Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask for the regular order.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, with the passage of the 2007 energy bill (EISA), Congress doubled the corn-based ethanol mandate despite mounting questions surrounding ethanol's compatibility with existing engines, its transportation and infrastructure needs, its economic sustainability, and numerous other issues. Then, as now, I argued it was just too early to significantly increase the mandate and that the fuels industry and engine manufacturers needed more time to adapt and catch up with the many developing challenges facing corn-based ethanol. From everything we have witnessed over the past 2\1/2\ years, I was right. These mandates allow no room for error in a fuels industry already constrained by tight credit, dwindling capacity, environmental regulation, and volatile market conditions. The corn ethanol mandate has also led to consumer backlash in parts of the country. In my home state of Oklahoma, one convenience store chain experienced a 30 percent drop in fuel sales once they began selling fuel blended at E-10 levels. The consumers didn't want it. In 2008, the New York Times reported this growing consumer discontent from Oklahoma City: Why Do You Put Alcohol in Your Tank? demands a large sign outside one gas station here, which reassures drivers that it sells only ``100% Gas.'' ``No Corn in Our Gas,'' advertises another station nearby. Along the highways of this sprawling prairie city, and in other pockets of the country, a mutiny is growing against energy policies that heavily support and subsidize the blending of ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, into gasoline. Many consumers complain that ethanol, which constitutes as much as 10 percent of the fuel they buy in most states, hurts gas mileage and chokes the engines of their boats and motorcycles. Despite this consumer backlash, corn advocates are today pushing Washington to require higher consumptions of ethanol. The most pressing issue facing corn ethanol is the so-called ``blend wall'' of 10 percent. EISA mandated 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol by 2015. But here is the problem: Federal regulations require that a gallon of gasoline should contain no more than 10 percent ethanol. So there will soon be more corn ethanol production than the amount of ethanol allowed in gasoline. So what is the solution? Corn ethanol advocates have the wrong approach. Rather than rethink EISA's corn mandates, they are lobbying for higher, mid-level ethanol blends in gasoline--higher than E10. Sounds like a simple solution, except its consequences would be dire, with potential damage to agriculture, the environment, and engine equipment manufacturers. Many on-road and non-road engines, vehicles, and equipment are not specifically designed to run on ethanol blends of E10, let alone blends as high as E15. The available evidence indicates that lawnmowers, chainsaws, snowmobiles, recreational boats, motorcycles, and non-flex- fuel cars and trucks produce higher evaporative and engine exhaust emissions using mid-level ethanol blends. Also, mid-level ethanol blends are more corrosive on certain metals and plastics used in many fuel systems, and cause many gasoline-powered engines to run hotter and at higher RPM levels. In turn, this results in adverse impacts on starting, durability, operation, performance, and operator safety, due to the degradation of critical components and safety devices. The American Lung Association has noted that degradation of catalyst efficiency, caused by increasing the ethanol content in gasoline, ``can have a major impact on emissions.'' These higher blends of ethanol can also cause NOX emissions to increase up to 25 percent. In short, we need to be careful that the rapid ramp-up in ethanol use doesn't result in the degradation of our country's air quality. And many consumers complain about decreased fuel efficiency. Corn Ethanol is 67 percent of the BTU content of gasoline. According to EPA, vehicles ``operating on E85 usually experience a 20-30 percent drop in miles per gallon due to ethanol's lower energy content.'' These results were seconded by a Consumer Reports study that found E85 resulted in a 27 percent drop in fuel efficiency. In my home state of Oklahoma, ethanol's blendwall has eliminated consumer choice. Where consumers could once choose to purchase clear gas, the blendwall is now forcing motorists to buy E10. The fuel blenders and gas station owners have no option but to sell ethanol blended gasoline despite strong consumer demand for clear gas. Today I am introducing a simple three-page bill that responds to the increasing call for more consumer choice in the ability to purchase ethanol-free gasoline. Simply put, my bill allows a State to opt out of the corn ethanol portions of the renewable fuel standard. To do so, a State must pass a bill, signed by the governor, stating its election to exercise this option. The opt-out would be recognized by the administrator of the EPA, who would then reduce the amount of the national corn ethanol mandate by the percentage amount of the State which chooses to opt out. The bill also provides for the generation of credits to hold harmless the refiners who would produce clear gasoline sold in an opt-out State. This legislation would allow a State to opt out of only the corn ethanol mandate. It would not affect other portions of the renewable fuel standard such as the cellulosic or advanced biofuels volumetric requirements. I believe Congress blundered in pushing too much corn ethanol too fast. This bill will merely allow for fuel producers to respond to market demands when and where consumers prefer clear gas. Right now they can't do that.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I certainly could not improve upon the statements and arguments that have been made by my good friend from Arizona. I come from a little different perspective. There are six things I think any one of which would seriously make us consider voting against her. I want to say this, first, though. Back when she was first nominated I was the first one to say I was opposed to her. The main reason was these things came up, most of them, when she was up to be confirmed for Solicitor General. At that time I objected to her being in that position. I have a policy--I think it is good; people in Oklahoma know it--and that is, if you oppose someone's confirmation for a position and then they come back later for a higher position, it is automatic because the bar should be higher. Anyway, today I want to reemphasize a couple of things that were mentioned by my friend from Arizona. One objection to the Kagan nomination is that she undeniably lacks the experience. I think Senator Kyl said it very well. People say there have been others in history that didn't have any judicial experience, but in those cases, they averaged 21 years of practicing law. They had that experience. This would be the first time in history we have someone with less than 2 years' experience and no judicial experience. That would be reason enough, but that is not my major objection. My major objection is her disdain for the U.S. military. While dean at Harvard, Kagan banned the military during a time of war from recruiting on campus due to her objection over the don't ask, don't tell policy. That was the policy put together during the Clinton administration while she was in the administration. She did not object to it at that time, but she objects to it now. There has been much made by her supporters about her role in this incident, but the truth is that in November of 2004, after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Solomon amendment--I was there when the Solomon amendment was passed in the House--Kagan affirmatively disallowed the military from recruiting at the school's office of career services. Subsequently, she joined 40 other schools in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the case opposing the Solomon amendment which was then overwhelmingly opposed and reversed by the Supreme Court unanimously. She was taking advantage of that opportunity when she didn't allow recruiters at the university. We have seen this happen around the country, not only Harvard but in California. This is something that is definitely in opposition to the law that is still in place, referred to as the Solomon amendment. Equally alarming to these actions is her misrepresentation of the facts before the Judiciary Committee. I wasn't aware of this, certainly not back when she was up for Solicitor General. She testified that military recruiters had ``full and good access'' to Harvard's campus. Military recruiters clearly did not have full and good access, as they had to work through the school's veterans group as opposed to being allowed to go through the office of career services, a part of the university. Internal Pentagon documents reveal that under her deanship ``The Army was stonewalled at Harvard.'' Furthermore, Kagan told the committee that in banning recruiters she ``always thought we were acting in compliance'' with Federal law. Yet in her own e-mail to Harvard students and faculty, she wrote that she had ``hope'' that the government ``would choose not to enforce'' the law. I am alarmed that Kagan would not only ban military recruiters on campus in a time of war but that she would do it to advance her own liberal and social agenda, then mislead the committee with her statements. During her tenure as dean of Harvard, Kagan sent a letter with three other law school deans to the Senate in 2005 opposing legislation that sought to prevent terrorists convicted in military tribunals from appealing their convictions in Federal courts. She compared this legislation to the ``fundamentally flawless'' actions of a ``dictatorship'' that has ``passed laws stripping courts of power to review executive detention or punishment of prisoners.'' That is not what I said. That is what Ms. Kagan said. We have the best judicial system in the world. Equating our laws relating to the war on terror to that of a dictatorship would be laughable, were it not so pervasive in liberal academia. Kagan has a history of misrepresenting facts to push her liberal agenda, including her efforts while working in the Clinton administration to change statements of two medical associations to withhold the truth about partial-birth abortion. This is interesting. Both groups had a firm position, and she influenced a change in that position. During the debate over the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, Kagan wrote a memo to President Clinton in December 1996 objecting to the release of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists--ACOG--proposed statement that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary. This is what their position was. They came out and said that it was never necessary. ``The release of the statement would, of course, be a disaster.'' Those are her words, talking at that time to the Clinton administration. We have evidence from Kagan's handwritten notes that she advocated a change in the statement to reflect that partial-birth abortion may be medically necessary. One month later, ACOG released a statement with language nearly identical to Kagan's language that such abortions may be medically necessary to save the life and preserve the health of the mother. In addition to seeking to change ACOG's position, Kagan also sought to alter the American Medical Association position on partial-birth abortion. She once again tried to alter the facts and encourage AMA to change its medical policy on partial-birth abortion. What is perhaps more concerning about Kagan's efforts to manipulate the medical policy of ACOG and AMA is that these medical policy statements were then used, sometimes successfully, in Federal courts to invalidate State laws and the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. She manipulated medical facts to advance a barbaric practice and push a political agenda. We are talking about two highly respected medical associations that said partial-birth abortion was not something that was necessary, changing their positions. Then that was later used in court cases. Moreover, Kagan criticized the Supreme Court decision of Rust v. Sullivan which upheld the Department of Health and Human Services regulations prohibiting title X family planning funds from being directed toward programs where abortion is a method of family planning. Additionally, while clerking for Justice Marshall, she authored a memo arguing that all religious organizations should be off limits from receiving Federal funds for programs authorized by the Adolescent Family Life Act such as pregnancy testing, prenatal/postnatal care, adoption counseling, and childcare, because these programs are so close to the central concerns of religion. I also seriously question Kagan's willingness to honor and defend the second amendment, getting into an area that is probably more sensitive to a lot of my friends, including my son and members of the family, who are active and strong believers in second amendment rights. While clerking for Justice Marshall, Kagan wrote a memo about a case challenging Washington, DC's strict gun control laws. In only four sentences she was dismissive of the case, writing that she was ``not sympathetic'' to an individual-rights view of the second amendment. As everyone knows, the Supreme Court has since upheld the individual right to keep and bear arms. Kagan also used her position with the Clinton administration to advocate various anti-second amendment initiatives. Documents from the Clinton library illustrate that she supported background checks for secondary market gun purchases as well as municipal liability suits against gun manufacturers. She helped develop an executive order banning the importation of certain types of semiautomatic weapons that were not covered by the 1994 assaults weapons ban. She also sought to permit law enforcement to retain Brady background checks information on lawful gun sales. Finally, in an internal document regarding the Volunteer Protection Act, she described the NRA as ``a bad guy organization.'' She might get by with that in this Chamber, but she wouldn't get by with it in Oklahoma. We read the Constitution. We know what it says. She has no respect for the second amendment. I am also gravely concerned, based on Kagan's writings and statements, that she would be a judicial activist who would seek to legislate from the bench. In her 1998 masters thesis at Oxford she wrote: As participants in American life, judges will have opinions, prejudices, and values. Perhaps more important, judges will have goals. And because this is so, judges will often try to mold and steer the law in order to promote certain ethical values and achieve social ends. Such activity is not necessarily wrong or invalid. She is stating, not just from today but going all the way back to her Oxford days, that judicial activism is appropriate. Rather than affirm the role of judges as the faithful interpreters of the law, Kagan voiced her support for judges who seek to serve as legislators, who develop their own empathy standards and apply the law in a matter they personally see fit. Her self-acknowledged judicial hero, Aharon Barak, perfectly fits this mold. In her testimony before the committee, she even affirmed that she would consider foreign law when she decides cases. She said: I guess I'm in favor of good ideas from wherever they come. We are talking about referring to other countries that have a different judicial system and saying maybe they are right and maybe we are wrong. I simply cannot support a nominee who looks to other judicial systems or judicial philosophies or evolving standards of decency rather than the text of the Constitution to interpret law. I have thoroughly reviewed the record of Elena Kagan and have come to the firm conclusion that she lacks the qualification and experience to be a Supreme Court Justice. I have named six things. Any one of these six should be disqualifying. One is, she wants to consider foreign judiciaries. Two, she has no judicial or trial experience. Third, she is a judicial activist. Four, she is extreme in her philosophy on abortion and anti- second amendment views, and she is antimilitary. I think of all the things I have mentioned, probably the part that concerns me most is her position that if we are trying someone in a military trial, maybe a terrorist or an activist, that they would be given the right to appeal to our court system and inherit all the benefits any citizen of the United States has. I can only say what I said several months ago when she was first nominated. In my opinion, as 1 of 100 Senators, if she is not qualified to be Solicitor General, she is certainly not qualified for the higher job of Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me state that I have a great deal of respect for my friend from Ohio. I cannot agree, however, with the things this administration has done to pull us out of the recession. A lot of people believe the Federal Government can do that. I look at the institutions, and I say to the Chair, I have people who come into my office and it doesn't matter what industry they are in, they are all scared to death. It is a mentality that the Federal Government can take these things over and somehow make them better. This administration is attacking every institution that made this country great right now. I don't care if you are in banking, insurance, health care, or the oil businesses--all of them are under attack. There is a myth out there that if the Federal Government takes it over, it will be run better than it would when run by the private sector. That is a prelude for the thoughts I want to share concerning what happened last night after 10 o'clock. The majority leader, Senator Reid, came out with a type of energy bill, I suppose you could say. He has been talking about an energy bill for quite some time. What I have seen in the bill that is called an energy bill--I can't speak too specifically about it, because it didn't come out until late last night. But we know this: First, they start off by taking off any liability cap on drilling, whether it is in the gulf or elsewhere. That is my understanding. The problem we have--and some of the people in this Chamber might remember that I had occasion to come to the floor and object to the Menendez request about four different times in the last month, because what he was attempting to do is what this bill is suggesting--take all liability caps off. If you do that, something happens that is bad. I hope that is not the intent of the authors of the bill that came out last night. But what you do by taking the cap off is you limit who is going to be able--once the moratorium is lifted--to drill offshore to the giants. We have five big oil companies--the big of the bigs--and everybody is talking about BP, the one responsible for the most devastating spill in our history. If you take the cap off, that allows the BPs and the nationally owned oil companies to drill. In other words, we have independents all over America that have the capability and are providing jobs in the gulf, to all the Gulf States. If you come along and, all of a sudden, say you cannot do it now because you cannot comply with this, there is a serious problem. We have a solution to that, where oil companies would be putting into a fund--some of you might remember, 20 years ago, the Exxon Valdez oilspill. I remember going up there 20 years ago. That was a devastating thing. We are still feeling the damage that came from that spill. When I got there, something interesting was happening. The far- left environmentalists, who wanted to shut down all kinds of drilling all over America and elsewhere, were up there celebrating. I said: What are you celebrating? They said: We are going to parlay this spill--20 years ago--into stopping drilling on the North Slope. I said: Why would we do that? That was a transportation accident. If you remember, that was a ship that came in carrying oil from foreign countries. They had the accident, and we had the devastating spill. But if you stop us from developing our own domestic resources, we are going to have to transport more oil from other countries. The incident of a potential oilspill would be much greater if we are transporting that much. They said: We are going to do it anyway. I saw the same thing when the oilspill took place a few months ago in the gulf. All the people down there were almost celebrating, saying: We are going to parlay this into stopping all oil production offshore, and maybe even beyond that. That is essentially what the far left wants to do. Here we have this bill that came out last night, which takes the caps off so that the only ones left--I call this the big oil bill. If we were to pass what came out of the majority leader's office last night, it would only allow giant oil companies, and maybe nationalized ones, to do the drilling. This is a huge thing. The statement I am making--by the way, I have to quote someone I don't often agree with, and that is Carol Browner, the head of the EPA during the Clinton administration, and now the environmental czar in this administration. She said: So it will mean [talking about this subject] that you only have large companies in this sector, but maybe this is a sector where you really need large companies who can bring to bear the expertise and who have the wherewithal to cover the expense if something goes wrong. She is saying that only big oil and China should be able to produce in the gulf. The problem with this is, everybody understands--certainly those Senators, Democrats and Republicans, from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida all understand what the problem is here in terms of jobs. If you stop the independents from producing out in the gulf, it not only makes us more dependent upon foreign countries, or our ability to run this machine called America, but it does away with jobs. The IHS Global Insight came out with a study that said if you do this, the gulf region would lose over 300,000 jobs by 2020. That is the IHS Global Insight. People don't argue with their credibility. This is probably one of the biggest job loss bills we could have. I don't think it will pass, but if it did, that would be the problem. I am going to address one more thing in this bill, and that is the technique of hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is a system whereby they go down--here is the aquifer here, 400 or 500 feet below the surface, and about 2 miles down--they drill down through that and use the hydraulic fracturing in order to get the close formation of oil and gas so they can produce that. Without that, they say--and I think nobody disagrees with this--we are not going to be able to produce natural gas. Everybody is talking about natural gas and how we are going to need more and more of it, how we would develop our potential and the shale potential particularly, and we can do away with having to be dependent upon countries such as Venezuela and countries in the Middle East for our ability to run the machine called America. So we have this methodology called hydraulic fracturing. The first hydraulic fracturing was done in 1949 in my State of Oklahoma. That is 60 years ago. There has never been one incident of contamination of water since that happened. I am going to show you this. This is not me saying this; this is the EPA Administrator, Carol Browner: There is no evidence that the hydraulic fracturing at issue has resulted in any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water. Ever. Again, that is Carol Browner. This gives you an idea of where all this shale is. If you look at this--and I remember talking about hydraulic fracturing at some length some time ago, and Senator Dorgan, from North Dakota, came in and said he agreed with everything that Inhofe said. Obviously, this is Bakken shale up here. This chart shows the extremely large potential all over the country. Last July, I addressed the Senate for 30 minutes on this invaluable technique to access natural gas and oil reserves throughout the country. While the country is at nearly 10-percent unemployment, access to these reserves means good news for jobs. I provided some examples of the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in royalties, State tax revenues, and economic activity shale plays, such as the Barnett shale in Texas, Woodford shale in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and Haynesville shale in Louisiana and, as you can see, all over America on this map. People are talking about big oil or oil in some negative context. There are hundreds of thousands of royalty owners around the country who would be shut down if we try to close down this methodology called hydraulic fracturing. This 60-year-old technique has been responsible for 7 billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The National Petroleum Council reports that 60 to 80 percent of all wells in the next 10 years will require hydraulic fracturing to remain productive and profitable. In other words, it is almost all of them that will require hydraulic fracturing to be competitive. In Oklahoma, we should know. The first hydraulic fracturing was near Duncan, OK, in 1949. Very simply, it is the temporary injection of mostly water with sand, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other additives to fracture and prop open a ground formation to improve the flow of oil and natural gas through rock pores and increase oil and gas production. Ninety-five percent of the fluid is water, and 99 percent is water and sand. New reports over the last 2, 3 years reveal some of the highest totals ever of natural gas in the United States. These reports demonstrate that at 2 quadrillion cubic feet of current demand, we have enough natural gas for us to keep America going for the next 100 years. That is the significance of this. If you do this and do away with that process--hydraulic fracturing--that will shut it down. So we are talking about now we have the potential to supply enough natural gas to run this country for the next hundred years. That is how significant this is. Due to new natural gas shale plays all over the country, new studies demonstrate recoverable reserves of natural gas to meet the current demand for at least the next hundred years. By the way, a report that came out shows that the United States is No. 1 in terms of recoverable reserves. We are talking about gas, natural gas, oil, and coal. Some Democrats may argue that this section 4301 is only a disclosure provision of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process. That is not true. State regulators have safely and effectively regulated hydraulic fracturing for the past 60 years, as was stated by Carol Browner. State rules, such as in my State of Oklahoma, require disclosure of chemicals. What this provision is about is a new EPA Federal control. Somehow this administration thinks that if the Federal Government isn't running something--this is an obsession, where the Federal Government has to run everything. When I was mayor of Tulsa, we had a guy, a police commissioner, and he had a saying that ``if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' This hasn't been broken once in 60 years. At a press conference, somebody talked about, well, didn't this happen in Nevada once? Well, I have no record--neither does Carol Browner-- that there has been contamination as a result of hydraulic fracturing. Proponents of this language argue that it is needed because fracking contaminates groundwater. As the ranking member of the Environment and Publics Works Committee, I have asked the USGS and the EPA's Assistant Administrators for both the Enforcement Office and the Water Office in testimony in front of the Environment and Public Works Committee whether they are aware of any documented case of water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing. They could not name one. That is because there isn't any. These officials are not alone in this opinion. President Obama's energy czar agrees with me. In 1995, as EPA Administrator, Carol Browner wrote in response to litigation that Federal regulation is not necessary for hydraulic fracturing. She correctly made the point that the practice was closely regulated by the States and that ``EPA is not legally required to regulate hydraulic fracturing.'' Most importantly, she further wrote that there was ``no evidence that hydraulic fracturing resulted in any drinking water contamination'' in the litigation involved. We are talking about something that is not broken. It clearly is necessary for us to get all of this out to run this machine called America. As we can see, this is not a partisan Republican issue; Democrats alike understand the importance of hydraulic fracturing. When I spoke on the floor last July, as I mentioned, Senator Dorgan from North Dakota followed my comments saying that he agreed with my assessment that not only is fracking needed to access new reserves, such as the ones in the Bakken shale in North Dakota, but that he is not aware of any groundwater contamination from the practice. I appreciate the fact that he is outspoken in this area. It is also extremely important to point out that Congress has already tasked EPA in law to study the effects of any hydraulic fracturing on water quality and public health. The EPA has already begun using $4.3 million for this effort, which is being led by Dr. Robert Puls, who works in EPA's Groundwater Research Laboratory based in Ada, OK. I encourage this study. We know there has not been any problem. I want to make sure we can put the final nail in this coffin, that people somehow think hydraulic fracturing contaminates water. This is a way to do an independent study. Let the government study it. This bill was drafted last night at 10 o'clock in spite of the fact that we do not have any results back from that study. Even if one wanted to believe so badly and did believe this is a problem, let's at least wait for the study before composing new legislation. Natural gas development brings billions in private investment and millions of jobs to America. This country cannot afford to limit the production of its domestic energy resources due to unfounded rumors of environmental damage and the usual hysterical claims from extremist environmental organizations looking for the next crusade because cap and trade is dead. Let me repeat that. It was 13 months ago that I made a statement from this podium that for the next 12 months, people are going to say: We are going to pass some cap-and-trade legislation. I said: We are not going to because it is dead. How many people, particularly the newly elected Senators, want to go back to their States and say: Aren't you proud of me? I voted for the largest tax increase in the history of America. That would be cap and trade. Cap and trade is dead. Yesterday, the White House made some kind of statement that if we can get something thrown into conference and then have a lameduck session after all these faces have changed, we are going to try it again. It is not going to work. It is dead. Let's look at what came out last night and study it. We have not had time to do that. We have not seen the exact language yet. It was not drafted until 10 o'clock last night. When they come to the point where they say they are going to do something to change hydraulic fracturing, that would be critical. That is one thing that would kill the development and production of natural gas to run this machine called America. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it was 2 years ago that I worked to pass and have signed into law by the President the Code Talkers Recognition Act, a bill to give Congressional Medals to the many Native American Code Talkers who served in World Wars I and II. Today, I wish to honor an original Code Talker, Mose Bellmard, a Kaw Indian who bravely served our country during World War I. As a veteran and ardent supporter of the armed services, I always take pride when I have the opportunity to recognize the service of fine Oklahomans like him. Bellmard, considered by many to be one of the last hereditary chiefs of the Kaw Indians, was born on February 16, 1891, to Josephine and Leonard Bellmard in Indian territory. U.S. involvement in World War I began when Bellmard was 26, and, even though Native Americans were not yet considered full citizens of the United States, he was one of the first to volunteer. He trained at Fort Sill in Lawton, OK, was made a 1st lieutenant with Company E in Oklahoma's 1st Infantry Unit. After a few weeks of training, he deployed to the frontlines of the war in France. The setting was dangerous, and a number of his men were quickly killed during routine patrols of their area. Upon investigation, Bellmard realized that the Germans had painted sections of barbed wire that allowed them to easily spot his patrolmen's movements. Creatively, he thought to use a large bed mattress--instead of a person--to draw fire so his units could locate and neutralize the enemy. The scheme apparently worked, and in addition to saving lives his unit was able to use the tactic to destroy a number of German gun installations along the Western front. But this would not be Bellmard's only contribution to the war effort, nor would it be his most impactful. When Bellmard entered the war, the Germans had been able to decipher nearly every one of the Allies' codes, making it difficult for them to operate in secrecy. Bellmard recognized this problem, and as the leader of the Native American unit saw a tremendous asset in his soldiers' diverse languages. These languages were completely foreign to Europeans and had never been written down. They were ideal candidates for new codes. Lieutenant Bellmard suggested to his superiors that his unit's men be scattered throughout troop dispatch points as communications officers. There, he reasoned, they would be able to disseminate orders in their native tongues and then translate them back into English. His plan was put into practice and quickly proved to be reliable and secure. Bellmard and his original Code Talkers of Oklahoma allowed many Allied forces to move safely through battle zones without fear of interception, and to this date there are no records of the Central Powers ever cracking their ``code.'' Bellmard's suggestion carried over into World War II, during which Code Talkers were widely recruited and were critical to the Allied Forces' victory in the Pacific theater. Bellmard's simple idea to use Native American tongues to thwart and confuse enemies proved a lasting and effective tool for the U.S. military. It is fitting he was promoted to the rank of captain for his role. Unfortunately, Captain Bellmard died before we could thank him personally for his contribution to our freedom. But our thanks are still important, especially as we remember Independence Day and the cost of securing that freedom. We owe our sincere gratitude to all American heroes like Mose Bellmard, and I pray that more emerge in generations to come.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I came here to talk about a couple of issues on the Armed Services Committee that we are going to be facing. I only say to my good friend from Ohio that, yes, it is true that 9/ 11 occurred, and that we have al-Qaida out there, and there are the Taliban and other terrorists who want to kill everyone in this room and all throughout America, and that we were not in a position, financially, to go and defend our country after 9/11. I suggest that, after Pearl Harbor, the same situation took place. We didn't have time or the luxury of saying do we have the resources to go into this. But it was necessary and it did happen. Unfortunately, back in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, the amount of money funding our military reduced by about 40 percent-- not just the money but resources too. It went down in terms of force structure, modernization, and operations and personnel, about 40 percent. There was kind of a euphoric attitude at that time, and people were saying that the Cold War was over and we no longer needed the military. I remember it so well. Then, of course, with the downgrading of the military and the peace dividend--we all remember the peace dividend--we would take the money that was going to go to the military and declare a peace dividend. Unfortunately, peace is not there, and 9/11 happened. This President and this Congress inherited a war, an attack on America, the most vicious attack we have had on our homeland in the continental United States. We had to fight with a reduced army. We had to rebuild the army at the same time. If I had known the statement was going to be made by my good friend from Ohio, I would have brought my charts to show clearly what happened to the military during the 1990s. Yes, we do have that problem. It is an expensive war. It is an enduring war. We have all been over there. We know we are going to win. Things look very good right now in Iraq. It is going to be a little more difficult. It is necessary to do because if we had not done it, we would have had the Taliban and al-Qaida--all of these groups--running rampant over there. The big difference now in terms of how it affects the United States of America is that back in the days before they had the nuclear weapons and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a terrorist could have a case bomb, something such as that. Now we are talking about weapons of mass destruction. We are talking about Iran which, according to our intelligence estimates, as early as 2015 could have an ICBM capable of hitting the United States of America on the east coast. That is why it is so much more difficult. Also, my good friend from Ohio talks about the Republicans. It was not the Republicans who did the $787 billion stimulus program that did not stimulate. Those were the Democrats. That is not why I am here. New START Treaty Mr. President, I noticed on this week's agenda--and I am reading now; I think this is right--we are going to have three more hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the New START treaty. That means we will have had, when that is over, 16 Senate Foreign Relations witnesses, over 7 hearings, all of them supporting the New START treaty. I am reminded of what happened back when we were considering another treaty, the Law of the Sea Treaty. That passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 16 to 0, as I recall. When it came to the floor, I recognized--and, frankly, not many others did--that this was a very serious issue. This is the treaty against which Ronald Reagan fought so hard. It was coming up. That was a Republican administration. That was the first President Bush. They were going to run this thing through. We held hearings. At that time, the Republicans were in the majority. I made sure we had hearings in both of my committees--the Environment and Public Works Committee, as well as the Senate Armed Services Committee. I see the same thing happening. I gave a lengthy talk last week--I am not going to repeat it now--about why we should oppose the New START treaty. We all remember START I. We all remember START II. Keep in mind, the treaty we are talking about is a treaty not with the countries where we are anticipating problems. It is between Russia and the United States and it has to do with weapons of mass destruction, with nuclear warheads, reducing them in conjunction with reductions that would be imposed upon Russia and, at the same time, delivery systems. We have three ways of delivering them. One is, of course, ICBMs, one is SLCMs, submarine-launched missiles, and the other is through aircraft, such as the B-52 and B-2. The problem with that is we have been talking about our nuclear warheads and how we have not been able to modernize them or even to test them for a matter of decades. So we do not know what we have. In the way of force structure, we do know we have a declining force structure. This administration put down the new system that would have been the next generation bomber. We are stuck with the B-52. The first variety of that came out in 1964 before a lot of people around here were born, and, of course, the B-2. We are not going to modernize that. The missile defense system--we saw what happened over in Poland. This President made a determination to stop the construction of a ground system in Poland that would have had the capability by 2012 of knocking down an ICBM from Iran to the eastern United States. That is gone. There is no verification, very much the same as the verification we talked about with the Law of the Sea Treaty and others. I hope when this treaty comes up, we can keep talking about it and not let it run through. I am going to make this very clear. I happen to serve on the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Armed Services Committee. We will be having hearings. We have three more this week. Not one of these hearings has a witness who is opposed to the New START treaty. They are all witnesses who are right there with the President and part of that program. Don't Ask, Don't Tell The other issue that is coming up--no one is talking about it now, but it is something that did come up in the Senate Armed Services Committee reauthorization hearing and we will be considering that before too long. They made strong statements to do away with don't ask, don't tell. I remind my colleagues, back in 1993, we had this problem of how to deal with gays in the military. The Clinton administration came up with the program don't ask, don't tell. Quite frankly, it has worked very well since 1994, since it went into effect. For us to unilaterally say we are going to change that and have gays open in the service so that people are really not there to serve but to use the military to advance a personal agenda is wrong. Here is the interesting thing about it because all the military agrees with what I am saying right now. At least they did until the White House got involved. I am not sure where they are now. On April 28, both Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen said in a joint statement: We believe in the strongest possible terms the department must prior to any legislative action be allowed an opportunity to conduct a thorough, objective and systematic assessment of the impact of such a policy change. So they did. They decided they would conduct this study and report back this December 1. To let you know where the military is on this issue--all the chiefs of the military--General Casey of the Army said: I remain convinced that it is critically important to get a better understanding of where our soldiers and families are on the issue and what the impacts on readiness and unit cohesion might be so that I can provide informed military advice to the President and to the Congress. He said also: I also believe that repealing the law---- We are talking about the don't ask, don't tell law---- before the completion of the review will be seen by the men and women of the Army as a reversal of our commitment to hear their views before moving forward. What he is talking about is he made a commitment--we made a commitment--to all the military that before we repeal this law that has been working well since 1994, we want to get all the inputs. So we set up a mechanism where they--they, I am talking about all the troops that are out there--can evaluate this and make a determination as to how change in that law could impair our readiness situation. Admiral Roughhead of the U.S. Navy said: We need this review to fully assess our force and carefully examine potential impacts of a change in the law. My concern is that legislative changes at this point, regardless of the precise language used, may cause confusion on the status of the law in the Fleet and disrupt the review process itself by leading sailors to question whether their input matters. We asked for their input, then we declare what the results are, which they have done in the House and actually in the Senate committee with language. General Conway of the Marines said: I encourage the Congress to let the process the Secretary of Defense created to run its course. That is the study that goes to December 1. Collectively, we must make logical and pragmatic decisions about the long-term policies of our Armed Forces--which so effectively defend this great nation. General Schwartz of the Air Force said: I believe it is important, a matter of keeping faith with those currently serving in the Armed Forces, that the Secretary of Defense commissioned review be completed before there is any legislation to repeal the [don't ask, don't tell] law. Such action allows me to provide the best military advice to the President, and sends an important signal to our Airmen-- Of course, he is the Air Force Chief, so he is concerned about airmen-- and their families that their opinion matters. To do otherwise, in my view, would be presumptive and would reflect an intent to act before all relevant factors are assessed, digested and understood. That is the military. That is what they all agree. I think it is very important that we keep in mind that we made the request, a preliminary review of some 13,000 service members and families being interviewed. That is 13,000 interviews; 400,000 would undergo a survey. We would get their input through a survey. Our military is not asking for this change. So that is what it is all about. That is what we are faced with. And I think the only way to stop this if we really believe the military is right and that we are right--and I would say this: I have a letter that is signed by myself and Senator McCain--from all of the Senate Armed Services Committee: Senators Brown, Inhofe, Thune, Burr, Sessions, Wicker, Vitter, Chambliss, and LeMieux, all of us--saying that we need to wait until such time as the results are in before doing something. I am very concerned about this. The 1993 law states--and I am reading from the 1993 law now--``There is no constitutional right to serve.'' The military is a ``specialized society'' that is ``fundamentally different from civilian life.'' In living conditions offering little or no privacy, homosexuality presents an ``unacceptable risk'' to good order, discipline, morale, and unit cohesion--qualities essential for combat readiness. Making this retroactive is another serious problem with this change they are talking about. So I think those of us who are on the relevant committees are going to be trying to appeal to this body to consider that those issues, those amendments that were passed right down party lines be reconsidered on the floor and that individuals are going to have to have an up-or-down vote on this very critical issue. It is very interesting that when we had a report that was due December 1, now all of a sudden it has to be done before the election. Obviously, it is all for political reasons. So I guess I would just say to my colleagues, get ready because we are going to have an open debate on this floor. And I would think that myself and some others might want to make this a major issue for discussion and even require a cloture vote before it is over. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, something has happened that we haven't even talked about on the floor, and it is very timely and very significant. We all remember what has happened in the past about treaties that have come up and the administration, whether it is Democratic or Republican, if they want a treaty, they are going to try to rush it through. This same thing happened with the Law of the Sea Treaty under President Bush, and when that happened, it was somewhat of a crisis because many of us were opposed to our own President. We are going to find this to be true about the treaty I wish to address, and that is the New START treaty. I think we all remember the START treaty, the START II treaty, and now they are calling this the New START treaty. Yesterday, on June 17, in the committee on which I am the second ranking member, the Senate Armed Services Committee, we held the first hearing on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or the New START treaty. During the hearing, we had Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates, Dr. Chu, and Admiral Mullen all emphasizing the importance of verifying the treaty. But wait a minute. They are all speaking in behalf of the President, which means we haven't had a hearing yet. This is something we are going to be talking about doing before we get any closer to ratifying this treaty. I think the bottom-line question for all Americans and the Senate is, Does this treaty improve the national security of the United States? I don't think so. To put it bluntly, this treaty will have a profound negative impact and implications on the U.S. national security. Let's start with the need for the treaty because we are being told it is either this treaty or it is nothing at all, and that is just not an accurate statement. The United States and Russia are still committed under the 2002 Moscow Treaty to reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons to a range of about 1,700 to 2,200--a decrease from 6,000 under START. Additionally, the United States and Russia had the option of extending START for 5 years and keeping in place the same detailed verification and inspection protocols under START. So it is not a matter that we have to do something or we won't have anything at all because we will continue under the existing treaties that are there. It was the decision of the Obama administration to abandon START I protocols and rush forward to another START treaty. Both countries are still bound under the Moscow Treaty. Let's keep in mind that this treaty addresses two things: It addresses nuclear capability, warheads and the reduction of the warheads down to about 1,550, as well as delivery systems. This is the something we keep hearing about. People don't really have an understanding. If you have a nuclear warhead, you still have to deliver. There are three basic categories of deliverance. One is to do it with ICBMs. We all know what that is. The other is SLBMs; that is, submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The third would be through the air. We have two vehicles that can do this; that is, the old B-52 and the B-2. So I think we need to talk about four things: modernization, force structure, missile defense, and verification, and then the overall ability to deter our enemies. Keep in mind that this is a treaty between two countries, Russia and the United States. That is not really what the problem is. I think we all understand the problem is Syria, North Korea, and now Iran, which our intelligence tells us is going to have the capability of delivering an ICBM to the eastern part of the United States as early as 2015. That is very serious. First of all, modernization. The well-respected Perry-Schlesinger Commission, a bipartisan congressional commission on strategic posture, has been working for a long period of time, and they have come up with the conclusion that our nuclear arsenal is a victim of disrepair and neglect. We haven't been doing anything with these. Even Secretary Gates--keep in mind, he was here yesterday at this hearing--he said: There is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the numbers of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program. We haven't done that for any period of time at all. Nonetheless, Secretary Gates, the same one who was testifying yesterday, said as recently as last October that we have to modernize and we have to test. General Chilton, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, testified that modernization was not only important but essential. The last B-52--we are talking about the equipment we have--the last B-52 we cranked out was in 1964. These are ancient vehicles. Under President Obama's first budget, he has done away with the next generation of bombers, so we can kind of forget about that as long as he is President and has a majority in this Congress. The only major nuclear power not modernizing its weapons is us. Everybody else is. Every other major power in the world is modernizing, and we all agree we shouldn't be the only one who is not doing this. Some lack modern safety features such as insensitive high-explosive and unique signal generators, and some rely on vacuum tubes. A lot of people who are the age of my kids and grandkids don't remember how old vacuum tubes are. They look at the radios on their cars and they wonder why mine in my 1965 Ford pickup takes so long to warm up. It is because they don't remember that is the way things were. That is the way our nuclear equipment is operating now. No weapons have been fully tested since 1992 when the United States voluntarily suspended its underground nuclear testing program, and that was in anticipation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Meanwhile, other nuclear countries, including Russia, continue to modernize and replace their nuclear weapons. Press reports indicate the administration will invest $100 billion over the next decade in nuclear delivery systems. Now, this comes out of the press. I haven't heard this from the Obama administration. About $30 billion of this total will go, as it should, to the development and acquisition of a new strategic submarine. That will leave about $70 billion over that 10-year period. According to estimates by the Strategic Command, the cost of maintaining the current dedicated nuclear forces is about $5.6 billion a year or $56 billion over the decade. So that leaves $14 billion, which is totally inadequate to do what we need to do, and certainly it is not sufficient enough to get to a higher degree of sophistication and modernization of our aging 1964 B-52 bomber. I am concerned that the appropriators are not going to be able to fully fund the President's fiscal year 2011 budget request of $624 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration. I commend them for this. This is an amount we should invest. I am not convinced we are going to be able to do that. Here is something people haven't talked about; that is, in the fiscal year 2010 NDAA--that is the National Defense Authorization Act which I am active in--we required that the submission of a new START agreement to the Senate be accompanied by a plan to modernize the U.S. nuclear deterrent. That is under law. That is section 1251 of the fiscal year 2010 NDAA. So that is something we have to comply with. Yet what we are talking about now is ratifying a treaty before we have that modernization. We are not going to let that happen. It puts off decisions on a follow-on bomber and ICBM until 2013 or 2015. A letter was written to President Obama--and I was the one who wrote it--on December 15, 2009, signed by 41 Senators, and it stated that further reductions are not in national security interest of the United States without a significant program to modernize our nuclear deterrent. So, therefore, the first issue of this is the ratification of the New START treaty by the Senate has to be linked to some kind of commitment for modernization, which is not in place now. The second thing is force structure. According to the Perry- Schlesinger Strategic Posture Commission--and I will quote two sentences out of that. Keep in mind, the triad is ICBM, SLBM, and the air delivery system. The triad of strategic delivery systems continues to have value. Each leg of the nuclear triad provides unique contributions to stability. As the overall forces shrink, their unique values become more prominent. This is this Commission. We all know about the Perry-Schlesinger Commission. No one questions that they are the final authority, and something has to be done. We need to listen to them. We get this also: We need to understand what the Russian force structure will look like and do a net assessment to determine whether we can maintain a viable nuclear deterrent in this new agreement. And we need to take into full consideration the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review which concluded--and I am quoting now--this is the third posture review: Large disparities in nuclear capabilities could raise concerns on both sides and among U.S. allies and partners, and may not be conducive to maintaining a stable, long-term relationship. So right now, we are talking about the nuclear force structure suggested in section 1251 of the NDAA. We have 420 of the 450 currently deployed single-warhead ICBMs; we have 60 of the nuclear capability B- 52s and B-2s, and we have 240 total of the warheads or the SLBMs. Add that up, and that is 720. This treaty calls for 700. When we asked the question of the panel yesterday: Where are you going to come up with the 20 reduction, they didn't have it, but that is still under consideration. So we don't even know at this time in terms of force structure and the problems we have. Additionally, this treaty does not address tactical nuclear weapons even though tactical nuclear weapons remains one of the most significant threats. A tactical nuclear weapon could be a suitcase bomb; it could be anything other than the three legs of the nuclear triad this treaty addresses. One thing we know is that the Russians have 10 times--the ratio is 10 to 1--they have 10 times the tactical nuclear weapons that we do. I agree with Henry Kissinger. Just the other day, he said: The large Russian stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons, unmatched by a comparable American deployment, could threaten the ability to undertake extended deterrence. Again, there is a lot more on this, but I think this gets the point across that we have to be looking at the force structure. I wish to move to the missile defense part of this. We have heard--and we have been talking about this since January-- that the New START treaty has a provision in it, in the preamble, which says that if we expand our missile defense capabilities, the Russians could get out of this treaty. We have been told by the administration that is not true. I have heard so many different explanations of article V in the treaty that I remain concerned that it is as clear as mud. The Obama administration assures us there are no limitations. Yet, if you look at the preamble, it says: . . . the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms, that this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced, and that current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties. In other words, we don't want you to be concerned with your own national defense. There is a unilateral statement that was issued by the Russian side of missile defense released the same day as the full agreed-upon text. This was in Prague in April. This is what our President signed. It said that the treaty ``can operate and be viable only if the United States of America refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively and qualitatively.'' There it is. That is a statement. That is undeniable. It is there. Sergey Lavrov, who is the Russian Foreign Minister, stated to emphasize that: We have not yet agreed on this [missile defense] issue and we are trying to clarify how the agreements reached by the two presidents . . . correlate with the actions taken unilaterally by Washington. He added that: [The] Obama administration had not coordinated its missile defense plans with Russia. So this is the one that I think is very significant. Since I am running out of time--I am going to be able to pursue this and get into a lot more detail. But if you look at what happened in Poland when we had the ground-based missile defense shield that was being installed in the first budget this President had, he pulled the rug out from under both the Czech Republic and Poland and discontinued this ground-based capability. That is something that put us in a position that is pretty scary. I do wish to mention one thing about verification. There is limited verification. We all remember that President Reagan always used to say: Trust, but verify. Trust, but verify. This is all trust and no verification. We are looking at it right now and seeing that the verification process is not there. I am concerned that there are 18 inspections per year that are allowed--that would be 180 inspections in 10 years--given the fact that we conducted on the order of 600 inspections during the 15 years of START I. The top verification priorities need to be accurate and effective, and they are not there now. They are still waiting on the National Intelligence Estimate that will assess our ability to monitor the treaty. I think we all recognize we are going to have to be able to have that verification. Lastly would be the deterrence. As Secretary Gates said back in October of 2008: As long as others have nuclear weapons, we must maintain some level of these weapons ourselves to deter potential adversaries and to reassure over two dozen allies and partners who rely on our nuclear umbrella for their security, making it unnecessary for them to develop their own. I agree with that, but that is not the message we heard yesterday. The New START focuses on reducing the strategic nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States and fails to address the proliferation of nuclear weapons of other countries. The whole idea is that we are having an agreement, this treaty between two countries, but it is between the wrong two countries. This ought to be with countries such as Iran. Russia is not a threat; Iran is a threat to us. North Korea is also a threat to us. We have to be looking at where the real problem is. We know--and it is not even classified--that Iran will have the capability of sending an ICBM to the United States as early as 2015, and we have taken down the only defense we would have against that by taking out the Poland ground-based interceptor. That is scary. The conclusion I come to on this is the Senate must receive a comprehensive net assessment of benefits, costs, and risks, with a clear and precise listing of terms, definitions, and banned permit actions, and the Senate has to continue to receive a series of follow- on hearings. We haven't had many hearings. I remember when we had the Law of the Sea Treaty. That was during a Republican administration. The Bush administration decided that Ronald Reagan was wrong, I guess, so they were going to have this. They weren't having hearings either. They sent people over there who were answering to President Bush. At that time, the Republicans were in the majority, and I chaired the Environment and Public Works Committee. We held a hearing, and the Law of the Sea Treaty passed the Foreign Relations Committee 16 to 0, and it was ready to sail through. We realized what was in it. They had not changed it since the 1980s when, at that time, Ronald Reagan was opposed to it. With that being the case, we had to have our own hearings. We had people coming in and talking about why we should not have the Law of the Sea Treaty. The Law of the Sea Treaty would have turned over to the United Nations authority over 70 percent of the Earth's surface. We were able to effectively kill that because we were able to show it was wrong. We haven't had those hearings on this treaty yet. We have to have hearings on the treaty before they are going to be able to get the votes. I am taking this opportunity, since nobody is talking about this right now, of alerting our Members on both sides of the aisle that this Obama administration is going to rescue this treaty and get it done before we have our hearings. That isn't going to happen. Fortunately, it takes two-thirds to ratify a treaty. That is our responsibility. Later, I will talk in more detail, as it gets closer. I will use a little bit of time and address the problem that my friend from Alabama was talking about a few minutes ago, which is that we have received a lot of criticism for our objection to raising the limits, which are currently way too low, to $75 billion. First, they wanted to raise the limits of liability for economic damages to $10 billion, and I objected to that because both the President and the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, said we need to think it thoughtfully all the way through as to how high a liability limit we want. Then they came forth with no liability limits. These are my words and not the words of any experts, but I have spent many years in my life in the insurance business. I remember, in 1994, I was one who introduced a bill to put a repose on aviation products. At that time, we were importing aviation products and airplanes from other countries because we weren't making them here. Why weren't we making them here? Our tort laws would not let us. We had unlimited liability. They didn't have limits out there. Consequently, Piper Aircraft had to go into bankruptcy. They had to actually move some of their operations to Canada because their tort laws were different at that time. We introduced and passed a bill that was intended to be a 12-year repose bill. That meant if a company manufactured an airplane or an airplane part and it worked fine for 12 years, and there was an accident, you could not go back against the manufacturer. We could not get it through. Instead, we had an 18-year repose bill. That was one that I thought was too long. That meant if something had been running well for 18 years, then you could not go back and sue. I called Lloyd's of London, and they said: You are right. We don't care if it is 18 years or 12 or 20 years; you have to have an end to underwrite against. In other words, we cannot insure it unless we know there is an end in the future. Consequently, that is what we need to do in this because companies have to be able to have insurance in order to drill. We didn't think that was so necessary prior to the tragedy we are addressing now in the gulf. Now we realize we should be and what we need to do. If we leave it open ended, that will mean if we ever have any drilling or exploring in the gulf, it is going to have, in my opinion, to be done not even by the big 5, including BP, it would have to be done by the international oil companies--those in Venezuela and in China. So, in my opinion, if we adopt something with an open-ended, unlimited liability that means we are all through drilling in the gulf. Quite frankly, that is exactly what the Obama administration wants. All this hype and their talk about oil and gas--earlier this week, we had the Sanders amendment, which would have put anyone out of business who was in the business of drilling, including our marginal producers in Oklahoma. A marginal well is only 15 barrels a day. That is what we do in Oklahoma. Yet the average marginal well produces only two barrels a day but accounts for 28 percent of the domestically produced oil. That is significant. They would have been out of business if we had adopted the Sanders amendment, which we handily defeated earlier this week. I believe the statement made yesterday by Senator Rockefeller pretty much says it right. I hope I have it so I can refer to it. He was criticizing all these efforts to try to have some kind of cap and trade, and I think the meeting that took place yesterday verifies that cap and trade is in fact dead. The votes simply aren't there. I don't have that--yes I do. This is what took place yesterday. It is in this morning's Politico: The Senate Democrats may have emerged from a much-hyped caucus meeting without a clear plan for this summer's energy bill, but they appear to agree on one point; that is, cap and trade is dead. I have been saying that for about 3 months. I think we are hearing that now from a lot of the Democrats. Senator McCaskill said: I don't see 60 votes for a price on carbon right now. There is the same quote by several others. This is a quote I like. Listen, this is profound, and I don't think I have ever quoted Senator Rockefeller and said it was something with which I totally agree. But this is something he said: The Senate should be focusing on the immediate issues before us: to suspend EPA action on greenhouse gas emissions, push clean coal technologies, and tackle the gulf oil spill. We need to set aside controversial and more far-reaching climate proposals and work right now on energy legislation that protects our economy, protects West Virginia, and improves our environment. I agree wholeheartedly. We on the Republican side have said we have an energy policy, and that it is all of the above. I will yield at any time to my friend from Connecticut, since he had time reserved. Apparently, he doesn't want it. It may be that the caucus that met yesterday was united in the idea that cap and trade is dead. But I don't think that is necessarily true with the Obama administration. I am glad to yield to my friend. My understanding is that they only have 4 more minutes, and a unanimous consent request will be made here. I am almost out of time anyway.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask the Chair, how much time is remaining before--the Senator from Nebraska has reserved time; is that correct?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me conclude and say I will come back and talk about this at a later time. I do believe President Obama's pollster has some ideas that became public. I will share this last point. Joe Benenson, the President's campaign pollster, did a survey for somewhat of an extremist environmental group, and, among other things, he found that based on his interpretation of the survey result, pushing for cap and trade and tying opposition to it to big oil is a potent political weapon for Democrats against Republicans this fall. I think that says it all. People are using the tragedy in the gulf for political purposes. This is something we want people to understand. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me say it was my intention to come down and talk about the same subject my friend from Alabama has addressed, and I will do that if there is time at the conclusion of my first subject, which has to be said and addressed today, and if not, I may have to come back after my friend from Connecticut to address this subject. It has to do with the liability limits--something we need to think through. There is a gross misunderstanding and a lot of pandering going on of people demagoging that issue, and I want to address that.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be recognized for 20 minutes, to be followed by the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me respond to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. INHOFE. I was just reassuring her. I think I agree with everything she said. Mine was the process we are talking about, and I think that is the process the majority leader was recommending.

Mr. INHOFE. First, I do not disagree with anything that was said by my very good friend from Florida. It is a devastating thing. I have no love for BP. I assure you they are not any friends of this side over here. I only have to say this. If you want to shut out everyone from their exploration, it doesn't make any difference whether it is deep water or otherwise, you go ahead and do something like this. This would only help the big five or the national oil companies--that is China and Venezuela. Without a cap they would be the only ones who could explore out there. Frankly, they don't have the capacity to do the amount of exploration that is going to be necessary to run this machine called America. Right now there is a commission that is taking place. I believe they are going to be discussing all these things, including what types of caps, if any, should go on. They are the ones who are approaching this thing, considering everything. I think they should have time to do their own work. That is the reason. But I do not disagree with anything either one of the Senators said. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. INHOFE. Unlimited liability. Madam President, we have talked about this before. It sounds good to talk about big oil. This would be the greatest thing for big oil. Only the big five might----

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, Madam President, I think I will object at this time. The bill was just introduced 7 business days ago. It has been referred to the Judiciary Committee, where I assume Chairman Leahy will take a thoughtful look at it. Senator Reid has asked his committee chairmen to report out oilspill legislation by the 4th of July for consideration next month, so I think we should give that process an opportunity to work. So I do object.

Mr. INHOFE. I object. Now I wish to be recognized to explain my objection.

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, this S. 3472, this is one with no caps?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, when a tornado or severe weather event threatens the lives and property of our citizens across the country, few know that a hard-working, unsung hero is directing the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, OK, to provide advanced weather forecasting on these threats. Our friend and colleague, Dr. Jeff Kimpel, Director of the NSSL, is retiring after 13 years of Federal service as the Director of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, OK. He will be sorely missed. As my colleagues in the Senate know, the NSSL is best known for developing Doppler weather radar technology that led to the establishment of the national NEXRAD network consisting of more than 150 radar systems. During Dr. Kimpel's watch, NSSL performed the scientific and technological research that upgraded the NEXRADs from proprietary to open systems, added superresolution capability and designed dual-polarization upgrades. Dual-polarization will significantly increase the accuracy of rainfall estimates, delineate rain from snow, and provide an estimate of hail size. Since its installation, the NEXRAD program has reduced tornado-related deaths by 45 percent and personal injuries by 40 percent. Under Dr. Kimpel's leadership, NSSL established strong programs in short-term cloud-resolving, numerical forecast models that are designed to yield estimates of hazardous weather events including tornadoes, windstorms, lightning, hail, and heavy precipitation. He championed radar-based rainfall analyses for flash flood and river forecasting. He was instrumental in establishing support for new facilities for NSSL that led to the eventual construction of the magnificent National Weather Center building shared with the National Weather Service and the University of Oklahoma Meteorology Program. He supported NSSL scientists and equipment to participate in 17 national and international field studies including the high profile Verification of the Origin of Tornadoes Experiment. While Dr. Kimpel served as Director, NSSL scientists published over 600 archival, refereed journal articles, obtained 3 patents, and participated in 4 Cooperative Research and Development Agreements with private companies. NSSL employees achieved many honors and recognitions during his tenure including a NSSL affiliate being elected to the National Academy of Sciences, a senior researcher being elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and two junior colleagues being invited to the White House as winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Dr. Kimpel's legacy at NSSL will be his establishment of far-reaching research programs designed to vastly improve weather and water warnings and forecasts. He worked tirelessly to launch the Multifunction Phased Array Radar initiative as a possible eventual replacement for NEXRAD. He worked with the NWS Storm Prediction Center and the Norman Weather Forecast Office to establish the Hazardous Weather Testbed to accelerate the transition of new science into operational warning and forecasting decision processes. He worked with others to support the Warn-on-Forecast initiative that envisions a time when severe weather warnings will be issued using numerical guidance in addition to the present method of detecting precursors or the event itself. Dr. Kimpel expanded NSSL's radar-based flash flood forecasting and water management programs into coastal areas where inundation from land- falling tropical storms and hurricanes is possible. Prior to becoming the Director of NSSL, Dr. Kimpel served in the U.S. Air Force, including a tour in Vietnam for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. He earned his graduate degrees at the University of Wisconsin before joining the meteorology faculty at the University of Oklahoma. He achieved the rank of full professor and held a number of administrative positions including dean of the College of Geosciences and provost and senior vice president of the Norman Campus. He was named a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, is a certified, consulting meteorologist, and was elected president of the AMS in 2000. He chaired both the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for Atmospheric Sciences and the Board of Trustees of the University Corporation for the Atmospheric Sciences. Dr. Kimpel plans on remaining in Norman and spending more time with his five children and two grandchildren. Is there an unsung hero protecting Americans? Yes--that hero to all of us is Dr. Jeff Kimpel. We wish him well in his future pursuits, and all of us continue to support those research and day-to-day operations he has championed at the NSSL in severe weather detection, research, and forecasting.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would say first of all, whether that is good policy--I think you have to have the accurate input before you make a policy determination. The oil and gas industry is very complicated. In order for them to go out and risk their capital, they have to plow this money back in. Frankly, most of it is plowed back into exploration. What I wanted to get across, which I think is important, is that the Sanders amendment repeals three things--first of all, expensing for intangible drilling costs; that is IDC. It repeals percentage depletion for marginal oil and gas wells. It repeals the manufacturing deduction for oil and gas. I predicted a long time ago, when the gulf spill took place, that people were going to try to parlay this into something to punish oil and gas. This is what they have been trying to do for a long time. It could very well be that tonight, when the President makes his big speech, he is going to talk about, now we are going to have to look at cap and trade, as if there is some relationship between what happened in the gulf and cap and trade. Repealing expensing of intangible drilling costs eliminates the ability to expense intangible drilling and development costs, which would force at least a 25- to 30-percent reduction in drilling budgets, leading to lost jobs, lost production, and higher prices to consumers. On the floor of the Senate yesterday, I spent some time talking about how many jobs actually would be lost in the State of Louisiana. But the IDC is an expensing-out item that has been in our Tax Code since 1913. It really only applies to the smaller operators, so they are the ones who are singled out for oil and gas production. Likewise, since 1926 small producers and millions of royalty owners have had the option to utilize percentage depletion to both simplify and account for the decline in the value of minerals from a property. As you know, they do deplete as you produce minerals. Who is going to pay the most for this? I will share with you who pays for this, but right now I will yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. INHOFE. Let me mention one thing I want to make sure I get in here before we run out of time. We went through this class warfare once back in 1980. We had Jimmy Carter as President of the United States. He had the windfall profits tax. I am sure my friend from Vermont remembers that at that time. I remember it well. That is when they were going to have a windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry. The results of that: The WPT reduced domestic production between 3 and 6 percent and increased oil imports from 8 to 16 percent. . . . This made the United States more dependent upon imported oil. That is the Congressional Research Service, which is nonpartisan. That is a major issue here in terms of our dependence on other countries for our ability to run this machine called America. Let's get back to the percentage depletion. The percentage depletion is particularly important for the production of America's over 600,000 low-volume marginal wells. The average marginal well produces 2 barrels a day. Let me tell you what that is so my colleagues, when they get ready to vote, will really understand whom they are affecting. A marginal well is a well producing under 15 barrels per day. The average is 2 barrels a day. My friend is talking about all these big giants. I am not nearly as concerned about the big five and the majors as I am about my marginal operators in my State of Oklahoma. With an average of 2 barrels a day, the marginal producers actually account for 28 percent of all domestic production in the lower 48 States--28 percent. These are all small people. If you are concerned also about whom you are affecting by this legislation, look at the royalty owners. There are literally millions of royalty owners. They have maybe a small piece of property, maybe their homestead. They are the ones who would be denied the use of their land. By putting the small ones out of business, they are the ones you are damaging. I will reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. INHOFE. The Senator is yielding the remainder of is time?

Mr. INHOFE. I thank my friend from Vermont. I know my friend from Vermont would not intentionally say something that is not true. Sometimes he does not have and sometimes I do not have the actual facts, so inadvertently we might misrepresent. Let me just say as far as Exxon is concerned that from 2004 to 2008, they paid more than $18 billion in U.S. Federal income taxes, and that is just some of the taxes they pay. I have to say this, though. The whole discussion on this--the Sanders bill would effectively put the small and the marginal producers in America out of business. Before I go into that in any detail, let me just share this. It is interesting, when I listen to liberals talk about doing away with drilling, with oil and gas and coal and nuclear-- if you do that, you cannot run this machine called America. Every time they talk about doing something to stop production, as they are doing right now in the gulf--a lot of these people are using and exploiting the tragedy in the gulf to try to retard or stop all production in America. Consequently, this is something where we would be in a position where we would be so rationed in oil and gas that we would have to be more dependent on many of these countries on which we do not want to be dependent. We did a study. I think this would surprise the Chair. If we didn't have any political restrictions on what we could do in North America, we could completely eliminate our reliance upon the Middle East for any gas or oil within 4 years. That is pretty shocking. Our problem is not that we do not have enough oil and gas. We have more reserves than any other country. A CRS report came out with that just the other day. What I want to do is give my honorable friend a chance to respond to my statement, and then I will reserve the remainder of my time to discuss in a little more detail how this affects the very small, marginal operators in America.