appliances. He will be talking about that. He will talk about renewable energy production on Federal lands, but he will not be talking about the cost of these regulations. We all remember what he has already done. Utility MACT set new limits on mercury, coal, and oil-fired powerplants at a $100 billion cost and 1.65 million jobs lost. MACT means maximum achievable control technology. What this administration has been trying to do is mandate emissions that are below the technology to get there. Boiler MACT set strict new limits on emissions of hazardous air pollutants from industrial and commercial boilers costing $63.3 billion and 800,000 jobs. The same thing is going on now with what he is not talking about but what he is planning on doing. Ozone, for example. He is going to be promoting--from the information we have now, it would put 2,800 counties out of attainment, including every county in my State of Oklahoma. It could result in 7 million jobs and hundreds of billions in costs, and it could shut down oil and gas production in western Oklahoma. Greenhouse gas for refineries, first ever greenhouse gas limits on refineries; second largest emitter after powerplants. What we are talking about is, he is going to be able to go through and continue in his effort, in his war on fossil fuels, and he is going to attempt to do it through the regulations. Let's keep in mind, he tried--they have been trying, I should say, since 12 years ago with the Kyoto treaty to regulate through legislation, all the way up to the most recent bill which was the bill that was defeated last year--the Waxman-Markey bill--and that would have regulated emitters of those who emit 25,000 tons or more. Now, that was bad. That would have cost about $400 billion a year. However, if he is successful--he being the President--in doing this through regulations what he couldn't do through legislation, it would be under the Clean Air Act, and it wouldn't be regulating those who emit 25,000 tons or more. It would be 250 tons or more. It would affect every school, every hospital, every apartment building. I would like to have people aware of that as the President makes his speech tomorrow. I know he has an obligation. I know that prior to the last election he would not come out with these regulations because he knew that would be damaging to his reelection efforts. However, now he has that commitment to the far-left community who would like to shut down the U.S. and the energy that keeps it running. So let's be attentive to what he says tomorrow, and I will be anxious to respond to his speech at that time. In the meantime, we do know for a fact that we have the ability to be totally independent from any other country or anyone else in providing our own energy to run this machine called America. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, the mic was not on.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are looking at a lot of amendments right now, and I just want to call attention to one that I think is significant. It is one where, when people find out about it, they are just outraged that something like this could happen, and it is something that could be corrected with a very simple amendment. My amendment addresses the 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Zavidas. There, the Court held that immigrants admitted to the United States and then ordered removed couldn't be detained for more than 6 months. So something has to happen after a 6-month period. Four years later, the Supreme Court extended the decision to people here illegally as well. That is what we are talking about today. As a result, the Department of Justice and Homeland Security had no choice but to release thousands of criminal immigrants into our neighborhoods. The problem with these decisions is that the criminal immigrants ordered to be removed can't be deported back to their country if that country refuses to issue the necessary travel documents. In other words, if the country doesn't want to take them back, they don't have to take them back. Yet we have to release them. More importantly, these decisions have a serious impact on public safety, as recent cases have illustrated. Six years ago, a Vietnamese immigrant was ordered deported after serving time in prison for armed robbery and assault. He was never removed because this Supreme Court decision handicapped our authorities. Our immigration officials couldn't deport him without the cooperation of the Vietnamese Government--which they did not--and his deportation was never processed. Now, this same immigrant, Binh Thai Luc, is suspected of killing five people in a San Francisco home in March of 2012. The story of Qian Wu puts this situation in perspective. Qian Wu felt a little safer after the man who had stalked, choked, punched, and pointed a knife at her was locked up and ordered removed from the country. The man, Huang Chen, was a Chinese citizen who had illegally entered the United States. As has been the case at least 8,500 times in the last 4 years, Mr. Chen's home country refused to let its violent criminal return home. Frankly, you can understand how this could happen--and it did happen. So, handcuffed by the Supreme Court decision, immigrant officials released Mr. Chen back into the community, here in the United States, when they had nowhere else to send him. As you can imagine, the story also does not have a happy ending. Upon his release in 2010, Huang Chen murdered Qian Wu, the very person that was concerned during this time. As you can see, this is a real problem with serious consequences. There are others like these people out there. According to statistics provided by the Department of Homeland Security, there are many countries that are not cooperating or that take longer to repatriate their nationals. Countries such as Iran, Pakistan, China, Somalia, Liberia are on the list. The Supreme Court, in making their decision, said Congress should clarify the law. My amendment No. 1203, which I hope is going to be voted on in the next short while, does exactly what we need to do by creating a framework that allows immigration officials to detain dangerous criminal immigrants such as Binh Thai Luc and Huang Chen. Specifically, immigrants can be detained beyond 6 months if they are under order of removal but can't be deported due to the country's unwillingness to accept them back if several conditions are met, including if their release would, one, threaten national security; or, two, threaten the safety of the community and the alien either is an aggravated felon or has committed a crime of violence. I understand that the ACLU is scoring against my amendment. I view that as a badge of honor and an additional reason to support my amendment. It seems that the ACLU is only concerned with protecting the rights of criminals. It is time that we stop this nonsense. Again, all you have to do is go out in public and tell people that we have this situation where we are forced to release these criminals into our society merely because their country will not repatriot them. So I ask support of my amendment No. 1203. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. INHOFE. My inquiry is it was my understanding we were getting equal time back and forth. My question is, is this based on party, so Democrats and then Republicans will alternate time; is that correct?

Mr. INHOFE. There is no agreement? Because all I have heard in the last hour is those in support of the bill. My question is, when can someone be heard who is not in support of the bill?

Mr. INHOFE. I see.

Mr. INHOFE. All right.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first, let me thank my very good friend from Iowa who graciously allowed me to make a very short statement. I am concerned about this. Several of us have amendments we have been trying to get up for a long period of time. Frankly, I do not know what the current status of the amendments and the bill are right now, whether we will be getting to some votes sooner or later. I have no way of knowing. But I have one amendment that is one I thought would be so acceptable that there would not be any opposition to it. Let me just briefly tell you what it is. My amendment addresses the 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Zadvydas. This is one where the Court held--we all remember this--that immigrants admitted to the United States and then ordered removed could not be detained for more than 6 months. Four years later, the Supreme Court came along and extended the decision to people here illegally as well. That is what we are talking about right now. We are talking about illegals who come into this country. As a result, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have no choice but to release thousands of criminal immigrants into our neighborhoods. The problem with these decisions is the criminal immigrants ordered to be removed cannot be deported back to their country if that country refuses to accept them back. Let's stop and think about that. I certainly could not criticize a country for not taking back a hardened criminal into their country, and that is what happens. More importantly, these decisions have a serious impact on public safety, as recent cases have illustrated. Six years ago a Vietnamese immigrant was ordered to be deported after serving time in prison for armed robbery and assault. He was never removed because the Supreme Court decision handicapped our authorities. Our immigration officials couldn't deport him without the cooperation of the Vietnamese Government, which they didn't get. The Vietnamese Government said, we don't want this guy back. As a result, his deportation was never processed. This same immigrant, Binh Thai Luc, is suspected of killing five people in a San Francisco home in March of 2012. The story of Qian Wu puts this situation in perspective. Qian Wu felt a little safer after the man who had stalked, choked, punched her, and pointed a knife at her was locked up and ordered to be removed from the country. She naturally felt better at that time because the guy was behind lock and key and then was going to be ordered back to his country. The man, Huang Chen, was a Chinese citizen who had illegally entered the United States. As has been the case at least 8,000 times in the last 4 years, Mr. Chen's home country refused to let its violent criminal return. So here is a guy who is a violent criminal, ordered to be sent back to his country, but his country didn't want him. Handcuffed by the Supreme Court decision, immigration officials released Mr. Chen back into the community when they had no place else to send him. They released the guy. As anyone can imagine, this story does not have a happy ending. Upon his release in 2010, Huang Chen murdered Qian Wu. He murdered her. She suspected this was going to happen. As we can see, this is a real problem with serious consequences, and there are others like these people out there. According to statistics provided by the Department of Homeland Security, there are many countries that are not cooperating or take longer to repatriate their nationals. Countries such as Iran, Pakistan, China, Somalia, and Liberia are all on that list. The Supreme Court, in making their decision, said Congress should clarify the law. I have an amendment that clarifies the law by creating a framework that allows immigration officials to detain dangerous criminals and immigrants such as Binh Thai Luc and Huang Chen. This is specifically what this amendment does: Immigrants can be detained beyond 6 months if they are under orders of removal but cannot be deported due to the country's unwillingness to accept them back into their country. There are several conditions that have to be made, including if the release would threaten national security--keep in mind that a determination has been made that they threaten national security, threaten the safety of the community, and the alien either is an aggravated felon or has committed a crime of violence. I understand the ACLU is opposed to this, and that should make everyone excited about getting this passed. By the way, we are going to hear people say there are no conditions. There are a lot of safeties built into this. For example, in order for the Secretary to keep someone past 6 months, they will have to certify every 6 months that this is not indefinite and certify the threat is still there. The alien still has access to our Federal courts. So this would be in effect only under the condition of the person being a threat to the safety of the community and that person must have also committed a crime of violence or aggravated felony. I cannot imagine that anyone would object to this and as a result potentially put all of these people in danger. We have already had some deaths. I think it is very reasonable that we go ahead and take care of some of these things that would be acceptable. So for that reason, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1203 be brought before us for its immediate consideration.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, today I would like to indicate support for two amendments I cosponsored and were introduced by Senator Thune and Senator Vitter. The first is amendment No. 1197 introduced by Senator Thune. Border security should be the number one priority in any immigration discussion, and building this fence which is already required by law will help in that endeavor. The second is Amendment No. 1228 introduced by Senator Vitter. This requires that the biometric border check-in and check-out system be fully implemented prior to any legal status being granted to an illegal alien. Our national and economic security depends on us knowing who is in our country, and this amendment will help achieve that goal. While I strongly disagree with granting amnesty to those who broke the law, on the chance that this bill passes I want to make sure that amendments like the two of these are included in the final legislation.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise to encourage our Department of State to review its current policies regarding the country of Sri Lanka, and seek further engagement with its leadership so as to assist them as they continue their progress toward complete reconciliation and reconstruction after 30 years of the civil war against the Tamil Tiger terrorists. As you know, four years ago Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil rebels, and is currently recovering from the economic, political, and social upheaval caused by this destructive civil war. Peace has brought historic post-conflict recovery, and I find that Sri Lanka has brought the dividends of peace in an inclusive manner, in particular to those in the north and the east of the country from where suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks were once launched. It is my understanding that, since the war ended, those two areas have seen an economic growth of 22%, compared to an average of 7.5% in the rest of the country. It is also my understanding that Sri Lanka has removed half a million anti-personnel mines, resettled 300,000 internally displaced people and re-established vital social services in the areas of health and education. It is making progress in other areas of reconciliation in accordance with its legislative and budgetary procedures, and is expected to conduct elections in the north in September--an important step towards political reconciliation. Such processes take time, as we have learned from our own Civil War. It seems to me that Sri Lanka is developing into a key economy, both in its own right and as a gateway to India. It is my understanding that U.S. private investment there totals billions in long term Sri Lankan bonds. Such investments there, however, are not as visible as the airports and harbors financed by China and other governments. Regardless, it is my understanding that at this time, Sri Lanka continues to present a unique window of investment opportunities for U.S. companies. In addition, Sri Lanka's geo-strategic location and deep-water ports could be vital to the long term financial and national security interests of the U.S. Some 50% of all container traffic and 70% of the world's energy supplies pass within sight of the Sri Lankan coast. Understandably, U.S. policies towards Sri Lanka have focused on accountability for what happened during the last phases of the civil war as well as on steps toward reconciliation efforts that seek inclusion of former terrorist enemies into the democratic process. While these aspects are very important and deserving of support, I believe there is the opportunity to engage in a wider approach at the same time that takes into account economic and geostrategic considerations. Maybe a wider approach would have a positive influence overall. I have expressed these points recently in correspondence to Secretary Kerry, urging him to undertake at the Department of State a review of our current policies towards Sri Lanka to ensure that we not only encourage continued reconciliation that includes political transparency especially in the upcoming election in the north but also recognize Sri Lanka's potential to be a strong financial and national security ally in the future. Secretary Kerry has replied agreeing with me that promising economic growth is occurring in Sri Lanka after years of terrorist insurgency, and that this country can play a significant geopolitical role in U.S. strategic security interests in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. The State Department, however, points out that Sri Lanka still needs to achieve ``meaningful reconciliation between the Sinhala majority and Tamil and Muslim minorities.'' I take the State Department at its word, and believe the upcoming September 7 Provincial Council elections in the north can be a meaningful act of reconciliation between the Sinhala majority and Tamil Muslim minorities. And if they are deemed to be conducted in a free and fair manner, I will renew my request to Secretary Kerry to re-access our current policies towards Sri Lanka.