Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield the floor to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object----

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator amends his request that at the conclusion of his remarks we return to amendment No. 183.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I think the Senator was distracted over there. If the Senator would amend his unanimous consent request so that we would return to amendment No. 183 at the conclusion of his remarks.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to return to the pending amendment, amendment No. 183.

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you. Again, I thank the Senator from Louisiana. This is an amendment to the underlying bill. It is a very significant one. To give a little background, for the last 9 years, I have had an effort to stop legislation called cap-and-trade legislation. It is one that I think everyone now--no one used to hear about it, but everyone is familiar with it now after all these 9 years. It goes all the way back to the Kyoto treaty, when people realized, under the Clinton administration, that we were not going to ratify that treaty. In fact, President Clinton never even brought it up for ratification. But people realized this would be something very, very expensive to America. So after that, in 2003, 2005, 2008, and on up, there were about seven different times that Members of the Senate brought up different cap- and-trade legislation. It was in 2003 that MIT and the Wharton School came out with analyses of what it would cost to do a cap-and-trade bill. The amount always ranged between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. I quite often say, when we are talking about billions and billions of dollars, you have to bring this home so people understand what we are talking about. In this case, in my State of Oklahoma, this would equate to something a little bit over $3,000 for every family that files a tax return. The reason I am bringing this up at this time is that they tried to pass this all throughout the years. I think the last one was the Waxman-Markey bill over in the House. It came over to the Senate, and, of course, they didn't have near the votes to pass it over here. I think the most votes they could have gotten at any time in the Senate to pass a cap-and-trade bill was about 30 votes. Obviously, that is not enough. So this administration decided: Since they won't do it legislatively, we will do what they wouldn't do legislatively through regulations. That is where the Environmental Protection Agency came along and--of course, back when the Republicans were in the majority, I was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Now it is Senator Boxer from California, and I am the ranking member. So we have jurisdiction over the Environmental Protection Agency. I think it is very important that we draw this in and make an attempt to connect the dots and make people realize what we are talking about now. There is great concern in this country about the price of gas at the pumps. It is approaching $4 a gallon, and this is something of great concern to my wallet and to everybody else I know in the State of Oklahoma. The problem we have is a bureaucratic problem. It is a problem of this administration not allowing us to exploit the reserves we have in this country. We hear over and over--or we did; we have not heard it recently--that we have only 28 billion barrels of proven reserves and that is not enough to provide for our own consumption in this country. I ask us now to go to the CRS report. Less than 1 year ago, Senator Murkowski and I requested a CRS, Congressional Research Service, report. They said, right now, the United States of America has more oil, gas, and coal reserves than any other country in the world. Let's take first the oil reserves. These are the proven reserves. The problem with using the word ``proven'' instead of ``recoverable'' is that proven has to be the result of drilling. We have to drill and know it is there. Obviously, if we have obstacles so that a majority of people, along with the administration, do not want us to drill offshore, do not want us to drill on public lands, and we cannot get in there and prove it, then we have to go back and take the recoverable oil. This is what the geologists say we have in this country. No one has refuted this, I might add. Instead of being 28 billion barrels, it is 135 billion barrels of oil. If we carry that further, we realize this report is one that shows clearly we could have these huge reserves. Let's go to natural gas and see what this same CRS report says about natural gas. This chart shows a combination of the fossil fuels; that is, gas, coal, and oil. First is the United States of America. Second is Russia. It shows the United States has greater recoverable reserves than Saudi Arabia, China, Iraq, and these countries combined. There is a huge reserve out there. In fact, the reserves of oil we are talking about, we have the equivalent to replace our imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 90 years. In other words, if we lift the restrictions we currently have in place on drilling for oil, it will be 90 years. Gas turns out to be about the same. Based on the CRS report, it says the 2009 assessment of the Potential Gas Committee states that America's future supply of natural gas is 2,000 trillion. At today's rate of use, this would be enough natural gas to meet America's demand for 90 years. The report also reveals the number of coal reserves. The coal reserves are 28 percent of the world's coal. CRS cites America's recoverable coal reserves to be 262 billion short tons. For perspective, the United States consumes 1.2 billion short tons of coal per year. That is a major export opportunity for us, as well as for jobs. When we talk about our reserves in oil, gas, and coal, there are a lot more out there. This is just what we know is recoverable. For example, I did not include oil and gas shale. The Green River Formation located in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah contains the equivalent of 6 trillion barrels of oil. The Department of Energy estimates that of this 6 trillion, approximately 1.38 trillion barrels are potentially recoverable. That is equivalent to more than five times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. I did not include these when I said we have enough to sustain us for 90 years. Another domestic energy source is methane hydrates. That is another one that has tremendous potential. While the estimates vary significantly, the U.S. Geological Survey recently testified that ``the mean in-place gas hydrate resource for the entire United States is estimated to be 320,000 trillion cubic feet of gas.'' For a perspective, if just 3 percent of this resource can be commercialized in the years ahead, at current rates of consumption, that level of supply would be enough to provide America natural gas for more than 400 years. I did not include that. For 400 years, I am only including what is recoverable and what is out there. That is what I call energy security. We need to also realize it is not just energy we can do. There is nothing more basic than supply and demand. If we are stopping our supply of oil and gas in this country, the demand is going to go up, and we will have to go elsewhere. If we want to become independent--and we could become independent if we were to exploit our own resources. We have other reports that talk about the number of jobs at stake. Only two deepwater well permits have been issued in the last 11 months. I thought, at the time when we had the oilspill in the gulf, there were going to be people around saying: Aha, we are going to parlay this into stopping production, stopping exploration. Sure enough, they did. While the moratorium on the gulf has been lifted, only two deepwater well permits have been issued in the last 11 months. Delays and continuation of the current permitting pace could cost 125,000 jobs in 2015, and getting down to the developing of Alaska's offshore, for example, would create 55,000 jobs a year. We are talking about a lot of jobs. We are talking about a lot of reasons we should go ahead and adopt this amendment. Let's keep in mind what this amendment is. It is an amendment that would take away jurisdiction from the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases, anthropogenic gases, and leave that as something that should be done by Members of the Senate and the House. Senator Baucus from Montana said: I mentioned that I do not want the EPA writing those regulations. I think it's too much power in the hands of one single agency, but rather climate change should be a matter that's essentially left to the Congress. That is what we are talking about. As we speak, the House is marking up the bill. It is the Upton-Inhofe bill over there, and over here it is the Inhofe-Upton bill. That is to stop EPA from this regulation. Senator Nelson from Nebraska said: Controlling the level of carbon emissions is the job of Congress. We don't need the EPA looking over Congress' shoulder telling us we're not moving fast enough. We have some eight Democratic Senators joining them saying that the EPA does not have the authority and should not be doing it. We are talking about Senators such as Senator Mark Begich, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Bob Casey, Senator Claire McCaskill, Senator Carl Levin, and Senator Max Baucus. That is the reason I feel optimistic that if we can call up this amendment for a vote, we are going to have a favorable vote on it. I know all the Republicans are going to vote for it, and I think an awful lot of the Democrats will when we are facing a situation where we have gas going so high it is going to be difficult to not give serious consideration to this amendment. I go further to say the administration has been of no help. I have a quote I have used several times on the floor. Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, told the Wall Street Journal that somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. That is $8 a gallon. What they are saying is, they want to do away with fossil fuels, and before we can go to other forms of energy, we have to do that. In the meantime, how do we run this machine called America? We cannot do it without oil, gas, and coal. The bottom line is, we do have enough oil, gas, and coal to run this country. We could be independent from our reliance on the Middle East-- totally--after a short period of time. People say: If we were to open all these places, it would be another 5 or 6 years before we are able to actually produce this oil and gas we so desperately need in this country. In response to that I say: First of all, it will not be that long. Secondly, I heard that same argument 5, 6 years ago, and if we had done it then, we would be there today. We have a serious problem that is looming out there. I know others want to speak. I know Senator Barrasso--by the way, Senator Barrasso has a different amendment than this amendment, even though he is a cosponsor of this amendment No. 183. This would go into such things as NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, and the other things the EPA is trying to use to regulate greenhouse gases to change our lifestyle in America. That is where we are today. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first I thank the Senator from Nebraska for allowing me to come in immediately following his remarks. Amendment No. 183 An amendment was just offered by the minority leader. Let me explain what this is. As the former chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and now the ranking member, we have been very much concerned for a long period of time over what they are trying to do with cap-and-trade. All the way back to the Kyoto treaty and then through the five different bills that were debated on the Senate floor, we recognized the incredible cost to the American people if we were to pass cap-and-trade legislation. The interesting thing about this is the most votes that were in the Senate at any one time in order to pass cap-and-trade were about 30. Obviously it takes a lot more than that. So what this administration did was say: All right, if you are not going to pass cap-and-trade regulation--keep in mind what that is; that would end up being the largest tax increase in the history of America on the American people-- if you are not going to do it through legislation, we will do it through our regulations, through the Environmental Protection Agency. There was an endangerment finding. The Administrator of the EPA had the endangerment finding and it was based on the IPCC flawed science, but nonetheless it was there. So they started on a route to regulate CO2 through regulations. Let's stop and think about what that would be. The costs we have determined, over a period of 10-years, to take over the regulation and have in fact a type of cap-and-trade through regulation--or by regulation--would be about $300 billion to $400 billion a year. I did a calculation as to what that would cost the average family in the State of Oklahoma and it was about $3,000 for each family who actually files a tax return. You have to ask the question, what do you get if you pass this. First of all, I think most people right now are concerned with the price of gasoline at the pump. It is going up again. I suggest it is not market forces that are forcing the price up. It is nothing less than regulation. We have an administration that is doing all it can to kill fossil fuels in America. This is a chart showing--and this all happened in the last year--in the United States we have the largest recovery reserves in oil, coal, and gas of any other country. In fact, our research is right there. You can see recovery reserves are astronomical compared to China, Iran, Canada, and some of the other countries. The problem we have is a political problem. We are not allowed to go ahead and exploit our own reserves. It is simple supply and demand. I think there is not a person listening to us now who has not studied supply-and-demand basics back in school. If we have all this supply here, why can't we exploit the supply? To give another illustration of what we have--this is coal reserves. We have 28 percent of all the world's coal reserves. We are exploiting right now clean coal technology, being very successful. We have, in addition to this, oil and gas reserves. But the problem we have is a political problem. It was the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, who made the statement in the Wall Street Journal: [S]omehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline in Europe. ``To boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.'' Right now the levels in Europe are around $8 a gallon. That is what the administration wants us to pay. Why do they want that? They want that so we will be priced out of using fossil fuels. We are talking about oil, gas, and coal. Right now we are faced with this. Frankly, as we speak, in this very moment over in the House of Representatives they are taking up what they call the Upton-Inhofe bill. That is the same amendment the minority leader just filed. What that does is propose the content of the Inhofe-Upton bill, which says the EPA does not have jurisdiction over controlling CO2. That should be a legislative matter. You say, Who would agree with that? Max Baucus, Democrat from Montana, said: I do not want the EPA writing those regulations. I think it's too much power in the hands of one single agency, but rather climate change should be a matter that's essentially left to the Congress. The Senator from Nebraska who just walked off the floor: Controlling the levels of carbon emissions is the job of Congress. We don't need the EPA looking over Congress' shoulder telling us we're not moving fast enough. He went on further to say: Because the EPA regulations would be a government-directed command-and-control regime, they would raise the price of energy-- . . . in his State and for all the other States. This is something I think we have talked about but there is one thing that seems to keep getting overlooked. Somebody asked me the other day, they said: Inhofe, what if you are wrong, in terms of how CO2--they are talking about catastrophic global warming. I said: It is very simple. I have a great deal of respect for the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. She actually said-- Lisa Jackson--in response to my question, live on TV, in our committee. I said: Let's say we pass a cap-and-trade either by regulation or legislation. What do you think that is going to do in terms of the overall emissions of CO2? Her response was, well, it wouldn't really affect them because that would only affect the United States. I go on further and say: If we were to restrict these, and stop us from producing oil, gas, and coal in the United States, necessarily our power would be reduced. That would move it to China, to India, to Mexico, to places where they do not have these regulations and do not have restrictions on emissions. It would have the effect of actually increasing, not decreasing, CO2. Even if we are wrong on that we have to keep in mind it would not make any difference. I know there are several others who want to talk about this. I am very excited we now have this as a pending amendment, to adopt what I refer to as the Inhofe-Upton bill. He referred to it as the Upton- Inhofe bill. It would merely take out the jurisdiction of the EPA to regulate CO2. I would say also in the case of the Director, Lisa Jackson, when I asked the question--and this was a year ago in October, I say to my good friend from Louisiana--I said: If you are going to try to have an endangerment finding so that would allow the EPA to regulate the same as the cap-and-trade would, it has to be based on science. What science would you base it on? Her response was the United Nations IPCC. What is that? It was Climategate IPC. It happened about a year ago. It was cooked science. I remember standing at this podium in this Senate many times, talking about how they have tried to falsify the science to make people believe catastrophic global warming is going to come in as a result of CO2 emissions. I am glad this has come up. Right now we are looking at gasoline approaching $4 a gallon. It is a supply-and-demand situation. My friend from Louisiana has a lot of gas and oil in her State. We do in my State of Oklahoma. We need to get the regulators, who are the politicians, to allow us to go ahead and exploit our own resources. Eighty-three percent right now of the Federal lands where we could be producing oil and gas is off limits. The last thing I will say before yielding the floor is that if we were to take the recoverable oil and the recoverable gas and take away the political obstacles that are in the way, we would have enough to run this country for 90 years, in terms of the supply of oil, and for 90 years in the supply of gas, all produced here in the United States. That would mean we would not have to be reliant upon the Middle East to run this machine called America. Let's pull away those. The way to do that is to vote in favor of this amendment and I am very excited we will have the opportunity to do that shortly.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and my cochair of the Army Caucus, the junior Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Daniel Akaka, I congratulate Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston for his extraordinary dedication to duty and service to the United States as the 13th Sergeant Major of the Army. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston is retiring after 36 distinguished years of service. Sergeant Major Preston is a native of Mount Savage, MD. He entered the Army as a cavalry scout in June 1975, and has served in every enlisted leadership position, including cavalry scout, platoon sergeant, and tank commander. He served as Command Sergeant Major of the 1st Armored Division, V Corps in Germany and the Combined Joint Task Force 7 in Baghdad, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was an instrumental leader during the invasion of Iraq. In 1975, Sergeant Major Preston was a member of the 1st Cavalry Division, as they were transforming from an Air Cavalry Division to a Heavy Division. He spent his first years in the military as a scout, excelling on every vehicle from motorcycles to dune buggies, surpassing his peers and distinguishing himself as a superior leader. Two years later, Sergeant Major Preston was promoted to sergeant and moved to the 33rd Armor Regiment, 3rd Armor Division in Germany. His commanders again recognized his superior leadership skills and selected him first as a senior gunner and then as the commander of the battalion commanders tank. Throughout his command, his tank was consistently named top tank in the battalion. Sergeant Major Preston took the knowledge and expertise he gained in Germany to Fort Knox where he became a master gunner instructor. He excelled once again and was hand-picked for an exchange tour with the British Army as a tank instructor in Dorset, England. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston has served in every senior enlisted position in the Army, from platoon sergeant to command sergeant major. He held command sergeant major positions at 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division; then at 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, at 1st Armored Division, and finally at V Corps in Germany. Before becoming Sergeant Major of the Army, he was the command sergeant major for Combined Joint Task Force 7 serving in Baghdad, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. His leadership and operational expertise were instrumental in planning and executing the attack on the forces of Saddam Hussein. One of the most enduring contributions Sergeant Major Preston has made to our Nation was implementing the largest transformation of the Army's noncommissioned officer education system since the system was first developed. As the backbone of the Army, noncommissioned officers have specific education requirements throughout their career. The Advance and Senior Level Courses now are more in line with what our leaders need in Afghanistan and Iraq. With the roll out of Structured Self-Development, an online module system that will ensure our noncommissioned officers receive the best training, noncommissioned officers are better educated, which pays huge dividends on the battlefield. Also, with new distributed learning, the Army's first-line leaders are able to spend more time at home with their families while taking classes online. Over the last 7 years, Sergeant Major of the Army Preston served as the Sergeant Major of the Army, the highest enlisted position attainable in the Army. He assumed this position during the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom and proved himself a tremendous wartime leader, demonstrating unselfish devotion to our Nation and the soldiers. He worked tirelessly to restore balance to a force stretched and stressed by the demands of the longest war our Nation has ever known. His personal observations and advice helped guide Army leadership during the implementation of the most comprehensive transformation of the Army since World War II. The end result was building of the most versatile Army in the history of our Nation. Its modular units and improved capabilities enabled the Army to execute its strategy of full-spectrum operations. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston was instrumental in ensuring that this plan adhered to principles of commonsense and care for soldiers and their families. He worked with Army leadership to increase support to families by implementing the Army Family Covenant and the Army Community Covenant. These programs increased support for Army families by expanding and improving services while raising awareness about the unique challenges military families face. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston testified numerous times before Congress on behalf of the 1.1 million soldiers and millions of family members under his care. His clear and passionate testimony resulted in increased compensation, improved housing, improved health services and an overall better quality of life. The impact of Sergeant Major of the Army Preston's efforts will be felt and seen in our Army for decades to come. His untiring devotion to duty, his love for the Army and its soldiers and families, and his professionalism has left a legacy of trained and educated soldiers. When history looks back at the Army's 13th Sergeant Major of the Army, it will be clear that his personal leadership contributed to the building of the most professional Non-Commissioned Officer Corps the world has ever known. We wish him and his wife Karen continued success and happiness in all of their future endeavors.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was hoping to have a little bit more time, so I will cover this a little faster than I normally would. It is so critical. I just got back from the Middle East, and I know the problems that are over there. A lot of people are saying the gas prices that are going up are a result, partially, of what is happening over there, but the real problem is a political problem. First of all, let me talk about the commitment this administration has to cap and trade. Some people who have been around for a while can remember that way back at the Kyoto treaty I kind of led the opposition to ratifying that treaty. Later on--for the next 10 years--they tried to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Since I chaired the committee of jurisdiction at that time, we thought this was not going to work, even by the admission of the EPA. If we were to pass something such as this in the United States, it wouldn't have any effect on reducing greenhouse gases. I still say this. Something is happening this morning in the House. They are looking at this issue, and we have introduced legislation that has said the EPA doesn't have the jurisdiction to regulate greenhouse gases. I will get to that in a minute. My message is simply that higher gas prices are simply a product of this administration's goal. The minority leader, a minute ago, said something. He quoted Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy. He said: ``Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.'' In the United Kingdom, gas is $7.87 per gallon; in Italy, it is $7.54; in France, it is $7.50; in Germany, it is $7.41. That is what this administration wants to do with gas prices. They have a motive for doing that. I cannot stop talking about the cap-and- trade agenda until we realize how it does affect things. You might remember that back during the campaign, President Obama stated in 2008--when he was running for office--and he has stated it several times: ``Under cap and trade, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.'' He had it right. The whole point of that is, it would skyrocket if we were to pass it. That also has an effect on all forms of energy. The House Energy and Power Subcommittee is voting this morning on the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which I introduced in the Senate, and it was introduced by Congressman Upton in the House. The bottom line of the Energy Prevention Act is to make it so EPA doesn't have the jurisdiction to do what they could not do legislatively. Starting with the Kyoto treaty and all the way up to the following 10 years, they tried to pass--in 2003 and 2005 and 2008 and 2009--a similar type of cap and trade. What is the cost of cap and trade? The cost would be--and this goes back to the Kyoto treaty and when we had the estimates from the Wharton School and MIT--between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. In Oklahoma, that translates to $3,000 a year for each family who files a tax return. What do we get for it? By the admission of the Obama EPA and Lisa Jackson, in response to a question I asked live on TV--I asked: What effect would this have on worldwide emissions of CO2? The answer was it would not because that only affects the United States. In reality, it could actually increase it, as our jobs go overseas, to places such as China and Mexico and other places where there are fewer emission controls. So it could have the opposite effect. Nonetheless, I say this because there are people wandering around out there who say we should do something about emissions. Yet I wish to make sure they are listening. Even if we did this, it would not have any effect. They hope, if we restrict enough supply, the price will increase and we can simply shift to what they call green energy. I think it is important people understand that the Republican position on this is, yes, we want green energy, renewables, but we also want coal and natural gas and nuclear and oil. These are the products that can run America today. This is what we are doing. Back in Oklahoma, there are logical people. They ask: What would it be if they don't want oil, gas or coal? How do we run this machine called America? The answer is, we can't. Let me state this--I don't have the time. It is not just the administration or Secretary Chu but others in the administration, such as Alan Krueger, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, who said: ``The administration believes that it is no longer sufficient to address our Nation's energy needs by finding more fossil fuels.'' They are antifossil fuels. They admit the tax subsidies are currently provided in the oil and gas industry, and they lead to inefficiency by encouraging overinvestment in domestic resources in this industry. This is critical. This is an administration official, Alan Krueger: ``The small change in domestic producer costs [which I call a tax increase] could cause some production to shift from domestic to foreign suppliers.'' There it is, folks. That means we would have to depend on the Middle East--import more of our energy from the Middle East. By the way, I think it is important to note the Congressional Research Service--and I think we all respect their work--came out with a report, and they stated--and nobody has been able to refute this yet--that the United States of America now has the largest supply of recoverable reserves in gas, oil, and coal. We keep hearing people say it is only 3 percent of the amount--we are using 25 percent of the energy and are producing just 3 percent. That is flatly not true. I think people understand that because they use that as proven reserves. You can't prove reserves until you drill. We have the political problem that the Democrats don't want us to drill. In that case, we have to fall back on the other way of looking at it; that is, recoverable reserves. I say this: We are in a position right now to have the recoverable reserves. This chart shows these are the recoverable reserves we have right now. This is America's true oil potential. This is what we could produce. These are the proven reserves they talk about. The bottom line is, we have--and this is incontrovertible--the world's largest supply of oil, gas, and coal. This chart shows the amount of oil, gas, and coal we have is greater than that of China, Iran, and Canada--all three put together. This is what we have here. So people say: Wait a minute. That is a problem. Then why are we importing from foreign countries? It is because we have a political problem. We have a majority in this Senate and they had a majority in the House and the President trying to continue this policy of not allowing us to develop our own resources. We are the only country in the world that doesn't develop our own resources. I do know there are a lot of problems out there. Certainly, we have problems in the Middle East. But when I talk to my wife at home, the problem is what she is paying for gas. It is not going to get any better. How many people went to school and didn't learn about supply and demand? We have all the supply we need in America--when we add what we get from Mexico and Canada--to be independent from the Middle East. They don't let us develop it. Eighty-three percent of our Federal lands right now are off limits. It is a political problem. I can remember when we had the oilspill down in the gulf, some of the far left environmentalists were rejoicing that it happened. They could parlay that into not allowing us to drill for our own natural resources. Finally, last week, the EPA issued its first permit for deepwater drilling in the gulf, due to a lot of political pressure being put on and the realization that the American people are not dumb. We can develop our own resources and resolve this problem we have. If we look at what we have right now in reserves, in terms of recoverable reserves in oil and in gas, we have enough oil right now to run this country-- this is in recoverable reserves--for 90 years. Again, we have enough gas in recoverable reserves to run this country for 90 years. That is not including shale. We all know about the great shale deposits in the Western part of the United States. That is gigantic compared to what we have available to us. We also hear about methane hydrates. The reason I don't include shale and methane hydrates is because they are not recoverable today. It is not something we use today. If we lifted all restrictions, that would not give us, tomorrow, the shale reserves that are out there, nor the methane hydrates. What we would be able to do is start further developing those. Even without them, we can run this country called America for 90 years on our own oil and gas. Then we go to coal and the significance of the oil reserves. Right now, we have 28 percent of the world's coal and, in fact, the CRS states America's recoverable coal reserves to be 262 billion short tons. For perspective, the United States only uses $1.2 billion of short tons of coal each year. So what we have is oil, gas, and coal. The only problem is, we have an administration that, by its own admission, wants to kill oil, gas, coal, and fossil fuels. We can't do this without a change in the administration or a change in policy. I think, as you can see, when the gas prices go up--and all of America should listen--all they have to do is remember what this administration's position is, and that, as Steven Chu said--as the Secretary of Energy told the Wall Street Journal in 2008: ``Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.'' This is President Obama's position. If we take this position, we are going to have gas prices going up. You can talk around it all you want, but supply and demand is very simple. We have the potential supply to run this country for the next almost 100 years on just what we have developed. I know the Senator from Kansas is anxious to make his statement. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, Senator Leahy is somewhere around here. But since he is not on the floor, I will go ahead and present this amendment. This is a Leahy-Inhofe amendment. It is on two almost unrelated things, but the Leahy portion of the amendment extends the public safety officer program benefits from 6 to 10 families whose loved ones died in voluntary services. It is fully offset for 10 years. The important part of this amendment is mine, and that is--if I could have your attention over here, and I am speaking to the Republicans now, we have been trying to do this for a number of years, and Senator Leahy and I have agreed to this. Those of us who have been pilots--and I have been for 55 years--I have been involved in a lot of humanitarian missions. What this does is offer liability protection to those of us who volunteer ourselves, our money, and our aircraft to do missions no one else will do. They are humanitarian missions. The longest one I did was all the way down to Dominica, North of Caracas, Venezuela, through two hurricanes, and we saved a lot of lives down there. This would offer liability protection to those individuals who make those sacrifices. There are 8,000 of us, by the way, around the country, I am sure from every State represented here. So I would encourage my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 360 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, the supplemental carriers provide a valuable and unique service to our economy as well as our military's ability to move troops and materiel around the world in a safe and timely manner. Current flight and duty rules for carriers recognize differences in operations and provide the necessary flexibility for supplemental carriers, given the challenging worldwide environments they operate in such as Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, and other Middle East destinations. Supplemental carriers have a long track record of safe operations. In more than 15 years, the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, has not cited fatigue as a primary cause in any nonscheduled/supplemental airline accident while flying under supplemental rules, 14 CFR Part 121, subpart S. There have been no fatalities attributed to any accident where fatigue was even remotely considered a contributing factor. In the months preceding FAA's notice of proposed rulemaking, the agency's lack of interest in the operations of nonscheduled carriers led many to believe their unique operating procedures and status as small business entities would be addressed in a separate rulemaking. FAA issued its notice of proposed rulemaking, NPRM, to the public on September 14, 2010, and it was clear supplemental carriers were, indeed, covered by the NPRM, but the impacts of this proposal on supplemental carriers were not taken into consideration. This oversight is unprecedented. The FAA collected data from scheduled carriers to analyze their operations but acknowledged in the Regulatory Impact Analysis that it collected no data from NACA's nonscheduled airlines. FAA has a legal obligation to examine the impacts of this proposed rule on all segments of industry, which they failed to do. In the coming weeks and months I hope you will join me in encouraging the FAA to consider supplemental carriers flying under subpart S separately in the rulemaking proceeding.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator for his gracious commitment to insure that these carriers are treated fairly and in accordance with well established precedent.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are trying to resolve one of the great problems I am sure my colleagues are sensitive to; that is, the infrastructure of this country. Today we have two witnesses next to each other, the head of the AFL-CIO and the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to show that liberals, conservatives, labor, and industry all feel this should be at least the second highest priority in America. When I heard the President's budget yesterday and I looked at it, I shook my head in disbelief: $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes--all these things. I remembered back when I was complaining in 1996 at this very podium during the Clinton administration. That was his budget. It was $1.5 trillion. Do my colleagues know that the deficit in this President's budget is greater than the entire budget of 1996--to run this whole thing called America. It was a shocker to me. It reminded me about how people talk about entitlements and how we are going to have to do something with that. Something we can do right now is something I tried to do last year and the House Members are trying to do right now. When the President gave his message, he talked about how he was going to freeze nondefense discretionary spending and everyone applauded, thinking that was a great austerity program. In reality, he is talking about after he has increased it from 2008 levels to 2010 levels and then freezing in those increases. That is what I find unreasonable. So I am reintroducing S. 360--I have a whole lot of cosponsors--to wind back the discretionary spending to 2008 levels and then freeze it at 2008 levels. I will just tell you, briefly, what the bill does. It reduces the nonsecurity spending to 2008 levels and will hold it there for 5 years through 2016. After that, spending will be allowed to increase with the CPI of inflation between 2017 and 2021. The amount of money saved by this in that period of time would be over $1 trillion. If I can put up the chart. This chart shows what is going to happen if we don't do that. The red is what is projected in the President's budget; the blue is what is projected if we are successful in doing this. I am very proud the House of Representatives Republicans in their budget have included my bill I introduced last year and that I am reintroducing today as S. 360 as part of their budget. I think it is responsible. We will be looking forward to getting cosponsors.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we are trying to resolve one of the great problems I am sure my colleagues are sensitive to; that is, the infrastructure of this country. Today we have two witnesses next to each other, the head of the AFL-CIO and the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to show that liberals, conservatives, labor, and industry all feel this should be at least the second highest priority in America. When I heard the President's budget yesterday and I looked at it, I shook my head in disbelief: $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes--all these things. I remembered back when I was complaining in 1996 at this very podium during the Clinton administration. That was his budget. It was $1.5 trillion. Do my colleagues know that the deficit in this President's budget is greater than the entire budget of 1996--to run this whole thing called America. It was a shocker to me. It reminded me about how people talk about entitlements and how we are going to have to do something with that. Something we can do right now is something I tried to do last year and the House Members are trying to do right now. When the President gave his message, he talked about how he was going to freeze nondefense discretionary spending and everyone applauded, thinking that was a great austerity program. In reality, he is talking about after he has increased it from 2008 levels to 2010 levels and then freezing in those increases. That is what I find unreasonable. So I am reintroducing S. 360--I have a whole lot of cosponsors--to wind back the discretionary spending to 2008 levels and then freeze it at 2008 levels. I will just tell you, briefly, what the bill does. It reduces the nonsecurity spending to 2008 levels and will hold it there for 5 years through 2016. After that, spending will be allowed to increase with the CPI of inflation between 2017 and 2021. The amount of money saved by this in that period of time would be over $1 trillion. If I can put up the chart. This chart shows what is going to happen if we don't do that. The red is what is projected in the President's budget; the blue is what is projected if we are successful in doing this. I am very proud the House of Representatives Republicans in their budget have included my bill I introduced last year and that I am reintroducing today as S. 360 as part of their budget. I think it is responsible. We will be looking forward to getting cosponsors.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Objection.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have the same request. I call for regular order with respect to my amendment No. 7, and I send a modification to the desk.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, Senator Leahy and I have two amendments. He has Leahy amendment No. 50 and my amendment is No. 6. I say to my friend from Iowa, I will just be a few minutes, as he was kind enough to allow us to do this first. This has to do with the liability of those individuals who are making their own sacrifice to help people in distress. It is something that those of us who are pilots have done--helping individuals in being relieved of some of the individual liability that might be incurred. The Leahy amendment goes a little further than mine, but I am satisfied with his. So what I wish to do is request unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment No. 6 that gives liability protection to volunteer pilots and organizations, as well as request to be added as a cosponsor to the Leahy amendment No. 50. We have been in negotiations for a number of weeks. In fact, we were even last year. I think we have reached an agreement we both find acceptable.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I will respond by saying that on numerous occasions in my 55 years of flying airplanes, I have done a lot of Good Samaritan things. It never really occurred to me, but one time I went all the way down to Dominica, near Caracas, Venezuela--I was telling the Senator from Iowa about it--leading 10 planes. Eight of us made it down and back. That is something we did not have to do, but no one else would do it. I believe we can encourage a lot more people to do these Good Samaritan duties if we give them a little bit of relief from liability. I ask unanimous consent that after the Senator from Iowa makes his remarks, I be recognized for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. Before my friend from Iowa leaves the floor, when he talked about NextGen, I can remember--and he can remember--years ago, when we first flew, there was nothing but low frequency out there, and we used to shoot those low-frequency approaches. Then they came along with VORs, and I thought this has to be the end of it. Then they came along with RNAV. They could pick up a VR and move it over here. What more could they ever do than that? Then LORAN came along and then GPS. So I quit saying they can't get better because now there is hardly a runway in the world you can't shoot an instrument approach on using GPS. I flew an airplane around the world, all across Siberia--bad weather all the way--and I shot my approaches with GPS. You could train a chimpanzee to do it with a GPS. I agree with my friend from Iowa. We are anxious for NextGen and these opportunities we have that are coming up to enhance the safety and abilities of general aviation along with commercial aviation.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank my friend. Mr. President, a few minutes ago I talked about two amendments I had in the FAA bill. One was what I would call the Good Samaritan amendment. We have talked about this for years. Senator Leahy and I have come to an agreement. I would like to have it go further and offer liability protection beyond just the pilots who might be offering their services, as my friend from Iowa and I have done many times at our own expense because no one else would do it. I would say to the occupier of the chair, it wasn't that many years ago there was a horrible hurricane that wiped out an island called Dominica, north of Caracas, Venezuela. I remember putting together 10 airplanes, general aviation airplanes, and we took doctors and nurses and generators and goods down there and food and water because nobody else would do it. This type of thing is going on all the time, and I think they should be afforded some protection from the liability laws. But I do realistically know with this compromise, we can get it passed and this would offer individuals protection. The other amendment I have is quite different. It has to do with something called subpart S of FAR in the regulations, part 121. The Department of Defense--in the movement of many of the troops and individuals--relies on supplemental carriers. We are talking about nonscheduled carriers or charter airlines, and these are people or airlines that are nonscheduled. They come under a separate part, subpart B, and they are given some exemption from the crew rest rigid parts that affect the scheduled airlines. It is easy for a scheduled airline to have these very rigorous crew rest times because they are, as it says, scheduled. But when you get into nonscheduled, you are getting into areas where it is much more difficult. So I wish to say two things about it. First of all, the supplemental air carriers have had a safety record that is even better than scheduled. There has never been one time in 15 years that the NTSB has cited something wrong, something that has happened with the part B or nonscheduled carriers as a result of fatigue. It hasn't happened. I often say we get too anxious to pass laws around here. I have always had the philosophy if it ``ain't'' broken, don't fix it. This is not broken, and it has worked very well. So I think their record speaks for itself. The thing a lot of people are not aware of is if you are a nonscheduled airline, you are able to have longer rest periods, even though you may go over the 15 hours of actual flight time. So it works out, in the long range, they can do things they couldn't do otherwise. Here is the thing not many people realize about nonscheduled airlines. The Department of Defense depends on them for 95 percent of all military passengers and 40 percent of military cargo. That is going into Iraq, Afghanistan, all throughout the danger points, and Southwest Asia, and it is expected that these new regulations will negatively impact the mission capability and increase the cost to both the carriers and to DOD. Supplemental flights in support of the Department of Defense are carried out under control of the Air Mobility Command, which is at Fort Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. A central feature of the supplemental carrier's ability to complete these critical missions every day is the flexibility built into subpart S of the FAA regulations. I am not offering something that is going to change how they treat subpart S. I am only going to say they currently have a rule they are considering, and this rule would do away with the distinction between subpart Q, R, and subpart S, which is nonscheduled airlines. So if we are depending upon these nonscheduled airlines to fly our troops, our cargo into these war-torn areas, then there is no other way of doing it. You can say: Well, the Air Force can use their C-17s. Right now the Air Force's C-17s are in an OPTEMPO, where they can't take on any more missions. So you have critical things that are happening--such as flying blood into areas of combat. Let me give a couple examples. There is a regular run that goes from NATO--that is Belgium--from Belgium to Bagram, then back to Amsterdam. They are taking things such as tents, cargo, gasoline, food, and other supplies. That would be 19.6 hours. That means they can't do it. To do it, they would have to have crew rest time, and that would have to take place in Bagram. There are rules against it. You can't leave a commercial airline in Bagram. It cannot be done. So you have to figure out some way to get that cargo in and out of Bagram. There is another regular run from Germany to Kandahar and then to Hong Kong. Well, that is 17.5 hours, so you can't do that because you can't leave your aircraft in a war zone. There is another run from Shannon to Kyrgystan and return, and that is something that is 16 hours and 15 minutes. That can't be done. I think the one that is most critical is twice a week one carrier currently operates and takes lifesaving blood runs from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey to Ramstein in Germany and then to Qatar. From Qatar, they have to go all the way into Afghanistan and back, and that round trip extends beyond the 15 hours that would be allowed with a scheduled airline. So under subpart S, they can do it. We are talking about twice a week, regular runs, taking blood into areas in Afghanistan where it is critical we get it in. So I am just saying the FAA, in promulgating the rules they are looking at right now, should take into consideration that there is a separate type of a mission that has to be performed for our young men and women in harm's way, and we can't do it unless we treat the subpart S of the rule FAR 121 from the scheduled airlines. So I am hoping we will have a chance. My concern is this: There are a lot of people who, for some labor reasons, don't want to have anyone to have the ability to go beyond the 15 hours, even though they get more rest time. I am the only one talking about the fact we have the lives of our young men and women in harm's way at stake depending on this subpart S treatment. So this thing is very critical. I believe we should do something to make sure, if they are going to look at the rules, they at least look at the rules in a different light than just looking at them altogether, but look at subpart S and hear the testimony and see if that doesn't work, the special consideration. The Budget Mr. President, I don't see anyone else in the Chamber waiting to talk, so I wish to make one additional comment. I was in shock when I got off the plane and read what the President came out with in his budget. I think it is unbelievable--$8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes, $13 trillion in new debt, the current year deficit increased by $1.6 trillion--not $1.4 or $1.5, as they talked before--and it is incredible this could be happening right now. I wonder if he didn't get the message of last November 2; that is, people know we cannot keep extending the spending, the fact we had an increase in the first 2 years--and this came straight from the White House, from the administration--in our spending greater than all spending in the history of this country from George Washington to George W. Bush can't happen. People are talking about the deficits that took place during George W. Bush, with an average deficit of $247 billion, and that was right after trying to rebuild a military and after 9/11, when we found ourselves, for all practical purposes, in two wars. So instead of a deficit of $247 billion, the deficit in this administration has been $3 trillion in 2 years. That is inconceivable. I thought he would come out with something, after listening to the State of the Union Message, that would start moderating and start trying to save some money, but it hasn't happened. There is spending money on everything except the military, which is the big loser. I don't know why it is that liberals never want to spend money on the military--an $80 billion cut over a 5-year period in the Department of Defense. This is right after we went through the 1990s, where we had a drawdown of our Defense by about 40 percent, and of course we find ourselves now, after 9/11, in two wars. So I think we need to make sure the American people realize the State of the Union Message sounded real good when he said we are going to start putting a freeze on. You know what that freeze is? The freeze is to take the nondefense discretionary spending and freeze it for 5 years. But wait a minute, that is after he increased it over 20 percent. So he increased it so we can't afford it and then he freezes it there so we can't bring it back down. So anyway, I hope people are looking carefully and seeing what is happening. They will. If you look at what they are doing just to the oil and gas industry--and I know a lot of people in the liberal communities who want to put them out of business, and they are going to successfully do it if they pass this particular budget--I am talking about percentage depletion, the IDC--the section 199 manufacturer's deduction. By the way, the only industry under this budget that is affected negatively by that is oil and gas. All other manufacturers in industry are all right. So I hope people have a chance to look at this carefully. With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. First of all, let me say that the manager has been very kind to me in offering to allow me to come up at some point. I do not care so much when it is, but I do have two amendments I have already discussed on the floor. I would like to get them in the queue so at some time we will be able to do that. So I would wait until such time as the majority feels it would be appropriate, and then I would be asking them if I can do that.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield? One of the things that is interesting about northwest Arkansas is that you were just talking about Don Tyson. You could just as well have been talking about Sam Walton, Hunt, and many others. I do not know what it is about northwest Arkansas, that these great entrepreneurs who changed the world seem to all come from that area, as the Senator from Arkansas knows. I am very familiar with that area, since my daughter Molly is a professor at the University of Arkansas. I have been over there many times. I was just listening to you describe the life of Don Tyson and how consistent that is with many of the other entrepreneurs. I salute all those guys up there and you for bringing that to the floor.