Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I know I have a couple more. I would like to cover one last topic because something is about to happen in the next week. Some people are going to be killed. It has nothing to do with Israel; nothing to do with the subject here. It is very serious. You might recall six different times on the floor of the Senate I have talked about the problems that are taking place in a country in West Africa called Cote d'Ivoire. The fact is we had a President--his name is Laurent Gbagbo--with his wife Simone. They were ruling when an election came along. It was stolen from him by a man named Alassane Ouattara. He is in the northern part of Cote d'Ivoire. What I have tried to show--I explained well before this all happened, before we got involved, that France and the United Nations and now our State Department are joining in with them. This picture was in yesterday's paper. This is one of Ouattara's death squads that are killing people in Abidjan, which is the capital. I show this picture. It is one that shows this is still happening today. Reprisal attacks are still being committed by forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast 6 weeks after he came to power vowing peace and reconciliation. It also said that Alassane Quattara, championed by the French and the United Nations during a deadly post-election conflict, has failed to condemn atrocities against real or perceived supporters of ousted President Laurent Gbagbo. Those are the death squads of Ouattara. This is a picture of them. You can identify them. They are in there killing people. We don't know how many tens of thousands of people have been murdered in cold blood. Amnesty International came out the other day and criticized the U.N. mission for ignoring pleas for help and failing to prevent the massacre in the town of Duekoue. That is the town of Duekoue. See the charred bodies. People are saying they actually had hogs eating the bodies. This is what Ouattara did in a little town called Duekoue. I have another picture of what is happening. It is really criminal. These are all of Ouattara's people. These are the ones our State Department supported, and it is serious. Amnesty reports that a manhunt was launched against Gbagbo loyalists in Abidjan, and several senior officials close to him were beaten in the hours after his arrest. This is a picture of the Secretary of the Interior. We had a hearing the other day, and our State Department tried to say Ouattara is hiring a lot of the people from the Cabinet of Laurent Gbagbo. There is the Secretary of the Interior. They shot him in the face so it would take a long time to painfully die. He died. Here is another member of the Cabinet being executed. This is what is going on. Nobody cares. Anyway, I care. What we are looking at right now is the Ouattaras publicly. There is a way out of this right now. What has happened is Ouattara is trying to figure out a way to kill the President and the First Lady. I will wind up by letting you know and seeing firsthand what we are talking about. President Gbagbo is someone I have known quite well. He is a jovial guy. This is a picture as I remember him. I spent a lot of time with him. This is right after his arrest. He was beaten almost to death. We see what has happened to his face. His wife is a beautiful lady, Simone Gbagbo. I have been with her many times. She is a beautiful lady. She is the First Lady. I first knew her 15 years ago when she was a member of Parliament before they were married. There she is. You will not find a more beautiful lady than that. There she is, after they ravaged their home--Ouattara and the United Nations in agreement with our State Department. This is what she looked like the next day. They went in and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her hair out. You can see other things happened to her. I hesitate to put up the last photo, but this one you have to put your imagination to work. It takes a lot of imagination to see what is happening. There she is, the beautiful First Lady. You can imagine what happened with all of Ouattara's people around here. What is the answer? All we have to do is encourage the State Department to take a different stand and say: Let's take the Gbagbos-- the President and the First Lady--and allow them to have asylum. I already located a country in Sub-Saharan Africa willing to host them. That is all that needs to happen. By the time we get back 9 days from now after this recess, both of them will be dead if we do not do something. As we speak right now, they are being tortured. There we have it. We have an opportunity to do something. We can save not only these people but save those around them who have always loved peace in Cote d'Ivoire. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time that would expire at 6:15 be extended to 6:30, and other times adjusted accordingly.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit with one of my true heroes, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was here and graced us with his presence this week. Last March, I was in Jerusalem, had some quality time with him, and we kind of relived the experiences we have had in the past when he was Prime Minister before. That was back in the middle 1990s. I had a chance to talk to him. As I recall, his concern at that time--what he said at that time--two major concerns. One is, what is happening in Iran, and then, of course, making sure that the land in Israel right now will stay there. Recently, I had a chance to visit with him again. I was quite surprised when he came here and he was met with this suggestion that things are going to change and that maybe we would encourage Israel to go back to their 1967 borders. I can assure you that we will do everything we can to keep that from happening. I want to make sure we get the message out there, that this may be President Obama talking, it is not the majority of people in America, as was witnessed by the 30 standing ovations that Prime Minister Netanyahu got in his joint speech. It sounded familiar when we are talking about this, about the land. I remembered that it was 10 years ago--10 years ago right now, 2001--that I made a speech, and it jogged my memory when I heard the President talking about going back to the 1967 borders. So I dug up that speech. I found it, and I found that it is so appropriate today. This was a speech, by the way--the research done for this speech was done by a guy named Willie George. He was a preacher, a pastor, but a historian. I want to put the same perspective on this we did 10 years ago and see how that applies today. First of all, I am going to do something that is unusual on the floor of the Senate; that is, I am going quote Ephesians 6. Listen carefully. It says: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spirit wickedness in high places. It is significant that we look at that, because make no mistake about it, the war that was started 10 years ago and the war we are in right now, that we are fighting now, is first and foremost a spiritual war, not a political war--never has been a political war. It is not about politics. It is a spiritual war. It has its roots in spiritual conflict. It is a war to destroy the very fabric of our society and the very things for which we stand. Many of the wars in history are wars where people are trying to take over something another country has. That is not what this is about. Not about getting mineral deposits, not about getting land from other countries. This is a different war. It is not simple greed that motivates these people to kill. One may ask, what is it about our Nation that makes them--here I am talking about some of the Hamas, Hezbollah, the terrorists--hate us so much? I suggest there are three things. First, in our country we have the freedom and the right to choose the kind of worship we want. I happen to be a Jesus guy, a born-again Christian, all that. I believe the way to the Lord God is through his Son. While I believe that, I believe every American has the right to choose whether he or she wants to believe that. Some people have the notion that if you are a Christian who believes in the Bible, you are totally intolerant, you do not allow other people to have a choice. Nothing can be further from the truth. The nations of this world where Christianity is the dominant way of worship, we also find Jewish synagogues, we find Islamic mosques, we find freedom of worship. You will not find the same kind of things in the militant Islamic nations of this world. They do not allow Christian churches. They do not allow synagogues to open freely. They do not allow people the freedom. They persecute people. So one of the reasons America is hated so much is that we have allowed people through the years to choose what they are going to do. It is their choice. The second reason we are hated so much is we have opened the door for people to achieve their God-given place on this Earth. We have not restrained people. We have allowed people freedom of expression, the freedom to pursue dreams, the freedom to pursue goals. This is not true in other places in the world. These freedoms are not found in every nation. America is great because we have magnified the rights of individuals, protected the rights of individuals in our culture. We are careful to allow people to have expressions in our society, and we are hated for it. The third reason we are hated by these people is because we are a nation of laws. We are a people ruled by laws. Lest one think that is common, go around the world and look at these other countries in the world. Most of the world's countries do not have a 200-year-old Constitution. They are ruled by dictators. They are ruled by the whims of those leaders or by political parties as they change. The rule of law is what makes civilization possible. The rule of law is what makes an orderly society work. If there is no rule of law, the strongest, toughest bully on the block is the one who is running the country. America is a country of law and order. Because of this philosophy of the people who founded our Nation, they believed in the rule of law because of what they knew from the Bible. Our Constitution and the constitutions of most governments around the world, similar to ours, are, indeed, based on the Ten Commandments. Our fathers knew the Ten Commandments and the laws of God should be a basis for all laws. They understood the concept of absolute right and absolute wrong. There were not many who believed in what we call today situational ethics or where things change according to our needs. They believed in absolute right and absolute wrong. That is the reason we are hated so much as a nation. We are hated because we are a beacon of light, a beacon of freedom all the way around the world. We know contemporarily what that means. One of the greatest speeches of all time that I remember is a speech that was made by Ronald Reagan. It is called a Rendezvous with Destiny. In this speech he talked about--this was back when Castro had first taken over Cuba. He talked about the atrocities in Communist Cuba, and people were trying to escape. One man escaped in a small boat, as many others did. He lived and reached the coast of Florida. As his boat floated up on the coast, he started telling the people who were there about the atrocities in Communist Cuba. A lady responded and said: Well, I guess we in this country do not know how lucky we are. He said: No. It is how lucky we are, because we had a place to escape to. What he was saying is we were that beacon of freedom. And we are hated because we are a beacon of freedom. That is the third reason for the rest of the world. We are hated because in America we have the freedom of choice, the freedom of worship; we have freedom of expression; we are a nation of laws. Why was America attacked on September 11? Why did they single us out? America was attacked because of our system of values. It is a spiritual war, not just because we are Israel's best friend. We are Israel's best friend in the world because of the character we have as a nation. One of the reasons God has blessed our country is because we have honored His people. Right up on there on your desk, Mr. President, you have a Bible. Look up Genesis 12:3. It says, ``I will bless them that bless you and curse him that curses you.'' He was talking about Israel. One of the reasons America has been blessed abundantly over the years is because we as a society have opened our doors to the Jewish people. The Jewish people have been blessed in the United States of America. When the tiny state of Israel was founded in 1948, we stood in beginning with Israel. We were the first country to stand for Israel. And because we took a stand, other nations in the world took a stand. They followed quickly. The United States made it possible for there to be an Israel. We stood with Israel again and again in its fight to survive. Make no mistake about it, it is not just because of our support of Israel, it is what we believe as a nation that caused us to come under attack. Israel is under attack in the Middle East because it is the only true democracy that exists in the Middle East. There are more than 20 Arab countries that are in northern Africa and in the Middle East, and nearly every one of those is run by a dictator. Israel is the only true democracy that exists in the Middle East. Did you know, if you are an Arab in Israel, and you are an Israeli citizen as an Arab, you can vote in the elections? In fact, in the Knesset--that is their Congress--they have a political party that is for Arabs. They have their own party in the Knesset. Israel is the only true democracy that exists in the Middle East. It has a Western form of government based on the laws we see in the Bible. The laws of God our country is based on are the same laws from which Israel gets its laws--it represents the laws of God. That is the reason it is under attack. We ought to be Israel's best friend. If we cannot stand for Israel today, can we ever again be counted on as a beacon, a beacon of freedom for the oppressed nations? You may ask, what does this have to do with the attack on America that happened 10 years ago. We are under attack because of our character, and because we have supported the tiny little nation in the Middle East. That is why we are under attack. If we do not stand for this tiny country today, when do we start standing for tiny little countries in the world? Many years ago, Yasser Arafat and others did not recognize Israel's right to the land, very much like our President Obama. Even today, many do not recognize Israel's right to exist. There are seven reasons I consider to be indisputable and incontrovertible evidence and grounds to Israel's right to the land. You have heard this before, because you heard it from me 10 years ago. It was similar. It is in the Record now. I kept it. Most know this, that they are going to be hit by skeptics who are going to say we are being attacked all because of our support for Israel, and if we get out of the Middle East, all of the problems will go away. That is not so. It is not true. We all know in our hearts it is not true. If we withdraw, it would come to our door. It would not go away. I have some observations to make about that in a minute. But first, I am going to tell you the seven reasons that Israel has the right to the land. I am saying this because I am still in shock over what happened this last week. But I am relieved from the response we got from this great man, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Israel has the right to the land--reason No. 1--because of all of the archeological evidence. This is reason No. 1. It supports it. Every time there is a dig in Israel, it does nothing but support the fact that Israelis have had a presence there in that land for over 3,000 years, the coins, the cities, the pottery, the culture. There are other people and other groups there, but there is no mistaking the fact that the Israelis have been present for 3,000 years. It predates any claim any other people in the region might have. Ancient Philistines are extinct. They are not around anymore. Many other ancient people are extinct. They do not have an unbroken line to this day that the Israelis have. Even the Egyptians of today are not racial Egyptians of 2,000 years ago. They are primarily an Arab people. The land is called Egypt, but they are not the same racial and ethnic stock as old Egyptians of the ancient world. The Israelis are, in fact, descended from the original Israelites. The first proof then is the archeological proof. The second proof of Israel's right to the land is the historic one. History supports it totally, completely. We know there has been an Israel up until the time of the Roman Empire. The Romans conquered the land. Israel had no homeland. Although Jews were allowed to live there, they were driven from the land and dispersed in 70 AD and 135 AD. But there was always a Jewish presence in the land. The Turks who took over about 700 years ago and ruled the land up until about World War I had control. Then the land was conquered by the British. The Turks entered World War I on the side of Germany. The British knew they had to do something to punish the Turks and also to break up the empire that was going to be a part of the whole effort of Germany in World War I. So the British sent troops against the Turks in the Holy Land. This is a good one. Of the generals who led the British into the Holy Land was a guy named Allenby. He was a general. He was a Bible-believing Christian. He carried a Bible with him everywhere he went. He knew the significance of Jerusalem. The flight before the attack against Jerusalem, to drive out the Turks, Allenby prayed that God would allow him to capture the city without doing damage to the holy places. That day Allenby--this is World War I now, keep in mind. He sent a bunch of biplanes into the Holy Land as a reconnaissance mission. You have to understand, these Turks had never seen a biplane. They had never seen any kind of airplane. They looked up and they saw these cute little machines flying around. They are terrified. Then they were told that they were being opposed by a man named Allenby. This is a true story. History supports it. Allenby--in their language--means ``man sent from God'' or ``prophet from God.'' They dared not fight against a prophet from God. So the next morning, when Allenby went into Jerusalem, he went in, he captured it without firing a shot. And that is history. That is actually what happened. That is the history we are talking about. Out of gratitude to the Jews, and out of gratitude to the Jewish bankers and the financiers and others who lent the financial help on the homeland, the Jewish people--the homeland that is now Israel, and all of what was then the nation of Jordan, was given to the Jewish people. The homeland that Britain said it would set aside consisted of what is now Israel and what then was Jordan, the whole thing. That was what the British promised the Jews in 1917. In the beginning, there was some Arab population there and some Arab support for this gift. There was not a huge Arab population in the land at the time. There was a reason for that. The land wasn't able to sustain any kind of a large population. The people didn't have the development needed to handle any kind of population of the land. It wasn't wanted by anyone at that time. Can you believe it wasn't wanted at that time by anyone? You remember Mark Twain--Samuel Clemens--who wrote ``Huckleberry Finn'' and ``Tom Sawyer.'' He took a tour of the Holy Land in 1867. This is what he said about Israel: A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds, a silent mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. Where was this great Palestine at that time? It wasn't there. The Palestinians weren't there. Palestine didn't exist. Palestine was a region named by the Romans, but at the time it was under the control of the Turks. There was no population there because the land would not support it. There was the Palestinian Royal Commission that was created by the British. It quotes an account of the conditions on the coastal plain along with the Mediterranean Sea in 1913. This is what they said about Israel at that time: The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards, or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the Yavnev village. Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was almost desert. The villages were few and thinly populated. Many villages were deserted by their inhabitants. The French author Voltaire described Palestine as ``a hopeless, dreary place.'' In short, under the Turks, the land suffered from neglect and low population. It is a historical fact. The nation became populated with both Jews and Arabs. The land came to prosper when Jews came back and began to reclaim it. Historically, they began to reclaim it. Even if there had never been any archeological evidence to support the rights of the Israelis to the territory, it is important to recognize that other nations in the area have no longstanding claim to the country either. This may surprise you. I will say that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon, in 1920, and Iraq didn't exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941. The borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival would have to deny their own rights, as they were recent arrivals as well. They didn't exist as countries. They were all under the control of the Turks. Historically, the land was given to the Israelis in 1917, and then, of course, we know Israel gained its independence in 1948. So we have the archeological reasons. We have seven reasons. Here is the third reason. The third reason the land belongs to Israel is because of the practical value of the Israelis being there. Israel today is a modern marvel of agriculture. Israel is able to bring more food out of a desert environment than any other country in the world. The Arab nations ought to make Israel their friend and import technology from Israel that would allow all the Middle East, not just Israel, to be exporters of food. So Israel, unarguably, has success in agriculture. They have been able to develop when nobody else has. The fourth reason I believe Israel has a right to the land is on the grounds of humanitarian concerns. There were 6 million Jews slaughtered in Europe in World War II. The persecution against the Jews was very strong in Russia since the advent of communism. Persecution was against the Jews even before that time under the czars. These people have a right to their homeland. If we are not going to allow them a homeland in the Middle East, then where? What other nation on Earth is going to cede territory? They are not asking for a great deal. The whole nation of Israel fits into my State of Oklahoma seven times. So on humanitarian grounds alone, Israel ought to have the land. The fifth reason I disagree with President Obama and think Israel should have the right to the land, without any changes and not going back to 1967, is because it is a strategic ally to the United States. Whether we realize it, Israel is a detriment, an impediment to certain groups hostile to democracies and to those things we believe in, hostile to the very things that make us the greatest Nation in the history of the world. Israel has kept them from taking complete control of the Middle East. If it were not for Israel, they would overrun the region. Israel is our only strategic ally. It is good to know we have a friend in the Middle East we can count on. They vote with us in the U.N. more than England, Germany, Canada, and France--more than any other country in the world. So they have been our consistent ally for strategic reasons. The sixth reason Israel should be entitled to the land is that Israel is a roadblock to terrorism. The war we are now facing is not a war against a sovereign nation, it is a fluid group of terrorists moving from one country to another. They are almost invisible. That is whom we are fighting against. We need every ally we can get. If we do not stop terrorism in the Middle East, it will be on our shores. I have said this and said this and said this. One of the reasons I believe that spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States is because the policy of our government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand with pressure, that they not retaliate against the terrorist attacks that have been launched against them. Since its independence in 1948, Israel has fought four wars, and they were not the aggressor in any of them. Some people may argue that they were the first ones there with Egypt. Everybody knew what was going to happen in Egypt. Israel was attacked in all four cases. Israel won all four wars against the impossible odds. They are great warriors. I have spent some time over there. They consider it a level playing field when they are outnumbered 2 to 1. They are great people. There were 39 Scud missiles that landed on Israeli soil during the gulf war. Our President asked Israel not to respond. Our policy was trying to get them not to respond. We asked them not to respond. In order to have the Arab nations on board, we asked Israel not even to participate in the war. They showed incredible restraint, and they did not. We asked them to stand back and not do anything over these attacks. We have criticized them. They have been criticized in our media, local people in television and radio offer criticisms of Israel not knowing the true issues. We need to be informed. Years ago, I was so thrilled when I heard a reporter pose a question to our former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, during the gulf war. He said: Mr. Powell, the United States has advocated a policy of restraint in the Middle East. We have discouraged Israel from retaliation again and again and again, because we have said that it leads to continued escalation--that it escalates the violence. He said: Are we [the United States] going to follow that preaching ourselves? Mr. Powell indicated we would strike back. In other words, we can tell Israel not to do it, but when it hits us, we are going to do it. That is one of the reasons I believe the door was opened--because we held back our tiny little friend. We have not allowed them to go to the heart of the problem. This was a mistake. Terrorism is not going to go away. If Israel were driven into the sea tomorrow, if every Jew in the Middle East were killed, terrorism would not end. You know that in your heart. Terrorism would continue. It is not just a matter of Israel in the Middle East; it is the heart of the very people who are perpetuating this stuff. Should they be successful in overrunning Israel--they will not be--but should they be, it would not be enough. They would never be satisfied. We learned that at Camp David. The seventh reason--and this will upset some people, but I have to say it, and it is printed up there--that Israel has a right to the land--and this is the most important reason--because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 13, verse 14, 15 and 17, the Bible says: The Lord said to Abram, ``Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, eastward, and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever. . . . Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee. That is God talking about Israel. The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is what we call the Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank, right here on the map. It is this place where God appeared to Abram and said: ``I am giving you this land,'' the West Bank. Everybody will yell and scream because I am quoting the Bible, but that is their problem, not mine. This is not a political battle at all; it is a contest over whether the Word of God is true. The seven reasons, I am convinced, clearly establish that Israel has a right to the land. Years ago on the lawn of the White House, Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat. It was a historic occasion. It was a tragic occasion. At the time, the official policy of the government of Israel began to be ``let us appease the terrorists. Let us begin to trade the land for peace.'' They tried. This process continued unabated. Here in our own Nation, at Camp David in the summer of 2000--I remember it so well-- then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the most generous concessions to Yasir Arafat that had ever been laid on the table. He offered him more than 90 percent of all of the West Bank territory, sovereign control of it. There were some parts he didn't want to offer, but in exchange for that, he said he would give up land in Israel proper that the PLO was not even asking for. He also did the unthinkable--we cannot imagine it today. He even talked about dividing Jerusalem and allowing the Palestinians to have their capital in the east. Arafat stormed out of the meeting. Why would he do that? Everything he asked for was offered to him. A couple months later, there began to be riots and terrorism. The riots began when Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount--and we remember this. This was used as the thing that lit the fire and caused the explosion. This is the excuse the terrorists used. Did you know Sharon did not go to the Temple Mount unannounced? He contacted the Islamic authorities before he went. He secured their permission. He had permission to be there. It was no surprise. Their response was carefully calculated. They knew they would not pay attention to the details. So they would portray this in the Arab world as an attack on the holy mosque. They would portray it as an attack on that mosque and use it as an excuse to riot. We know what happened since that time. Over the following years, during the time of the peace process, where the Israeli public has pressured its leaders to give up land for peace because they are tired of fighting, there has been increased terror. It hasn't helped, hasn't worked. Nothing worked. It has been greater than at any other time in Israel's history. Showing restraint and giving in hasn't produced any kind of peace. It is so much so that the leftist peace movement in Israel didn't exist because the people felt they were deceived. They did offer a hand of peace, and it was not taken. That is why the politics of Israel have changed drastically. The Israelis have come to see that ``no matter what we do, these people do not want to deal with us. They want to destroy us.'' That is why even yet today the stationery of the PLO has upon it a map of the entire State of Israel, not just the tiny part they call the West Bank. They want it all. The unwavering loyalty we have received from our only consistent friend in the Middle East has to be respected and appreciated by us. No longer should foreign policy in the Middle East be one of appeasement. As Hiram Mann said: No man survives when freedom falls. The best men rot in filthy jails and those who cried ``appease, appease'' are hanged by those they tried to please. Islamic fundamentalist terrorism came to America on 9/11. We have to use all our friends and assets, all our resources, to defeat the satanic evil. Patrick Henry said: We will not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who reigns over the destiny of nations who will raise up friends who will fight our battles with us. He said: We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Listen to this: We will not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who reigns over the destiny of nations who will raise up friends who will fight our battles with us. He was talking about all of our friends, including Israel. That is what is happening. I thank God Israel is in the battle by our side. It is time for our policy of appeasement in the Middle East and appeasement to the terrorists to be over. With our partners, our victory must and will be absolute. I mentioned that a few weeks ago I was with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel. At that time, he had this growing concern for the land. We did not know what was coming. We did not know what was going to happen. We did not know that which did happen just a week ago was going to happen. I quote from the Associated Press. I am so proud of him. Think of the courage it took for Prime Minister Netanyahu to stand next to the most powerful man in the world and make a statement like this. He said: [He] sat alongside President Barack Obama on Friday and declared that Israel would not withdraw to the 1967 borders to help make way for an adjacent Palestinian state. Obama had called on Israel to be willing to do just that thing a day earlier. Prime Minister Netanyahu said his Nation could not negotiate with a newly constituted Palestinian unity government that includes the radical Hamas movement, which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. And its commitment to Israel's destruction. Those are the seven reasons I believe the land belongs to Israel. We need to respect that, and we need to declare: God bless Israel.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have introduced a bill, S. 1085. I have some cosponsors, including Senator Snowe from Maine. The bill addresses something that has become very controversial. It is certainly not partisan in any way. It is more geographical; that is, I have been one who has been opposed to the corn ethanol mandates ever since they first came out. I opposed the 2007 Energy bill because it doubled the corn- based ethanol mandates, despite the mounting questions surrounding ethanol's compatibility with existing engines, its environmental sustainment, as well as transportational infrastructure needs. I can remember back when they first did it, all the environmentalists were saying corn ethanol will be the answer. They were all for it, but they are against it now. They all recognize that corn ethanol is bad for the environment. Now, the three areas I personally have a problem with are, No. 1, the environment; No. 2, you have a compatibility situation. You talk to any of the farmers, any of the marine people, they will tell you it is very destructive to the small engines. Thirdly, everyone is concerned with the high price of fuel, with the fact that corn ethanol is not good for your mileage. Kris Kiser of the Outdoor Power Equipment Manufacturers testified before the Environment and Public Works Committee on ethanol's compatibility or lack of compatibility with more than 200 million legacy engines across America which are not designed to run on certain blends of ethanol. I will quote her testimony before our committee. She said: In the marine industry, if your machine fails or your engine fails and you are 30 miles offshore, this is a serious problem. If you are in a snow machine and it fails in the wilderness this is a serious problem. Consumers complain about the decreasing fuel efficiency around corn ethanol, containing 67 percent of the Btu of gasoline. We call it clear gas. This is a good time to say we are not talking about biomass. We are only talking about corn ethanol. Another problem I have in my State of Oklahoma is we are a big cattle State and that has driven up the cost of feedstock to a level that is not acceptable. According to the EPA, vehicles operating on E85 ethanol experience a 20-percent to 30- percent drop in miles per gallon due to ethanol's lower energy content. Consumer reports found that E85 resulted in a 27-percent drop in fuel. As a result, you drive around Oklahoma--first of all, we are in Washington. It is my understanding there is no choice in Washington or Virginia or in Maryland and those areas. In my State of Oklahoma, we still have a choice, and the choice is very clear. The problem is the way this is set up, we will run into a barrier where they will no longer have clear gas available under the current formulas. For that reason, we have people who--at almost every station you see, the majority of the stations you see in Oklahoma, you have signs such as this: Ethanol free. 100 percent gasoline. This is all over the State of Oklahoma. There is a solution to this problem, and it is one I have introduced in this bill. Before describing that, I think the most pressing issue of this so-called blend wall is that EISA mandated 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol by 2015, but today it is readily apparent that the country cannot physically absorb this much corn ethanol. It is too much, too fast. In Oklahoma, ethanol's blend wall has nearly eliminated consumer choice. The fuel blenders and gas station owners have little option but to sell ethanol-blended gasoline, despite strong consumer demand for clear gas. There is the consumer demand all over the State of Oklahoma. What is the solution? I introduced a very simple, five-page bill. The bill would allow individual States to opt out of the mandate. It would require their State legislature wants this and they pass a resolution, it is signed by the governor, and they would be able to opt out. The State would pass a bill. It is signed by the Governor, stating its election to exercise this option. The Administrator of the EPA would then reduce the amount of the national corn ethanol mandate by the percentage amount of the gasoline consumed by this State. This option nonparticipation would only apply to the corn portion of the RFS and would not affect any of the volumetric requirements of advanced biofuels. We are big in advanced biofuels in my State of Oklahoma, the various foundations, Oklahoma State University. We have switchgrass we are working on, and it is something we are all for. The bill actually redefines cellulosic biofuels as next generation biofuel. The previously defined cellulosic biofuel carveout is expanded to include algae and any nonethanol renewable fuel derived from renewable biomass. So this is something that is not going to be incompatible. It is going to be very compatible with our interest here. So for those people who say: We demand to have corn-based ethanol, you can have it. All this is is choice, and if we and the people of my State of Oklahoma want a choice of clear gas or corn ethanol, they should be able to do it. I honestly don't think there is a legitimate argument against that. I plan to try to get some cosponsors. I think my good friend from Florida might be interested in cosponsoring something such as this because this gives choice to the people of his State as well as my State.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have introduced a bill, S. 1085. I have some cosponsors, including Senator Snowe from Maine. The bill addresses something that has become very controversial. It is certainly not partisan in any way. It is more geographical; that is, I have been one who has been opposed to the corn ethanol mandates ever since they first came out. I opposed the 2007 Energy bill because it doubled the corn- based ethanol mandates, despite the mounting questions surrounding ethanol's compatibility with existing engines, its environmental sustainment, as well as transportational infrastructure needs. I can remember back when they first did it, all the environmentalists were saying corn ethanol will be the answer. They were all for it, but they are against it now. They all recognize that corn ethanol is bad for the environment. Now, the three areas I personally have a problem with are, No. 1, the environment; No. 2, you have a compatibility situation. You talk to any of the farmers, any of the marine people, they will tell you it is very destructive to the small engines. Thirdly, everyone is concerned with the high price of fuel, with the fact that corn ethanol is not good for your mileage. Kris Kiser of the Outdoor Power Equipment Manufacturers testified before the Environment and Public Works Committee on ethanol's compatibility or lack of compatibility with more than 200 million legacy engines across America which are not designed to run on certain blends of ethanol. I will quote her testimony before our committee. She said: In the marine industry, if your machine fails or your engine fails and you are 30 miles offshore, this is a serious problem. If you are in a snow machine and it fails in the wilderness this is a serious problem. Consumers complain about the decreasing fuel efficiency around corn ethanol, containing 67 percent of the Btu of gasoline. We call it clear gas. This is a good time to say we are not talking about biomass. We are only talking about corn ethanol. Another problem I have in my State of Oklahoma is we are a big cattle State and that has driven up the cost of feedstock to a level that is not acceptable. According to the EPA, vehicles operating on E85 ethanol experience a 20-percent to 30- percent drop in miles per gallon due to ethanol's lower energy content. Consumer reports found that E85 resulted in a 27-percent drop in fuel. As a result, you drive around Oklahoma--first of all, we are in Washington. It is my understanding there is no choice in Washington or Virginia or in Maryland and those areas. In my State of Oklahoma, we still have a choice, and the choice is very clear. The problem is the way this is set up, we will run into a barrier where they will no longer have clear gas available under the current formulas. For that reason, we have people who--at almost every station you see, the majority of the stations you see in Oklahoma, you have signs such as this: Ethanol free. 100 percent gasoline. This is all over the State of Oklahoma. There is a solution to this problem, and it is one I have introduced in this bill. Before describing that, I think the most pressing issue of this so-called blend wall is that EISA mandated 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol by 2015, but today it is readily apparent that the country cannot physically absorb this much corn ethanol. It is too much, too fast. In Oklahoma, ethanol's blend wall has nearly eliminated consumer choice. The fuel blenders and gas station owners have little option but to sell ethanol-blended gasoline, despite strong consumer demand for clear gas. There is the consumer demand all over the State of Oklahoma. What is the solution? I introduced a very simple, five-page bill. The bill would allow individual States to opt out of the mandate. It would require their State legislature wants this and they pass a resolution, it is signed by the governor, and they would be able to opt out. The State would pass a bill. It is signed by the Governor, stating its election to exercise this option. The Administrator of the EPA would then reduce the amount of the national corn ethanol mandate by the percentage amount of the gasoline consumed by this State. This option nonparticipation would only apply to the corn portion of the RFS and would not affect any of the volumetric requirements of advanced biofuels. We are big in advanced biofuels in my State of Oklahoma, the various foundations, Oklahoma State University. We have switchgrass we are working on, and it is something we are all for. The bill actually redefines cellulosic biofuels as next generation biofuel. The previously defined cellulosic biofuel carveout is expanded to include algae and any nonethanol renewable fuel derived from renewable biomass. So this is something that is not going to be incompatible. It is going to be very compatible with our interest here. So for those people who say: We demand to have corn-based ethanol, you can have it. All this is is choice, and if we and the people of my State of Oklahoma want a choice of clear gas or corn ethanol, they should be able to do it. I honestly don't think there is a legitimate argument against that. I plan to try to get some cosponsors. I think my good friend from Florida might be interested in cosponsoring something such as this because this gives choice to the people of his State as well as my State.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me say I will be supporting the bill that we have before us today. It did not go far enough, though. What we ought to do is open everything. I am talking about the Pacific, the Atlantic, the gulf, the North Slope, the public lands. That is what we really need to be doing. I know there are some reasons they are confining it to the gulf in terms of this legislation. While I respect that, again it does not go far enough. Let me make one comment about yesterday's vote. Right now the single issue people have in terms of energy is the price of gas at the pump. I know it is not just my wife, they are all that way. I can see that. But when the Democrats came up with their bill last night, I hope people remember who was voting for this. That was for a major tax increase on what they call Big Oil. Big oil is the five biggest oil companies. I hate to say this, but sometimes you walk on the floor with half truths and get by with it, and people will assume that is true. As much as I love my fellows on the other side, some of the things that were stated were actually just totally inaccurate. To say the big five don't pay taxes--they pay huge taxes. I don't know where they come up with some of these numbers. I am going to single out one company, ExxonMobil, and tell my colleagues something they are not aware of because it has not been said on the Senate floor yet. In 2010, ExxonMobil's total tax expenses in the United States were $9.8 billion. That is what they paid in taxes in 2010. That includes income tax expense of more than $1.9 billion. That $9.8 billion in taxes exceeded the 2010 U.S. operating earnings of $7.5 billion. What we are saying is, they paid $9.8 billion in taxes. They only received $7.5 billion in terms of earnings from the United States. Why is that? It is because about 80 percent of their operations are in other countries. They are in 100 different countries. Not one of the other countries charges taxes when they go offshore. I believe we are the only country that charges a U.S. tax on production that takes place in some other country. For that reason, if we tax them like most people do it would have been a tax credit and not a tax at all. Nonetheless, they were accountable for paying taxes that year of $9.8 billion. Look at this year. That was 2010. During the first quarter of this year, our U.S. operating earnings of this particular company were $2.8 billion--that is the first quarter of 2011. The rest of their earnings, more than $8 billion, came from operations in more than 100 countries worldwide. Here is a number we will not hear in Washington. During the first quarter on those earnings, U.S. earnings of $2.6 billion, they incurred a tax expense and paid a tax of $3.1 billion. They are paying more than they are getting out of this country. I think sooner or later we have to come up and just tell the truth of what is happening. It is all class warfare. I think we know that: Big, bad oil. They are all bad. We have a lot of production in my State of Oklahoma. We have companies such as Devon and Anadarko and others that are doing a lot to relieve this problem. I know what is going to happen. It did not pass, obviously, and is not going to pass, but if it had the next target would be some of the smaller domestic companies. I remember coming down to the floor last year when the good Senator from Vermont had a bill and was bringing it up by unanimous consent, and I just happened to get here in time to stop it and debate it and defeat it. In that bill they even held up a picture of a check from ExxonMobil as to what their tax liabilities were--totally wrong, in my opinion, and apparently in the opinion of 61 of the 100 Senators because they joined me in opposing that particular legislation. We have a solution to the problem. This is not rocket science. Right now we have the data. It just happened in the last 8 months that the Congressional Research Service--nobody has stood on the Senate floor and questioned the fact that they are nonpartisan; they are objective. They looked at our recoverable reserves in coal, oil, and gas and found they are greater in America than any other country in the world. We have those recoverable reserves. The problem is, we have a political problem where the liberals here, along with liberals in the White House, including the President, will not exploit our own resources. We have all the oil and gas and coal that is out there. We could be totally independent of the Middle East in a very short period of time if we would just go offshore on all three coasts, along with the North Slope, ANWR, and with our public lands. As I say, every other country does it. So we have to wonder: Why don't we do it? Why is it we don't care about supplying ourselves with homegrown oil, gas and coal and taking care of our own energy needs? We have the ability, but the politicians will not let us do it. There is one reason. That is--and this is disturbing--that in the case of this administration, they don't want to do it. This administration has said many times they are not interested. Listen to what Alan Krueger, Assistant Secretary of Treasury, said: The tax subsidies that are currently provided to the oil and gas industry lead to inefficiency by encouraging an over investment of domestic resources in industry. Secondly, he says: The administration believes that it is no longer sufficient to address our nation's energy needs by finding more fossil fuels. . . . Look, I am all for coal, gas, oil. I am for nuclear. I am for all of the above. I am for all of the renewables: Sun, wind, and everything else. But we have to run this machine today, tomorrow, and the next 5 and 10 years. We can't do that without fossil fuels. Further, they stated: The administration's goal is to have resources invested in ways which yield the highest social return. Social return, that is a totally different thing--not an economic return, not the ability to run our country ourselves but some kind of a social engineering that is going on. The best quote and the most telling is the one that came from Secretary Chu, the Energy Secretary for President Obama. Listen to this: We are going to have to get some sort of regulatory thing going on that [hydraulic fracturing]. He said: Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. This is our administration saying this. This is the Secretary of Energy: Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. They are intentionally raising the price of gas and it is by their own admission. We were warned way back during the campaign when President Barack Obama was a Senator. He said: Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. So we have an effort by them. I would just warn my good friends on the Democratic side of the aisle to watch this pretty closely because just because the President wants to increase the price of oil doesn't mean that your constituents do. In fact, I can assure you your constituents do not, unless there is something unusual about my State of Oklahoma. Let's see what the CRS report said a little bit more specifically. They said, in the updated report, America's combined recoverable oil, natural gas, and coal endowment is the largest on Earth. America's recoverable resources are far larger than those of Saudi Arabia, China, and Canada combined. That is the resources we have in oil, coal, and gas. America is the world's third largest oil producer and is endowed with 163 billion barrels of recoverable oil which will run the United States of America for 50 years. We can run it. All the oil we will need for 50 years, we have it. We just have to get the politicians out of the way so we can produce it. Natural gas, in terms of trillions of cubic feet, America's future supply of natural gas is over 2,000 trillion cubic feet, an increase of more than 25 percent just since the committee's 2006 estimate. At today's rate of use, this is enough natural gas to meet America's demand for 90 years. Keep in mind natural gas is not just natural gas to develop energy, but also natural gas is something we are going to be using in our cars today. It is available. They are working on technology. We are working on the certification of engines that will burn natural gas. When we are, it is going to relieve that tension also. Right now, the price of a comparable gallon of natural gas to run an automobile is $1.60 gallon--$1.60 as opposed to $4, so it is out there. I have to say this. The President made a speech, and I responded on a couple of TV stations. This was probably 3 weeks ago. It was on energy. He said in that speech: We have an abundant supply of good, clean natural gas. We need to be using it. Then, at the end of that speech, he said: However, we have to be very careful what we are going to be doing because we don't want to contaminate our drinking water with hydraulic fracturing. I happen to come from Oklahoma. The first hydraulic fracturing job in Oklahoma was done in 1948. We have not had one documented case of groundwater contamination ever since 1948, 60 years. Yet, right now, they are going to stop us from going after natural gas by taking away hydraulic fracturing. In these tight formations, the shale formations, you can't develop a cubic foot of natural gas without using hydraulic fracturing. It is a way of inserting liquids in to force the gas out so we can develop it. So it is there. So the President is saying we need to use natural gas, but we don't want to use hydraulic fracturing. There is an effort right now by many Members to try to take that over as a Federal function, the regulation of hydraulic fracturing. Right now, there has never been a problem with it. It is regulated differently in different States. For example, in my State of Oklahoma, in the Anadarko Basin, we are talking about depths of some 35,000 feet. If you go just north in Kansas, it is between 3,000 and 4,000 feet. So it is different in different States. It needs different regulation. It is not broken and we don't need to fix it. What has the President done? He has put Secretary Chu in charge of determining what we are going to do with hydraulic fracturing. Secretary Chu is the same guy who said we have to raise the price of our gasoline to be comparable to the gasoline price in Europe. So that is the wrong guy for that kind of a study. Besides that, I would remind my colleagues we actually have a study that is going on right now by the Environmental Protection Agency on hydraulic fracturing that isn't through yet. It would seem to me we ought to at least finish and get this study before we rush in and try to pass something that will stop us from being able to develop our natural gas. I can say the same thing for coal. America is No. 1 in coal reserves. Right now--people aren't aware of it--we are reliant upon coal for 50 percent of the power it takes to run this machine called America. America is No. 1 in coal resources, accounting for more than 28 percent of the world's coal. So we have it here. We have gas. We have coal. We have oil. All we have to do is develop them. How many people in America who have gone through elementary school don't remember supply and demand? We have a huge supply and there is a great demand for it, but we have our politicians who will not let us develop our supply. As long as that holds, it is going to be very difficult for us to do it. So I would just say this. This is a wakeup call for the American people. We have a vote this afternoon. It is not good enough. I am going to vote for it. But we ought to be opening our exploration and production all over America. To do that, we have to go beyond this bill. This is a start and it is a start that is worthwhile. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to announce the reintroduction of a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code to eliminate the taxable income limit on percentage depletion for oil and natural gas produced from marginal properties. Since 1926 small producers and millions of royalty owners have had the option to utilize percentage depletion to both simplify their accounting methodology and to account for the decline in the value of minerals produced from a property. Percentage depletion is particularly important to America's 611,000 low-volume marginal wells. The average marginal well produces barely 2 barrels per day, yet cumulatively they account for nearly 28 percent of domestic production in the lower 48 States. Since every on-shore natural gas and oil well eventually declines into marginal production, the economic life span and corresponding production of all wells is extended by allowing the use of percentage depletion. Until 1998, the deduction marginal producers could take from percentage depletion was limited to 100 percent of taxable income from each individual property. Many producers, however, specialize in marginally producing wells and have many properties operating simultaneously. Naturally, some wells in a producer's portfolio are more productive than others. Some would have depletion rates greater than 100 percent of taxable income, while others would have depletion rates lower than the limit. Removing the taxable income limitation allows producers to take percentage depletion deductions on a portfolio-wide basis, which makes their entire operation more efficient. Since 1998, Congress has understood this fact and has suspended the limitation. Unfortunately, the provision has never been made permanent. It has just been extended year after year as part of the Tax Extenders Package. Since we have had this suspension on the books for more than a decade, I think it is time to give producers the predictability they need by making this common sense tax accounting provision permanent. At a time when our unemployment rate is at 9 percent, we need to be doing everything we can to encourage economic growth. The energy industry is a major contributor to our economy, and it has a lot of room to grow. The Congressional Research Service recently released a report that says the United States has the most energy potential under its soil than any other country on earth. Hiding beneath our soil are jobs, wealth, and lower deficits. We should allow this sector to grow. This is a common sense, easy way to do this, so I urge swift passage.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to bring to your attention a bill I am reintroducing that would make permanent the current tax provision that allows capital assets on Indian lands to be depreciated on an accelerated schedule. For many years, the Federal tax code has provided an incentive for businesses to invest in operations on Indian reservations and lands across the country. According to the law, businesses that purchase capital equipment and use it on Indian lands will be able to depreciate it, on average, more than 40 percent faster than would otherwise be allowed. This tax provision is important to Oklahoma because of our longstanding history and unique relationship with Indian tribes. In light of the weak and ongoing economic recovery, we need to be doing all that we can to encourage businesses to reinvest in and expand their operations. This alone is what will create sustainable job growth. The accelerated depreciation schedule helps do that by giving businesses the opportunity to recover investment dollars in capital assets more rapidly. This frees up capital and allows companies to reinvest that money more quickly than would have otherwise been possible. This is money that would have been tied up in the value of their capital assets, things like buildings, equipment, and machinery. According to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, 96 companies in Oklahoma announced $1.7 billion of investments during the 2009-2010 period, creating an estimated 10,500 jobs. The trickledown effect of these investments is strong: 12,000 additional jobs and additional capital stock investments of over $200 million. Companies enjoyed at least $50 million in economic incentives as a direct result of the accelerated depreciation schedule. The Oklahoma Department of Commerce has also reported that many companies attribute this provision as a key reason for relocating to and expanding within the State. One Oklahoma food processing plant manager recently stated that the credit was a significant factor in the company's decision to expand. Had the credit not been there, the business may not have expanded, and the unemployment rate would be worse than it is today. The accelerated schedule is currently allowed, but the law states that it will expire at the end of this year. While the provision has typically been renewed each year, many business leaders have expressed concern that it is not permanent. I can understand why. As a former businessman myself, I understand the problem of unpredictability. More and more, unpredictability is the most serious concern I hear of from Oklahoma's business leaders. They are frustrated that many government policies, ranging from environmental regulations to the tax code, are changing so dramatically that they have no way of estimating how the new regulations will impact their businesses. How do you expect anyone to make investment decisions in that kind of environment? Businesses need stability, and this is particularly true during times of economic weakness. We in Congress should take this point seriously, and we can take a step in the right direction by making permanent this important tax provision. I urge swift passage.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it is my understanding that I have 10 minutes as in morning business. I ask unanimous consent to use that time now.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, we are going to be voting on a bill this afternoon to dramatically increase taxes on America's oil and gas companies. I only suggest that it is not going to pass. I can recall when the Senator from Vermont, just a few months ago, had a bill that would have done essentially the same thing--pass tax increases on these oil and gas companies. I remember coming to the floor at that time and giving my argument against it. It ended up that we voted on it, and we had 61 votes against it, so it worked out that about 30 were for it. Afterward--and I have to say this about Senator Sanders--Senator Sanders said that was probably one of the healthiest and honest debates he had seen during the years he has been in the Senate. I agreed with that. The idea that we can somehow tax these people and accomplish something--let me just say that the Congressional Research Service--and when I talk about CRS, it is nonpartisan and nobody argues with them. We in the United States have the largest recoverable reserves of oil, gas, and coal of any country in the world. There is no reason we cannot be completely independent of the Middle East. All we have to do is explore our own resources--oil, gas, and coal. This same Congressional Research Service has looked at the issues and told us that raising taxes on energy companies will do two things-- decrease supply and increase our dependence on foreign countries. In other words, this vote we are going to have this afternoon, if it were successful, would decrease the supply and increase our dependence upon the Middle East. In addition to the CRS, let's go back to the 1970s, under the Carter administration, when we had the windfall profits tax. The same exact thing happened. It decreased supply and increased our dependence on foreign competition. The interesting point is--and my wife is not the only one complaining about the price of gas, but she is certainly loud and clear in that position--nobody is saying that by increasing the taxes, with the vote we are going to have on oil and gas companies this afternoon, somehow that will have the effect of lowering prices at the pump. It will raise them. In fact, I think several Members have come down--Senator Menendez, the sponsor of the legislation, said: Nobody has made the claim that this bill is about reducing gas prices. If it is not about reducing gas prices, then what is it for? The answer to that is, they say--as the Senator from Connecticut just stated, this is going to be something that is going to be reducing the deficit. Our problem is, President Obama and his Democratic support in the House and Senate--in the first 2 years, they had a large majority in the House and the Senate--in his 3 years of the budget, they have increased the deficit and budget by over $5 trillion. I can remember coming to the floor of the Senate during the Clinton years, in 1995, saying this is outrageous. This was a $1.5 trillion budget. That was to run the entire United States. This last budget by President Obama was an increase of $1.65 trillion--just the deficit. Let's do our math. That is 365 days a year, and it works out to be $4 billion a day. We have a President and his majority giving us a $4 billion-a-day deficit, and this says it is going to cut the deficit by $2 billion. So we can tax all these oil companies to come up with enough money to reduce the deficit just by $2 billion. That is worth one-half day's deficit of this administration. I know the majority of people understand that, and they will not be duped into doing that. By the way, I have to say that fortifying me was this morning's editorial in USA Today. They talk about how ludicrous this idea is that we can increase taxes on oil and gas companies. They say it is an example of the sort of political gamesmanship that substitutes for serious deficit reduction. It says: But the initiative is also government at its arbitrary worst, further complicating the tax code by singling out five companies--ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP--for special taxes not paid by smaller energy concerns. . . . So we have a little class warfare going along with it. Only yesterday, the same USA Today was criticizing me in their editorial policy because I don't want to pass a cap and trade--a tax increase. The same paper that yesterday was critical of a position I have taken is now strongly in favor of the position I have taken in avoiding any additional taxes on the energy companies or anybody else. The last thing I will say--because I will stay within my timeframe is that people say if we want to do something about the deficit--and that is what they are saying they are doing--this is one-half day's deficit if they pass these tax increases, which they will not--they say there are only two ways to handle the debt; one is to decrease spending and another is to increase taxes. I suggest there is a third way. That way is to go after all these regulations we currently are operating under as a result of this administration. We are talking about cap-and-trade regulations, greenhouse gas regulations, boiler MACT regulations, ozone, which could create over 600 nonattainment areas, and the cost of that is $90 billion. If we add all the costs of all these different regulations-- greenhouse gas, $300 billion to $400 billion; ozone, $60 billion to $90 billion; boiler MACT, $1 billion; and utility MACT, $184 billion--when we add that, it is $1 trillion. If we take the $1 trillion, that is 7 percent of the $14 trillion that we would say the GDP would amount to. CRS says that for every 1 percent increase in economic activity or increase in GDP, that translates into revenue of $50 billion. This is 7 percent, so that would be $350 billion. If we want to go after the deficit, deficit spending, and the debt, go after the regulations too. But to think we can tax oil and gas companies and somehow come up with $2 billion to reduce the deficit, that is just one day's deficit under the Obama administration. This body is not going to pass that. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Small System Drinking Water Act of 2011. This is the fourth Congress that I have introduced this bill which would help water systems throughout the country comply with the ever growing number of federal drinking water standards. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Thad Cochran, David Vitter, John Boozman, James Risch, and Mike Crapo as cosponsors of this legislation. My bill will require the Federal Government to live up to its obligations and require the EPA to use the tools it was given in the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments, SDWA. My goal here is to ensure that small towns across the country have safe, affordable drinking water and that the laws are fair to small and rural communities. Currently EPA assumes that families can afford water rates of 2.5 percent of their annual median household income, or $1,000 per household. For some families, paying $83 a month for water may not be a hardship but for so many more, it is nearly impossible. There must be some flexibility inserted into the calculation that factors in the ability of the truly disadvantaged to pay these costs. Forcing systems to raise rates beyond what their ratepayers can afford only causes more damage than good. EPA needs to look more closely at how it determines affordability. My bill directs EPA to take additional factors into consideration when making this determination. These include ensuring that the affordability criteria are not more costly on a per-capita basis to a small water system than to a large water system. In EPA's most recent drinking water needs survey, Oklahoma identified a total of over $4.1 billion in drinking water needs over the next 20 years. $2.4 billion of that need is for community water systems that serve fewer than 10,000 people. The $4.1 billion does not include the total costs imposed on Oklahoma communities to meet federal clean water requirements, the new Groundwater rule, the DBP II rule or the Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule. Oklahoma continues to have municipalities struggling with the 2002 arsenic rule. Many of our small systems are having difficulty with the Disinfection Byproducts, DBP, Stage I rule, and small systems who purchase water from other systems and did not have to test, treat or monitor their water must now comply with DBP II. EPA estimates that over the next 20 years, the entire country will need $52.0 billion to come into compliance with existing, proposed or recently promulgated regulations. My bill proposes a few simple steps to help systems comply with all these rules. First, it reauthorizes the technical assistance program in the Safe Drinking Water Act. The DBP rules are very complex and involve a lot of monitoring and testing. If we are going to impose complicated requirements on systems, we need to provide them with help to implement those requirements. The bill creates a pilot program to demonstrate new technologies and approaches for systems of all sizes to comply with these complicated rules. It requires the EPA to convene a working group to examine the science behind the rules in order to compare new developments since each rule's publication. Section 1412(b)(4)(E) of the SDWA Amendments of 1996 authorizes the use of point of entry treatment, point of use treatment and package plants to economically meet the requirements of the act. However, to date, these approaches are not widely used by small water systems. My legislation directs the EPA to convene a working group to identify barriers to the use of these approaches. The EPA will then use the recommendations of the working group to draft a model guidance document that states can use to create their own programs. Most importantly this bill requires the Federal Government to pay for these unfunded mandates created by laws and regulations. In 1995, Congress passed the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act to ensure that the Federal Government pays the costs incurred by state and local governments in complying with Federal laws. My bill is designed to ensure that EPA cannot take an enforcement action against a system serving less than 10,000 people, without first ensuring that it has sufficient funds to meet the requirements of the regulation. Since the 108th Congress, I have co-authored and cosponsored legislation to provide additional resources to communities through the State Revolving Loan Funds. Unfortunately, not much has changed. We still have too many regulations and not enough money to pay for them. Funding legislation is important but until that money becomes available, it is unreasonable to penalize and fine local communities because they cannot afford to pay for regulations we imposed on them. I thank my colleagues and look forward to their support of this commonsense proposal.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Small System Drinking Water Act of 2011. This is the fourth Congress that I have introduced this bill which would help water systems throughout the country comply with the ever growing number of federal drinking water standards. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Thad Cochran, David Vitter, John Boozman, James Risch, and Mike Crapo as cosponsors of this legislation. My bill will require the Federal Government to live up to its obligations and require the EPA to use the tools it was given in the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments, SDWA. My goal here is to ensure that small towns across the country have safe, affordable drinking water and that the laws are fair to small and rural communities. Currently EPA assumes that families can afford water rates of 2.5 percent of their annual median household income, or $1,000 per household. For some families, paying $83 a month for water may not be a hardship but for so many more, it is nearly impossible. There must be some flexibility inserted into the calculation that factors in the ability of the truly disadvantaged to pay these costs. Forcing systems to raise rates beyond what their ratepayers can afford only causes more damage than good. EPA needs to look more closely at how it determines affordability. My bill directs EPA to take additional factors into consideration when making this determination. These include ensuring that the affordability criteria are not more costly on a per-capita basis to a small water system than to a large water system. In EPA's most recent drinking water needs survey, Oklahoma identified a total of over $4.1 billion in drinking water needs over the next 20 years. $2.4 billion of that need is for community water systems that serve fewer than 10,000 people. The $4.1 billion does not include the total costs imposed on Oklahoma communities to meet federal clean water requirements, the new Groundwater rule, the DBP II rule or the Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule. Oklahoma continues to have municipalities struggling with the 2002 arsenic rule. Many of our small systems are having difficulty with the Disinfection Byproducts, DBP, Stage I rule, and small systems who purchase water from other systems and did not have to test, treat or monitor their water must now comply with DBP II. EPA estimates that over the next 20 years, the entire country will need $52.0 billion to come into compliance with existing, proposed or recently promulgated regulations. My bill proposes a few simple steps to help systems comply with all these rules. First, it reauthorizes the technical assistance program in the Safe Drinking Water Act. The DBP rules are very complex and involve a lot of monitoring and testing. If we are going to impose complicated requirements on systems, we need to provide them with help to implement those requirements. The bill creates a pilot program to demonstrate new technologies and approaches for systems of all sizes to comply with these complicated rules. It requires the EPA to convene a working group to examine the science behind the rules in order to compare new developments since each rule's publication. Section 1412(b)(4)(E) of the SDWA Amendments of 1996 authorizes the use of point of entry treatment, point of use treatment and package plants to economically meet the requirements of the act. However, to date, these approaches are not widely used by small water systems. My legislation directs the EPA to convene a working group to identify barriers to the use of these approaches. The EPA will then use the recommendations of the working group to draft a model guidance document that states can use to create their own programs. Most importantly this bill requires the Federal Government to pay for these unfunded mandates created by laws and regulations. In 1995, Congress passed the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act to ensure that the Federal Government pays the costs incurred by state and local governments in complying with Federal laws. My bill is designed to ensure that EPA cannot take an enforcement action against a system serving less than 10,000 people, without first ensuring that it has sufficient funds to meet the requirements of the regulation. Since the 108th Congress, I have co-authored and cosponsored legislation to provide additional resources to communities through the State Revolving Loan Funds. Unfortunately, not much has changed. We still have too many regulations and not enough money to pay for them. Funding legislation is important but until that money becomes available, it is unreasonable to penalize and fine local communities because they cannot afford to pay for regulations we imposed on them. I thank my colleagues and look forward to their support of this commonsense proposal.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, yesterday, I spent some time on the floor talking about the recoverable reserves in the United States of America. I was shocked so many Senators--first of all, I was shocked that many listened but more shocked they came up to me and said: We were not aware we have this opportunity. I have, from the Congressional Research Service, a breakdown of where all of it is. I wish to share that breakdown and get it into the Record. I applaud Senator Murkowski and others for trying to open and fully develop the resources in the Gulf of Mexico. That is very significant. I applaud their effort, and I join them in their effort. We need to go further than that because in the Gulf of Mexico are-- these are figures of the Congressional Research Service--undiscovered, technically recoverable resources. Our resources, according to CRS, are greater than any other country in the world in oil, gas, and coal. I am going to talk just about gas right now because one of the big issues, of course, not just with my wife but with others, is the price of gas at the pumps. If we look at the undiscovered, technically recoverable resources just onshore, in the United States--some actually would be on public lands--it is 37.8 billion barrels of oil. Throw in Alaska and that would be 26.6 billion barrels; the Atlantic, 3.8 billion barrels; the Pacific, 10.5 billion barrels; the Gulf of Mexico, as I already said, 44.9 billion barrels. The total U.S. endowment--our endowment--of technically recoverable oil is 162.9 billion barrels. We have talked about this before and talked about the fact that we have all these resources, but our problem is a political problem because the politicians will not let us reach these reserves. We are talking about the fact that they are hardly able to reach them in the Atlantic and the Pacific, and we know what has happened on the North Slope, ANWR. We have talked about that for a long time. People do not realize public lands--90 percent--are off-limits, off- limits politically. I have to correct some of the statements some people have made that conveniently misrepresented what our reserves are. Instead of using ``recoverable reserves,'' they use ``proven reserves.'' That is a technical term. In order to prove a reserve, you have to drill and analyze and core and see how much oil there is. Obviously, if we will not let anyone drill, they cannot prove it. When they say we only have 2 percent of the world's proven reserves, that is absurd because we have to drill to determine what that is. Other countries do not have that problem. We are the only country in the world that does not exploit our own resources. People are going to have to realize that if you want to do something, it is such a simple thing to do deal with. It is supply and demand. There is not a person here or a person listening today who has not gone through the elementary experience in school of learning supply and demand. We have the supply in America and we have the demand. The politicians will not let us exploit our own resources. That is the problem we have. You do not have to overly complicate this issue. It is interesting--and I hate to say it; I am not pointing fingers in a partisan way--when Democrats and the administration say: We are going to tax big oil, they say actually they are going to do away with some of the benefits big oil has. They are not benefits. These would be four huge tax increases the Democrats are doing on big oil. That is not big oil. That is oil, period. I will not go into the details of depletion allowances and percentages. It is not important. The point is, they have the same benefit every other manufacturer has, and to single them out and say: We are going to punish big oil, all that is going to do is make the price at the pumps skyrocket. It gets right back to supply and demand. By the way, those who are trying to use the argument that this somehow is going to produce revenue that is going to be used, I suggest even the White House's figures, the maximum revenue generated would be $4 billion. Keep in mind, they lose all the benefits, so that is not a net of $4 billion. Take the State of Texas, for example. They do not have an income tax. They have the oil tax that has run that State very well for a long period of time. Senator Menendez made a statement and said taxing the oil companies is not going to bring down the price of gas. They are not even claiming it will. I just think that when one sees such an obvious solution to the problem--just exploit our own resources--we are very foolish not to do that. We all talk about the solutions to the problem. We talk about the spending of this administration, more debt increases in just the first 2 years of the Obama administration than the entire debt since George Washington, in the history of this country, the huge spending, the $5 trillion in the President's three budgets of deficit--I remember coming down and complaining in 1995, at this very podium, when the Clinton administration came out with a budget for fiscal year 1996 and it was $1.5 trillion. I said: We cannot sustain that level. Now it is $1.5 trillion in each of the three budgets, just the deficit. That is more than the entire United States of America back in 1996. I suggest that when people say there are only two solutions to this problem, either reduce spending, which would be my choice, or increase taxes, which I would not do, I say there is a third option. That option is to do something about the cost of regulation. Right now, if we just take what the EPA is doing in five--in fact, I will say three of the major overregulations we are going over right now--people in the Senate know we have defeated cap-and-trade legislatively by massive percentages five times since 2003. This administration says: If we cannot have cap and trade, we are going to do it, not legislatively, we will do it through the EPA. That is what is going on now with greenhouse gases. If you add up what the administration is doing in terms of the cost of greenhouse gas regulations, that is between $300 billion and $400 billion; on ozone, if they choose--and they said they are going to choose--the 60-parts-per billion standard, that would be $676 billion; the boiler MACT would be something in excess of $1 billion. Throw in utility MACT and cement MACT, it comes to $1 trillion. This is what I am trying to get at. I used the figure that for every 1 percent increase in economic activity, it produces new revenue of $42 billion. That has changed. According to the Congressional Research Service--they are bipartisan, they are factual--for every 1 percent increase in GDP, it produces $50 billion additional revenues. If we just take these regulations and add them up, all the increase of costs to GDP of the three regulations I mentioned, that is $1 trillion. If we take the fact it is $14 trillion GDP in a given year, this would be 7 percent of that $14 trillion. For each 1 percent, it would be $50 billion. We could generate new revenue of $350 billion just by taking this overregulation out of our society. One can argue: Inhofe, that is not true because these regulations have not passed yet. That is right, so it would probably right now be about half that. When the Obama administration came in and announced these regulations were coming, the manufacturers, the producers, those who are driving the economic ship were the ones who said that because of the uncertainty of these regulations, we are going to slow down what we are doing. If we were to lift all these regulations, I assure my colleagues we would be approaching, at least by 1 year, $350 billion. That is without a tax increase. That is without reducing spending. We need to look at this realistically because this is an opportunity we have. A lot of people remember back in the days of Ronald Reagan. I can say the same thing back in the days of President Kennedy. Of course, he was a Democrat. They felt overregulation and high taxation was an inhibiting factor to slow down revenue. Of course, in the case of Ronald Reagan, the total revenue coming from the marginal rates of 1980 was $244 billion. In 1988, it was $466 billion. That was at a time when we had the largest reduction of taxes and regulations in this society. It is shown to be true over the years. My bottom line is this: People know about spending. People know about taxes. They do not know about regulations. The people who are affected directly--the manufacturers--understand it. The figures I am using are actual figures we have gotten with which no one argues. The fact that $50 billion of increased revenue comes from each 1 percent increase in GDP is a fact that is supported by the CRS. I offer that, along with our opportunity to become totally independent from the Middle East, with regard to our ability to run this machine called America. Before I yield the floor, I see the Senator from Alaska. I hope he was listening to what I was talking about because the opportunities in Alaska are tremendous--26.6 billion barrels of oil. I am sure he understands that. I wish to make sure everybody else does. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. INHOFE. It is my understanding we are in morning business until 2 o'clock.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it has been called to my attention that there are some people who are trying to respond to the fact that we have such high prices of gasoline at the pumps in a totally unrealistic way, in a way that is class warfare, in a way that doesn't make any sense to anyone, when we have a solution to this problem we have been talking about for a long period of time. There are some who are trying to say we are going to have to do something about the subsidies that are given to oil companies, about what they have been doing over the years, and all of a sudden they are the ones who are responsible for the high price of gas at the pumps. A CRS report was requested by my colleague, Lisa Murkowski, that grew out of frustration with the Democrats' refrain that ``America has only 3 percent of the global oil reserves.'' Therefore, under this view, more drilling and production at home is futile. As President Obama has said many times, ``with 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, the U.S. cannot drill its way to energy security.'' Well, it can, because it is not 3 percent. A CRS report came out later and showed--and this is something people don't want to believe, but it is out there and it is a fact--the United States of America has the largest recoverable reserves of oil, gas, and coal of any country in the world--more than China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else. Our problem is a political one--this administration. It goes down Democratic and Republican lines. The Democrats put 83 percent of America's Federal lands off limits to drilling. Of course, that is fine for the administration, because they have made some statements, which I will read in a minute, to demonstrate clearly that they want to increase the price of gas at the pumps. On the idea that you can do this through regulation and through trying to further tax the oil industry, CRS stated that tax changes outlined in the President's budget proposal--I am quoting from CRS, which everyone knows is completely nonpartisan--``would make oil and natural gas more expensive for U.S. consumers and likely increase foreign dependence.'' I was very proud of a couple of Democrats--the only two who were outspoken. Senator Landrieu, from Louisiana, said: The administration has put forward draconian taxes on the oil and gas industry. . . . It seems very contrary to our stated goal of being more energy sufficient in the United States. Taxing this domestic industry will instead cut jobs and increase our dependence on foreign oil. So I want you to deliver that message again to the administration. We have bipartisan opposition to increasing taxes on this industry. Senator Mark Begich from Alaska said: [The President's proposal] would cost thousands of jobs in Alaska and across the country. Energy companies are among the businesses investing and creating jobs at a time when our country needs both. I will fight any measure to end these incentives. It should be obvious that without these two Democrats coming in--I appreciate the fact they did. We are not going to be able to reduce the price of oil at the pumps by further taxing the oil and gas industry. It is ludicrous to even think that anyone would suggest we could increase taxes on the oil industry and gas industry and somehow we are going to have energy more available and are going to reduce the cost of gas at the pump. There is a way of doing this that I think is so simple. There is not a person in this country--certainly no one who serves in this body-- who, back during his or her elementary education, did not learn about supply and demand. Here we are in the United States of America sitting on more gas and oil than any other country in the world, and we are the only country that does not exploit its own natural resources. We are the only country. If we did, we would be completely independent from the Middle East. We would not have to go outside this continent to supply our needs. People say: If you do that, you start developing. Then it is going to take a long time. It is going to be maybe 8 or 10 years. That would be fine. They were saying that 8 or 10 years ago, and we could have done it then. That is not quite true because the economists have said that if we announce we are going to areas where we are not exploiting our resources--I am talking about the gulf, the east coast, the west coast, the North Slope in ANWR, Alaska. I am talking about the public lands where 83 percent of our public lands are off limits for drilling. If we were to announce today that we were going to open drilling and exploration and production in the United States of America, that price would drop tomorrow. It would drop immediately because people would know we are going to use our own resources. I hate to say this, but somebody has to say it. We have an administration that is so wrapped up in saying that one of these days, we are going to have to have all this green energy, and they themselves are on record saying they want to increase the price of oil and gas. Let's look at what happened. Alan Krueger with the Department of Treasury said: The administration believes that it is no longer sufficient to address our nation's energy needs by finding more fossil fuels. The Obama Treasury Department said: To the extent the lower tax rate encourages overproduction of oil and gas, it is detrimental to long-term energy security. Therefore, we want to do away with oil and gas. Here is the best one. President Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, said: Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. We have an administration that wants to increase the price of gasoline at the pumps to be comparable to Europe, which is between $7.50 and $8 a gallon. Obviously, people know this is true. It was not long ago that President Obama gave his energy speech. In his energy speech, he said there is all this abundance of clean gas we can use. Then at the end of the speech he said: But we have some problems in getting the gas out of the ground. He is talking about natural gas in this case, not about oil. I happened to give a response on one of the TV stations. He said he wants natural gas. At the same time, he says he wants to end hydraulic fracturing. Let me tell my colleagues about hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing started in the State of Oklahoma, my State, in 1948. It is a way of pumping fluids and water primarily into these tight formations. These tight formations mostly are down about 1 mile to 2 to 3 miles under the surface. That will allow them to go in and get the gas. We have enough natural gas to take care of our needs for the next 100 years; we just need to use these systems. If we do away with hydraulic fracturing, then that means we are not going to be able to get any of the natural gas. We cannot produce 1 cubic foot of natural gas without using hydraulic fracturing. What did we find out last week? Secretary Chu is going to be in charge of a study to see how dangerous hydraulic fracturing is. This is the same guy who said that somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. I will only say this. We actually have three problems. We have the problem of, we have this abundance of resources we are not going after, and hydraulic fracturing. Then keep in mind that what we get, we have to refine. That is where the EPA comes in. I have stood at this podium for 9 years talking about the problems we have with cap and trade, the fact that we can't have a cap-and-trade system that is going to have the effect of costing the American people--the estimates are between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. That is supposedly for greenhouse gases. We had the Kyoto treaty back in the nineties, and then they tried seven different times on the Senate floor to pass legislation that would have the same type of cap and trade we would have had if we had become a party to and ratified the Kyoto treaty. The problem with that is, even if there are people out there--and there are. A very large percentage of the people in America, some 40 percent, believe that somehow greenhouse gases are causing catastrophic global warming. Even if that were true, which it is not, but if it were true, it does not make any difference what we do in the United States of America. I admire the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, who was appointed by President Obama. Yes, she is way off in the leftwing. She is liberal and all of that. When you ask her a direct question, she gives an honest answer. She gave honest answers. I asked a question--I think at that time it was the Markey bill. It was one of the cap-and-trade bills. I said: In the event we were to pass a cap-and-trade bill in the United States, would that reduce emissions? Her response was, no, it will not, because that would only affect the United States of America. That is not where the problem is. The problem is in India, Mexico, and China. Right now, China is cranking out two coal-fired generating plants every week. It is going to continue there. In fact, one could argue that it would even be more expensive or more polluting--if one calls CO2 a pollution--because our jobs would go to places such as China where they do have this problem. They do not have any emissions control. We have the problem of refining the gas once we get it. I see my good friend is on the floor and is going to be speaking perhaps to the same issue. I only want to mention one thing. With regard to the cap-and- trade agenda, since they are not able to get it passed, they are trying to do it through the Environmental Protection Agency through regulations. Lion Oil, based in El Dorado, AR, recently testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee that it commenced a $2 million expansion of its El Dorado refinery in 2007, with 2,000 construction jobs, but its completion has since been stalled. As Lion Oil vice president Steve Cousins explained: The uncertainty and the potentiality of prohibitive costs associated with possible cap-and-trade legislation and EPA's greenhouse gas regulations were a critical factor leading us to delay the completion of the expansion. What I am saying is, if we are--and I believe we are--going to break down this barrier and overcome this mentality that we should not be developing our own resources, then we also have to have a way of refining it. We can do it. It is within our reach. We can bring down the price of oil and gas and certainly gasoline at the pump by tomorrow. If we were to announce we were going to stop being the only country in the world that does not exploit its own resources, if we go after the oil and gas that is available in the gulf, the east coast, west coast, our public lands, as well as the North Slope of Alaska, we could be independent from any dependency on the Middle East. I believe the American people understand that point. It goes right back to our elementary school education. It is supply and demand. We have the supply in the United States of America. We have to open up that supply so we can use it, and obviously that would lower the price of gas at the pumps. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the Senate's attention The Lake Thunderbird Efficient Use Act of 2011. This bill allows the Central Oklahoma Master Conservancy District to import and store non-project water into Lake Thunderbird, if the Secretary of the Interior determines there is enough capacity to do so. Allowing additional water to be stored at Lake Thunderbird would help increase municipal and industrial supplies for the cities served by the District, which include Norman, Midwest City, and Del City. There is no cost associated with this bill. Any additional infrastructure needs will be the responsibility of the non-Federal establishment contracting with the Secretary. This legislation does not change the capacity of Lake Thunderbird and will help increase water supplies in a growing metropolitan area. Over the last decade, the Norman area grew by 15 percent making it one of the fastest growing areas in the State. As the area continues to grow, and as Tinker Air Force Base requires a growing water supply, there will be a greater need for access to the water supplies of the Lake Thunderbird reservoir.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the Senate's attention The Lake Thunderbird Efficient Use Act of 2011. This bill allows the Central Oklahoma Master Conservancy District to import and store non-project water into Lake Thunderbird, if the Secretary of the Interior determines there is enough capacity to do so. Allowing additional water to be stored at Lake Thunderbird would help increase municipal and industrial supplies for the cities served by the District, which include Norman, Midwest City, and Del City. There is no cost associated with this bill. Any additional infrastructure needs will be the responsibility of the non-Federal establishment contracting with the Secretary. This legislation does not change the capacity of Lake Thunderbird and will help increase water supplies in a growing metropolitan area. Over the last decade, the Norman area grew by 15 percent making it one of the fastest growing areas in the State. As the area continues to grow, and as Tinker Air Force Base requires a growing water supply, there will be a greater need for access to the water supplies of the Lake Thunderbird reservoir.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. INHOFE. I was scheduled to be speak at 4 o'clock. At the conclusion of the Senator's remarks, would the Senator request that I be recognized as in morning business for up to 30 minutes?

Mr. INHOFE. No, sir, I could not. I have to have 30 minutes. The floor has been pretty empty today.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me thank my good friend from New York for allowing me to have this time. I do appreciate his generosity. I have to say, I don't agree with what he said, but that comes as no surprise to my friend from New York. I will only make one comment. One statement I heard him say toward the end of his remarks was that every other country in the world would do it this way. That is the whole crux of it right there. I often wonder if you look at the other countries, they are all trying to get to our system. They all envy America for its system of freedom, of health delivery. We wonder sometimes if government-run health care is bad--and that is what this is; that is what the Obama administration is trying to do--if it is better, then why doesn't it work anywhere? I have often looked at this. It doesn't work in Canada, Denmark, the UK. It doesn't work in any of the other places. Yet they always say: It will work here. A lot of my liberal friends say: If I were running it, it would work. We have a great system. I guess a little class warfare is healthy now and then, and we had a little bit of that in the last few minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I am going to be very offensive right now to a lot of people, certainly to the Ouattara group, the rebels taking over in Cote d'Ivoire. I am going to be offensive to the United Nations. I am going to be offensive to the French and to our own State Department. This little girl is named Zegita Marie Rapert. Zegita is an Ethiopian name. It means God's grace. This little girl we found. She is only 2 days old. I happened to be in Ethiopia. She was an orphan. And my daughter Molly--in fact, I should hold this up. These are my 20 kids and grandkids. My daughter Molly had nothing but boys. So she adopted Zegita Marie. She came up to me the other day, that little girl--she was 2 days old when we first saw her. She is now 10 years old. She reads at a college level. She is a brilliant little girl. She came up to me the other day and Pappi--let me explain that. I is for Inhofe. That is me. So it is Momma and Pappi. She said: Pappi, why do you things nobody else would do. I said: That is why I do it. Zegita Marie got her answer, and that is the reason I am talking today. I happen to be familiar with Africa. I have been for quite some time. I am on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I think they consider me the point man for Africa. We started working with Africa back at 9/11. At 9/11 we made a decision that while the squeeze in terrorism in the Middle East is going down through Djibouti and the Horn of Africa, we need to help the Africans build African brigades, supply them, help send their officers to the United States to train. It was a good program. I sometimes kind of joked around by saying, since I was the only member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who knew where Africa was, I took it on. Anyway, I do have a background in Africa. For that reason, I am going to speak for the fifth time on the crisis. Cote d'Ivoire is a West African country. We have been reading about it. It is sub-Sahara Africa. Nobody cares about sub-Sahara Africa. They do care about Libya but not sub-Sahara Africa. Anyway, the news is reporting that President Gbagbo and his wife Simone were captured yesterday by the French military forces acting with the rebel forces of Alassane Ouattara. There is a videotape of both the President and First Lady in custody. According to the BBC and Reuters, after the U.N. and the French helicopters repeatedly attacked the Presidential palace, French special forces stormed the building with up to 20 French tanks and armored vehicles. They took them both from the Presidential palace to the Golf Hotel, killing untold hundreds or thousands of people. This right here is a picture that was taken. This is a helicopter, a United Nations helicopter. It was encouraged to be used by the French. The French said: We authorize you. We are going to send our troops in there with you. We are going to do whatever they are doing. This is the capital of Cote d'Ivoire, where they are hitting targets. That is an area where they have a lot of their ordinance. I have been there. I have seen it. They are all scattered. You have little huts with galvanized steel roofs over them with countless, hundreds and hundreds of people. They are all dead. They have to be. They can't live. There it is. That is a picture of it. To give you an idea of what is happening, there it is. They were peppering the entire town. I don't know why. Here I am a Member of the Senate, and I can't get even our State Department to look into how many people they murdered that night. That was Monday night. A week ago tonight is when that happened. We don't know. But they were murdered. I am thankful that both the President and the First Lady are still alive, but they have been brutally mutilated. I condemn, however, the use of so-called peacekeeping forces, made up of United Nations and French forces, in the attacks on Abidjan and the Presidential palace. These forces have caused countless deaths in the densely populated city of Abidjan, a city of 4 million people. I hope every President of sub-Sahara Africa is watching right now. What happened there could happen to any country in sub-Sahara Africa. Africa has 52 countries. I think 41 of those are sub-Sahara Africa. The multiple firings of United Nations and French missiles into downtown Abidjan are like firing missiles into downtown New York City. You don't know how many people are dead and won't know for a long time. Who knows how many hundreds if not thousands of innocent people were killed as a result of the U.N. and the French bombing a week ago tonight. This is not peacekeeping. This is war making. This is not the role of the United Nations. I question why the French are participating in this battle. The African Union has also condemned this foreign military intervention. Why don't we listen to Africa. Africa for many years was used. They were abused. They were abused by colonialism. Certainly no one was worse or more offensive than the French. But they don't listen to Africa. I called up a good friend, President Museveni of Uganda, and asked him what he thought. He had the courage to put something down in writing which I will read. This is from President Museveni, an east African country, not West Africa like Cote d'Ivoire. He said: I have not been happy with the way the United Nations and International Community, especially the French, have responded to the events of the post election Ivory Coast. I desired that it would have been ideal for a thorough Investigation into the alleged election rigging and it be done by a credible and independent body under the African Union leadership and guidance instead of violently forcing the Laurent Gbagbo out of power without a hearing. I am not pleased with the way the international community can sanction a situation of blood bath in the domestic affairs of African Countries. I am halfway through reading what he said here. Why aren't we listening to Africans. He is not the only one. I think every African President would agree with what I am reading right now. He went on to say: I would prefer a peaceful intervention by an African Union committee that would investigate into the matter, give the parties a fair hearing and come out with a workable recommendation that can promote peace and stability in the region. The recommendation would include the possibility of a peaceful and conciliatory settlement toward a power-sharing deal as was done in the case of Kenya and Zimbabwe. We all know about that. At this point, I believe he would be happy to have a team of capable African leaders chosen under the auspices of the African Union to work on a peaceful end to the conflict in the Ivory Coast. I believe that the African Union must be given the opportunity to handle the matter in-house. I am of course not pleased with the way the U.N. and International Community has directly thrown their weight in support of Alassane Ouattara and now recognizing him as president. This is the from the President of Uganda. I have talked personally to many other presidents. I could be quoting all of them right now, but essentially that is a statement to which they all agree. I have been informed that this reflects the current sentiment of the African Union too, actually including the current AU Chairman Obiang, who condemned the foreign military intervention in Cote d'Ivoire saying that ``Africa does not need external influence. Africa must manage its own affairs.'' That is what the Africans said. That is President Obiang. President Obiang is the President of the African Union. The Kenyan Prime Minister Odinga, who happens to be here, and I will be meeting with him in a few minutes, was quoted yesterday as saying President Gbagbo: has been captured and I say that he should not be hurt. I have actually already sent word to Mr. Ouattara saying that Gbagbo should not be hurt. If he wants to go out into exile he should be allowed to go into exile but he needs to be treated humanely. That is all I am asking our State Department and the United Nations to do. And they won't do it. I have warned the U.N. and the French on the floor four times in the past week that they would have blood on their hands if they continued supporting the rebel forces of Alassane Ouattara and continued the bombing of the capital of Cote d'Ivoire, Abidjan and did not agree to an immediate cease-fire. That is what has happened over the last the week, 10 days. I said on April 4--I am quoting myself now. On the floor, standing right here at this podium I said: I think we can avert a real tragedy, something maybe comparable to what happened in 1994 in Rwanda with that genocide. We all remember that. We also remember that we were warned--we weren't warned but the United Nations was, the Secretary General, we now know, was warned that the genocide was going to take place in 1994 in Rwanda, where 800,000 people were hacked to death with machetes. The world stood idly by. That is sub-Sahara Africa. Nobody cared. I called for a cease-fire in Abidjan. No one responded. This was 8 days ago. I wonder sometimes why is it nobody cares about sub-Sahara Africa. I remember back in 1998, when, under President Clinton, they were going to send troops into Kosovo and the excuse they were using at that time was ethnic cleansing. I said on this Senate floor, why is it we are all concerned about ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. For every one person in Kosovo who has been ethnically cleansed on a given day, 100 in any one country in sub-Sahara Africa have. But nobody cares about sub-Sahara Africa. Why is there no outcry for these millions of people who are being brutally murdered in other places in the world? I have to say this--and I know I am repeating what I said in 1998 on the floor--and I know it is very unpopular, but I will quote a guy whose name is Roger Wilkens, professor of history and American culture at George Mason University. He said: I think it is pretty clear U.S. foreign policy is geared to the European American sensibility which takes the lives of white people much more seriously than the lives of people who are not white. What is he saying there? I think I know what he is saying. But no one mobilized on behalf of perhaps 500 people who were shot, hacked and burned to death in a village in eastern Congo, in central Africa, around the same time. No outrage was expressed on behalf of many other innocents who had the misfortune to be slain. . . . I read this because I knew this was going to happen. It was only 5 days ago when I warned this was going to happen. So anyway, on April 5, I said Ouattara has tried to deny his involvement in the slaughter of up to 1,000 innocent people. This was on April 5, a little over 1 week ago. There it is, folks, as shown in this picture. That town is called Duekoue. It is in Cote d'Ivoire. It is a small community: the western town of Duekoue. His forces took the town earlier last week after the Gbagbo forces had gone. They were already gone--they had to be--the Gbagbo forces. We know now these people were shot, macheted, and burned to death by the Ouattara forces. You may remember me quoting on the floor just a few days ago a BBC report back last week that quoted a BBC reporter, Andrew Harding, who said of the Duekoue massacre--this is it now, folks, just a little over 1 week ago--he said: I spot four pigs eating something dark in a charred courtyard. Standing by a newly dug mass grave, a UN soldier from Morocco is choking with rage and grief. I ask him if any of the dead [that the hogs are eating] are children. He nods and begins to sob, quietly, into his facemask. I pointed out that the Guardian, a British newspaper, quoted the U.N. mission which said that ``traditional hunters, known as Dozos, fought alongside Ouattara's forces and took part in killing 330 people in the western town of Duekoue, and that Guillaume Ngefa, deputy head of the human rights division of the UN mission in Ivory Coast, blamed at least 220 of the deaths on pro-Ouattara forces.'' I repeat, this massacre was not caused by Gbagbo forces but by Ouattara forces that had taken the town. The Gbagbo forces had left 1 week earlier. There they are. Look at them: mutilated bodies, chewed up, burned. That was in Duekoue, a very small community in the western part of Cote d'Ivoire. I repeat, this massacre was not caused by Gbagbo forces. I think we all know that. I, again, called--this was last week--for a cease-fire, and no one responded. That was just 1 week ago. On April 7 and 8, I pointed out that the United Nations and the French were bombing downtown Abidjan, near the Presidential palace, where hundreds of young supporters of President Gbagbo had circled the Presidential palace making a human shield from the bombing. This is what they did--all these kids. All they had were baseball bats and 2 by 4s in a circle surrounding the palace to protect their President, President Gbagbo, and his family of about 17 who were there and his wife Simone. You saw, 1 minute ago, in this one picture right here, that--do you think there is anything left of those kids who were surrounding the palace? No. They were all mowed down. That was on the 7th and the 8th. Who knows how many of them were killed. I cannot imagine any of them lived through it. I also pointed out, on April 8, there were roving death squads--there they are right there, folks; they are Ouattara people--roving deaths squads who are disappearing--this is the word they use: ``disappearing''--supporters of President Gbagbo. That means they are killing them. I called again for an immediate cease-fire, and no one responded, not our State Department, not the United Nations, certainly not the French. I also pointed out that I believe massive vote fraud occurred in the November 28, 2010, Cote d'Ivoire Presidential election between President Gbagbo and the rebel leader, Alassane Ouattara, from up north. That is the Muslim part of Cote d'Ivoire. I submitted evidence in two letters to the State Department that showed that massive voter fraud allowed Ouattara to steal the election. In one instance, it showed that in the first round--here we would call this a primary and then a primary runoff. In the first round, in one of the five districts in the north, they miscounted, they tabulated them, and just added 95,000 additional votes. I documented all this. If we had 95,000 additional votes in each one of the five northern districts, then clearly President Gbagbo won reelection. In another case, if you look at what they had in what we call primaries, in the first round President Gbagbo got thousands of votes-- thousands of votes--in the northern five districts. When they did the runoff, he got zero--zero--votes. That is a statistical impossibility. What did our State Department do? Nothing. I did not receive--I finally received a response to my two letters saying they think this is all fraudulent. They have not changed their minds. This is Sub-Saharan Africa. Do they truly care? I can only conclude that our State Department is engaging in a whitewash of any credible investigation into my allegations. So I call again on the U.N., French, and Ouattara forces to halt all the violence, including that being done against President Gbagbo and the First Lady. They will be held responsible if any more harm comes to them. I call for an independent investigation--this is what the Africans want--into all the atrocities committed by all military forces involved in the fighting in Cote d'Ivoire. I call on the U.N., French, and Ouattara forces to halt immediately the death squads roving around the streets of Abidjan ``disappearing'' supporters of President Gbagbo. I had a call from one friend down there whom I certainly would not identify. They would murder him overnight. He was talking about how he could not go out. He could see bodies, corpses in the street. This was 2 days ago. They could not go out there because they had snipers and they would mow them down. They are led by soldiers of Ouattara's rebel army, supported by the French and the United Nations, and have already killed more than 400 people, in addition to, perhaps, the thousands killed in the bombing we have already looked at. Right now, I have several friends who give me these reports. They are saying: Isn't there anything you can do now--just, if they go in now, after they have killed all these people? I call upon, again, the United Nations, the French--which I know are not going to do it--and certainly the Ouattara rebels and our State Department to go in and stop it. We could do it in no time at all. There is all this concern about Libya and all these things going on. This is just as bad, but nobody cares. Keep in mind, this is Sub- Saharan Africa. So the streets are filled with the stench of rotting bodies. I renew my call for hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee into the bombings and killings by the U.N., the French and the Ouattara rebels and the strong evidence of massive voter fraud in the November Presidential election. I appreciate chairman John Kerry's willingness to hold such hearings, and I look forward to setting a date--the sooner the better. I have talked to the chairman of the subcommittee--that is Chairman Coons and Ranking Member Isakson--and they have agreed to have these hearings. I am anxious to get into this so all the world can see it. Maybe we can stop this from happening again. I do not know. I also suggest that the United States step in to help and examine the possibility of seeking a place of exile for the Gbagbos outside of Cote d'Ivoire. The United States has performed such a role before when, in 1986, under the Reagan administration, Haiti's ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier was sent into exile in France. So it has happened before. There is nothing wrong. The American Government did this before. I am asking them to do it again: take these people, who are being maybe murdered at this moment--we don't know; we know they are being tortured--and allow them to go into exile. This could be an important step toward beginning a process of reconciliation that the people of Cote d'Ivoire so dearly deserve. This is not about the Gbagbos. It is about the modern day return to French colonial imperialism, and this time, with the help of the United Nations, they were doing this. Here is what my concern is: Cote d'Ivoire has had a hard enough time trying to break free from the yoke of French colonialism. From the days of President Houphouet-Boigny in 1960 through Bedie in 2000--then Gbagbo was elected in the year 2000--up to that time, the French had actually owned all the Presidents. They were all right there with France. All you have to do is go through the streets of Abidjan--what streets might be left now; I doubt there are many--and you will see that is happening. It is not just the Gbagbos. Any President on the African Continent in Sub-Saharan Africa should know this could just as well happen to them and their Ministers and their friends. That is what is happening right now. I am going to show you something that I hesitated doing, but this is the happy face of President Gbagbo, as shown in this picture. This is the face I know. This is the President who has been President since 2000. He has gone through a lot of these same problems, but he stood up against the French and against the Ouattara in the north. Now he has been captured, and I will show you what he looks like today. This is 3 days ago. This is today. His face is beat in from the side. He is there. He is being held on this side by someone while they are mashing his face. Then there is Simone, his wife. I happen to know her very well. I will now show you a picture of her. In my State of Oklahoma, we had--he is not there anymore--a great Congressman named J.C. Watts. He is an African American. I just talked to him today. He was at a hearing I testified in today. J.C. Watts is an African American who served in the House. When Simone came over one time--this is Simone Gbagbos--she said: Would you try to let me get introduced to J.C. Watts, Congressman Watts. I said: Yes, I would be glad to do it. I did not know why. I went over and took her to the House of Representatives. We are in the Senate. That was in the House. He was in a hearing. He came out, and I said: I want to introduce you to someone who is the First Lady of Cote d'Ivoire. She then put her arms around him and started crying. He did not know why she was crying. She said to him: Will you forgive us? J.C. Watts said: Forgive you for what? She said: Because we are the ones who sold your brothers into slavery. In the United States of America, people walk around guilty--and they should be--about the slavery we had. But in Africa, and particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and west Africa, where most of the slave trade came from, such as Cote d'Ivoire, they realize they are the ones who sold their brothers into slavery. Here is Simone begging J.C. Watts to forgive her for selling them into slavery. She was an elected member of Parliament from her district. She was leading the way for developing a center to care for orphans in her district. At the national level, Simone Gbagbo, the First Lady, worked to have a nationwide program for women to get their products to market. No name for that program is yet found, but that is what the program is. On a continental level, she was the head of the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS, a forum created to establish a role for African First Ladies in dealing with the HIV needs of women and children. That is who Simone is. Isn't she pretty? That was 1 week ago. Let's see what she looks like today. You cannot see it now. They have held her and pulled her hair out by the roots. They went out into the streets and said: This is the hair of Simone Gbagbos. I don't know what else they did to her. Use your own imagination--brutally murdered. Who are these people? They are the Ouattara forces. Do you think we made that up? Here is another picture. There they are. All of these are identified leaders of the Ouattara forces holding her. See what that they are doing to her, beating her and pulling her hair out. That is what is happening today. So I only will say--I will conclude with this--our State Department has to wake up. You cannot assume the United Nations is doing something that is right. We have to understand there is this half of a continent called Sub-Saharan Africa, and those people--their lives are worth just as much as they are worth in Kosovo or Bosnia or the United States or any of the other places we go and try to save lives. Again, I would say to any of our friends and any of the Presidents of any of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, what has happened right there could very well happen to the Presidents or First Ladies of your countries. I only ask three things. No. 1, stop this. Stop the firing that is going on right now. People are being murdered as we speak. Stop it. We can do it. We have the power to do it. Our State Department can ask the United Nations to make it happen in spite of what the French might want. No. 2, send them into exile. Give them the dignity of living someplace else in Sub-Saharan Africa so these people, so the people of Africa will know--can you imagine what the people of Cote d'Ivoire will be thinking and doing in the near future if they allow this to go unanswered? That is my appeal to the U.S. State Department, to the United Nations, and to the French. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, there is no one else in the Chamber now. They said they had other speakers lined up, and when they come in, I will be glad to yield the floor to them. In the meantime, let me make a couple of comments about the discussion today that everyone is addressing, Democrats and Republicans. I have been here for a number of years. I have seen different administrations come through. I think this is the first time the American people have finally awoken to the fact that we have finally gotten to a point where we can't continue to do what we have been doing. When President Obama came into office, he came out with his first budget and then his second budget and then his third budget. If we add up these budgets, what he has done successfully, since he had total control of the House and the Senate, is passed these budgets. He has added more to our national debt in 2 years than every President throughout--in the history of this country, every President from George Washington to George W. Bush. I can remember coming to this floor and I was outraged back in 1995 when then-President Clinton came up with a budget, and that budget was a $1.5 trillion budget. This budget President Obama has come out with is not just $1 trillion, not $1.5 trillion, it is $3.5 trillion, and the deficit alone for this 1 year is greater than the budget was for the entire year of fiscal year 1996. It can't happen. We can't continue to do that. Consequently--and I criticized some of my Republican friends when a lot of them voted for the $700 billion bailout back in October of 2008. Of course, none of the Republicans voted for the $800 billion stimulus package. Right now, we are quibbling over, well, can we really cut $60 billion from the budget. Yet they passed an $800 billion stimulus package--spending. It had never been done before in the history of this country. It has to stop now. I watched what Paul Ryan is doing over there. That is heavy lifting, that is tough, and he is talking about something that is very real. I see my good friend from Utah has come in. Madam President, I yield the floor.