Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Let me respond. This in no way has anything to do with safety because we are talking--the first arbitrator is the FAA. That is not what this is about at all. When we have had a chance to talk, as we have to almost all the Senators in this body, we have talked about safety. We bounced that off many people. We had a hearing at Oshkosh about safety. I had the air traffic controllers support me on this. They are the ones concerned with safety. I would say I don't agree with the argument, but I respect the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I think it would be redundant for me to go back and repeat what I said before. The Senator from Texas talked about the X on the runway. I made it very clear by the time you can see the X on the runway when you are cleared to land and you have a sophisticated plane that is full of passengers, there is a point beyond which you can't go in terms of your plane is dirtied up making a go- around. Obviously it wasn't necessary because I had 7,000 empty feet to come around, but that is not important because that is not the issue. I recognize and respect Senator Hutchison in the fact that she was on the NTSB, and I know that obviously is meaningful to her, as it is to Senator Rockefeller. What we are dealing with here is we have a committee--and I have a lot of respect for the committee for which Senator Rockefeller is the chairman and Senator Hutchison is the ranking member, and this committee is the committee of jurisdiction. Now, what did I do? I introduced this bill a year ago. I talked about it. We had 25 cosponsors at that time. We had endorsements from all over the country. We had the National Air Traffic Controllers Association come in. We sent out ``Dear Colleagues'' to talk to people. Again, we sent a letter to the Commerce Committee that Senator Hutchison was on at that time requesting a hearing. We had 32 cosponsors signing that letter, requesting a hearing, some of which were on the Commerce Committee. Nothing happened. On September 20, as the months go by, we made more requests. We talked about this, and every time they said we are going to be doing this. You finally get to the point where you have to go ahead and get it done. And that is why we have a rule XIV. I am not a Parliamentarian, and I don't know exactly how things work. I remember I had experience with this when I worked in the House of Representatives, that when something is bogged up in a committee we had what is called the discharge petition reform of 1994. It was considered by the Wall Street Journal, or perhaps Business Daily, as the single greatest reform in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives. It addressed this same thing. It is a way of bottling up bills in committees so they could never have hearings and never be able to get on the floor for a vote. That discharge petition reform became a reality, and now the light is shining and everything is great. But when you have been trying to get a hearing before a committee for a year and you have 66 cosponsors, you have to resort to whatever is out there available to you for a remedy. That remedy happens to be rule XIV. Rule XIV will allow me to do this, and with the two people holding the bill up, Senator Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison, I will have no choice but to file cloture and to go ahead and get a vote on this bill, recognizing it takes a supermajority when you file cloture. So I would do that. I didn't think I would get into this or need to enter it into the Record. I have an article which I will find here and will submit for the Record. I think it is very important. It goes into detailed documentary cases where they have been unable to get fairness through this system. How many cases would ultimately go to the district court? I think very few. The idea that there is going to be an opportunity for a pilot to take what he is accused of to the district court to see it in a sense of fairness has nothing to do with how many pilots are sitting on that district court. It is a sense of fairness, and that is what they deal with. The people in the district court system don't have expertise in all of these areas, but they can look at fairness. And I can tell you in my case, if they had looked at that and said, wait a minute, the FAA has cleared him to land and there are no NOTAMs published, he didn't do anything wrong. It finally gets to the point--and I have been very patient. I have waited a whole year for this and finally I have come to the point where I have flat given up, so I decided that we are going to have to do it this way since it is clearly the will of the Senate to pass this legislation. So, with that, I have some things I want to have printed in the Record. First of all, I have the sequence of events, the request that we made of the Commerce Committee to hear this legislation. I have an article that was in Pilot magazine by John Yodice, who is considered to be the single foremost legal authority in this area. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have both items printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE. He talks about the decision of the current NTSB calls into question its fairness and impartiality in pilot appeals. And he talks about all the notices that have gone out and the problems they have had with this. Of the 100,000 pilots who are interested in this today--actually, well over that--but just those who are involved in this process right now, they have had documented cases where the fairness is not there. This would offer fairness, and that is all we are asking, just to be treated as fairly as every other citizen in the United States. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. First of all, I am not aware that I was offered a hearing. But let me make sure I have in the Record, and I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter dated September 15, 2011, which was 9 months ago, signed by 32 Members of this Senate, including the occupier of the chair right now, the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, a while ago we were talking about the unanimous consent request that was objected to by Senator Hutchison to bring up my pilots' bill of rights by unanimous consent, actually Senate rule XIV. During that time, it was the intention of Senator Mark Begich from Alaska to be on the Senate floor with me. He was tied up with constituents. I did not want to talk about him unless he was down here. But I have visited with him. Right now we have--I do not know how many--thousands and thousands of pilots who are watching this at this moment. I want them to know that Mark Begich has been the cosponsor of my legislation. We would not be able to be here and doing what we are doing, as far along with 66 cosponsors, if we had not had his cooperation. I wish to thank him and the junior senator from West Virginia Mr. Manchin, who has been on my side on this legislation all of the way through. I just want to make sure the pilots of America know who does want them to have equal justice under the law and who, perhaps, does not. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized out of turn, and I will cease when Senator Blumenthal shows up.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I come from the farm State of Oklahoma. The biggest threat to the future of farmers is burdensome and costly regulations. I have three amendments. The amendments I am proposing will provide significant regulatory relief for farmers struggling in a tough economy. There is virtually no history of oilspills from agricultural operations, and farms simply do not pose the risk of the spills other sectors do. Starting next year, farmers who have oil and gas tanks-- that is all of them. They all have oil and gas tanks on their farms. They are located in different areas, but if they have a certain aggregate amount, they will be required to hire a certified professional engineer to design a spill prevention control and countermeasure plan just like major oil refineries. They may also be required to purchase new capital equipment to comply with the rule, including dual containment tanks on farm trucks and fuel storage units that will necessarily raise the cost. My amendment would exempt farmers from these regulations for above- ground oil storage tanks that have an aggregate storage capacity of less than 12,000 gallons. I know a small wheat farmer in northwest Oklahoma by the name of Keith Kisling. He is one of the only farmers who took the time to actually comply with the SPCC regulation. Those are spill regulations. Most people didn't even try to comply. First, he had to fill out over 80 pages of paperwork he did not understand. He hired an online service to help him comply, which cost him money and didn't make his job much easier. He must keep a copy of this plan on his property at all times in case he is inspected. If he had older tanks, the rules would require him to purchase new double- walled tanks that are incredibly expensive. In addition, he now has to build a berm around his tanks to hold 18,000 gallons of fuel in case it does leak. This will be very expensive and time consuming. He also must install a liner underneath the tanks and at the bottom of the berm to contain any leaks. He reports that the rules are extremely confusing and the regulations just don't make any sense, given the fact that farmers would not let leaks go unnoticed because diesel fuel is too expensive. In addition to providing this exemption, it will also allow farmers who are regulated to self-certify instead of going to the expense of hiring engineers to do that for them. I am hoping my colleagues will look at this as a regulation that is not needed and accept my amendment. I have a second amendment having to do with storm water. One of the biggest threats is the overburdensome and costly regulation. But one of the best ways to stop these rules is to ensure that when an agency states they will collect the best available information before imposing a new regulation, that they do that. This amendment will ensure that the EPA keeps its word and fully evaluates a current storm water regulatory situation--what practices work and what don't work, what the costs are and what the benefits are--before barreling ahead with new uncertain regulations. In EPA's current storm water regulations, they committed to complete an evaluation of the current rule. This amendment simply stops the EPA from issuing any new regulations until they comply with the rules. In other words, they have said they would do this. This stops them from invoking a regulation and completing it until they have completed what they have already agreed to. Rest assured this is nothing new to the EPA. In fact, in the EPA guidance that accompanies the current regulations, they recommended the same thing: that until the evaluation of the current program is completed, no new requirements be imposed, especially for small communities. So all my amendment does is force the EPA to do what they have already agreed they would do, and that should be a fairly easy one to pass. Madam President, I see the Senator from Connecticut has arrived, and so I yield the floor.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I think I have time reserved now for up to 30 minutes. I wish to first of all say that the subject we have been listening to is life threatening. It is critical. That is not why I am down here today because we have something else that is very important. I have come to the floor today with some breaking news. The momentum to stop President Obama's war on coal is now so great that some of my colleagues--Senators Alexander and Pryor--are going to introduce a countermeasure to my resolution. My resolution would put a stop to the second most expensive EPA regulation in history--a rule known as Utility MACT, with which the occupier of the chair is very familiar. The countermeasure is a cover bill, pure and simple. While my resolution requires the EPA to go back to the drawing board to craft a rule in which utilities can actually comply, the measure that Senators Alexander and Pryor are offering would keep Utility MACT in place but delay the rule for 6 years. This alternative is a clear admission that the Obama EPA's policy is wrong, but it does not fix the problem. It simply puts off the day of execution for a matter of 6 years. What is really going on here? Since my S.J. Res. 37 is a privileged motion, it must be voted on by Monday, June 18, unless we extend it, which I would be willing to do, until after the farm bill takes place. That might be a better idea. It requires 50 votes to pass. The Alexander-Pryor cover bill will likely be introduced tomorrow. It is a bill that will likely never be voted on and would require 60 votes to pass. Therefore, the Senators who want to kill coal by opposing S.J. Res. 37 will put their names on the Alexander-Pryor bill as cosponsors to make it look as if they are saving coal, when in reality that bill, the Alexander-Pryor bill, kills coal in 6 years. We have seen this before. I remember when we considered the Upton- Inhofe Energy Tax Prevention Act when it came to the floor last year. It was a measure that would have prevented the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. I would like to expand on that, but there is not time to do that. My colleagues offered a number of counteramendments so they could have a cover vote. They wanted to appear as if they were reining in the out-of-control EPA--and I think everybody knows what is going on right now with all those regulations--for their constituents back home, all the while letting President Obama go through with his job-killing regulations. Some chose to vote for the only real solution to the problem--the Energy Tax Prevention Act--and some chose the cover vote. But all in all, 64 Senators went on record that day as wanting to rein in the EPA. But some of them did not have the courage to stand by it. Of course, it is highly unlikely the Utility MACT alternative by Senators Alexander and Pryor will ever get a vote, but that is not the point. The point is just to have something out there that Senators in a tough spot can claim to support. As I have said many times now, the vote on S.J. Res. 37 will be the one and only opportunity to stop President Obama's war on coal. This is the only vote. There is no other vote out there. If we do not do this, and that rule goes through--Utility MACT--coal is dead. This is the only chance we have. Fortunately, we have a thing called the CRA. It is a process whereby a Senator can introduce a resolution to stop an unelected bureaucrat from having some kind of an onerous regulation. That is exactly what I have done with this. But this is the only chance for my colleagues to show constituents who they do stand with. Which of my colleagues will vote for the only real solution, which is my resolution, and which of my colleagues will vote for a cover vote? What has changed over the past few weeks to the extent of my colleagues suddenly feeling it necessary for a cover vote? A lot has changed because the American people are speaking up, and they are not happy about the Obama EPA. When I go back to Oklahoma, that is all I hear. It does not matter if you are in the ag business, if you are in the military business, if you are in the manufacturing business, they are all talking about the onerous regulations that are taking place in the EPA. I am pleased to say we have picked up the support of groups representing business and labor. Even more encouraging is a growing number of elected officials are working across the aisle to save coal. The Senate has taken notice, and the first Senate Democrats are beginning to come on board. I want to commend Senator Joe Manchin, who happens to be occupying the chair at this time, and Senator Ben Nelson. They were the first two Senate Democrats to come out publicly in support of our resolution. I must say, I am very glad to see that they have made the right choice to stand with their constituents. Senator Manchin's announcement came just after the Democratic Governor of West Virginia, Governor Tomblin, sent a letter asking him, as well as Senator Rockefeller, to vote for my resolution because, he said, EPA's rules have--and I am quoting now the Democratic Governor of West Virginia; and the occupier of the chair will know this--EPA's rules have ``coalesced to create an unprecedented attack on West Virginia's coal industry.'' Still quoting, he said: ``This attack will have disastrous consequences on West Virginia's economy, our citizens and our way of life,'' and that EPA ``continues on this ill-conceived path to end the development of our nation's most reliable cost- effective source of energy--coal.'' I am very proud of a lot of the officials in West Virginia for what they have come out with. Governor Tomblin is not the only Democrat to be concerned. West Virginia Lieutenant Governor Jeffrey Kessler sent a separate letter to the West Virginia Senators and others asking them to pass S.J. Res. 37 in order to save what he called West Virginia's ``most valuable state natural resource and industry.'' He reminded the Senators that: On May 25, 2012, the State of West Virginia challenged the MATS rule-- that is the kill coal rule-- and cited four reasons the defective rule should be rejected. That is not all. A group of bipartisan State legislators from West Virginia also wrote the Senators and others urging them to support S.J. Res. 37 out of concern for the devastating impact on West Virginia. As they wrote: Several West Virginia power plants have announced their closure and the loss of employment that comes with it. Additionally, it is projected that with the implementation of this rule, consumer electric rates will skyrocket. We all know that is true. Even the President has stated that. I wish to note that we have support from nearly 80 percent of the private sector--those businesses that President Obama claims are ``doing just fine.'' Apparently, they do not think they are doing all that fine. American businesses are suffering because of aggressive overregulation by the Obama administration. Let me take a minute to read the names of just some of the groups that are supporting our efforts to pass S.J. Res. 37: The National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Farm Bureau, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, the American Chemistry Council, the Association of American Railroads, the American Forest and Paper Association, the American Iron and Steel Institute, the Fertilizer Institute, the Western Business Roundtable, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. That is just part of it. Then the unions. The unions are coming too--I have talked about the businesses and read all of their groups--they have come to stop the overregulation that is killing jobs. Cecil Roberts, I had the occasion to meet him once. He is the president of the United Mine Workers, one of the largest labor unions in the country. He recently sent a letter to several Senators saying the union's support for my resolution is ``based upon our assessment of the threat that the EPA MATS rule''-- that is the coal-killing rule--``poses to United Mine Workers Association members' jobs, the economies of coal field communities, and the future direction of our national energy policy.'' Remember, Cecil Roberts is the one who traveled across the country in 2008 campaigning for President Obama. But after 4 years of his regulatory barrage designed to kill the mining jobs his union is trying to protect, Mr. Roberts has said his group may choose not to endorse President Obama or just sit the election out. As he explained: We've been placed in a horrendous position here. How do you take coal miners' money and say let's use it politically to support someone whose EPA has pretty much said, ``You're done''? With even Democrats and unions supporting my effort to save millions of jobs that depend on coal, EPA has to be feeling the pressure. Gina McCarthy, the Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office for Air and Radiation, came out with a statement last week vehemently denying that Utility MACT and EPA's other rules are an effort to end coal. She said: This is not a rule that is in any way designed to move coal out of the energy system. Everybody knows better than that. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson echoed this sentiment saying that it is simply a coincidence that these rules are coming out at the ``same time'' that natural gas prices are low so utilities are naturally moving toward natural gas. Her message was: Do not blame the EPA. Last week on the Senate floor, I described why their public health and natural gas arguments do not hold up, so I will not go into that today. But what I wish to focus on today is that these claims backing up their efforts to kill coal are just a part of the far-left environmental playbook. There is a pretty big difference between what EPA is saying publicly and what they are saying when they talk with their friends, when they feel as though they can let their guard down and admit what is really going on down at the EPA. That is exactly what happened in a video recently uncovered of Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz. While President Obama was posing in front of an oil pipeline in my State of Oklahoma pretending to support oil and gas, Administrator Armendariz told us the truth, that EPA's ``general philosophy'' is to ``crucify'' and make examples of oil and gas companies. You may remember last week when I spoke on the Senate floor, I talked about a newly discovered video of EPA Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding who is caught on tape telling the truth to a group of his environmental friends at Yale University. At a gathering there, he said that EPA's rules are specifically designed to kill coal and that the process isn't going to be pretty. He openly admitted: If you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem. He goes on to say that the decision to kill coal was ``painful every step of the way'' because it will devastate communities in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and any area that depends on coal for jobs and livelihoods. That is kind of worth repeating. He said it is going to be painful. At least he recognized that. And we all know exactly what he is talking about. I read his whole quotes on the floor of the Senate. They are a little too long to read now. But he talks about how painful it is going to be for all these families who are losing their jobs because we are killing coal. I talked a lot about President Obama's war on coal last week, but what I did not have time to address was the Obama administration's allies in this war. It would come as no surprise that Administrator Spalding and, indeed, many at EPA are working hand in hand with the far-left environmental groups to move these regulations to kill coal. Last July, Administrator Spalding spoke at a Boston rally for Big Green groups--that is capitalized: ``Big Green''--supporting EPA'S Utility MACT rule. That is the rule that would kill coal. In a YouTube video of this rally, Administrator Spalding gushes over the environmental community, thanking them profusely for ``weighing in on our behalf.'' So here we have EPA admitting that Big Green is working for them. His whole speech was directly out of the environmental playbook. This is something that really exists: the environmental playbook. It was all about the so-called health benefits of killing coal. And he said: Don't let anybody tell you these rules cost our economy money. This is out of their playbook. Administrator Spalding is not alone in his alliance with Big Green. Also appearing with these far-left environmental groups was Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman. According to Paul Chesser, an associate fellow for the National League and Policy Center, Hedman told supporters at the rally: We really appreciate your enthusiastic support for this rule. It's quite literally a breath of fresh air compared with what's going on in the nation's capital these days. Of course, the former EPA region 6 Administrator Armendariz showed us again last week just how close EPA's relationship is with the far left groups. Armendariz had agreed to testify before Congress. It was actually over in the House, but at the last minute he canceled. As it turns out, Armendariz was in Washington that day. But while he apparently could not find time to testify before Congress, he did have time to stop by the Sierra Club for what has been described by the group as a private meeting. I suspect that Armendariz was there for a job interview. His ``crucify them'' resume makes him the perfect candidate. Of course, EPA and their Big Green allies cannot tell the public the truth that they are crucifying oil and gas companies or that their efforts to kill coal will be ``painful every step of the way'' so they are deceiving the public with talking points from their playbook. When I say ``playbook,'' I mean a literal document telling activists exactly how to get the emotional effects they want. We recently got a copy of this, and I have to say its contents are quite revealing. It comes from usclimatenetwork.com, a coalition of several major environmental groups, and it is a guideline for environmental activists when they attend hearings with the EPA to support the agency's greenhouse gas regulations. A quick search revealed it was apparently written by a key player in the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, which is an aggressive effort to shut down all coal plants across America. After offering some tips on the word limit and how to deliver the message, the document urges activists to make it personal. It asks: Are you an expectant or new mother? Grandparent? If so, it suggests you bring your baby to the hearing. As it states, some examples of great visuals are ``holding your baby with you at the podium or pushing them in strollers, baby car seats,'' and so forth. ``Older children are also welcome.'' It encourages the visual aids of ``Asthma inhalers, medicine bottles, healthcare bills'' and all these other things that are good visuals. The American Lung Association certainly took a page of this playbook. We have all seen the commercials of the red buggy in front of the Capitol. Of course, the Sierra Club put their principles to practice by inundating the American people with images of small children with inhalers. The posters for the Beyond Coal campaign also featured abdomens of pregnant women with an arrow pointing to the unborn baby. The words on the arrow are, ``This little bundle of joy is now a reservoir for mercury.'' Another one says, ``She's going to be so full of joy, love, smiles, and mercury.'' Of course, the supreme irony is that the campaign that claims to be protecting this unborn child is the same one that is aggressively prochoice. It is coming from a movement that believes there are too many people in the world and actively advocates for population control and abortion. Just after a hearing in May of this year, the Sierra Club posted pictures of their efforts. Sure enough, there is one of Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, holding her 2-year- old daughter Hazel. But for all their efforts, it is clear the campaign is about one thing only; that is, killing coal. At a hearing, Mary Anne Hitt with the Sierra Club said, ``We are here today to thank the Obama administration and to show our ironclad support for limiting dangerous carbon pollution being dumped into the air.'' She apparently sees the Obama administration as the closest ally in the Sierra Club's effort, and she has said about the Beyond Coal campaign: Coal is a fuel of the past. What we're seeing now is the beginning of a growing trend to leave it there. Of course, it is not just coal they want to kill; they want to kill coal, oil, and gas. A lot of people do not realize that. It was not long ago that Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said: As we push to retire coal plants, we're going to work to make sure we are not simultaneously switching to natural gas infrastructure. And we're going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can. So it is not just coal. It is oil. It is gas. We have to ask the question--at least I get the question asked when I go back to my State of Oklahoma because there are normal people there. They say: If we do not have coal, oil, and gas, how do you run this machine called America? The answer is we cannot. As this vote on my Utility MACT resolution approaches, look for many of my liberal friends to take their arguments directly out of the far left environmental playbook. Get ready to see lots of pictures of babies and children using inhalers. But these are the same Members who voted against my Clear Skies bill, that would have given us a 70-percent reduction in real pollutants, I am talking about SOx, NOX, and mercury. We had that bill up, and that was one that would have actually had that reduction--a greater reduction than any President has advocated. When President Obama spoke--at that time he was in the Senate--he said: I voted against the Clear Skies bill. In fact, I was the deciding vote, despite the fact that I am from a coal State and half my State thought I had thoroughly betrayed them because I thought clean air was critical and global warming was critical. At an April 17 hearing this year, Senator Barrasso and Brenda Archambo, of the Sturgeon for Tomorrow, who testified before the EPW Committee, ``Would Michigan lakes, sturgeon, sportsmen, families have been better off had those reductions already gone into effect when they had the opportunity to pass [Clear Skies]?'' Her answer was yes. We are talking about, by this time, 6 years from now, we would have been enjoying those reductions. There are crucial differences between Clear Skies and Utility MACT. Clear Skies would have reduced the emissions without harming jobs and our economy because it was based on a commonsense, market-based approach. It was designed to retain coal in American electricity generation while reducing emissions each year. On the other hand, Utility MACT is specifically designed to kill coal as well as all the good-paying jobs that come with it. EPA itself admits the rule will cost $10 billion to implement, but $10 billion will yield $6 million in benefits. Wait a minute. That does not make sense. That is a cost-benefit ratio between $10 billion and $6 million of 1,600 to 1. If their campaign is so focused on public health, why did Democrats oppose our commonsense clean air regulations? Very simple. Because we did not include CO2 regulation in the Clear Skies legislation. President Obama's quote only verifies that. He is on record admitting he voted against these health benefits because regulating greenhouse gases, which have no effect whatsoever on public health, was more important. In other words, the real agenda is to kill coal. Just before President Obama made the decision to halt the EPA's plan to tighten ozone regulations, the White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley asked: ``What are the health impacts of unemployment?'' That is one of the most important questions before this Senate in preparation for the vote on my resolution to stop Utility MACT. What are the health impacts on the children whose parents will lose their jobs due to President Obama's war on coal? What are the health impacts on children and low- income families whose parents will have less money to spend on their well-being when they have to put more and more of their paychecks into the skyrocketing electricity costs? EPA Administrator Spalding gave us a clue about the impacts of unemployment. It would be, as he said, ``Painful. Painful every step of the way.'' Do my colleagues in the Senate truly want that? I deeply regret that I have to be critical of two of my best friends in the Senate, Senators Alexander and Pryor, particularly Senator Pryor. Three of my kids went to school with him at the University of Arkansas. He is considered part of our family. He is my brother. But if someone has been to West Virginia and to Ohio and to Illinois, to Michigan, to Missouri, and the rest of the coal States, as I have, and personally visited with the proud fourth- and fifth-generation coal families, as I have and certainly the occupier of the chair has, they know they will lose their livelihood if Alexander-Pryor saves the EPA's effort to kill coal. I cannot stand by and idly allow that to happen. Let me conclude by speaking to my friends in this body who have yet to make up their minds as to whether they will support my resolution. I know everyone in the Senate wants to ensure we continue to make the tremendous environmental progress we have made over the past few years. We truly have. The Clean Air Act many years ago cleaned up the air. We have had successes. Unfortunately, this administration's regulations are failing to strike that balance between growing our economy and improving our environment. Rather, this agenda is about killing our ability to run this machine called America. Again, I wish to welcome the support of Senators Manchin and Ben Nelson, who listened to their constituents. It is the rest of the Senators from the coal States that I am concerned about. What about Senators Levin and Stabenow, who come from a State that uses coal for 60 percent of its electricity? What about Senator Conrad from a State with 85 percent of the electricity coming from coal? In Ohio, where Senator Brown is from, 19,000 jobs depend on coal. Then there is Virginia, home of Senators Warner and Webb, which has 31,660 jobs, a 16 to 19 percent increase in the electric rates. Arkansas, the war on coal there, that is 44.9 percent of electricity generation in the State of Arkansas; Tennessee, 52 percent of electricity generation, 6,000 jobs; Missouri, 81 percent of electricity generation--81 percent in the State of Missouri. That is 4,600 jobs at stake; Montana, 58 percent; Louisiana, that is 35 percent of electricity generation. These are all States that depend on coal for their electricity generation; lastly, Pennsylvania, 48.2 percent of electricity generation, 49,000 jobs would be lost in Pennsylvania if utility MACT is passed. That is significant. I would not be surprised if all these Senators from coal States that I just mentioned will vote for the bill of Senators Alexander and Pryor that says: Let's kill coal, but let's put it off for 6 years. I repeat. It does not do any good to delay the death sentence on coal 6 years. Contracts will already be violated and the mines will be closed. So I say to my colleagues that their constituents will see right though those of who choose a cover vote. The American people are pretty smart. They know there is only one real solution to stop, not just delay, EPA's war on coal. I hope they will join Senators Manchin and Nelson and me and several others and stand with the constituents, instead of President Obama and his EPA, which will make it painful every step of the way for them all. We need to pass S.J. Res. 37 and put an end to President Obama's war on coal. This is the last chance we have to do this. There is no other vote coming along. If a Senator does not want to kill coal, they have to support S.J. Res. 37. It is our last chance to do it. Again, we do not know when this is going to come up. It is locked in a time limit, unless we, by unanimous consent, increase that time. I have no objection to putting it off until after the farm bill because that is a very important piece of legislation. So we will wait and see what takes place. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, will the Senator from Ohio yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me first of all express my appreciation to the majority. I understand I am to be given some 40 minutes after the vote at the conclusion of the remarks by Senator Brown of Ohio. I have a subject that is very significant, and it is one I cannot do while being interrupted. So I appreciate starting this period off after the recess being able to express my concern over what I refer to as President Obama's war on fossil fuels and specifically today on coal. I look forward to that sometime around the 6 o'clock hour. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Ohio I be recognized as in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if there is no business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, let me thank the Senator from Ohio for allowing me to interrupt him for my unanimous consent request. This month, the Senate will have the opportunity to put a stop to the second most expensive EPA regulation in history, the rule known as Utility MACT. It is kind of confusing. Let me share with everyone what it means: MACT--and we better learn it now because we are going to hear it more and more--it is M-A-C-T. That means Maximum Achievable Controlled Technology. In other words, the EPA comes along and makes a regulation where there is no technology that will accommodate the rule. So that is what it is all about. That is what the Obama EPA calls it so the people will not know what it is and how much it costs. It is the first step--we are talking about Utility MACT--it is the first step to kill coal in the United States. Right now, we in this country depend upon coal for 50 percent of our electricity. One can just imagine what will happen to our energy costs as well as millions of lost jobs. I have introduced a joint resolution to kill it. By voting for my resolution, S.J. Res. 37, Members of the Senate can prevent the Obama EPA from causing so much economic pain for American families. It requires only a majority vote in the Senate and the House. It would have to be signed by the President. People say: Why would the President sign a bill that would stop his EPA from overregulating? I would suggest that right before the election, he does not want to go on record as causing that many job losses and that much damage to our economy. Utility MACT is the centerpiece of President Obama's effort to kill coal. Utility MACT is specifically designed to close down existing coal plants, while the Obama EPA's greenhouse gas regulations are specifically designed to prevent any new coal plants from being built. So we are going to shut down the coal plants that are there now and prevent new coal plants from being built. Keep in mind, 50 percent of our energy comes from coal. The goal behind these policies is not surprising. But what is surprising is that while President Obama goes around pretending to be for an all-of-the- above approach on energy--let's make sure we understand what that is. An all-of-the-above approach was the Republicans' idea. It was: We are for all of the above. We are for nuclear energy. We are for fossil fuels, coal, gas, oil, renewables, solar, everything else. That is what ``all of the above'' means. The President has been saying he is for an all-of-the-above approach on energy, while members of his green team administration cannot help but tell the truth about what is going on in the EPA. The Presiding Officer remembers several weeks ago when I came to the Senate floor to bring attention to a video of EPA region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz admitting that the EPA's general philosophy is to crucify and make examples of oil and gas companies. We remember that, do we not? He said--and it was on a video, his voice with himself speaking to a group of people, including giving advice to those who were subordinates to him. He said: You have to do what the Romans did years ago when they would go around the Mediterranean. They would go into different areas in Turkey, and they would crucify the first five people they would see and leave them to die, dangling on a cross, in order to get them to submit to him. Today, I would like to highlight another video. It is a video of the EPA region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding, admitting that the Obama EPA consciously and deliberately made the choice to wage war on coal. I am going to quote exactly what he said so everyone can have the full effect of it. He said: But know right now, we are, we are struggling. We are struggling because we are trying to do our jobs. Lisa Jackson has put forth a very powerful message to the country. Just two days ago, the decision on greenhouse gas performance standard and saying basically gas plants are the performance standard which means if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem. That was a huge decision. You can't imagine how tough that was. Because you got to remember that if you go to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all those places, you have coal communities who depend on coal. And to say that we just think those communities should just go away, we can't do that. But she had to do what the law and the policy suggested. And it's painful. It's painful every step of the way. Again, I am quoting the region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding in a statement he made. That is an exact quote. Let me repeat the key parts of Administrator Spalding's quote for emphasis. He said, ``If you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem.'' Even more stunning, he is admitting that the Obama EPA's decision to kill coal was painful every step of the way because West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all the coal States depend on coal development for their jobs, their livelihoods. I had occasion to be in West Virginia and in Ohio and see and speak face to face with people who are third-, fourth-generation workers in the coal mines. Those people are scared to death that coal will be killed. Here it is in front of us right now. They are going to kill coal anyway. Trust me, Administrator Spalding and President Obama, it is far more painful for those who will lose their jobs and have to pay skyrocketing electricity prices than it will be for you. Spalding's statement that ``if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem'' reminds us a lot of President Obama's own statement about coal in 2008, when he was not so afraid to explain his real intention. Remember, he said--and this is a quote by the President in 2008. ``If you want to build a coal-fired power plant you can, it's just that it will bankrupt you.'' That was 2008. Sure enough, he is bringing that to reality. He is making every effort. Of course, this war on coal comes from the same administration that put the ``crucify them'' Administrator Armendariz in charge of the biggest oil-and-gas-producing region in the country. In fact, crucifixion philosophy is so obvious now that even the somewhat left-leaning Washington Post said that the Obama EPA is ``earning a reputation for abuse.'' But I think Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal put it best when she said that Armendariz was ``a perfect general for Mr. Obama's war against natural gas and on the front lines of President Obama's battle to end fossil fuels and affordable energy.'' As this most recent video of region 1 Administrator Spalding confirms, there are plenty of green generals such as Armendariz going into battle for the Obama EPA. We have several more videos of EPA officials making similar statements. I am not going to talk about them tonight. I will talk about those at a later date because today I would like to focus my remarks specifically on President Obama's war on coal and what Members of this body will choose to do about it. The fundamental question before the Senate will be whether my colleagues will have the courage to stand up to President Obama and put the brakes on his abusive, out-of-control EPA that has openly admitted: If you want to build a coal plant, you have a big problem or if they are going to stand with President Obama and his administration's ``crucify'' agenda. One of the most interesting and telling aspects of President Obama's disingenuous attempt to rebrand himself as a supporter of fossil fuels is that he never mentions coal. He does not even pretend. In fact, up until very recently, President Obama's campaign Web site had a section devoted to the President's goals for every energy resource except coal. Only after facing intense criticism and disappointing primary results in coal States, which just happened recently--I think we are all aware of that--the Obama campaign attempted quietly to add a clean coal section to its site. Apparently, President Obama's definition of clean coal is no coal. In his 2013 budget request, the President cut funding for coal research and development at the National Energy Technology Lab by nearly 30 percent. This is at the same time EPA has proposed greenhouse gas standards for coal-fired powerplants that require carbon capture and sequestration. We refer to that as CCS. It is a technology that is not ready to operate on a commercial scale. On one hand, we have Obama issuing standards in which utilities cannot comply without using CCS; on the other hand, we have them handicapped in that very technology. In other words, what he is saying is that we have emissions standards for coal technology where there is no technology. There are standards required for emissions where there is no technology that will accommodate that request. We are going to see it in other areas too. This is coal. I am concentrating just on coal tonight. After cap and trade was thoroughly rejected by the American people and defeated in a Democratically controlled Congress, President Obama promised that he would not give up in his efforts to stop coal development. He also said: Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat. It was a means, not an end. I'm going to be looking for other means to address this problem. He has found other ways to skin the cat--by imposing regulations that have exactly the same effect of killing coal. I do not have time to go into every action EPA has taken, but I would like to highlight a few of the key coal-killing regulations. Front and center, of course, is Utility MACT. Utility MACT is a rule which sets strict standards that cannot be met, which means that along with EPA's other air rules, up to 20 percent of America's coal-fired capacity will be shuttered and around 1.6 million jobs will be lost. That is initially. Carry that on through, considering that coal supplies 50 percent of our energy in this country, it is going to far exceed that, starting off with 50 percent of America's coal-fired capacity will be shut down. Utility MACT's pricetag is second only to the Obama EPA's greenhouse gas regulations, which are designed to prevent any new coal plants from being built in this country. Similar to the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, these regulations will cost $300 to $400 billion a year and destroy over 2 million jobs. It may even cost more if the courts throw out the EPA's tailoring rule. It kind of gets into the weeds. It is a little bit complicated. What they are attempting to do is the regulations that they were unable to do through legislation. We had several bills over a 12-year period to try to impose cap and trade. That cap and trade cost would be $300 billion to $400 billion. The tailoring rule is one where if EPA does it through regulation, doing the same thing, imposing cap and trade on the American people, it will not cost $300 billion to $400 billion a year, but it will be far more because it will have to reach the standards of the Clean Air Act. That would be regulating those emitters with 250,000 tons of emissions a year. Every school, church, restaurant, and coffee shop would now have to be regulated and would be put out of business by the EPA. EPA is also waging this war on the permitting front. We have been tracking this problem for a long time. A lot of people recognize when the Obama EPA was trying to shut down the gulf, they said: We are not going to do it because of public pressure. But then they refused to issue permits. As my EPW minority report from January 2010 showed, the EPA was obstructing 190 coal mining permits, putting nearly 18,000 jobs at risk. That was 2\1/2\ years ago and not much has improved. Last November a report by the Office of Inspector General I requested confirmed that EPA, through its own actions, had been deliberately and systematically slowing the pace of permit evaluations for new plants in Appalachia. These findings were concerning enough that the inspector general did a follow-up review. And again in February of this year, 2 years later, the Office of Inspector General found EPA did not have a consistent official recordkeeping system that was exacerbating permit delays. Not only has EPA continued to stall the permitting process, they are trying to stop permits that were already granted. In January 2011--and this is significant--EPA took the drastic unprecedented step of revoking a lawfully issued mining permit the Bush Army Corps of Engineers had granted to Spruce Mine, which is a project in Appalachia. Fortunately, the courts recognized EPA's overreaching in this case. On March 23, 2012, the U.S. district court ruled that EPA exceeded its authority, and as the judge said, EPA's claim that it can veto a permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers is a stunning power for an agency to arrogate itself. That is a Federal judge's quote. After 4 years of this aggressive barrage of rules designed to kill coal, many in the heartland, States that rely heavily on coal, are not amused. Just last month 24 State attorneys general, including one-quarter of all Democratic State attorneys general, filed a suit to overturn Utility MACT because of the devastating effects it will have on jobs in their States and their economies. These are Democrats from Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, West Virginia, and Wyoming. In other words, it appeared that Democratic AGs from several States are trying to save coal while the Democratic Senators from those same States are carrying out President Obama's war on coal. What is happening in West Virginia? The State government just sponsored a 3-day forum last week on ``EPA's war on coal.'' This is in West Virginia. Larry Puccio, the Democratic Party chairman in West Virginia, said: A lot of folks here have real frustration with this administration's stance on coal and energy. Recently, on a West Virginia radio show, Cecil Roberts, the President of the United Mine Workers of America, famously said that EPA Administer Lisa Jackson ``shot [the coal industry] in Washington just as the Navy Seals shot bin Laden.'' As Roberts expanded: We've been placed in a horrendous position here. How do you take coal miners' money and say let's use it politically to support someone whose EPA has pretty much said, ``You're done''? It doesn't get any stronger than that. These are all Democrats. Let's not forget West Virginia is the State where President Obama lost several counties in a primary to a convicted felon not long ago. Kentucky is weighing in. As Politico reported, President Obama lost an ``uncommitted'' vote in 38 counties representing the Kentucky Coal Coalition and won just 44 percent of over 49,000 votes. He only carried 14 of the 38 coal counties, and overall carried the State as a whole with just 58 percent of the vote. In Arkansas, President Obama won the primary with less than 60 percent of the vote. In Ohio, it was the same story. When Vice President Biden visited the State recently, he was faced with over 100 workers who would lose their jobs because of this administration's aggressive regulatory regime. Their message to the administration is ``Stop the war on coal.'' These States have good reason to be concerned. Let's look at how Utility MACT will impact some of the most coal-dependent States. In Arkansas, 40 percent of their electricity is produced by coal. Louisiana has the ninth cheapest electricity in the Nation, $100 million in payroll. In Michigan, 60 percent of their electricity is produced by coal. They are tenth in coal use. Missouri, which is a big one, 80 percent of their electricity is produced by coal. They are sixth in coal use. Montana, 60 percent of its electricity, fifth in coal production. North Dakota, 85 percent of electricity is produced by coal. They are ninth in coal production. Ohio is a big one, with 85 percent of electricity, and more than 19,000 jobs are at stake because of this Utility MACT. Pennsylvania, 52 percent of their electricity is produced by coal, and they are fifth in coal use; Tennessee, 62 percent of the electricity. Virginia, more than 31,000 jobs, and they are 13th in coal production; West Virginia, second in coal production, with more than 80,000 jobs. These are real jobs that we lost State by State. That is how this is a big deal. I will go into detail as to why Utility MACT would be devastating. Just put this rule in perspective. Even Democratic Representative John Dingell, who has been in the House many years--I served with him in the House many years ago, and he was the author of the Clean Air Act Amendments--said that Utility MACT is ``unparalleled in its size and scope'' and that it ``presents a set of new regulations with possible wide-reaching impacts on the way our country generates and consumes electricity.'' Now, that was Representative Dingell over in the House of Representatives, a Democrat. Utility MACT has an unprecedented price tag. EPA puts the cost of their rule at nearly $10 billion a year. That is interesting because no one else's is that low. Other sources project that it will cost considerably more, making it the second most expensive rule in the Agency's history. This is second only to global warming's cap-and- trade, which would be about a $300 billion to $400 billion tax increase, so double that. Now, this is something I always do because in my State of Oklahoma, when we start talking about billions and trillions of dollars, I like to see how it will affect our families in Oklahoma. So a $300 billion to $400 billion tax increase, which is what it would have been if they had been successful in passing cap-and-trade and what it will be if they do it by regulation, you can double that. This tax increase would cost the average family who pays Federal income tax in my State of Oklahoma over $3,000 a year. And, of course, you don't get anything for it because even Lisa Jackson, Obama's Administrator of the EPA, admitted that if we pass cap-and-trade, it would not reduce our overall emissions because the problem isn't here in the United States; it is in Mexico and it is in China and in other countries around the world. So the Utility MACT we are talking about today would tax each family over and above cap-and-trade. Further, the rule will shut down 20 percent of America's coal-fired power capacity. This will inevitably result in higher electricity prices for every American. Simply put, it is a supply-and-demand situation. I think we all understand that. There is not a person who is within earshot of me, anyway, who didn't learn back in grade school and elementary school what supply and demand means. It means if you shut down the coal plants, the energy remaining will cost a lot more. It is not just me saying this. Here is what the Chicago Tribune reported on May 18: that in 2015, ``electric bills are set to be about $130 more than they are today.'' Now I am talking to everyone out there who has electricity. The electric bills are set to be about that much more. The Chicago Tribune went on to say that prices have already significantly risen in the heartland. I will quote the article again: Prices were higher in northern Ohio and the Mid-Atlantic region at $357 per megawatt, and $167 per megawatt respectively. Now, let's look at the jobs. Utility MACT and other EPA regulations on the electric power sector have resulted in over 24,000 megawatts of announced powerplant retirements located in 20 States. According to the National Economic Research Associates, Utility MACT would destroy between 180,000 and 215,000 jobs in 2015. And with other new EPA regulations on the electric power sector, the economy stands to lose approximately 1.65 million jobs by 2020. Manufacturers will be particularly hard hit due to their reliance on low-cost electricity and because of their dependence on natural gas as a raw material as both electricity rates and natural gas prices increase. According to Nucor Steel, a 1-percent increase in electricity rates will cost the firm $120 million. These extra costs would endanger 1 million manufacturing jobs outside of the coal and utility industries. Utility MACT will also have a negative ripple effect. To bring up one example, in Avon Lake, OH, the closure of the local GenOn powerplant will cost the school system 11 percent of its budget annually. Besides the 80 high-quality jobs lost at the plant and many indirect job losses in the community, the city will have fewer resources for its paramedics, firefighters, schools, and everything else. This story will be replicated in communities across America. Now, for a couple of myths about this, people try to say it is not surprising that instead of taking credit for the dire results of this coal-killing agenda in an election year, the Obama administration is claiming that lower natural gas prices are the reason utilities are switching from coal to natural gas. That is absolutely wrong. There is one problem with that. While President Obama poses in front of the pipelines in my State of Oklahoma pretending to be a friend of oil and natural gas, he is giving marching orders to his administration to do everything possible to end hydraulic fracturing. To get back in the weeds a little here, hydraulic fracturing is a process to get oil and gas out of tight formations. In fact, you can't get 1 cubic foot of natural gas out of a tight formation without using hydraulic fracturing. I am pretty familiar with that process because that was started in my State of Oklahoma way back in 1949. There has never been a documented case of groundwater contamination by using hydraulic fracturing. But this is what he is trying to do--to kill the oil and gas by doing away with hydraulic fracturing. Remember, I mentioned earlier that Armendariz was the only one caught on tape admitting that the EPA's general philosophy was to crucify and make examples of oil and gas companies, specifically targeting hydraulic fracturing. If the crucifixion scandal isn't enough of a revelation in this war on natural gas, remember the Sierra Club, which recently gave the President its most enthusiastic endorsement, just rolled out its newest campaign called ``Beyond Gas,'' a spin-off of its decade-old campaign ``Beyond Coal.'' That was 10 years ago that the Sierra Club talked about its campaign to phase out coal-fired powerplants. Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune explained: As we push to retire coal plants, we're going to work to make sure we're not simultaneously switching to natural-gas infrastructure. And we're going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can. So it is not just coal, it is coal and all other fossil fuels. So those people who think somehow they can say, well, we are going to promote natural gas--which they are not doing because they are trying to stop hydraulic fracturing--they don't realize that is a fossil fuel. It may have taken Nancy Pelosi 6 months to realize natural gas is a fossil fuel, but everybody knows that today. So natural gas supplies may be plentiful now, but the Obama administration's ``crucify them'' agenda on oil and gas development is designed to change that. Its whole purpose is to decrease access to these resources through increased regulations from the Federal Government. Another myth is the public health myth. I want to address that because that is being perpetrated by Utility MACT proponents, and it has to do with their public health argument. The truth is that the health benefits EPA claims are exaggerated and misleading. That is because EPA's analysis showed that over 99 percent of the benefits of the rule we are talking about--a Utility MACT rule--come from reducing fine particulate matter, not air toxics. Of course, fine particulate matter is already regulated under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. In fact, 90 percent of Utility MACT's purported particulate matter benefits occur in air already deemed safe by the NAAQS program. Not only is the EPA double miscounting benefits, it is also dismally failing the cost-benefit test. The Agency itself admits that Utility MACT will cost an unprecedented $10 billion to implement. We think it is going to be more than twice that, but they say $10 billion. They also admit that the $10 billion it costs will yield a mere $6 million in direct benefits. That means, by the EPA's own statement, they admit the best-case scenario yields a ludicrous cost-benefit ratio of 1,600 to 1. In reality, Utility MACT will harm the public by increasing unemployment--a well-established risk factor for elevated illness and mortality rates. In addition to influences on mental disorders, suicide, and alcoholism, unemployment is also a risk factor in cardiovascular disease and overall decreases in life expectancy. Further, higher electric bills act like a regressive tax, hurting the poor and the elderly most by diverting funds they would otherwise have for food, rent, and medical care to pay for more expensive electricity. To be sure, those who won't feel any of this economic pain are President Obama's Hollywood elites. I know that my environmental friends are already accusing me of allowing mercury to go into the air. So today I would like to remind them that it was the Republicans who first put forth a real plan to reduce mercury emissions from powerplants. In 2002 and 2003, Republicans were in the majority. At that time, I was the chairman of the committee that had regulation over the air, and we were working to pass the Clear Skies bill, which was the most aggressive initiative in history to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury--SOX, NOX, and mercury. In fact, this bill would have reduced mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018. So in just 6 years from now, we would already have had a 70-percent reduction in what I call real pollutants--SOX, NOX, and mercury. Now, what happened? Why did it fail? It failed because they wanted to include greenhouse gases. They wanted to include CO2. And at the expense of losing those reductions that were mandated in SOX, NOX, and mercury, they said: Well, if we can't have CO2, we don't want it at all. So why did Clear Skies fail in 2005? Then-Senator Obama served with me in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and it was his vote that killed the bill. As Senator Obama himself admitted: I voted against the Clear Skies bill. In fact, I was the deciding vote despite the fact that I'm a coal state and that half of my state thought I'd thoroughly betrayed them because I thought clean air was critical and global warming was critical. That was then-Senator Barack Obama. Clear Skies apparently didn't cause enough pain. It reduced real pollutants. It didn't address President Obama's pet cause of climate change. It did not achieve the goal they really wanted to impose; that is, ending coal. So now, instead of having a reasonable and effective mercury reduction plan already in place and working for the American people, President Obama wants to implement EPA's Utility MACT in order to kill coal. The bottom line is that we still need coal, and all those who dream of doing away with it will not be able to escape the reality that coal will continue to provide much of our electricity for the foreseeable future. So we need to be implementing policies that improve air quality without destroying coal and millions of good American jobs and imposing skyrocketing electricity costs on every American. That is why my resolution to stop Utility MACT is so crucial. Contrary to what critics are saying, this resolution does not prevent the EPA from regulating mercury under the Clean Air Act. It simply requires that the EPA go back to the drawing board to craft a rule with which utilities can actually comply--a rule that does not threaten to end coal in America and American generation but helps utilities to reduce emissions without having to shut their doors. The House, led by Congressman Fred Upton, recently passed bipartisan legislation to rein in the Utility MACT, with 19 Democrats supporting the measure. So now it is time for the Senate to act. I would like to remind my colleagues that this resolution will probably be the vote for coal for the year, so this is our one chance. Many of my Democratic colleagues have gone on record saying that they want to rein in the Obama EPA. The senior Senator from Missouri is one of them. She said, back home, that she is determined to hold the line on the EPA. Does that mean she and other Senate Democrats who have made similar statements will vote to stop the centerpiece of Obama's war on coal? Apparently not. Today I talked a lot about Utility MACT. Let's be sure we understand what it means. One more time: Utility MACT is a rule by the EPA to end coal in America and cause electricity rates to skyrocket. That is a statement that even the President said, that the electric rates would skyrocket. My resolution, S.J. Res. 37, will allow Members of the Senate to stop the Obama EPA. It is as simple as that. I can remember when we passed the CRA, the Congressional Review Act. It is interesting because the Congressional Review Act was one which recognized that sometimes things are out of control, the EPA and other parts of the administration. So if it is something where you get a simple majority of Members saying: This is outrageous, and we need to stop it, we can do it by passing a CRA--a Congressional Review Act. That is what S.J. Res. 37 is, and that is our only chance to stop this. So a vote on my resolution would clearly demonstrate to the American people which Senators will hold on and stand with their constituents for jobs and affordable energy and which Senators want to kill coal in favor of President Obama's radical global warming agenda that will be devastating to people. To borrow a phrase from Administrator Spalding: To choose the latter will be painful--painful every step of the way for their constituents. And I hope they make the right choice. So I would just repeat that this is the last chance you have to stop the administration from killing coal. This is the vote of the year in terms of the effort to stop the killing of coal. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, while the Republican alternative was definitely better than the Democrat-endorsed proposal, at the end of the day, neither option presented a long term answer to the impending rise in student loan interest rates. In 2007, Congress passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which I opposed. This legislation used a stepped reduction of interest rates for subsidized Stafford loans, from 6.8 percent to the current 3.4 percent. Also as a part of this law, these rates are scheduled to reset to the original 6.8 percent on July 1. So for five years, we have known this day was coming. A one-year extension of the current interest rate is merely a six billion dollar temporary fix. It would simply postpone finding an actual solution to the problem of college affordability. Congress has gotten too comfortable with band aid fixes: payments to physicians, the Highway bill, and flood insurance being recent examples. It is because of increased government intervention that we continually find ourselves in this predicament. With every government takeover, whether it is education, health care, or the EPA, the result is less competition, less consumer choice, and less innovation. Mr. President, I understand the importance and value of a good education. My wife was a teacher, and my two daughters became teachers as well, one even at a university. I also commend the efforts of all students who strive to achieve a higher education and improve their lives, especially those struggling through financial burdens. However, we owe it to these students to address the problem, not just put a band aid on it.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask that I be recognized for up to 15 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, today I want to expose a far-left environmental agenda that is being imposed upon the Department of Defense by President Obama and a lot of his allies, and it comes at the same time that the Obama administration is focusing on dramatically reduced cuts in the military. As ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, stopping the radical global warming agenda, as well as President Obama's devastating cuts to our military, have been my top priorities, and that is all I have been talking about for the last couple of months. I have had a growing concern about how President Obama's global warming agenda is harming our military, but the remarks recently made by Secretary Panetta have led me to come and make a few statements. First, let me say this about Secretary Panetta: I served with him for 5 years in the House, and a number of years ago he and I became very close friends. In fact, I rejoiced when he was nominated and we confirmed him as Secretary of Defense. So I was extremely disappointed to see that he was wasting his valuable time perpetrating the President's global warming fantasies and his war on affordable energy, which occurred, no less, at a gathering of radical environmentalists. That is where the statement was made. Secretary Panetta said: In the 21st century, reality is that there are environmental threats that constitute threats to our national security. He also vowed that the Pentagon would take a leading role in shifting the way the United States uses its energy. Every talking point Secretary Panetta used in his speech, from rising sea levels to severe droughts to the so-called plight of the polar bear, all of these--I will not go into them one at a time--these all came out of Al Gore's science fiction movie, and they have all been totally rebuked. In reality, it is President Obama's war on affordable energy that is having a dramatic impact on our national security, a war that is further depleting an already stretched military budget and putting our troops at risk. Secretary Panetta made another revealing statement in justifying the President's green agenda. This was about two editions ago in the Hill magazine: As oil prices continue to skyrocket, the department `now [faces] a shortfall exceeding $3 billion of higher-than- expected fuel costs this year,' according to Panetta. In order to dig its way out of that financial hole, DOD has no choice but to look to alternative fuel technologies. Pentagon officials plan to invest more than $1 billion into developing those technologies in fiscal year 2013. I might add, that is $1 billion that would otherwise be spent on defending America. That is right, energy prices have skyrocketed, we understand that--precisely because of the politics of this administration. Remember, they have openly admitted this. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said: [S]omehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. We all know why he made that statement. That was way back in 2008. It was Obama's statement that said under his cap and trade--which is what they have been talking about--``electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.'' Now, because domestic energy prices have skyrocketed under his administration, just as they wanted them to do, Secretary Panetta wants the military to go green. Instead of spending scarce resources greening the military, the commonsense solution is simple--to begin developing our own vast supply of energy resources. Secretary Panetta's comments came just 2 weeks before the Senate Armed Services Committee is to begin the markup of this coming year's Defense authorization bill. So I will be taking this opportunity to work with my colleagues on the committee to put the spotlight on President Obama's forcing his costly green agenda on the Department of Defense while he is taking down the budget for the defense. I look forward to introducing a number of amendments that will put a stop to this nonsense and help ensure that Secretary Panetta has the tools he needs. I can assure you--because I know him well--this is a script this came off of. As part of that effort, I am also releasing a document put together by the Congressional Research Service that puts a pricetag on how much the Federal Government provides global warming policies, and I will be discussing this. With President Obama running for reelection and pretending to be for an ``all of the above'' energy approach, Secretary Panetta's comments are surprising. But they are still also illuminating. President Panetta's commitment of $1 billion for alternative fuels makes clear that despite the President's recent change in rhetoric for his reelection campaign, he remains fully determined to implement his all- out attack on traditional American energy development, and the military is one place where he can force that experiment. We are talking about a green experiment using our military. To show just how egregious this whole thing is, let me spend just a second documenting how badly President Obama wants to take down the military for the benefit of his green agenda. Over the past 4 years, DOD has been forced to drastically cut its personnel, the number of brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift capabilities. It is eliminating or postponing programs such as the C 27, the Global Hawk Block 30, the C 130 avionics modernization package, which we desperately need, and the advancement of the F 35. These are programs we have had on the drawing board, and it is very important we carry these through to fruition. Even more concerning, these cuts could go even deeper. Because the subcommittee failed to report legislation last fall--and we all remember this--that would have reduced the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, the Pentagon's budget could be cut by an additional $495 billion between 2013 and 2021. That is very interesting because during that period of time we are talking about two things--not just degrading the military, but over the next 10 years taking $\1/2\ trillion out. If sequestration should come in that would be another $\1/2\ trillion, and everyone realizes that would be devastating to the military. Secretary Panetta has rightly warned us that such drastic cuts would be a threat to national security. He said: Unfortunately, while large cuts are being imposed, the threats to national security would not be reduced. As a result, we would have to formulate a new security strategy that accepted substantial risk of not meeting our defense needs. A sequestration budget is not one I could recommend. That is a quote by Secretary Panetta. General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, weighed in also and said: The impact of the sequestration is not only in its magnitude. It's in what it does . . . we lose control. And as we lose control, we will become out of balance, and we will not have the military this nation needs. When they talk about accepting risk, we are talking about lives. That is what that means; risk equals lives. What are you willing to do for this green agenda? The remarks by the top DOD officials make Panetta's recent global warming speech at odds with solving our military's budget problems. Even as Secretary Panetta expresses concern about the impact of these cuts on national security, he is openly supporting President Obama's forcing DOD to expend large amounts of scarce resources on expensive alternative fuels. This doesn't make any sense, and that is why I believe Secretary Panetta's global warming remarks were written by someone in the White House to appease the radical left and not Secretary Panetta. I am absolutely convinced of that. After seeing how severe these cuts to DOD would be, how could anyone justify this so- called greening of the military? Consider, for example, the Navy's plan to sail its Green Fleet, a strike group powered by alternative fuels, by 2016. The success of this Green Fleet is predicated upon biofuel--much of it algae based-- becoming practical and affordable. So they are assuming that is going to happen, which I don't think it is going to happen. In 2009 the Department of the Navy paid $424 a gallon for 20,000 gallons of biodiesel made from algae, which would set a record for all- time cost of fuel. That is per gallon--and that is when it was on the market for $4 a gallon--and it is $424 a gallon. In December 2011 the Navy purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for $12 million, which works out to be about $26 a gallon. This purchase is part of a larger deal in which the Navy has pledged taxpayer funds of $170 million as their share of a $510 million effort to construct or retrofit biofuel refineries in order to create a commercially viable market. This biofuel will be mixed with conventional fuels by a 50 50 ratio to yield a blend that will cost roughly $15 a gallon--roughly four times what we should have to be spending. Keep in mind this is at the same time we are rejecting systems that were in our plans, and have been for a long period. And as if the services are not already stressed by serious budget cuts, the Secretary of the Navy also directed the Navy and Marine Corps to produce or consume one gigawatt of new renewable energy to power naval installations across the country. Everyone agrees energy efficiency in the military is a worthy goal. In fact, I have been a strong supporter of the DOD's alternative energy solutions that are affordable and make sense, including the initiatives on nonalgae biofuels and natural gas. In fact, in my State of Oklahoma we are working, through the major universities and the Noble Foundation and others to take that leadership role. But forcing our military to take money away from core programs in order to invest in unproven technologies as part of a failed cap-and-trade agenda is not only wrong, it is reckless. I am not alone in saying this. My good friend, Senator McCain agrees with me on this point. Just last month Senator McCain criticized earmarks for alternative energy research in the Defense appropriations bill which cost the taxpayers $120 million. Senator McCain said: We're talking about cutting the Army by 100,000 people, the Marines by 80,000 people, and yet we now have our armed services in the business of advanced alternative energy research? The role of the armed forces in the United States is not to engage in energy research. The job of energy research should be in the Energy Department, not taking it out of Defense Department funds. That is where it belongs, and I agree with Senator McCain's statement. The CRS report is significant. Largely due to my concern about green spending in the military, I recently asked the CRS to figure out how much money--how much of taxpayers' dollars--is actually being used to advance the green agenda. The amount came out that since 2008, $68.4 billion has been used to advance a green agenda. Just to name a few options, if we didn't do that, we could add $12.1 billion to maintain DOD procurement at fiscal levels of 2012 and allow our military to continue to modernize its fleet of ships, its aircraft, and its ground vehicles. We could avoid a delay in the Ohio-Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Replacement Program, and it goes on and on, which I will have as a part of the Record. Instead of funding these priorities, the Department of Defense has been forced to spend valuable resources on research relating to climate change and renewable energy. In the stimulus package, each branch of the Armed Services and the Pentagon itself was given $75 million, for a total of $300 million, to research, develop, test, and evaluate projects that advance energy- efficiency programs. In total, since 2008, DOD has spent at least $4 billion on climate change and energy-efficient activities. The same $4 billion could have been used to purchase 30 brandnew F 35 Joint Strike Fighters, 28 new F 22 Raptors, or completely pay for the C 130 Aviation Modernization Program that we have been working on for a long period of time. Now, just for a minute I will turn to the argument that President Obama and the far left have been using to justify this mission to go green. They always say we need a transition away from fossil fuels. One thing we do know--and it is a fact, and I don't think there is anyone out there who is disagreeing or arguing with this--we have more recoverable reserves in oil, gas, and coal than any other country in the world. When you stop and think what we have been talking about on this war that this administration has had on fossil fuels, it has been that on domestic energy. One thing, if people understand, there is not a person in this body or anyone else I have found in America who did not learn back in elementary school days about supply and demand. We have all this vast supply but the government will not let us develop our own supply. It is ludicrous. We are the only country in the world where that is a problem. In addition to the fact that we cannot use our resources, develop our own resources, we keep hearing over and over what people are saying: If we were to even open our public lands to development, to drilling and to producing, it would take 10 years before that would reach the pump. I know my time is real short here so I am having to shortcut this, but I am talking to one of the top guys producing today, Harold Hamm. He is from Oklahoma. He actually is up in North Dakota right now and he is doing incredible things, developing shale and developing gas and oil to run this country. I asked him a question. I said: I am going to use your name in quoting. How long would it take, if you were set up in New Mexico and all of sudden they would lift the ban, in order for that to reach the pump? Do you know what his answer was? He said: Seventy days. It would take 2 months to get the first barrel of oil up and then 10 days to go through the refining process and reach the pumps. It is supply and demand. We have that. We should not be using our military to advance the green agenda by this President. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator would yield for a unanimous consent?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from New Hampshire, I be recognized for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, I will be introducing a bill in a minute called S. 3053, but as a predicate to that, let me talk again about my ongoing investigation of the overreach of the Environmental Protection Agency. Certainly the Washington Post is right-on with their editorial. On May 3, the Washington Post editorial board penned an editorial entitled ``The EPA is earning a reputation for abuse.'' In this editorial, they discussed how former region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz's ``philosophy of enforcement'' has severely hurt the EPA. To refresh your memory, it was a couple of weeks ago at this very podium that I read the quotes I am about to quote again today. While the Washington Post doesn't agree with me all the time, I was pleased to read that they saw that the ``crucify'' policy Mr. Armendariz purported in his visit to Dish, TX, clearly showed that he ``preferred to extract harsh punishments on an arbitrary number of firms to scare others into cooperating.'' Further, the Washington Post editorial board saw this attitude as both unjust and threatening to investors in energy projects. While Armendariz has resigned--he is gone now--his statements have undermined the legitimacy of the EPA's regulatory authorities. We know that the policy of extracting harsh punishment on arbitrary individuals in order to scare others into cooperation was not just an inflated rhetoric. Mr. Armendariz followed through on his philosophy when he had the EPA region 6 pursue a trumped-up emergency action against the natural gas company Range Resources in Texas. The EPA is not using its powers fairly and is showing its enforcement is arbitrary, unreliable, capricious, and unduly severe. But the Post's editorial board didn't see Armendariz as an isolated incident. They also called out EPA's actions in another recent high- profile misuse of power that has hurt the Agency's credibility. The EPA insisted that an Idaho couple, the Sacketts, stop construction on a home because that violated the Clean Water Act. On March 21 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously--this was not a split decision; it was unanimous, 9 to 0--that the EPA had exceeded its authority in pursuing the Sacketts and has ensured that they and other people who find themselves in similar situations can overcome the EPA's assertion of whether or not their property contains jurisdictional wetlands, without submitting to the permit process. A mere 2 days later, the EPA was again called out for overreaching its authority on water issues. Then on March 23 the U.S. district court ruled that the EPA overreached in revoking a permit to Arch Coal after the Army Corps of Engineers had already granted it. In quite a blow to the Agency, the judge said EPA's claim--and I am now quoting what the judge said in his order--``that section 404(c) grants it plenary authority to unilaterally modify or revoke a permit that has been duly issued by the Corps'' is a ``stunning power for an agency to aggregate to itself when there is absolutely no mention of it in the statute.'' That is what the court said. Yet, in the midst of scathing rebukes from the press and the courts, the EPA is still acting as if everything is the same as it was before these cases happened, and they are actively pursuing more regulatory power by attempting to vastly increase the scope of the Clean Water Act's reach. In fact, when discussing the results of the Sackett case at an American Law Institute-American Bar Association event on May 3 of this year, Mark Pollins, Director of EPA's Water Enforcement Division, said, ``Internally it is the same old, same old.'' I plan to send a letter to Administrator Jackson addressing Mr. Pollins' comments and trying to find out how an EPA official, in the face of a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision, could say that the Agency is not going to do anything different. And if the EPA is able to finalize its new Clean Air Act jurisdictional guidance, it will have given itself a whole new set of excuses for pushing the boundaries of the Clean Water Act as far as possible. This continued overreach is why we now have bicameral, bipartisan legislation introduced to stop this current guidance overreach. Let's take a moment and go back in time to where this all started. We might remember a couple years ago Senator Feingold from Wisconsin and Congressman Oberstar over in the House introduced the Clean Water Restoration Act. The Clean Water Restoration Act removed the word ``navigable.'' This act gave the Federal Government, through the EPA, the jurisdiction over the navigable water. That is what the law was. But they wanted to take out the word ``navigable'' and, therefore, the EPA would have jurisdiction over all land in the United States. It is very simple. It was so unfair that not only did we defeat the Clean Water Restoration Act but the people defeated Senator Feingold in Wisconsin and Congressman Oberstar, after they had been in Congress for a long time. Obviously, this is something that is not popular. It is an overreach and everyone understands it. Normally, when the Obama administration can't achieve what they want to achieve through legislation, they do it through regulations. We see this in cap and trade right now. We saw the President try to get legislation on cap and trade which amounted to a $300 billion to $400 billion tax increase on the American people and it wouldn't have done any good or helped anyone. Yet it would have been the largest tax increase in history. I go back and compare it with what they were attempting to do with the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. That is where they raised the marginal rates, the capital gains tax, the death tax--this massive tax increase--a $32 billion tax increase. This will be 10 times greater than that. Now they are trying to do what they couldn't do with legislation through regulation. But that is because in order to undertake a Clean Water Act rulemaking, EPA would have to follow a transparent process and engage in a public comment period as required by the Administrative Procedures Act. For that reason, they didn't pursue that through regulations. Given how unpopular their proposal has been, going through with the rulemaking would make it much more difficult to obtain the expanded Federal control they are clearly trying to pursue. By changing agency practice in this formal and nonregulatory way, they virtually ensure that they will be able to formalize this agenda easily through future rulemaking. So what they couldn't achieve through legislation or, in this case, through the proper rulemaking process, they are trying to do through guidance. What is even more frustrating than the EPA's continued overreach is that this new guidance would provide no improvement to water and would likely hinder real progress on cleaning water. The guidance's broad reach and legalistic language would inevitably shift the balance of regulatory authority further away from States, which are better equipped to protect waters within their borders. Giving the Federal Government control over nearly all water features will not lead to cleaner water. It will, however, lead to tremendous uncertainty, tremendous confusion, and economic pain for farmers, energy developers, small businesses, and State governments by saddling them with more layers of expensive, onerous, and unnecessary Federal regulations. It is yet another Obama administration policy that will be all pain for virtually no environmental gain. Congress has been explicitly clear with EPA that this new guidance is unacceptable. Last July I wrote a letter, along with Senator Roberts, the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and 39 of our colleagues to Administrator Jackson, where we raised our concerns that this document went far beyond mere guidance. EPA and the Corps of Engineers greatly expanded what can be considered jurisdictional waters through a slew of new and expanded definitions and through the changes to the applications and jurisdictional tests. Administrator Jackson has said this guidance will increase the Clean Water Act's scope. In the economic analysis that accompanied the guidance, it stated that as few as 2 percent and as many as 17 percent of the nonjurisdictional determinations under current guidance would be considered jurisdictional using the expanded test under the new guidance. However, this analysis was only for the Army Corps making dredge-and-fill permit decisions when compared to current practice. The guidance will apply to the entire Clean Water Act, including the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits, the Oil Pollution Act and Spill Prevention Control, and Countermeasure plans, water quality standards, and even State water quality certifications. Because most States have delegated authority under the Clean Water Act, this change in guidance will also result in a change in the responsibilities of States in executing their responsibilities under the Clean Water Act and a change in how individual citizens are governed by law. So what we are talking about is what they have been unable to do with legislation they were going to be doing with regulation. But in this case, what they couldn't do with regulation because it would be too transparent they are trying to do through guidance. The finalized guidance document is currently at OMB for formal interagency review before it is finalized. We don't know what changes have been made, but based on a draft that was leaked to the press, it doesn't appear that the document is substantially different from the proposed guidance document they put out for public comment last May. This is the last step before this expansive document starts being used throughout the country, and that is why I hope all my colleagues in the Senate on both sides of the aisle will join me in trying to stop it. Working with Senator Barrasso, Senator Heller, Senator Sessions, and others, we introduced S. 2245. We call it the Preserve the Waters of the United States Act. It is a bill that stops the EPA from finalizing the guidance and from using the guidance to make decisions about the scope of the Clean Water Act or to turn it into a rule. The House has also acted with chairmen and ranking members of the Transportation and Infrastructure and Agriculture Committees introducing the bipartisan H.R. 4965. I applaud Mr. Mica and Mr. Rahall in this bipartisan effort, as well as Mr. Lucas and Mr. Peterson and Mr. Gibbs for their actions. These bills do not change or roll back any current protections in the Clean Water Act; they simply stop the EPA and the Corps of Engineers from moving forward and making these unprecedented regulatory changes through a guidance document. The EPA needs to withdraw this guidance document immediately. If it wishes to make changes to the Clean Water Act, it should go through a complete and proper rulemaking process under the Administrative Procedures Act. That is why it is there, so people in America will know the cost of what these regulations mean to them and what they do and do not do. Why do it under the veil of guidance when they should be doing it out in the open? That is what we want. That is all we are asking for. I mentioned I am introducing a bill today. (The remarks of Senator Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 3053 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. INHOFE. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, in an attempt to refresh our memory on what happened with the overreach of the EPA, we might remember that it was from this podium, I guess, 2 weeks ago--it was on a Friday that we found out and we had access to a tape that we released to the public. It has been on the TV and everyone has seen it now. It is a tape of the region 6 administrator of the EPA, Mr. Armendariz. At that time, when talking to the regulators who were under his jurisdiction and along with the public at a public meeting that was taking place in Texas, he said: But as I said, oil and gas is an enforcement priority. . . . I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And let them die on a cross. Everyone would look at that. Then he said: And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. . . . So, that's our general philosophy. This is the EPA we are talking about, and this is 1 of 10 of the regulators. This happens to be the region 6 administrator. This regional administrator recently resigned when not only his statement received attention but also following public awareness about the manner in which he initiated the enforcement actions in region 6. We know about--and I have already mentioned in my previous remarks-- the company down in Texas. This company was cited by Armendariz. They are accused of groundwater contamination. They are accused of perhaps misusing hydraulic fracturing. All these were just accusations. But then they sent a letter to them and said we are going to fine you $33,000 a day--$33,000 a day. If we read those letters carefully, we will find out that decision isn't already made, it is not going to start, but to the person who is reading the letter, who receives the letter, they will think, I can stay in business for 30 more days and that is it. One has to ask the question: How many companies are out there that have received a letter such as this from the EPA and assumed they are going to have to start paying this fine, so they folded up their tent and they quit? This is what they want. They want to put people out of business. I told the story from this podium about a company in my State of Oklahoma. This was back probably 10 years ago. I received a letter--we had a lumber company in Oklahoma and the president of the lumber company said: I don't know what to do. The EPA has just put us out of business. I said: What did you do wrong? He said: I don't think I did anything wrong. He said: I have been selling our used crankcase oil to the same licensed operation for the last 10 years and some of that--this contractor was licensed by the State of Oklahoma and the Federal Government in the County of Tulsa. He said: We have been selling it to the same group, this organization, for 10 years. He said: Some of that has been traced to a site where they have said this came from our used crankcase oil, and they said for that reason you have violated the law and we are going to fine you $5,000 a day. Now, $5,000 a day, this is to a relatively middle-sized lumber company, Mill Creek Lumber, it is called--and they are still in business today--and that would have put them out of business. I said: Send the letter to me and let me read it. I read it and I told him they are just threatening you and trying to run you out of business. We have to wonder as to how many companies out there are closed now or out of business because of actions such as this. How many of these companies received a letter such as the operation did down in Texas saying we are going to impose $33,000 a day and, finally, they just fold up their tent and quit? We don't know that. There is no way of knowing. We have invited people from this podium to call and we have received calls from people who have been out of business. This is an intentional effort we are dealing with and have been dealing with for quite some time. So we introduced today, just a few minutes ago, S. 3053. I have a whole bunch of cosponsors--it looks like about 20 cosponsors--on the bill. What we do is a very simple thing. I have found in my experience in both the House and the Senate that the shorter and simpler we make something, the easier it is to understand. This is a little, small, two-page bill, and all it does is say that anyone who is going to be appointed--or nominated, I should say--as a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency would have to be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. We have a list in our laws as to what has to have Senate confirmation. The Administrator of the EPA has to--and she went through that process and that person is Lisa Jackson--but not these 10 regional directors. So we are saying they should be subjected to the same advice and consent of this Senate, and we wouldn't have these kinds of problems. I suspect the Administrator of the EPA did not know what was going on in region 6 with Mr. Armendariz. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't. In fact, she was very critical of him once we stood here and exposed what was going on. This will solve the problem. I am going to invite people to join in. We have already introduced it. It is S. 3053. It is one that would force the administrators to be subjected to confirmation by this Senate. Keep in mind that these administrators, these regional administrators, have the power of life and death over many companies in America. I believe this will solve that problem, and I look forward to passing this bill and having it become law.