Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I am about to make a major announcement that I think is very significant and, hopefully, would give us more time to attend to some of the problem areas we are trying to attend to, such as the Defense authorization bill, sequestration, expiring tax cuts, and all the spending bills. The announcement I would make is that we now have a letter containing 34 signatures of those who say: If you bring up the ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty this year, we would oppose it. So we actually have 35 such signatures. I want to make a couple of comments. I was going to talk for a little longer, but I know there are a lot of Senators wanting to get the floor. So I will try to do this in a shorter period of time. First of all, I have been involved in this treaty for a long period of time. Way back during the Reagan administration this treaty that was actually first negotiated back in the 1970s was defeated for a variety of reasons. A lot of people are saying the reasons Reagan opposed it at that time have been answered. That is just flat not true. Ambassador James Malone, who renegotiated the lost treaty during the Reagan administration, stated: All the provisions from the past that make such a [new world order] outcome possible, indeed likely, still stand. It is not true, as argued by some, and frequently mentioned, that the U.S. rejected the Convention in 1982 solely because of technical difficulties with part XI. That is the seabed mining portion of it. The Collectivist and redistributionist provisions of the treaty were at the core. . . . They are still in there today. I think it is important to recall what happened in 2004. In 2004, when Republicans were the majority, I chaired the Committee on Environment and Public Works and was also one of the senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. At that time the Law of the Sea Treaty passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee without--I believe it was without a dissenting vote. I think it was 16 to 0. So we started having hearings before the two committees that were my committees, the Environment and Public Works Committee, talking about how this would subject us to other countries imposing their will on us, as well as ramifications that would affect the Senate Armed Services Committee. As a result, of course, we recall it was defeated. We have this happening again. I do appreciate Senator Kerry and his efforts to get this through. We have had several hearings. They have been pretty lopsided. I believe the count today is there have been 16 witnesses supporting it and some 4 witnesses opposing it. That is not really important because I think it is worth mentioning a couple of things about it but then actually going into the detail as to why, if it is brought up, it could not be ratified during this year or during a lameduck session. First of all, when I talk to someone about the problems with this I tell them this would cede authority to the United Nations over 70 percent of the surface of the Earth, along with the air above it. I remember one time a witness came--this was back during the Bush administration which was supporting the treaty, but I asked the question, I said: If you have 70 percent of the surface area, does that mean you also have 70 percent of the air above it? They could not answer that question. Now I think it is pretty well understood that would be the case. I tell people three things: First of all, we would be submitting our sovereignty, surrendering it to the United Nations, over 70 percent. That really is enough. But when we talk about the fact that for the first time in the history of this country it authorized the United Nations to have taxing authority over the United States of America, people go ballistic. That is something that is not conceivable we would even be considering. Then when we are talking about the lawsuits, how we have lawsuits we could be facing--let me be a little more specific. The area that is in controversy in terms of its ability to tax or otherwise get royalties from the United States, would otherwise go to the United States and put those into the United Nations, is an area called the Extended Continental Shelf. That would be in excess of 200 nautical miles offshore. Nothing within this treaty is going to affect this within the 200 miles, but outside it would be. As it is right now, it is important to understand how the royalties are paid at the present time. The royalties the United States usually collects from the Extended Continental Shelf is an amount between 12.5 percent and 18.75 percent. The reason there is a disparity between those is because the royalties go along with how much money can be made out there if things go well and how deep it is, how far out it is, how expensive it is to drill, and all of that. So the range the United States currently collects is between 12.5 percent and 18.75 percent from the Extended Continental Shelf. Under article 82, if we pass the Law of the Sea Treaty, at the end of the 12th year, 7 percent of the royalties would be taken away from the United States--that is roughly half the royalties we would have--and given to the International Seabed Authority to redistribute those in accordance with whatever they want to do. It is not specific. This all would take place in Kingston, Jamaica, of all places, where they would make this redistribution of wealth. I have often said that is something the United Nations has always desired; that is, to have the ability to redistribute the wealth. It is hard to say what amount would fall into the royalties within the Extended Continental Shelf. There is a group that was appointed to try to approximate these things, and they have said it would be in the hundreds of billions or maybe even in the trillions. For each trillion that would be in production, that would equal about $70 billion that would be taken out of the U.S. Treasury and put into the United Nations, sent to the Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica, to be redistributed around the world in accordance with whatever criteria they would have. That is a huge amount, and it is very significant, and it is specific that the figure would be up to 7 percent after the 12th year. That is a very significant amount. When we stop and think about it, we have been talking about how we can come up with $1 trillion in the next 10 years. Now all of a sudden we have an amount that could come close to equaling that just from losing our royalties that would otherwise come to the United States of America. Of course, there is the lawsuits. I think this is significant. Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, any country could sue the United States in an international tribunal and not in the U.S. courts. In other words, we could be subjected to lawsuits from other countries. There are already a number of Pacific Island nations that intend to sue the United States for environmental damage to their seas and air if the United States joins the Law of the Sea Treaty. In other words, we would be voluntarily allowing people to sue the United States on what they would allege to be environmental damages. The members of the convention and regulations to prevent pollution in maritime is very specific. Article 212 of the Law of the Sea Treaty states to ``adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce, and control pollution of the marine environment from or through the atmosphere, applicable to the air space under their sovereignty''--we are talking about the United Nations--``and to vessels flying their flag or vessels or aircraft of their registry, taking into account internationally agreed rules, standards and recommended practices.'' If the EPA--as we found out in their endangerment finding--is able to declare an endangerment, just imagine what they could do under this case. In fact, article 235 states that countries ``are responsible for the fulfillment of their international obligations concerning the protection and preservation of the marine environment. They shall be liable in accordance with international law.'' That is why we have so many of the far-left environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, and all of them fervently supporting this treaty because they want to use it admittedly to bring the United States and all other countries into conformity with their environmental agenda. I am going to submit this for the Record. It is interesting because we have, for example, Andrew Strauss, who is a law professor and is very well known, who states that the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol ``makes the United States the most logical first country target of a global warming lawsuit in international forum.'' I commend to the attention of my colleagues the various legal entities that are rejoicing about the fact that they might be able to sue this country. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter signed by 31 Members of the Senate stating that they will object to and vote against any ratification effort that would take place this year. It doesn't restrict it to this year. There are 31 Members.

Mr. INHOFE. I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a separate letter that is signed by Senators Portman and Ayotte stating essentially the same thing.

Mr. INHOFE. I also have a statement from the Web site of Senator Isakson, and I was given permission to speak on behalf of Lamar Alexander, that while he hasn't taken a position on the Law of the Sea Treaty, he does object to having it brought up this year. So we have 35 Members of the Senate who have stated they would object if it is brought up before the Senate this year. So with these items I referenced included as a part of the Record, I would like to say that something isn't going to happen this year. It could be they want to bring it up, and that is up to the leader. If he desires to do so, of course, he could do it. If it does come up, it will take a lot of time from other business that this body should address. With that, I would only say there are some 35 Members--and many more I might suggest--who would vote against it should it come up. I have used my time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise for an announcement. At the conclusion of these votes, I will be making what I think is a fairly significant announcement in terms of 35 Members of this body who have stated they will oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty, which, of course, means it would not be able to be passed this session. So I will be doing that immediately following the votes that take place momentarily. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, Russia's weak rule of law is bad for the people of Russia, of course, but it also harms American citizens. As Congress considers legislation directed at strengthening human rights and the rule of law in Russia, we also should address the economic impact on Americans, including those Americans who are owed $12 billion when Yukos Oil, in which they held 15 percent of its stock, was expropriated by the Russia Government. To date, none of the American owners of Yukos caught up in Russia's renationalization of this company has received any compensation for this unlawful taking. And without a bilateral investment treaty, BIT, with Russia, the only recourse available to U.S. investors is for our State Department to espouse the case of its wronged citizens. I support this course of action, and I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter I wrote with Senator Scott Brown to Secretary Clinton last October 27, 2011, that addresses this issue.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from Florida the Senator from Wyoming be recognized, and then I be recognized after the Senator from Wyoming for up to 35 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have to say that I enjoy these second opinions when they come from such a well-known doctor who knows what he is talking about. Quite often we in this body are forced to kind of assume we are experts in every area. It is nice to have a few who really are. I think I don't say it very often, but I actually learn something when I hear him talk. Anyway, that is not why I am here today. I hope to help provide some sense and balance and accuracy which is clearly lacking in the mainstream media trying to drum up support for the global warming hysteria again. I have to say it is like we are back to the good-old days. We talked about this for 10 years. There are different people coming up with legislation, the cap-and-trade legislation. They found out, of course, that the American people realized it was a gigantic tax and there were no benefits, so it kind of went by the wayside. But there is a new thing happening, and it was interesting because just last Friday one of the Obama appointees to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Association said to the Associated Press: The wildfires and hot temperatures over the past few weeks will likely convince Americans that global warming is real. In other words, they are now trying to tie them together. They have never tried to do this before because that is one of the few things that all experts agree on: that one isolated case doesn't make a case for major changes in the weather. This is kind of a dangerous game to play because what are they going to say when winter comes and it is going to get cold? As soon as it gets cold I can tell you what they are going to say. They are not going to use global warming; they are going to use climate change. As the season changes, the terminology changes, and they will start saying just because the temperatures are freezing doesn't mean the planet is not overheating--if you follow through the double negatives. My good friend from Rhode Island commented on the famous igloo. This was pretty prominent two summers ago. Let me tell you the story of where we got to the igloo. As most people know, because I brag about it all the time, I have 20 kids and grandkids. This happens to be one family. You cannot see them as well. It is six of the most beautiful people we have ever seen. It happens to be my daughter and her husband and their family of four kids. Anyway this would have been in February 2010. Some of us remember how cold it was during that time. It happens that one of my kids--the only one who is adopted is a little girl, an orphan from Ethiopia, whom we found and nursed back to health. My daughter Molly, who had nothing but boys, adopted this little girl. Put her picture up there. She is a pretty little girl. She has become kind of a hero. Every February I sponsor something called the African dinner where about 400 of our friends from Africa come over, and we are establishing close, intimate relations with them. It happens that 12 years ago, we found the little girl who is pictured on the poster. She is now a 12- year-old little girl. She reads at college level. She is smart and she is the main speaker every time we have this dinner. In February 2010, little Zegita Marie was up here and she brought her whole family and made her speech. It was a beautiful thing. Afterwards, as they were getting ready to take the plane back home, the blizzards came, and all of the airports in the area shut down. There was no way they could get back. So what do you do with a family of six when you are snowbound and there is nothing but snow and ice on the ground? You make an igloo. So they did. That is a real igloo. It sleeps four people. I know that; I was in it. It was right by the Library of Congress. The sign on the top said: Al Gore's new home. Actually, I think it may have said: Honk if you want global warming--or something like that. Anyway, everyone was having a good time. Some of my liberal friends were so upset. One of them was Keith Olbermann. Keith Olbermann, who was with MSNBC, designated my daughter Molly's family of six as the worst family in America. Now, there is her husband who is very prominent in Fayetteville, AR. My daughter Molly is a professor at the university. She was designated as Outstanding Professor of the Year this year. She will be marching out during the homecoming on November 3 to accept that award. It is quite an outstanding family, and the kids are all straight-A students and all of that wonderful stuff. So that is the famous igloo. It has been a long time since we had a chance to talk about it. There we have Molly, James, Jase, Luke, Jonah, and Marie enjoying that. Believe it or not, that is the worst family in America. Well, just after the igloo story broke, a reporter by the name of Dana Milbank warned the alarmists. Keep in mind the terminology we use. Those people who think the world is coming to an end because catastrophic global warming is coming is all due to manmade gases, so we need to shut down America. Those are the alarmists. The skeptics are people like me, those who look at it and say science has been stripped out by the United Nations for an ulterior motive. Dana Milbank has been very much on the other side of the issue and warned the alarmists to stop using weather to justify global warming because then what do they do when the weather doesn't cooperate with their predictions of the melting planet. He wrote: In Washington's blizzards, the greens were hoist by their own petard. He said: If the Washington snows persuade the greens to put away the slides of polar bears and pine beetles and to keep the focus on national security and jobs, it will have been worth the shoveling. But not everyone got that memo. In July 2010, the hot summer that followed the intense blizzards when my family put up the igloo, Jon Karl of ABC News asked me to do an interview outside in the heat. It was obviously an ambush. People who know me well know I enjoy ambushes, so I went out there in the heat. They got ready with the cameras rolling, and they had a pan with an egg on it. They were going to fry it, but it didn't fry. Nice try, but it didn't work. I am sure some here may have noticed that somebody else tried this last weekend. Last weekend I happened to be in the Farnborough Airshow, which I go to every year. While I was at the airshow, I got a call from home telling me that they have kind of resurrected the igloo, and they were talking about that. They were planning a great big event on The Mall, and in the event they were going to take the thing, called ``Hoax''--let me go back to 2003. In 2003 when I realized and I started hearing from a lot of the real scientists that it was a hoax, I made the comment that the notion of catastrophic global warming is due to manmade anthropogenic CO2 and manmade gases. It is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. So that is where ``Hoax'' came from. So they had a great big thing made of ice. Apparently, it was the size of a car. It said ``Hoax'' with a question mark. They were going to put it out there and it was going to melt and they were going to make a big issue out of it. The problem is nobody showed. So what did they do? They felt they couldn't do this if there were no cameras, so they called it off. They used the excuse that there had been a storm, and they thought this might be offensive to people who lost electricity in the storm. Anyway, that thing went under too. So in addition to the recent activity from my alarmist friends, the hot weather has also brought some of my favorite global warming reporters out of hiding, and they have been all too eager to link today's weather events to manmade greenhouse gases. Of course, many of the most outspoken global warming alarmists and scientists have been happy to play along. The important point is that no one, not even the most committed alarmist, can claim that any percentage of the warm weather is due to manmade greenhouse gases. I will go into more detail in just a minute. This is an inconvenient truth that global warming reporters have kept out of their headlines, and in some cases their stories as well. Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press is a good guy. He is on the other side of this issue, but he is one of these guys I still like. He is one of the most prominent global warming reporters. He came out last week with another scary headline proclaiming: ``This US summer is what global warming looks like.'' Some quotes and stories appeared in Reuters, The Hill, and Politico. Yesterday morning Time magazine ran a piece by Bryan Walsh with the headline, ``Now Do You Believe in Global Warming?'' I was happy to see that Mr. Walsh began his article in Time magazine with a picture of my family in their igloo. He concluded his piece with: We're living in an igloo in the summertime, and the ice melting all around us. It is kind of interesting that they try to talk about global warming, but all of a sudden they changed it to cooling. This was in the New York Times. They said: This summer has been conspicuously different in New York City, not one 99-degree day in Central Park. Not a single day that the temperature even approached 90. For just the second time in 140 years of record keeping, the temperatures failed to reach 90 in either June or July. The daily average last month was at or below normal every day but two. The temperature broke 80 on 16 days in New York. So it goes on to say that the problem they are having is it is unusually cool. But that didn't inure to the benefit of the alarmists, so that wasn't used. So it is time to take a trip down Memory Lane. Don't forget that Time is the same publication that told us in 1974 that we should be very concerned about the coming ice age. There it is. Every magazine had it. Newsweek had the same thing. All the other magazines said another ice age is coming, and we are all going to die. Since there is time to do this, I will mention one thing which is not in my notes. Think about how many times this has happened. Let's look at the last 100 years. We will start with 1895. From 1895 to 1925, we went through a 30-year period that was a cooling period. Everyone back then was saying another ice age is coming, and we are all going to die. From 1925 to 1945, for that 20-year period, we went through a warming period. That is when they coined the phrase ``global warming.'' That was way back in the 1930s. From 1945 to 1975 we went into a cooling period. Again, we talked about how an ice age is coming. After that, we went into a warming period that went up to the turn of the century. Now it is actually going down into a cooling period again, but that was actually a chart. I guess what I am saying is every 20 or 30 years, we go through this. We go through the same hysteria, and everyone goes crazy and says the world is coming to an end. The interesting thing about this is that the time in world history when we had the greatest surge of CO2 was right after World War II. That was in 1945, and that precipitated not a warming period with all of that CO2, but a cooling period that endured for 30 years. Those were the headlines in the paper. Now 30 years later, during the height of the global warming movement, they changed their tune. The image that is sealed in everyone's mind is the Time magazine cover, which we have: ``Be Worried, Be Very Worried.'' There is the last polar bear standing on the last cube of ice. Everything is melting, and we are all going to die. Again, that is Time magazine. If I were on the board of directors of Time magazine, I would probably do the same thing. It is a competitive business, and they have to sell magazines. The truth is when we ask the alarmists directly, they will specifically link the recent weather events to human activity. How do we know this? We recently came across a reported conference held by a group called Climate Communication. This is a very liberal group. As their Web site confirmed, this call was held to spoonfeed talking points to reporters on how to link the heat over the past few weeks to manmade global warming. To his credit, AP reporter Seth Borenstein asked the most important question of the call. He asked: What percentage of the recent warm weather can be attributed to manmade gases? I want to be completely accurate, so I would like to quote in full Borenstein's question as well as the answers he got from Dr. Michael Oppenheimer and Dr. Steven Running, two of the foremost global warming alarmist scientists. This is what Seth Borenstein said: Let me try to put you more on the spot, Mike and Steve: I know there's attribution--you haven't done attribution studies, but if you ballparked it right now and had to put a percentage number on this, on the percent that the heat wave, the percentage of blame you can put on anthropogenic climate change, on this current heat wave, and on the fires, what percentage would the two of you use? Dr. Oppenheimer, who is a scientist, said: Come on, I'm not going to answer that. Yes, I will answer it, and my answer is: I won't do it. You know, we have to do things carefully, because if you don't, we are going to end up with bogus information out there. People will start disbelieving because you'll be more wrong, more often. This is not the kind of thing I want to do off the top of my head. Nor do I think it can be done, you know, convincingly without really taking--doing careful analysis, so I'll pass on this one and see if Steve has a different view. Well, Dr. Steve Running said: Well, I already got way too hypothetical on my last answer. Yeah, it's . . . probably really dangerous for us to just lob out a number. Well, this goes on and on and on. I have all of this down. It is actually all in the record at this point, so it is redundant. He keeps trying to get them to say there is a percentage of chance that this warm weather is due to global warming. Now, we have to stop for a minute because we have seen that Seth Borenstein was asking the inconvenient question. One of the moderators tried to step in and tell the AP reporter that his question was a bad one. Let me quote that one again, Susan Hossel, moderator for the event, said: Seth, most of the scientists I talk to say it is a contributing factor and that's what we can say and that it's really not even really a well-posed question to ask for a percentage, because it just--what you're asking really is for a model to determine the chances of this happening without climate change or with climate change and models are not very good. So we see how he responded. He said: I understand, I've been covering this for 20 years, I understand. I don't need a lecture, thank you very much. What I'm asking for is-- And he went on. Obviously, he was never able to get it. Here is the irony: Their Web site specifically explains that the purpose of the call is to give reporters a link relating hot weather to human-caused global warming. It states: Climate Communication hosted a press conference featuring experts discussing the connections between extreme heat and climate change. But when pressed, they couldn't make the link. Again, Borenstein asked a great question, a question that badly needed to be asked. Unfortunately, none of the information appeared in his article for the AP. Without that link, Borenstein was forced to make his article about what global warming could look like in the future. But in doing so, he left out any mention of uncertainty expressed by the scientist. Borenstein quoted Chris Field, a leading author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That is the United Nations that started this whole thing, and they are the ones who were stacking the scientists. He is one of the individuals. According to Field, this report warns of ``unprecedented extreme weather events'' due to global warming. But, as usual, Borenstein failed to mention that even the IPCC, which normally heightens the fear factor as much as possible, admitted in that same March report that there is significant uncertainty regarding linking extreme weather events to human causes. Also missing from the article was the mention of Borenstein's interview from climatologist Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Fortunately, she was good enough to post her answers on her blog since he didn't use it. Curry explained: We saw these kinds of heat waves in the 1930's, and those were definitely not caused by greenhouse gases. Weather variability changes on multidecadal time scales, associated with large ocean oscillations. I don't think that what we are seeing this summer is outside the range of natural variability for the past century. In terms of heat waves, particularly in cities, urbanization can also contribute to the warming. There was another interesting part of the conference call that I think is worth mentioning. When ABC News reporter Bill Blakemore asked about the effect of La Nina and El Nino on today's hot weather, Dr. Oppenheimer was again uncomfortable about this question and said it was ``off message.'' Yet NOAA--that is, the N-O-A-A--came out yesterday with a different opinion. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times explained on his blog: In a briefing and several postings today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reviewed the most notable climate and weather events of 2011. Many of these events--from an extreme East African drought to Australian deluges--were significantly driven by a ``double-dip La Nina'' cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, agency scientists said. In other words, it is La Nina and El Nino that made the difference. In yesterday's Tulsa World, there was an opinion piece that directly addressed this El Nino and La Nina debate and how it affects Oklahoma specifically; that is, my State of Oklahoma. The editorial mentions an interview in April of 2008 with Tulsa National Weather Service meteorologist Nicole McGavock regarding Oklahoma's record rainfall that month. McGavock said: Don't go blaming global warming, but rather blame El Nino's counterpart, La Nina. La Nina happens when the weather is cooler near the equator along the Pacific Ocean. It has nothing to do with global warming. That same opinion piece mentioned another article published in December of 2011 which was about Oklahoma's drought-filled summer of 2011. In it, associate State climatologist Gary McManus said: Did this hot summer happen due to global warming? [No.] I think when we study this summer, we will find that we would have had the warmest summer regardless of global warming. With all this in mind, it is no wonder that when Time magazine asks the question, ``Now do you believe in global warming?'' the answer is resounding: The American people are no longer buying it. As the Washington Post recently reported, global warming is no longer an issue of concern for Americans, and one of the reasons is that the public doesn't trust those who try to use hot weather as proof of global warming. The public has clearly grown weary of the alarmists' fear campaigns. After all, they have been going on for 12 years. Just how bad have things gotten for the global warming movement? Well, one indication is that no one is even talking about global warming except for myself and Representative Markey over in the House. As a Politico article said yesterday, Representative Markey accused Republicans of being silent on the threat of global warming and called for Republicans to hold hearings. While Representative Markey is quick to accuse Republicans of silence, he says nothing about the silence we are hearing from the Democrats here in the Senate. We haven't heard anybody. I haven't heard the term ``global warming'' coming from any Senator. When was the last time anyone heard President Obama or the Democrats mention global warming? In fact, their campaign has failed so miserably that President Obama, running for reelection, is pretending to support oil and gas to gain votes. The irony is that the President, who came into office promising to slow the rise of the oceans and all that, has presided over the complete collapse of the global warming movement. Since President Obama took office nearly 4 years ago, not one global warming cap-and-trade bill has been debated on the Senate floor. In fact, if anything, they are regressing in support for their pet issue. Last year 64 Senators went on record as wanting to rein in the Obama EPA's global warming regulations. We have said several times that there have been numerous bills introduced ever since the Kyoto Treaty was never submitted for ratification. That was back in the early 1990s. Ever since that time, there have been numerous bills that would be cap-and-trade bills and they have gone down. Each time, they go down by a greater percentage than the one before did. In fact, if anything, they are regressing in their support. So the far-left environmental community has clearly been instructed to keep quiet, although sometimes they can't help themselves and they get into trouble, like 350.org that I referred to. They are no doubt assured that if President Obama is reelected, he will do everything he can to achieve his global warming agenda through regulations because the American people have rejected legislation. That is what has happened. Actually, the cost of it, which is not controversial--it is because people recognize and nobody has actually refuted the fact that if it were to pass either by legislation or by regulation, it would cost the American people between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. So people now realize that and know we can't afford to do something that really is not going to accomplish anything. Anyway, the Obama administration is already doing--we have identified right now some $68 billion that he has, through regulations, been able to have on all of his climate agenda. So it has already been very expensive. Nobody is really aware of it, but nonetheless that is what is happening. He just doesn't want the American people to know it. How can he convince them that so much economic pain is necessary now that the global warming movement has completely lost its trust in the public? That would stop some of the usual suspects from continuing to try to drum up global warming hysteria, but we wouldn't count on Al Gore coming out of hiding to help or President Obama saying anything to back him up--at least not now, before the election. Just the other day, George Mason University, I believe it was, did a polling of all of the 480 TV meteorologists. Only 19 percent of them said we are having global warming due to manmade gases. Now, that is a major change from before. So the trendline is going back the other way. The polling has definitely gone the other way. Back to last weekend's failed effort to blame hot weather on global warming, I would like to mention three things on which scientists agree. First of all, we can't blame global warming on one event. Let me share with my colleagues what Roger Pelke, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, said: Over the long term, there is no evidence that disasters are getting worse because of climate change. Judith Curry, whom I already mentioned, is a well-established scientist. She said: I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments . . . that attributes a single extreme weather event, a cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme weather events to anthropogenic forcing. Myles Allen, the head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the University of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department, said: When Al Gore said . . . that scientists now have clear proof that climate change is directly responsible for the extreme and devastating floods, storms, and droughts . . . my heart sank. I was on ``The Rachel Maddow Show.'' She doesn't have Republicans on very often. She is one of my favorite liberals, and I enjoy being on. I found out then that Bill Nye, her science guy, actually is one--one of the things he states is, don't fall into the trap of trying to say that because somebody is at some place that is very, very hot, that somehow that supports global warming. In fact, Dana Milbank, a Washington Post columnist who is a major Maddow contributor, said: When climate activists make the dubious claim, as a Canadian environmental group did, that global warming is to blame for the lack of snow at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, then they invite similarly specious conclusions about Washington's snow . . . Argument-by-anecdote isn't working. That was Dana Milbank, who is really on the other side of this issue. So I mentioned that there are three things. One is a fact that is incontrovertible, that people agree on, which is that one or two events aren't going to reflect climate change or global warming. The second thing is the cost. Years ago when the Kyoto Treaty was up, I wasn't sure which way to go. I assumed the scientists were all together on this, only to find out they weren't. One thing we did find out when we got a report from several universities, including MIT, was that the cost of this, if we were to pass any of the bills, would have been between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. What I always do when I hear about billions and trillions of dollars is I try to, if I can, find out how that affects my family and the State of Oklahoma. Back when we had the largest tax increase in 1993 called the Clinton- Gore tax increase, they increased marginal rates, the death tax, capital gains tax and all of that, and it was at that time the largest tax increase in three decades. We were all pretty outraged about it. Yet that was a $32 billion tax increase. Here we are talking about a $300 billion to $400 billion tax increase. The last thing I would say is that if we have a tax increase like this, what do we get for it? I sometimes appreciate--in fact, I always appreciate the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson. She is an appointee of President Obama. I asked her this question on live TV in one of our committee hearings: If you guys are going to do this by regulation or if you are going to have cap and trade and punish the American people with all of the cost of this and everything else, if they are successful, if that happened, would this reduce the CO2 worldwide? Her answer: No, it wouldn't. Because this isn't where the problem is. The problem is in China and Mexico and India. One could carry that argument on out further and conclude that if we have that kind of a regulation in this country and drive our manufacturing base overseas, they would go to places such as China and India where there are no emissions restrictions, so it would have the effect of actually increased CO2. Anyway, I appreciate very much Time magazine coming out and bringing up the igloo again. It is a thing of beauty, and it is very meaningful to me, and I think it told a story that a lot of people needed to hear, and they have heard it now. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wish to recognize MG Fredrick (Ben) Hodges for his professional service and dedication to duty as the U.S. Army's Chief of Legislative Liaison over the last year. In this capacity, Major General Hodges was responsible for advising the Secretary of the Army, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and other senior Army leaders on all legislative and congressional matters. During this period of extraordinary change and challenges facing the Army, he masterfully led the Army's outreach to the Congress. Due to the exceptional manner in which he has performed, Major General Hodges has been selected to become the NATO Land Component Command Stand-Up Team Chief in Turkey. Major General Hodges adeptly understood the importance of fostering a strong and durable relationship with Congress. He now completes his third assignment with the Army's Legislative Liaison, having served for over five years in support of the Congress. He worked tirelessly on behalf of the Army to earn both the trust and confidence of Members of Congress and their staffs. His candor and ready accessibility to Congress ensured comprehensive support for the Army. Major General Hodges handled some of the most complex and sensitive issues faced by the Army in the last decade. Throughout his career, Major General Hodges has been the consummate soldier's soldier and is known for having an open mind and candor while addressing the issues affecting the Army today. He is a tremendous advocate for soldiers both within the Pentagon and here on Capitol Hill. His advice, counsel, and friendship have been very valuable to us in the Senate, and he will be sorely missed. A native of Quincy, FL, Major General Hodges graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in May 1980 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry. Following successful completion of the basic course and Ranger School, he was assigned as a platoon leader and company executive officer in Germany. Upon return to the United States, Major General Hodges commanded infantry units at the company, battalion, and brigade levels in the 101st Airborne Division, AASLT. During his command of the ``Bastogne'' Brigade, Major General Hodges' leadership was instrumental in the successful invasion of Iraq during the early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Major General Hodges has also served in a variety of Army staff positions throughout his distinguished career. Ranging from tactics instructor at the Infantry School to senior battalion observer/ controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center, he has ensured that our soldiers are properly trained in their war-fighting functions. As a staff officer, Major General Hodges has served as the aide-de-camp to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, chief of staff for the XVIIIth Airborne Corps, and director of the Pakistan/Afghanistan Coordination Cell. Major General Hodges' operational assignments include deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan as the assistant chief of staff, CJ3, Multi National Corps-Iraq and as the deputy commander for Stability, Regional Command South, International Security and Assistance Force, Kandahar, Afghanistan. Throughout the various assignments and deployments, Major General Hodges always accomplished his mission and cared for his soldiers, and took great care of the Army families under his command. We extend our heartfelt thanks to MG Ben Hodges, to his wife Holly, and to his children Ben and Madeline, for their dedication and service to the Nation. Words cannot characterize properly the extraordinary character of Major General Hodges's accomplishments. The Nation thanks him and wishes him success and happiness in his next assignment.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, before the Senator from West Virginia leaves, I would like to publicly thank him for all his support in something that just happened a few minutes ago; that is, passage of the Pilot's Bill of Rights. Several--certainly Senator Begich--have been working hard, including Senator Pryor and Senator Manchin, as well as many on the Republican side. But it is a reality now. This is kind of a strange day for me because I have been working on two bills for 1\1/2\ years, and both will become a reality on the same day: the highway bill that everyone knows about and then the Pilot's Bill of Rights that only pilots know about. I have been a pilot for 55 years, and I get the calls and complaints that come in. But pilots are really the only ones in our society who are denied access to justice like every other citizen has, and this corrects it. So I just want to say to my friend that I very much appreciate his support in making this a reality.

Mr. INHOFE. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from West Virginia. Mr. President, I will make a couple comments and be more detailed later. I know a lot of people will want to talk about the bill that will most likely pass today in both the House and the Senate. A lot of people are not aware of the fact that a general aviation pilot doesn't have the same access to remedies as everybody else does. What makes this a little bit more compelling to do something about is that if you are not a pilot, you may not appreciate the fact that a lot of them are single-issue people. I had an experience where my license was in jeopardy for something that we found out I didn't do. I thought about all these complaints I have had over the years about abusive treatment by some of the enforcement people, and I never appreciated it until it happened to me. I know more people in the FAA who do a great job. They are very conscientious. These are career people. The problem is that every once in a while you have someone in the field with enforcement powers who just can't handle that kind of power. I was mayor of Tulsa for several years a number of years back. We had a great police force, but every now and then you had someone on the force who couldn't handle the power. They would abuse that power, and you would have to seek them out. And that is what this is all about-- you hear from these people when abuses take place. So what we have done is we have corrected that. We have a system set up in this legislation that if someone is accused of or cited for doing something that was wrong or that might be a violation of one of the FARs, that person will now have access to the evidence that would be used against that person. People might say: Well, wasn't that happening anyway? No, it wasn't. When this happened to me, I can remember very well--and I say to the Presiding Officer because we are very close and he knows I have been active in aviation for a long time--one year ago in October, I went to land at one of the southernmost airports in America, in South Texas, one at which I have landed more than 200 times. I know every square foot of it. It is a noncontrolled field. When I came in--there is a thing called NOTEM, Notice to Airmen. You are supposed to and you should find out what the NOTEMs are on the runway you will be landing on so if there is work on the runway--any towers going up, construction going on--you will know that in advance. That is your obligation. The problem is there has never been a central location where that can be found. In this case there was no NOTEM that had been published. There I go in, with the controller in the valley down there who has actually cleared me to land. Here I am, a United States Senator. It took me 4 months to get the voice recorder and I never did find out, early on, what the evidence was against me. It turned out fine, but nevertheless 4 months to get a voice recording that you were cleared to land, that is unreasonable. I see my friend from Indiana is on the floor. I do not want to take any more time on this, but on the NOTEM situation we will have a central location for that. The other problem we are having right now is medical certification. I have case after case. In fact, at the AOPA, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association--we are talking about 400,000 pilots out there--they have as their No. 1 concern the lack of consistency and uniformity in medical certification. A person could be a pilot and have a condition, could be a light heart attack or something, temporarily lose his license, then go back and have it reinstated. However, if he lives in another town, has a different doctor, that may not happen. So we have people out there who have lost their licenses. We are going to have a panel set up that is going to include the general aviation, include the medical community, and try to get uniformity. So those are three of the reforms we have in this legislation. I yield the floor. I will be talking about that later and also talking about the upcoming highway bill. I want to remind people, my good conservative friends, people who are trying to say this is not a conservative bill--it is. The worst thing we can do is continue to operate our roadbuilding and our construction in this country on extensions. When you do an extension you lose about 30 percent of the money. Obviously, the conservative position is to do this. We have reforms, incredible reforms, enhancement reforms. We will be talking about that during the course of the day. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. It is true, I say through the Chair. It passed this institution with 74 votes, as I recall.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I just have a couple of comments to make for clarification purposes. First of all, I don't think anyone is going to question my conservative credentials over the years I have been here. I have been really offended by a lot of the things that have happened structurally in this institution, over in the House, but so far as this bill is concerned, let me clarify a couple of things. It sounds good to stand up here and say we have only had a matter of minutes to look at something that is 500 pages. We have had this bill for a long time--for several days. We have had it and gone over everything. On the bill we sent from the Senate to the House, it is essentially the same thing. I didn't agree when they added the two provisions on student loan and flood insurance. I didn't agree with that. Everyone knows those issues, but I don't think they should have been on here. Nonetheless, we didn't have any control in this body over that. But as far as the provisions of the bill are concerned, these provisions we have seen. And everyone who has spoken against it has been there when we have talked about the great reforms, and I have commented several times that I thought one of the problems was we did too good a job because we had too many reforms. But when it got over to the House, where they are inclined to have more reforms there, they had to start from a base where we had done a good job. Streamlining and enhancements and all those things are in it. The only thing I can say, from a conservative perspective, is we have seen this bill. We have lived with this bill, not just hours but for days, and actually for weeks, the basic provisions of the bill. But what we have to realize is there is an alternative to what we are doing here today, and that alternative--and the only alternative--is to go back to extensions. If we go back to extensions, a couple of things happen. No. 1, we don't have any of the reforms we have in the bill; No. 2, we throw away about 30 percent of the money---- Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes, of course.

Mr. INHOFE. I answer in the affirmative.

Mr. INHOFE. I respond, yes, that is correct. That is accurate. I think that is very important too because we have been talking about this bill for a long period of time. We actually started trying to get a highway reauthorization bill way back in 2009, when the old bill from 2005 expired. But the problem is--and I want to get back to where I was--there is an alternative to this bill. If we defeat this bill, we go back to extensions. If we go back to extensions, first of all, we are losing about 30 percent of the money off the top. Everybody knows that. Secondly, we don't get these reforms. If people are concerned out there--conservatives--that they want to defeat this and go back to extensions, they are not going to have reform with the enhancements. Right now the law requires 10 percent, depending on how we want to put it, in total funding or 2 percent of surface transportation. That has to be spent on transportation enhancements. My good friend, the chairman of the committee, Senator Boxer, and I disagree on enhancements. She likes them; I don't. I want money to be spent on concrete, on roads and bridges. This is what I think we should be doing. But that is a disagreement we had and so we had a compromise where she can have--and anyone can have--what they want. It is an oversimplification, but it means, yes, this money is going to be put into something. It can be enhancements. In my State of Oklahoma, it is not going to be in enhancements, it is going to be paying for some of the unfunded mandates. It will be paying for things we have to do in terms of the environment and things that are required. So we have solved that problem. If we don't pass this bill, we go right back and it will have to go to enhancements. On streamlining, all the streamlining is in this in terms of environmental streamlining. Talk to any of the road contractors out there and they will tell you about the waste of money and the number of miles of roads they can't do because of some of these requirements--these environmental requirements. We have streamlined those requirements. If we don't pass this bill, we will go back to extensions and the same thing applies--we are going to lose all those opportunities. So not only will it cost more, we will not get the streamlining. I am very proud of a group that has always supported me, the American Conservative Union. Is there anyone around here who doesn't think the American Conservative Union isn't conservative? I made this a part of a speech yesterday, an editorial by Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union. It is an op-ed piece he wrote. But let me read now two short paragraphs from this op-ed piece from the American Conservative Union: Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution specifically lists interstate road-building as one of the delineated powers and responsibilities vested in the federal Government. In Federalist Paper #42, James Madison makes an early case for the federal government's role in maintaining a healthy infrastructure, by stating ``Nothing which tends to facilitate the intercourse between states, can be deemed unworthy of the public care.'' And the article goes on to say--and, remember, this is the American Conservative Union. Perhaps most importantly, those of us who believe in constitutional conservatism understand that unlike all the things the Federal Government wastes our money on, transportation spending is at the core of what constitutes legitimate spending. That is from the American Conservative Union. I wanted people to understand that voting for this is the conservative approach. We get more for the money being spent, it has all the streamlining in it, and it is our constitutional responsibility. This is what we are supposed to do. There are only two ways of doing it: one way is to pass this bill and the other is to operate under extensions, and I think it is very important for people to understand that. With that, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I second the chairwoman's commitment to working with the Senators from Wyoming to fix this problem in the technical corrections bill. It is important that we find a way to address the issue as soon as possible, and I will work with them to make Wyoming and the other impacted States whole.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, my friend from South Carolina articulated very well what happened today with the Supreme Court. I think it is going to be a wake-up call for a lot of people in America. I think it will, as he suggested, have a profound effect on the elections in November when people realize the Court has ruled that people who don't have coverage are going to be penalized by $695 per individual, and families who do have coverage will have to pay an additional about $2,100, and the employers of America are going to be dealing with the government exchange. People are going to be concerned about it. I think they are going to want to send people to Congress in both the House and the Senate and in the White House who are going to change this system. So I stand on the Senate floor and say that is what I am predicting and we will see what happens. Highway Reauthorization I want to make one comment because we are going to vote shortly on a significant bill. It is the highway reauthorization bill. It makes me very proud because we have been trying for a year and a half to do this. When we passed the last highway reauthorization bill, it was in 2005. At that time I was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was, as I recall and going from memory, a $286.4 billion bill. It was for 5 years. Of course, that expired in 2009. The problem we have had since 2009 is that we have been operating on what they call extensions. Most people are not aware that when we operate on extensions, we are operating with the same amount of money we are spending out of the highway trust fund, but we are only getting two-thirds of what we would get if it were a reauthorization. First of all, they can only do it in a short period of time. There is no planning, and they have all said we lose about 30 to 33 percent of the amount of spending power or money that should be spent on highways, bridges, and maintenance. It is kind of funny because I have been ranked as the most conservative Member of this body at different times, and I am always in the top three. Yet I have always said I may be the most conservative, but I am a big spender in two areas: One is national defense and the other is transportation, and that is what this is all about. I have had occasion to talk to a lot of the new members of the conference committee over in the House and explained to them the conservative position and the conservative vote on this is to vote for the highway reauthorization bill that is going to be coming up to us. Hopefully, it will be here tonight. It is going back and forth between the House and Senate. I believe most of the conferees have already signed off on this bill, so it is coming up. It has been a long time in the making. I am very excited about it. Let me also say that while I take the position that the conservative vote is to vote for the highway reauthorization bill, I am not alone in this feeling. Mr. President, I would like to submit for the Record a statement by the chairman of the American Conservative Union. It is an op-ed by Al Cardenas, who is the chairman of the American Conservative Union. He presents a strong case as to why this is the conservative position that should be taken. I ask unanimous consent that the statement and op-ed piece by the chairman of the American Conservative Union be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE. I am looking forward to having this. Certainly, my State of Oklahoma is not the only State that has bridges and road problems. Another good thing we are waiting on--and I feel very confident we are going to be able to pass this out of the Senate--is the pilots' bill of rights, which we are in the process of, hopefully, getting done. When that time comes, I would like to be recognized to talk about some of the great extensions of justice to people who have been denied that justice heretofore just because they happen to be pilots. I will yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. This is very simple. This is the information age. In my rural State of Oklahoma, sometimes they have to drive 30 miles to a post office. This will make it a lot easier as an accommodation and nothing is lost.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso, for 9 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I wish to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Blunt.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, in our first round, we are going to yield to the Senator from Alaska Ms. Murkowski for 10 minutes and then to Senator Manchin for 5 minutes. In the second round, we are going to be having Senators Barrasso, Boozman, Risch, Blunt, Kyl, and Toomey.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for her very kind remarks. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn.

Mr. INHOFE. It is our understanding we have approximately 42 minutes apiece and that we will go back and forth.