Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, yesterday the U.S. Senate voted on two measures, one by the Senator from Massachusetts and one by the Senator from Nebraska relating to home health benefits. I was unable to attend yesterday's session of the Senate but had I voted, I would have voted for both measures. Home health and hospice benefits are very important to Oklahomans. In fact, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice reported that Oklahomans alone may receive a cut of over $1 billion in home health and hospice benefits under this bill. I understand the value of home health and hospice very well. In March 2007, I introduced legislation with Senators Thad Cochran, Roger Wicker, Pete Domenici, and Richard Shelby, the Preserving Access to Hospice Act, to ensure America's terminally ill seniors have access to hospice care, by providing immediate relief for hospices impacted by the Medicare hospice cap and authorizing a MedPAC study on the cap issue. Identical legislation was introduced in the House led by Congressman John Sullivan with many cosponsors. I introduced this legislation because of a flawed provision in Federal law which required hospices to repay the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, for serving eligible patients in prior years. Many small, family, and community-owned hospices faced closure, and patients faced losing access to hospice care. In Oklahoma especially, hospice care companies of all sizes service a large number of Oklahomans. However, in 2005, 41 percent of the hospices providing care in Oklahoma received letters from CMS demanding repayment. Since then, I have been working to help small, community hospices in Oklahoma as they face repayment letters from CMS for millions of dollars. Without help, hospices face closure and the discharge of significant numbers of terminally ill patients, possibly into more expensive care. In fact, during last summer's contentious debate on physician Medicare reimbursements, I argued at the very least for a MedPAC study on payment methodology for hospice care to evaluate if there is a problem with payments and whether cap amount revisions are needed. I understand and greatly appreciate the value of good home health care and hospice benefits. Admittedly, one of the measures considered yesterday would have been better than the other. The amendment from the Senator from Massachusetts simply said that nothing in the bill should result in the reduction of guaranteed home health benefits. The problem is that access to home health is not a ``guaranteed'' Medicare benefit. So even though the amendment from the Senator from Massachusetts passed 96 to 0, will it have a real impact on protecting seniors from the loss of access to home health care? No. The better approach was offered by the Senator from Nebraska. Unfortunately, the better approaches are failing by party line votes. However, I compliment the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Webb, for his support of the motion by the Senator from Nebraska. This motion would have recommitted this entire legislation to the appropriate Senate committee to remove the cuts to home health benefits. I think that is the best and most direct approach. I think that is the most honest approach. Simply remove the cuts. For the past several days we have been discussing the cuts to Medicare and especially the cuts to Medicare Advantage. In each case, the Republicans have offered motions and amendments to recommit this massive 2,000-page health bill back to committee to improve it, namely, to remove the cuts to programs seniors and the disabled use. I was disappointed to see this most recent attempt to send this massive bill back to committee to improve it fail 41 to 53. I look forward to today's debate. One scheduled for a vote is on medical malpractice reform. It will be very interesting to see just how serious the Democrats are about health care reform. Currently, the bill only has a ``sense of the Senate'' recognizing medical malpractice costs are a problem. We'll see if they think it is important to really do anything about it.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I support the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada, which I have also cosponsored, that calls for real reform of the medical liability system. A key component to health care reform in our Nation is medical liability reform. However, the Democrats are not actually interested in making changes to the current system as evidenced by the inclusion in this bill of ``the sense of the Senate that health care reform presents an opportunity to address issues related to medical malpractice and medical liability insurance.'' Well that opportunity has come now, with a vote on this amendment that will limit the amount of contingency fees available to trial lawyers who bring medical liability actions. The threat of massive lawsuits and the costs of insuring against them have driven doctors out of the practice of medicine, influenced doctors and nurses to avoid certain specialties, and in part led to the steady increase of health care premiums. With the threat of lawsuits hanging over their heads, doctors are forced to take extra precautions when diagnosing and treating patients through the ordering of additional tests and procedures. The Journal of the American Medical Association found that 93 percent of doctors admit practicing this type of self- protective medicine. A recent study by the Pacific Research Institute estimates the cost of defensive medicine is at least $191 billion per year, while other reports put costs over $200 billion annually. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if Congress adopted only a few of the malpractice reforms we have seen various States enact, such as Texas and Alabama, the deficit would decrease by $54 billion over 10 years. At the heart of this issue, beyond the costs and savings, is the damage the current liability system does to the relationship patients have with their doctors. When physicians are afraid they could be sued, not only do they run unnecessary tests and procedures, but the quality of care patients receive is compromised. A 2003 GAO report concluded that defensive medicine has also contributed to access issues, especially in rural areas. Physicians tend to move to States and areas with lower liability rates, and hospitals are able to expand available services. It is estimated that attorneys' fees and administrative costs amount to 54 percent of the compensation paid to plaintiffs. Less than 15 cents of every dollar awarded actually goes towards compensation for the individual. This amendment is not about preventing compensation to injured individuals; it is about increasing access to doctors and lowering costs. In fact, this measure allows injured plaintiffs to keep more of the reward. The simple truth is that lowering the cost of doing business allows doctors to serve more people at lower costs. On November 6, I received a letter from the Oklahoma State Medical Association, confirming that medical liability reform would reduce health care costs because the practice of defensive medicine adds billions of dollars to the yearly cost of health care. Oklahoma physicians pay anywhere from $20,000 to $90,000 a year, depending on their specialty, for malpractice insurance, and their yearly costs have risen astronomically since 1999 to the point that some specialties, like OB-GYNs, have had to change careers or move to other States where State malpractice reform is already in place. Since 1999, Oklahoma OB- GYNs have seen their yearly malpractice costs rise from $15,000 to $63,000. Meaningful malpractice reform must be a part of any comprehensive health care reform. This is not a partisan issue. As my colleagues mentioned yesterday, this amendment was actually proposed by Senator Kennedy in 1995, with the support of many current Senators on the other side of the aisle. It will be very interesting to see just how serious the Democrats are about health care reform. The bill has a ``sense of the Senate'' recognizing medical malpractice costs are a problem. We will see if they think it is important to really do anything about it.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas. I yield myself the remainder of our time, which I understand is until 10 after the hour. I wish to talk about taxes, which is our subject, and in a different way than others did. The stated purpose of the Democrats' health care proposal is to do two things: lower cost and increase coverage. This bill is a miserable failure on both counts. Under the plan, premiums are expected to increase, as a result of new taxes, new regulations, and restrictions. In general, you are going to pay more for your health insurance thanks to the Democrats' 2,000-page bill. This is in direct contradiction to the stated goals of the bill itself. I will be specific about that in a moment. The second issue is coverage. Again, we find a miserable failure. The most often cited number of uninsured Americans is 47 million Americans. I saw some interesting numbers in a Washington Post opinion piece the other day which kind of ranks out the uninsured and how they are broken down. This is very significant. Of the 47 million, 39 percent reside in the five States of California, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. Those are our border States. Indeed, it is estimated that 9.1 million of the 47 million are illegal immigrants, people in this country illegally. Secondly, of the 47 million, 9.7 million have incomes above $75,000 and choose not to purchase health insurance. This bill would solve that issue by using the coercive power of the Federal Government to force citizens to allocate their resources in a manner that meets the approval of bureaucrats in Washington and of politicians. The bill makes it a crime not to have health insurance. If you don't get it, you get taxed. Lastly, a total of 14 million of the 47 million are currently eligible for current government programs--Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, and so forth--and choose not to sign up. If you do the math, that reduces that 47 million down, if you take out the illegals and the others for the reasons I stated, to about 14 million. So this, by and large, is what people are talking about when they mention the 47 million uninsured Americans. These numbers shed some interesting light on the composition of the number of uninsured Americans that gets thrown around. President Obama, interestingly, uses a different number. He doesn't use 47 million. He uses 30 million. I think he wants to avoid the immigration issue, and it is probably wise of him to do so. He doesn't want to be accused of giving rich benefits to people who are here illegally. I noted, with great interest, the CBO's estimate of the number of Americans who will not have health insurance, even if this bill were to be enacted over the wishes of the majority of the American people, 24 million. This bill still leaves 24 million Americans uninsured, after spending $2.5 trillion to do just that, while at the same time making health care more expensive for the rest of us. I hear the other side often throwing numbers around without any documentation. I use the CBO and other nonpartisan, credible sources so we can avoid doing that. President Obama wants to spend $2.5 trillion in new health care promises at a time when the country can't afford the promises we have already made, and we have a record 1-year budget deficit which, by the way, means that 47 cents out of every dollar the Federal Government spends this year is borrowed. In 10 years, 16 percent or nearly $1 out of every $5 the government spends will be spent solely on interest payments on the debt. President Obama's budget doubles the Federal debt in 5 years and triples it in 10 years. We have talked about this on the floor. I don't think there is disagreement. On top of this, we face $67 trillion in unfunded liabilities from our current entitlements of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This health care plan layers yet another unaffordable entitlement on top of Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and the other entitlements we have, all in a system that is already crumbling. It seems to me this bill is exactly what the American people do not need. That is why most Americans are reporting that this bill is something they do not want at this time or ever. I think it is common sense. Reading through the legislation, one is struck by the myriad of ways this bill raises taxes on America's citizens--from job-creating small businesses, to middle-class families. I count about a dozen of them, adding up to about $500 billion in tax increases over the next few years--$\1/2\ trillion in new taxes. So everyone should get ready to pay a higher health care bill and a higher tax bill should this measure become law. Some might be inclined to say: But President Obama promised he would not raise taxes. That was, indeed, a campaign promise of the current administration, that no one making under $250,000 per year would see their taxes go up. Let me just go ahead and quote that. This is what President Obama said during the campaign: I can make a firm pledge . . . no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase--not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. So we started analyzing this bill, and guess what we found out. When the bill is fully enacted, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation--keep in mind, I am quoting sources here that are credible sources and nonpartisan sources--the Joint Committee on Taxation found that, on average, individuals making over $50,000 and families making over $75,000 would see their taxes go up. Let me repeat that. Individuals making over $50,000 and families making over $75,000 would have their taxes go up under this bill. Indeed, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 42 million middle-class families and individuals--those making less than $200,000, on average, will pay higher taxes in this bill. President Obama's health care reform bill currently under consideration in the Senate raises revenues to a large extent on the backs of middle-class Americans despite Candidate Obama's pledge not to do that. So let's look at some of these instances where we get taxed. I am getting this, again, from the Joint Tax Committee and from CBO. If you have health insurance, you get taxed. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, new excise taxes applied to health insurance providers will end up taxing the beneficiaries. This tax also has the effect of increasing premiums as well. So you are double-taxed on this deal. Now, that is if you do have health insurance. What if you do not have health insurance? You still get taxed. Under this bill, you get taxed if you do not carry health insurance, as a penalty. Where does this burden fall? You guessed it: middle-class Americans. CBO has said that half of the Americans affected by this provision make between $22,800 and $68,000 for a family of four. That is middle-class America. If you take prescription drugs, you get taxed. That is another area. According to the JTC and CBO, new taxes in the bill applied to the provision of prescription drugs will end up raising the cost of those drugs. So you are taxed again. If you happen to need a medical device--this is something I am really sensitive to, and I have not heard much discussion of this issue on the floor so far. It is a difficult thing. I was talking to Senator Enzi. He said people do not really know what medical devices are. The stents--these are things that are available here in America. You cannot find them in many of the other countries. So if you need a medical device, you get taxed. If you have high out-of-pocket medical bills, you get taxed. My son-in-law, Brad Swan, installs pacemakers and defibrillators. This morning, I was talking to him, and he told me what happened last night. He said that at 1 o'clock in the morning, they got a call to go out to the emergency room of St. Francis Hospital in my city of Tulsa, OK, and they had an 8-year-old boy who had no heartbeat. He was born with congenital heart disease. He put in a pacemaker at that time, and he was perfectly healthy in the morning. I think most doctors would agree that without it, that child would not have lived. My older sister Marilyn faced a similar situation 9 years ago. She is alive today. She is healthy today. She would not be alive today without it. That is how serious this is. Dr. Stanley DeFehr is from Bartlesville, OK. I talked to him this morning about this, about the significance of the medical devices. I am going to quote his answer. I wrote it down. He said: The decision of who needs a pacemaker could be complicated, particularly the decision to put in a pacemaker on someone we might consider quite elderly. But it's a false economy to deny putting one in because of their risk of falling (breaking a hip or shoulder). In the case where they fall, the costs become quite high. The cost of a pacemaker pales in comparison to the cost of a stroke or multiple fractures. A pacemaker, by the way, costs about $5,000 and lasts about 10 years. That is $500 a year--not a bad deal. So I think this is a quality-of- life issue that we could lose with the Democrats' government-run health care schemes. So those are some examples of what we can do to pay higher taxes under this bill. If you have health insurance, you pay higher taxes. If you do not have it, you pay higher taxes. If you purchase a medical device, you have higher taxes. If you pay your own medical bills out of your pocket, you have higher taxes. If you take prescription drugs, you have higher taxes. All of these activities are taxed mercilessly under this legislation. I want to turn now to examine one tax provision in particular that I find strikingly dishonest, damaging, and expensive to the taxpayer. It is an additional Medicare payroll tax that is in this legislation, and it is a perfect example of how this bill is going to tax you. You have to go into the bill to find these things. There are clandestine taxes in the bill that will hit you when you do not expect them to. Basically, the bill says that people making $200,000 a year are going to pay an additional payroll tax called the hospital insurance payroll tax that raises over $53 billion. Keep in mind, this is above the taxes we are already paying. They are getting these people at $200,000. You might think that is a lot of money. But there is a catch to this. They did not index it. So if you do not index the $200,000, then a period of time goes by, and it is far less than the amount it sounds like today. In fact, I would say in 10 years from now that $200,000 would pretty much fit a lot of the middle-income people in America. So there is this increase with an additional Medicare payroll tax in this bill that raises $50 billion. It is not indexed, and we know how that is going to extend to other people now. I remember Candidate Obama making a firm pledge not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans. However, this health care reform bill before us breaks that pledge on numerous occasions. But it is not unlike the new taxes which will be imposed on other measures the Democratic Congress and President Obama would like to enact. I just mentioned the $500 billion in new taxes this health bill raises. There is another tax in another program going on, which I have talked about on this floor many times; that is, the cap and trade. That is still on the floor. That could come up at any time. Of course, that is not something that would be $500 billion over a 10-year period; that would tax the American people in excess of $300 billion every year. I have quoted as my sources the Wharton School of Economics, MIT, CRA, and others that have done evaluations. So it is not just this bill, even though this bill is what we are talking about today; we still have the problem of other legislation being promoted by the President and by the Democrats here. The Obama administration's own Treasury Department estimated that cap-and-trade legislation would cost each family in America $1,761 a year. It is much more than that in heartland America. In Oklahoma, it would be closer to $3,300 a year. So we are talking about some very large tax increases. But, again, back to the health care bill, I noted earlier that the government-run health care system, as proposed by the President and by the Democrats, is expected to cost $2.5 trillion on top of the already exploding record deficits. This bill will increase payments we make on our country's ever-exploding Federal debt. This Democratic Congress's agenda clearly includes more tax on Americans. They may be hidden, but they are there. It is disingenuous. It is costly. It is another reason this bill should not be passed by the Senate. I say ``another.'' The other and the main reason is that a government-run health system does not work. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I lost a very dear friend of mine named Billy Joe Daugherty a few days ago. I never thought I could sit in one chair for 4 hours, but I did this past Monday. Yesterday they had a memorial for Billy Joe. He is a guy who as a very young man came to Tulsa, OK. He built one of the largest churches in the Nation. He has been all throughout the Soviet Union--at that time it was the Soviet Union--and throughout the world, and he has been saving souls. This guy was just fantastic. When he died last week, he was only 57 years old. I sat there--I actually sat there, I say to the Chair, for 4 hours in one chair. I didn't think I would be able to do that because I normally am not that patient. But as people started giving talks and the eulogies, the best was saved until last. Billy Joe Daugherty was married for 35 years or so to his wife Sharon. She gave the most beautiful, long speech about her life with Billy Joe Daugherty. Then, one by one, the kids--four kids: John, Paul, Sarah, and Ruthie--stood up and gave tributes. I was thinking: My prayer is that when--my wife and I have been married--two weeks from now it will be 50 years. We have 20 kids and grandkids. By the way, we had all 20 kids and grandkids at one table for Thanksgiving, something that many people are not aware is even possible in this day and age. But my prayer is that when my time comes and I am gone, that my kids will revere me as much as Billy Joe Daugherty's kids revered him. I remember back in 1978--Billy Joe died last week when he was 57--he would have been about 26, 27 years old. I was mayor of the city of Tulsa. I was elected for the first time. I served three 2-year terms. I am a morning person. I don't do very well at night. In the morning I perform pretty well. I had a policy--and I lived it all the way through those three terms as mayor of Tulsa--that I would open up the city hall at 6 o'clock in the morning and I would make sure no one else was there--no security, nobody else--and stay until 8 o'clock so that everyone knew they could come down and visit with the mayor for 2 hours every day if anyone wanted. Not many of them got up that early. The first visitor I had back in 1978 was kind of a skinny kid, who came in and said, ``I'm Billy Joe Daugherty, and I want to pray with you.'' That is the first time I ever met the guy. I cannot tell you that he came by every week for those 6 years, but he was a regular who was always showing up. We did pray for each other, for our families, and for the city of Tulsa. I can remember a favorite verse that he used most of the time, a most common verse, the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name sake. The path of righteousness. Billy Joe was led by Jesus down the path of righteousness probably two, three decades ago. I cannot tell you how many thousands of people Billy Joe has led down that path of righteousness. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. I am sure that when Billy Joe went through that valley of the shadow of death, he probably, knowing him, wasn't even walking. He was probably running because he knew what was on the other side. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over. Here was the good part. Billy Joe said this: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. He might have changed that and said: Surely goodness and mercy and Sharon will follow me all the rest of my days. Whatever it was, they did it together. He led a life--in 57 short years--that accomplished more than most people who will live to be a hundred. The final words of that verse were: And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. I could look at you folks here today and tell you I don't think Billy Joe Daugherty is in heaven, I know Billy Joe Daugherty is in heaven. He is looking down at us and thinking two things. First, he is saying: If you only knew what I know now. And then you have to keep in mind the other thing--Billy Joe is in a different time zone now, and he probably said that in just a wink of time, we will all be together. I have every expectation that will happen. So this is not to say goodbye to Billy Joe Daugherty; this is to say, so long, we will see you soon. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Wyoming. Mr. President, the Senator from Wyoming made some references to the August recess and what happened during that time. I admire the Senator from Wyoming so much for the time he has spent on this issue. I, frankly, have not spent much time on this issue. We are kind of a product of our own committees in the Senate, but I do remember--and some people have forgotten--that during the August recess it was not just health care, it was also the cap-and-trade bill, because these are the bills that were passed right down party lines. I have to disagree with the Senator from Wyoming in one respect and that is the people during the August recess were not upset with the Republicans. They were upset with the Democrats because the one bill in my State of Oklahoma is referred to as socialized medicine. They have a hard time believing that the government is going to be able to run anything better than what we have today. I know those in this Chamber who represent States up in the far north recognize that the hospitals, the Mayo Clinics, and some of those in the northern tier, are filled with people from Canada. They have come down to America because they can't get what they wanted in Canada. So I kind of looked around and the people in Oklahoma seem to understand that if it doesn't work in Denmark, if it doesn't work in the United Kingdom, and if it doesn't work in Canada, why would it work in the United States? The answer is clearly that it wouldn't. The other issue that was prominent at that time was the issue of global warming. Six years ago I made the statement that the notion that manmade gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2, cause global warming is probably the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. I know that more and more people are using the hoax statement now. The reason that was such a big issue was it passed again in the House, right down party lines--this was the Waxman-Markey bill--that would have been a tax increase on the American people of well over $300 billion a year. That translates in my State of Oklahoma to about $3,000 a family, a tax-paying family. It is something we were not going to let happen and we still are not, but that is a reality. I wish to remind my fellow Senators: You may think that August is a long time ago. You may think that since we have been in the shelter of these halls here in the Senate that people have forgotten about those two issues, and they haven't forgotten. However, I have to say that is not why I am here tonight.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. First of all, I thank the Senator from Maine. She used the very descriptive terms of ``ram it'' and ``jam it.'' That is essentially what is happening right now. I think everyone is aware--all the media have taken pictures of the closed doors. They know that just a handful of Democrats were in there. Ironically, there are a lot of Democrats who didn't know what was going on, either. But they came out with a product. It is not a good product, and I will talk more about the product in a moment. But I think probably more significant and more concerning to a lot of the people I talk to is the manner in which this bill is being brought to the floor. It is beyond just being deceptive that the Democratic leadership plans to vote on Saturday night at 8 o'clock to proceed to H.R. 3590, a bill that has nothing to do with health care. This bill is one that passed the House in October of this year, 416 to 0. It would pass the Senate by a unanimous vote, I am sure. The bill is an eight- page bill to ensure that our military service members are not excluded from the first-time home buyer tax credits, and no one had any quarrel with that. The House side wouldn't have any quarrel, nor would we. But we all remember and America remembers that the House passed their health care bill, H.R. 3962, on November 7, late at night, on a Saturday night, the same type of thing we are looking at here. Let me say one thing. I was surprised to hear the unanimous consent request that was made just a few minutes ago because it was an admission--and I appreciate their honesty--that what we are going to be voting on tomorrow night has nothing to do with H.R. 3590. Yet that is what we are going to be moving to. They stated that at 8 p.m. tomorrow night the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3590, the legislative vehicle for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. My thinking was--and I still think there are a lot of Democrats who would end up voting for this tomorrow night and would send out a letter to constituents: Oh, this is a vote that is going to help our military with some of the problems they have. This reminds me so much, the way this is taking place, of what happened in the Environment and Public Works Committee when they were trying to get through the massive cap-and-trade bill which they did and they voted it out without any Republicans there. It is on the Senate floor right now. It is not going to be brought up because it is dead on arrival. The people of America realize they don't want to have the largest tax increase in the history of America on something that would do no good. But the point is, the deceptive method to bring up that bill is the same thing we are dealing with now. I think by virtue of the fact they rammed it and jammed it, to borrow the terms from the Senator from Maine, out of the Environment and Public Works Committee caused it to go down. I think the same thing is going to happen here. The second thing is a motion to proceed at 8 p.m. on Saturday night. Well, Saturday night. What are people doing on Saturday night? They are not watching TV. They are not listening to the radio. They have ball games and other things the American people do in the American way of life on a Saturday night. Do you think it is just coincidental? That is the same time of night they ended up voting on the House health care bill, on a Saturday night. Of course, it got out with barely a majority. Now, not only is the way in which the bill is being brought up questionable, the substance of the bill is definitely questionable. It has been repeated--I am trying to make a couple of comments about this that have not really come to our attention as much as other issues, the government-run health care bill--that Republicans are working to ensure that Washington bureaucracy does not get between the patients and their doctors. That is the big issue. Now, you are going to hear shortly from my junior Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, who is an OB-GYN. He will talk about that. I don't think you have to have a doctor explain to you that if you, as in my case, have a very large family, with a lot of grandkids--we don't want the government telling us what we can and cannot do. A government-run universal health care system or a socialized system is not the answer. All you have to do is listen to some of the testimony from individuals who have come here, such as members of the Parliament in Great Britain, who came and addressed us in this building and said: We cannot believe that something that has been such a failure, that we are trying to get away from, is something you are now trying to move toward. The other day, in the Wall Street Journal they talked about a Canadian citizen who waited in pain for more than a year to see a specialist for his arthritic hip. The specialist recommended a state- of-the-art procedure, but the government bureaucrats determined that the patient, who was only 57, was too old for that procedure. Rationing is alive and well. If you don't believe it, go up in the northern part of the United States, to the Mayo Clinic or some of those others, and you will see the large number of Canadians who come down to ``barbaric'' America, with our system, because they couldn't get the treatment they needed through rationing in Canada. The Democrats' bill represents an unprecedented expansion of government's control over health care. Oklahoma physicians shared with me in a July 23rd letter that they are concerned a public option plan will unfairly compete with the private market and ultimately crowd it out. It is a no-brainer. You cannot compete with the Federal Government. All they have to do is change and the competition is gone. Under this bill, the government will tell people what type of coverage they can and cannot have, mandate that every American have health care or pay a tax, mandate employers to provide a certain level of benefits or pay a fine, introduce a government-run plan designed to destroy the private market, include new policies designed to control what drugs and procedures Americans can receive, and require a historic expansion of Medicaid. According to the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the ones who administer the Medicaid Program called Soonercare, they estimate that this type of expansion could cost Oklahoma an additional $128 million each year, resulting in harmful cost to existing State priorities. By the way, the Oklahoma Governor and the State legislature are talking about going into a special session because of the problems we have--the budget problems. Of course, we would then inherit this. This bill violates the President's promise not to raise taxes. I think we have covered that. The fact that they have taxes such as the 40-percent excise tax on the so-called Cadillac plans--that means if you, through your own decision, decide that for your family you want to have more extensive coverage, you will get penalized. You could have a tax imposed upon you of 40 percent because you wanted to have better treatment for your family. The CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation have testified that these taxes and fees would be almost entirely passed on to consumers. The fact is that they estimate, by 2019, 89 percent of the taxes would be paid by those making less than $200,000 a year. It reminds me of the regressive nature of the cap-and-trade tax, which would affect the poor people more than the wealthier people. Anyway, with the penalties and everything else in there, we are going to be looking at something that the American people don't want and should not have. That doesn't mean Republicans don't want to have reforms. We need reforms. We need medical malpractice reforms. I have two friends in Tulsa, two man-and-wife teams. There is Rick and Lisa Lowry. He is a cardiologist and she is a dermatologist. They moved to Texas. They will tell you the only reason they did it is because of the tort laws in Oklahoma. Then there is Boris and his wife Kathy, another pair of doctors. Boris is an electrophysiologist, and she is a pain management doctor. They moved to Fayettville, AR. This is what is happening right now. We know what reform is. We know that HSAs have worked, giving people choice. We want to have some reform. We should keep in mind for tomorrow that, at 8 o'clock, if just one Democrat would say, no, I don't want a government-run system--just one--they wouldn't have 60 votes. It is going to be interesting to see if there isn't one. They will never get by with saying it was just a motion to proceed to a bill having to do with housing for the military. It will not happen. People are smarter than that. I hope at least one Democrat will oppose a government-run system. We will find out tomorrow night. With that, I yield to the Senator from Alaska, Senator Murkowski.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, next month, thousands of U.N. delegates from over 190 nations, members of the press, and eco-activists from around the world will descend upon Copenhagen as a part of the U.N. Conference on Global Warming. Yet, even before it begins, that U.N. conference is being called a disaster. Just this morning, the Telegraph--a UK newspaper--noted: The worst-kept secret in the world is finally out--the climate change summit in Copenhagen is going to be little more than a photo opportunity for world leaders. Not too long ago, however, the Copenhagen meeting was hailed to be the time when an international agreement with binding limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would finally be agreed upon. The eco-activists believed that with a Democratic President in the United States and a Democratically controlled House and a Democratically controlled Senate, we would finally push through mandatory cap-and-trade legislation, and the United States would finally be ready to succumb to the demands of the U.N. I say demands of the United Nations because there are so many people in this Chamber who think if something isn't multinational, U.N. or something else, it is not good. You have to ask: Whatever happened to sovereignty in this country? Not too long ago, the Copenhagen meeting was hailed as a time that all this would come to an end and they would be successful and pass in this country the largest tax increase in history. In reality, it will be a disaster. Failure comes at a high cost. Despite the millions of dollars spent by Al Gore, the Hollywood elite, the U.N., climate alarmists, it has failed. Perhaps the Wall Street Journal said it best in an article entitled ``Copenhagen's Collapse.'' I will read this because I think it is worthwhile: The Climate Change Sequel is a Bust. The editorial states: ``Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all,'' President-elect Obama said of global warming last November. ``Delay is no longer an option.'' It turns out that delay really is an option--the only one that has worldwide support. Over the weekend, Mr. Obama bowed to reality and admitted that little of substance will come of the climate change summit at Copenhagen next month. For the last year, the President has been promising a binding international carbon-regulation treaty a la the Kyoto Protocol. We remember that. But instead, negotiators from 192 countries now hope to reach a preliminary agreement that they'll sign such a treaty when they meet in Mexico City in 2010. Wait a minute. That is 2010. That is next year. This year, it hasn't even come yet. This is Copenhagen 2009. I am continuing to read: The environmental lobby is blaming Copenhagen's preemptive collapse on the Senate's failure to ram through a cap-and- trade scheme like the House did in June, arguing that ``the world'' won't make commitments until the United States does. But there will always be one excuse or another, given that developing countries like China and India will never be masochistic enough to subject their economies to the West's climate neuroses. Meanwhile, Europe has proved with Kyoto that the only emissions quotas it will accept are those that don't actually have to be met. We say that because many of these Western European countries made commitments for emissions and they have not met them. During my position as chairman and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, since 2003, I have been the lead Senator standing and exposing the science, the cost, and the hysteria about global warming alarmism. I will be traveling to Copenhagen leading what has been called the truth squad, to say what I said 6 years ago in Milan, Italy. Let's keep in mind what these meetings are. The U.N.-- that is where this all started, with the IPCC at the U.N.--said that the world is going to come to an end because of CO2 emissions. They started having these meetings, and they have had--I don't know how many. They started in 1999, I think. They had the one in Milan, Italy, in 2003, the only one I went to. They were inviting all the countries to come in and join this club, saying we are going to do away with CO2. It is interesting that one of the participants I ran into in 2003 was from West Africa--and I remember this well because I knew this guy knew better. I said: What are you here supporting this for? He said: This is the biggest party of the year. We have 190 countries coming in, and it is a big party. It is all you can eat and drink. So anyway, the United States is not going to support a global warming treaty that will significantly damage the American economy, cost American jobs, and impose the largest tax increase in American history. Further, as I stated in 2003, unless developing countries are part of the binding agreement, the United States will not go along, given the unemployment rate of 10 percent--10.2 now--and given all the out-of-control spending in Washington. The last thing we need is another 1,000-page bill that increases costs and ships jobs overseas, all with no impact on climate change. That was in Milan, Italy. I remember in Milan, Italy, all the telephone poles had my picture on them, ``wanted'' posters, because of something I said, which I will quote in a minute. I said then that the science was not settled, and it was an unpopular view. Since Al Gore's science fiction movie, more and more scientists, reporters, and politicians are questioning global warming alarmism. I am proud to declare 2009 the year of the skeptic, the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard. Rather than continue down a road that will harm the U.S. economy and international community, we should forge a new path forward that builds on international trade, new and innovative technology, jobs, development, and economic growth. If you have followed the Senate, you will know that the Senate's position on global warming treaties couldn't be more clear. In 1997, let's remember what happened then. President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were attempting to get us to ratify the Kyoto treaty. We passed something in the Chamber called the Byrd-Hagel resolution. It passed 95 to 0. It said this: If you bring back anything from Kyoto or anywhere else for us to ratify, and if that treaty we are supposed to ratify either doesn't include developing countries or is harmful to our economy, then we will not ratify it. I think the Byrd-Hagel resolution still commands strong support in the Senate. Therefore, any treaty President Obama submits must meet this criteria or it will be easily defeated. Proponents of securing an international treaty are slowly acknowledging that the gulf is widening between the United States and other industrialized nations that are willing to do what developing countries such as China want them to do. The gulf has always been wide, but it is continuing to get wider. When we talk about China and about the fact that they are talking about restricting CO2 emissions in the United States, some think that surely China will follow our lead. It is interesting that China is cranking out two coal-fired power-generating plants every week. With certain failure at Copenhagen, it is safe to say cap and trade is dead. Look at the record: the Byrd-Hagel amendment in 1997, the defeat in the Senate of the McCain-Lieberman bill in 2003, and defeat of McCain-Lieberman in 2005, defeat of the Warner-Lieberman bill, and no bill on the Senate floor in 2009. From my very first speech on the Senate floor as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on July 28, 2003, I outlined the staggering cost of global warming solutions such as Kyoto. In my speech, I said the most widely--I am quoting now from what I stated in 2003: The most widely cited and most definitive economic analysis of Kyoto came from Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates. According to the Wharton School, their economists, Kyoto would cost 2.4 million U.S. jobs, reduce GDP by 3.2 percent, and that would equate to somewhere between a $300 billion and $330 billion tax increase annually--an amount greater than the total expenditure on primary and secondary education. In terms of a tax, when I looked at that tax--and this was back in 2003 and they talked about a $300 billion tax increase--I wanted to look and see how I could better understand that. I recall, prior to that, the largest tax increase in the last three decades was called the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. That tax increase was a $32 billion tax increase. I thought, wait a minute, we are about to impose upon the American people a tax increase that is 10 times greater than the 1993 Clinton-Gore tax increase. This chart shows what that would be. These are the tax increases. This is the increase we are talking about, the $32 billion tax increase. This is what it would have been had we signed the Kyoto treaty or any of the accords since that time. So we are talking about huge amounts of money. I said that because of Kyoto, American consumers would face the higher food, medical, and housing costs--costs for food, an increase of 11 percent; medicine, an increase of 14 percent; housing, an increase of 7 percent; and at the same time, an average household of 4 would see its real income drop by $2,700 in 2010 and each year thereafter. Under Kyoto, energy and electricity prices would nearly double, and gasoline prices would go up an additional 65 cents a gallon. Again, we are not talking about Jim Inhofe, a Senator, making these statements. This was actually out of the Wharton School of Economics and their forecast at that time. I went on to note that CBO found that ``cap and tax'' is a regressive tax, arguing that the Congressional Budget Office found that the price increases resulting from a carbon cap would be regressive; that is, they would place a relatively greater burden on lower income households than on higher income ones. As to the broader macroeconomic effects of carbon cap-and-trade schemes, CBO said: A cap and trade program for carbon emissions could impose significant costs on the economy in the form of welfare losses. Welfare losses are real costs to the economy in that they would not be recovered elsewhere in the form of higher income. Those losses would be borne by people in their roles as shareholders, consumers, and workers. Some might respond that government can simply redistribute income in the form of welfare programs to mitigate the impacts on the poor, but CBO found otherwise. They said: The government could use the allowance value to partly redistribute the costs of a carbon cap-and-trade program, but it could not recover these costs entirely. Further: Available research indicates that providing compensation could actually raise the cost to the economy of a carbon cap. That was what we quoted from the CBO in 2003. Yet, as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. CBO, EPA, the DOE, CRS, the National Black Chamber of Commerce, NAM--everyone now agrees that cap and trade would be extremely costly and destroy jobs. No matter how hard alarmists try to recast their cause--whether it is green jobs or clean energy jobs or clean energy revolution--and they are starting to reword it from ``global warming'' to ``climate change.'' The general public has realized global warming isn't taking place, and they cannot use that, so they changed that to climate change. Now they cannot use that anymore, and they can't use cap and trade, so they talk about a green jobs program. Cap and trade is a loser for America. I have also pointed out the inconvenient fact that cap-and-trade solutions are all pain and no climate gain. In the first speech in 2001, I noted that even Al Gore's own scientist admitted Kyoto would do nothing to solve global warming. Let me refresh the memory of the American people. In 2003, Al Gore had hired Dr. Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The challenge he posed to him was, if we, along with all other developed nations, were to sign on to the Kyoto Treaty and live by its emissions restrictions, how much would this reduce the temperature in 50 years? The answer was it would be 0.07 of 1 degree Celsius by 2050. It would actually be 0.13 degrees Celsius by 2100. These things are not even measurable. We go through 50 years of the highest tax increase in the history of America. What do we get for it? Maybe you will get, according to his own scientist, Dr. Tom Wigley, 0.07 of 1 degree Celsius. I also mentioned in the 2003 speech everyone's favorite alarmist, James Hansen. I said at that time: Similarly, Dr. James Hansen of NASA, considered the father of global warming theory, said the Kyoto Protocol ``will have little effect'' on global temperature in the 21st century. In a rather stunning follow-up, Hansen said it would take 30 Kyotos--let me repeat that--30 Kyotos to reduce warming to an acceptable level. If one Kyoto devastates the American economy, what would 30 do? Those following the climate debate closely know James Hansen went on record this summer against the Waxman-Markey-Kerry-Boxer bill. It is not going to pass now. At that time, it looked as if it was going to pass. Even James Hansen, one of the strongest proponents, said: Cap and trade is the temple of doom. It would lock in disasters for our children and grandchildren. Why do people continue to worship a disastrous approach? Its fecklessness was proven by the Kyoto Protocol. That is James Hansen on the other side of the issue. Now we have top Obama officials making the same points. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was before our committee. Keep in mind, she is an Obama appointee. She is now Administrator of the EPA. She said in response to a question I had--I said: Is this chart correct? In other words, if we were to pass this bill and to restrict our emissions of CO2, would it have any effect? She said: No, I agree with that chart. Of course, I am encouraged. She said: I believe the central parts of the [EPA] chart-- That is this chart-- are that U.S. action alone will not impact world CO2 levels. I often said how I appreciate the honesty of Lisa Jackson. It is difficult for her to admit that if we passed a bill, it would not have any effect on reducing worldwide emissions of CO2. You could carry that argument a little bit further because if we were to ration CO2 in our country, that would cause jobs to leave. We understand that. They would go to countries such as China, India, and Mexico, where they don't have any restrictions at all. So it would have the effect of increasing CO2. Over the past several years, we have seen a growing number of Democrats--yes, Democrats--agreeing with my position. Today, with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, some may be surprised by the number of Democrats who want nothing to do with cap and trade. Politico--we are all familiar with that publication--reported on Monday that: Lawmakers from coal and manufacturing-heavy States aren't happy that more liberal Democrats are using the Copenhagen negotiations to ratchet up pressure to move the bill forward. ``I'm totally unconcerned about Copenhagen.'' This is a quote by Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia. He said: I'm concerned about West Virginia. I am glad to hear some of my Democratic colleagues making these statements. They also reported--still quoting from Politico: Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb said on Monday he would not back the cap-and-trade legislation sponsored by Sens. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, another blow to the troubled Senate climate change bill. ``In its present form I would not vote for it,'' he said. ``I have some real questions about the real complexities on cap and trade.'' Webb is the latest in a series of Democratic moderates to raise significant concerns with the climate bill, which has floundered since passing the House in late June. That is quite some time ago. Or consider Democratic Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska. The Hill recently reported on a CNBC interview with Senator Nelson, writing: ``A cap-and-trade bill to address climate change cannot pass Congress this session,'' said Sen. Ben Nelson, Democrat from Nebraska. Nelson, a centrist Democrat whose vote is key to leaders wielding its 60-vote majority in the Senate, said he and his constituents had not been sold on the cap-and- trade system proposed in the House and Senate bills to address global warming. ``No,'' Nelson simply responded when asked if those cap-and-trade bills can pass through this Congress during an interview with CNBC. ``I haven't been able to sell that argument to my farmers, and I don't think they're going to buy it from anybody else,'' Nelson said. ``I think at the end of the day, the people who turn the switch on at home will be disadvantaged.'' The pessimistic assessment makes Nelson a thorn in the side of his party's leaders-- Who are trying to push this through from the Democratic Party. Perhaps the biggest blow to any Senate climate bill came last week from 14 Senate Democrats, primarily from the Midwest, who in a letter challenged the allocation formula of Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey. The letter was signed by Senators Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Mark Udall, Michael Bennet, Robert Byrd, Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow, and Sherrod Brown. What about the prospects for 2010? As Lisa Lerer of Politico reported last week: An aggressive White House push on jobs and deficit reduction in 2010 may be yet another sign that climate-change legislation will stay on the back burner next year. ``There is a growing chorus in the party that thinks we should be doing something more to spur job creation and not necessarily tackle cap and trade right now,'' said a moderate democratic Senate aide. White House officials told Politico on Friday that President Barack Obama plans to curb new domestic spending beyond jobs programs and focus on cutting the federal deficit next year. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid has hinted that Democrats plan to take up a job- creation bill, in the wake of the announcement of the 10.2 percent unemployment rate. In the House, some lawmakers are beginning to push a major highway bill for next year to focus on job creation. None of this is promising for the major climate change bill. That was a quote that came out of Politico. Also, Darren Samuelsohn with E&E News reported this week that: Next November's midterm elections loom large, leaving the climate bill sponsors until about the end of March to notch the 60 votes necessary to pass their bill off the floor and into a conference with the House that would best be finished before the summer. ``Conventional wisdom is that you have until the spring to get controversial issues moving,'' said Sen. Ben Cardin, a lead co-author of the climate bill that the Environment and Public Works Committee passed earlier this month. ``If not, it's difficult to see getting through closer to the elections.'' What he is saying there, when you get closer to the elections, then you want to be more consistent with what Americans believe. Mr. Samuelsohn reported that the Democrats fear a repeat of the disastrous 1992 Btu tax vote. He quotes Al Gore as saying, ``Yes, I think the Btu [post-traumatic stress disorder] is a factor in this debate.'' To refresh your memory, Madam President, the Btu, back in 1992, was a huge tax increase on energy. People realized they would have to pay for it. That passed the House, ironically, with 219 votes, the same narrow margin this cap-and-trade bill passed 15 years later. Samuelsohn also writes that according to Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, ``the talk on the street'' was that an election year cannot be good for passing the climate bill in the Senate, even though he did not agree with that opinion. ``There's some possibility of people saying that it's too controversial a bill in an election year,'' quoting Rockefeller, ``which is sort of the opposite of how a democracy ought to work.'' I do agree with him on that. ``You go ahead and take your chances on that and get reelected. But people's business should come first.'' By now the message should be clear: It is not just Republicans but Democrats who are blocking passage of cap and trade in the Senate. The sooner we are honest with the international community of the impossibility of the Senate moving forward with cap and trade, the sooner we can begin work on an all-of-the-above energy bill to develop domestic energy resources, create jobs, and provide consumers with affordable, reliable energy. I don't like the idea that sometimes promoters of cap and trade say this is an energy bill. What you are doing is restricting energy. Right now, we are dependent on coal, oil, gas, and, hopefully in the future, nuclear. Those who are pushing for this green energy, which we all want someday--what do we do 10, 15, 20 years from now? Just 2 weeks ago, they came out with a study that said the United States of America is No. 1 in possession of recoverable natural resources. Yet 83 percent of these natural resources are off limits, primarily due to the moratorium set by Democrats saying: We don't want you to drill offshore or some of these other places. It seems inconceivable to me that we are the only nation in the world that does not develop its own resources. Anyway, the tipping point from the most memorable tidbit from my 2- hour global warming speech in July of 2003 was my comments about the science behind global warming. Now 6 years later, as I head to the next U.N. global warming conference, I am pleased by the vast and growing number of scientists, politicians, and reporters all over the world who are publicly rejecting climate alarmism, those who want to scare people into some kind of action: Water is going to rise up, the world is coming to an end--all of that. They are rejecting these alarmists now. When I made those comments on the Senate floor, few people were there to stand with me. Today, I have been vindicated, and I am proud to share the stage with all those who now dare to question Al Gore, Hollywood elites, and the United Nations. Early in my 2003 speech, 6 years ago, I said: Much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear rather than science. Global warming alarmists see a future plagued by catastrophic flooding, war, terrorism, economic dislocations, droughts, crop failures, mosquito- borne diseases, and harsh weather--all caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. For the next 2 hours, I presented arguments by a number of leading scientists who disputed that picture of the future. I argued that activists attempting to propagate fear would fail to convince the American people. I then concluded my remarks saying: With all the hysteria, all the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it is. My remarks were immediately ridiculed by alarmists in the mainstream media. Alarmists then and since have used every name in the book to discredit me. Nevertheless, I continued to make my case in speech after speech on the Senate floor, highlighting arguments by numerous scientists that contradicted the notion that the science behind global warming was ``settled.'' Every time you quote a scientist, they always come back and say: Oh, no, you can't talk about the science; the science is settled. The first time the McCain-Lieberman bill came to the Senate floor was 2003. McCain-Lieberman was essentially a cap-and-trade bill similar to what we are looking at today. I remember well, Republicans were in the majority. I was chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. I can remember we were given 5 days on the floor to debate this bill, 10 hours a day, roughly 50 hours. I remember going over this and debating this on this very floor of the Senate in 2005. It was the McCain-Lieberman bill, and only two Senators came down during that week to give me support. Fast forward to 2008. The same bill came up, except this time it was called the Warner-Lieberman bill, another cap-and-trade bill, just like we are talking about today. At that time, it didn't take 5 days to defeat it; it took 2 days, and 23 Senators came down to join me in that effort. What do I credit for the reversal? You might be surprised by my answer. It is none other than the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar. It is Al Gore. The media blitz of 2006, which included an avalanche of magazine covers, hour-long global warming documentaries, celebrity rock concerts around the world, and, of course, Al Gore's very own science fiction movie, caused an unprecedented response from scientists from around the world. Later that year, I took to the Senate floor debunking much of Al Gore's movie and the media hype. I said then--and this is, again, 2006: In May, our Nation was exposed to perhaps one of the slickest science propaganda films of all time: former Vice President Al Gore's ``An Inconvenient Truth.'' In addition to having the backing of Paramount Pictures to market this film, Gore had the full backing of the media, and leading the cheerleading charge was none other than the Associated Press. I noted a report that appeared on June 27, 2006, by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press that boldly declared ``Scientists give two thumbs up to Gore's movie.'' I took issue with the Borenstein article and pointed out--and this is a quote from 3 years ago: ``The article quoted only 5''--listen, Madam President--``only 5 scientists praising Gore's science, despite AP's having contacted 100 scientists.'' They contacted 100 scientists and they could only find 5 scientists who praised it. The fact that over 80 percent of the scientists contacted by the AP had not even seen the movie or that many scientists have harshly criticized the science presented by Gore did not dissuade the news outlet one bit from its mission to promote Gore's brand of climate alarmism. I am almost at a loss [I am quoting from 3 years ago] as to how to begin to address the series of errors, misleading science and unfounded speculation that appear in the former Vice President's film. Here is what Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist from MIT, has written about ``An Inconvenient Truth.'' He said: ``A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the Earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse.'' That is Richard Lindzen, one of the top scientists at MIT. In that same 2006 speech I then proceeded to give a brief summary of the science that the former Vice President promoted in either an inaccurate or misleading way. Let me read a list of these. He promoted the now debunked ``hockey stick'' temperature chart in an attempt to prove man's overwhelming impact on the climate. He attempted to minimize the significance of the medieval warm period and the little ice age. Let's put them together. If you remember the famous hockey stick, that was the one that showed climate, increasing temperature, and then all of a sudden there is a hockey stick. That is when it started going up. It ignored the fact that in the 14th century and again in the 16th century we had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. In the medieval warm period it was far warmer than it has been since that time. In that same movie, insisting on a link between increasing hurricane activity and global warming that most scientists at this time do not believe--and it doesn't exist. The science has come out since that time and said very clearly that science is not there. Every year they say this coming year it is going to be greater hurricanes. It doesn't happen. For 5 consecutive years they predicted that and it hasn't happened. He asserted that today's Arctic is experiencing unprecedented warmth, while ignoring that the temperatures in the 1930s were warmer than in that time. He claimed the Antarctic was warming and losing ice, but failed to note this is only true of a small region and that the vast bulk has been cooling and gaining ice during that period. He hyped unfounded fears that Greenland's ice is in danger of disappearing. If you were to say that maybe there is some truth in the global warming issue, I had occasion, I say to my good friend who is presiding, a few years ago, not too many years ago--my background is aviation. I decided to replicate the flight of Wylie Post going around the world. One of my stops there, where Wylie Post stopped, was in Greenland. Their history books are full of the time things were flourishing in Greenland. The Vikings came in, they were growing things that hadn't been grown. Then when the cycle went through and it started getting colder, they died and disappeared. I think you can argue we are going to have these cycles. God is still up there. We have always had Him; we are going to continue to have Him. Back to the film. He erroneously claimed the icecap on Mount Kilimanjaro is disappearing--and that is not supported--due to global warming, even while the region cools and researchers blame the ice loss on local land use practices. He made assertions of massive future sea level rise far afield from any supposed scientific ``consensus'' and not supported in even the most alarmist literature. He incorrectly implied that a Peruvian glacier's retreat is due to global warming, ignoring the fact that the region has been cooling since the 1930s and other glaciers in South America are advancing. He blamed global warming for water loss in Africa's Lake Chad, despite NASA scientists concluding that local population and grazing factors are the more likely culprits. He inaccurately claimed polar bears are drowning in significant numbers due to melting ice when in fact they are thriving. The population of the polar bear has quadrupled since 1960 and today, of the 13 polar bear populations in Canada, they are all increasing except for one and that is in the western Hudson Bay area where they have hunting regulations and issues they are working on now not related to weather. He completely failed to inform the viewers that the 48 scientists who accused President Bush of distorting science were part of a political advocacy group set up to support Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. You could make a whole speech on each of the assertions made in that science fiction movie called ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' and they have been disproven. At the end of the speech I challenged those in the media to reverse course and report on the objective science of climate change, to stop ignoring legitimate voices in the scientific community, question the so-called consensus, and to stop acting as a vehicle for unsustainable hype. The reaction by the American public was so overwhelming that my Senate Web site crashed after that. Thousands of people came to my site to read and watch the speech. In fact, I was flooded with e-mails supporting the work. I also noted in 2006, in that speech, many scientists were just starting to speak out against the so-called consensus on global warming. In April of that year, 60 prominent scientists who questioned the basis for climate alarmism sent a letter--these were Canadian scientists, 60 of them sent a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister and they wrote: If, back in the mid-1990s we knew what we know today about climate Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary. I say that because Canada was one of the countries that did sign onto the Kyoto treaty. They are saying today, if we had known then what we know now, we wouldn't have done it. I discovered how many prominent scientists were disputing the claims of global warming alarmism in 2007 and I released my first report detailing over 400 scientists who did not buy the consensus. If you want to go back to any of these, I have a Web site, inhofe.senate.gov. You can see who they are. After that report, the list continued to grow and more scientists began publicly challenging global warming fears. In 2008, I updated the report with over 650 scientists and today that stands at well over 700 skeptical scientists. The chorus of skeptical scientific voices continues to grow louder every day as the consensus collapses. I think this is important. A lot of the scientists were intimidated at that time with the withdrawal of various grants and other things coming from both the Federal Government or some more liberal groups that are out there. The fact is they had the courage to come forward and say the consensus is not there even though everyone thought it was for so many years. This momentous shift has caused the mainstream media to take notice of the expanding number of scientists serving as ``consensus busters.'' A November 25, 2008 article in Politico noted that a ``growing accumulation'' of science is challenging warming fears, and that the ``science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.'' That was a year ago. In Canada's National Post, it noted on October 20 of 2008 that ``the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly.'' The New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin noted on March 6, 2008, ``As we all know, climate science is not a numbers game. There are heaps of signed statements by folks with advanced degrees on all sides of the issue.'' In 2007 a Washington Post staff writer, Juliet Eilperin, conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics ``appear to be expanding rather than shrinking.'' We have seen this happening for the last 2 years. Yet it will be 2009 that will be remembered as the year of the skeptic. Until this year, any scientist, reporter, or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked. Who can forget Dr. Heidi Cullen of the Weather Channel. She was on every week. I don't think she is on anymore; I haven't seen her in quite some time. She was the one who said, in 2007, that the American Meteorological Society should revoke its seal of approval for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe. She said: If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them the seal of approval. This is what she wrote in December 21 in a blog on the Weather Channel: It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement . . . it's just an incorrect statement. Of course there was Robert Kennedy, Jr., also in 2007, who called anyone who didn't agree with his views on global warming ``traitors.'' He spoke before a liberal group called the Live Earth Concert in July of 2007. He stated, Robert Kennedy, Jr.: Get rid of these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company. These villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of the interests of all of humanity. This is treason and we need to start treating them as traitors. Al Gore, of course, said anyone who dares question the science should be equated with those who question the Moon landing. Aside from the distasteful and derogatory ridicule by such alarmists, a major statement by a manmade-to-global-warming believer severely undercut their claims. This year one of the United Nations IPCC--let me make sure people understand this. The IPCC, Intergovernmental--this is a panel put together in the United Nations of people to try to sell the idea that manmade gases--anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane-- cause global warming. One of the U.N. scientists told more than 1,500 scientists gathered at the conference in Geneva, Switzerland: ``People will say this is global warming disappearing. I am not one of the skeptics. However, we have to ask the nasty question ourselves, or other people will do it.'' Remember, this quote comes from Mojib Latif, who Andrew Revkin from the New York Times describes as ``a prize-winning climate and ocean scientist from the Liebniz Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Kiel, in Germany.'' This remarkable admission of the need to ask nasty questions comes nearly 2 years after I first pointed out these very facts on the Senate floor in my October 26 of 2007 speech on the Senate floor. This is what I said at that time. I am quoting now. I always hesitate quoting myself but it is important that we were talking about this 2 years ago. I said: It's important to point out that the phase of global warming that started in 1979 has, itself, been halted since 1979. You can almost hear my critics skeptical of that assertion. Well, it turns out not to be an assertion but an irrefutable fact, according to the temperature data United Nations relies on. Paleoclimate scientist Dr. Bob Carter, who has testified before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, noted on June 18 of this year: ``The accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--that's the United Nations--showed that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this 8-year-long temperature stability has occurred despite an increase over the period of time of 15 parts per million or 4 percent in the atmospheric CO2. Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 parts per million, or 17 percent. To try to say it is tied to CO2 is interesting because immediately following World War II, the largest increase in the emissions of CO2 took place starting about 1946. Yet that didn't precipitate a warming period, it precipitated a cooling period during that time. The very people who had long called the science settled and those who went so far to say the science behind global warming was unequivocal now admitted that nasty questions must be raised. Those questions are now being raised by the media. On October 8, the BBC, the British Broadcasting Company, stunned the journalism community with an article by their climate correspondent Paul Hudson. The headline asked, ``What happened to global warming?'' Hudson wrote in that article, October 8: This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might the fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not 2008 or 2007, but [was] in 1998. But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though manmade carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. (Mr. CARDIN assumed the chair.)

Mr. INHOFE. The article continues to note the lack of global warming recently and mentions the fact that many scientists are predicting a coming global cooling. Following the BBC, other British news outlets have run similar headlines. The UK Sunday Times wrote ``Why everything you think you know about global warming is wrong.'' This is coming from Great Britain. The Daily Mail, another major publication in Great Britain, had a headline: ``Whatever happened to global warming? How freezing temperatures are starting to shatter climate change theory.'' Australia's Herald Sun has picked up on the trend as well. Columnist Andrew Bolt, noting the turning tide of media around the world, wrote: This is like the moment in the Emperor's New Clothes, in which the boy calls out ``but he's naked!" Let's be clear. Some of the media were already beginning to question the consensus even before that announcement. Television personalities were coming around as well. In April, Charles Osgood, host of ``CBS News Sunday Morning'' and a noted environmentalist, questioned global warming projections. He asked: Right now, global warming is a given to so many, it raises the question: Could another minimum activity period on the Sun counteract, in any way, the effects of global warming? Osgood later scolded himself for even questioning global warming before stating: I'm sure you'll be hearing more about this solar dimming business, now that the story is out. Remember, you heard it here first . . . Lou Dobbs, formerly with CNN, has also joined the chorus questioning the alarmists, consensus. In January, Dobbs compared the belief in manmade global warming to a religion. He stated: They bring this thing to a personal belief system. It's almost a religion, without any question . . . Dobbs also criticized what he called ``crowding out of facts and objective assessment of those facts . . . there's such selective choices of data as one discusses and tries to understand the reality of the issues that make up global warming.'' In September, another dramatic announcement came from Houston Chronicle science reporter Eric Berger. He stated: Earth seems to have at least temporarily stopped warming. If we can't have confidence in short-term prognosis for climate change, how can we have confidence in long-term? The bright light is also fading on the U.N. IPCC. In August, the New York Times ran the headline ``Nobel Halo Fades Fast for Climate Change Panel.'' The article notes: As the panel gears up for its next climate review, many specialists in climate science and policy, both inside and out of the network, are warning that it could quickly lose relevance unless it adjusts its methods and focus. Weeks later, on September 23, the New York Times again acknowledged a shift in public moods and scientific evidence when it stated that the U.N. faced an ``intricate challenge: building momentum for an international climate treaty at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years.'' Given the media's track record, this is hardly surprising. As I noted in my 2006 speech, the media runs hot and cold in their coverage of climate change. Quoting here, I said at the time: Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930s, the media peddled the coming ice age. Everyone is going to die. We are going to freeze to death. From the late 1920's until the 1960's they warned of global warming. From the 1950's until the 1970's they warned again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate's fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of a generation. Last year, the vice president of London's Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism. During the past year, the American people have been served up an unprecedented parade of environmental alarmism by the media and entertainment industry, which link every possible weather event to global warming. The year 2006 saw many major organs of the media dismiss any pretense of balance and objectivity on climate change coverage and instead crossed squarely into global warming advocacy. Maybe one reason the media is starting to come around is that the public is shifting as well. It is easy to sell magazines, books, and movie tickets when you have everyone eating out of your hand believing that a climate catastrophe is right around the corner. Once the audience isn't buying that story anymore, it might be time to start acknowledging the other side. If we look at Time magazine, I remember back in 1975, Time magazine-- and Newsweek of the same year--said another ice age is coming. There it is. This is 1974. This was in Time magazine. Another ice age is coming. Then you fast forward to about 3 years ago. That same Time magazine had a picture of the last polar bear in the world standing on the last ice cube and saying: Now it is global warming. This is why the media is coming around. Polls are showing an unprecedented shift in public opinion on the science of climate change as well as cap-and-trade proposals in Congress. Only a few weeks ago, in October, Politico reported: As the nation struggles to climb out of a recession, 45 percent rated the economy as the most important issue in deciding their vote if the congressional election were held today, followed by 21 percent who said government spending, 20 percent who chose health care reform and 9 percent who said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just 4 percent of the people said climate change was the top issue. I can remember when that was 60 percent. The people have caught on. You are going to see the media, if they want to sell their stuff, come back and change their position. We are seeing that now. Economic worries also led a majority of Americans to place jump- starting the economy ahead of concerns about the environment. Even as the Obama administration is pushing for climate protection legislation, 62 percent of those polled agreed that ``economic growth should be given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.'' The remaining 38 percent believe that ``protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth.'' Further, earlier this year Gallup released a poll that found that 41 percent of the people believe global warming claims are exaggerated. What about the effect of Al Gore's climate scare campaign? The Gallup poll editor Frank Newport says he sees no evidence that Gore is winning. Newport said: It's just not caught on, they have failed. Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore's losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned. [ . . . ] Ask people to name the biggest concerns, and just 1 percent to 2 percent cite the environment. The environment doesn't show up at all, it's Al Gore's greatest frustration. We seem less concerned than more about global warming over the years . . . Despite the movies and publicity and all that, we're just not seeing it take off with the American public. And that was occurring even before the latest economic recession. Again, further quoting Frank Newport: As Al Gore I think would say, the greatest challenge facing humanity . . . has failed to show up in our data. Polls have also shown that when looking at environmental issues only, climate change continually ranks dead last among concerns. This wasn't true a few years ago. This is what is taking place now. This is after all the media hype, all the hysteria. The Gallup poll in March found global warming ranked last in the United States among environmental issues. This is just environmental issues. Air and water pollution, toxic waste, animal and plant extinctions, the loss of tropical rain forests all ranked as a greater concern than global warming. As Gallup stated: Since more Americans express little to no worry about global warming than say this about extinction, global warming is clearly the environmental issue of least concern to them. These are the environmentalists. In fact, global warming is the only issue for which more Americans say they have little to no concern than say they have a great deal of concern. The public is also unwilling to accept legislation on climate change that would cost them money. Rasmussen found that 56 percent of Americans said they are not willing to pay any additional taxes or utility costs to fight global warming. The clear rejection of fear and hysteria is leading many on Capitol Hill to change their tune on climate legislation. Turning away from using scare tactics, the left is now trying to sell cap and trade as clean energy legislation. Don't say climate change, don't say global warming, don't say cap and trade anymore. Say clean energy economy-- that is something that sells. So if you keep renaming the same thing, maybe it will sell. As the New York and the L.A. Times have recently reported, the White House, concerned by the lack of support for their cap-and-trade initiatives, is using poll-tested talking points to help push one of the President's biggest priorities. The New York Times caught on to these new talking points earlier this year, reporting: The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is ``global warming.'' The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firms in Washington. The L.A. Times also reported: Scratch ``cap and trade'' and ``global warming,'' Democratic pollsters tell Obama. They're ineffective . . . Control the language, politicians know, and you stand a better chance of controlling the debate. So the Obama administration, in its push to enact sweeping energy and healthcare policies, has begun refining the phrases it uses in an effort to shape public opinion. Words that have been vetted in focus groups and polls are seeping into the White House lexicon, while others considered too scary or confounding are falling away. Despite his longtime work on cap and trade, Senator John Kerry actually went so far as to say he didn't even know what cap and trade is, saying in September: I don't know what ``cap and trade'' means. I don't think the average American does. This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it's a pollution reduction bill. While Senator Kerry says he doesn't know what cap and trade is, the American public knows what it is: a massive new energy tax, plain and simple. It has been kind of interesting to watch this change, watch the phraseology change as time has gone by. But we know this: Nothing has really changed since Kyoto. It is the same thing, cap and trade, the largest tax increase in the history of America. Let me conclude by saying just how encouraged I am to say that the tide has turned--not is turning, it has turned. The skeptics' challenge has been heard, and I am glad to see that more and more journalists are no longer reporting the hyped fears that many want the American public to believe. Media outlets around the world are more skeptical today of manmade climate fears, and they are also more aware of the enormous cost of climate legislation. More importantly, polls are showing that the people are no longer buying the hype either. The bottom line is that efforts to pass the largest tax increase in America's history have clearly failed, handing the American people a tremendous victory. It has been a long time, some 8 years. I see the Senator from Vermont is very anxious to counter these things I have been saying. That is perfectly all right. That is one thing about this body--you have the opportunity to do that. There is no one I consider a better friend than the person presiding right now, from Maryland. He and I were elected together many years ago to the House of Representatives. We disagree on this issue. What I am reporting here is science, and the people have come to an agreement. After 8 years, the truth finally does come out. Winston Churchill said: Truth is incontrovertible. Ignorance may prevent it. Panic may resent it. Malice may destroy it. But there it is. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I understand that according to the unanimous consent agreement, I have the floor for a period of time now.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it is my understanding--and I wish to reaffirm this with a unanimous consent request--that I will be recognized at the hour of 1:30 for, let's say, 1 hour 10 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, inquiry. Is this the final argument before the vote on the Inhofe amendment?

Mr. INHOFE. Let me repeat. We have voted on this amendment before. We voted three different times. This was actually structured as the Inouye-Inhofe amendment once and the Inhofe-Inouye amendment once. It has passed overwhelmingly. This is the only way we can see that we can assure we are not going to have those individuals who are now at Gitmo in the United States. I think we have discussed this several times. I strongly support this amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this amendment has been here three times before. In fact, this amendment has been supported with over 90 votes each time it came through. Unfortunately, once one of the bills went into conference, it was taken out. They replaced it with a 45-day provision. What this does--it is a one-sentence amendment, very easy to understand. It says: None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to construct or modify a facility or facilities in the United States [to house terrorists]. If you want terrorists here, then vote against this amendment. This may be the last shot you have at it. We have the Inouye-Inhofe amendment already passed in the Defense authorization bill, but it is in conference. We do not know whether it will come out. This is the second shot we have to try to keep terrorists from coming into the United States. I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to recognize the courageous actions of six brave Oklahomans. On August 25, 2009, in the evening hours of the day, these six men, Daniel Richards, David Cox, Nick Niemann, Cody Click, Luck Tucker, and Casey Johnson, saved a life. That evening a call came in about a man having severe chest pains and possibly a heart attack at a residence in a rural area east of the town of Roland, OK. Roland Fire Department first responders were paged to respond, and upon their arrival they found a male subject lying on the ground not breathing. The six first responders immediately started CPR and hooked the individual up to an automated external defibrillator and delivered a resuscitating shock from the AED. The first responders continued CPR and working with the patient for 12 minutes until an EMS unit arrived on scene. When the patient was placed in the ambulance he was breathing and had a pulse. The patient was transported to Spark's Medical Center in Fort Smith, AR, where the emergency room doctor stated that the ``firefighters saved this man's life.'' The patient needed to have a stint placed in the main artery of the heart and suffered some-short term memory loss, but he recovered and went home from the hospital in about 7 days. These men are true heroes. The town of Roland, the State of Oklahoma, and I are extremely thankful to them for their service and honored to have them serving one of Oklahoma's finest communities.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I understand my colleagues are getting very close. I want a couple more minutes and that is to mention something that is happening today in the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Feingold has an amendment with which I wholeheartedly agree. It is actually not an amendment. It is a bill having to do with the LRA. Let me explain quickly what that is. The LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, has for about 25 years, led by a guy named Joseph Kony in the northern part of Uganda, been mutilating kids. We have heard of the Child's Army. They go into the villages and kidnap these kids, take them out, teach them how to be warriors, and once they join up, they send them back to the village to murder their own parents, their own family. This has been going on for a long period of time. This bill is something about which I am very excited. Finally, we have the attention of the people in the United States, and that is to join in and go after this animal named Joseph Kony. In the last 18 years, the LRA has captured over 20,000 kids. I have been to northern Uganda. I have been up Guru. I have watched these kids after they have been dismembered, after they cut their lips off, cut their ears off, and all of this. When this bill first came out, I was opposed to it because Senator Feingold had to pay for this bill with a reduction in some of the funds that would otherwise go to the U.S. Air Force. That has been taken out. So I join him now in saying this is something that has to take place. This is the first time we have actually had the opportunity to bring up this issue, to let it surface. I personally talked with President Museveni in Uganda, President Kagame of Rwanda, and President of the eastern part of Congo. I have been to Goma where Joseph Kony has kidnaped these kids, murdered these kids, mutilated these kids. I can tell from personal experience this is something we need to get involved in, and we are doing it by virtue of this bill. I have gone 1 minute past. I apologize to the managers of the bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. First of all, right after the conference luncheon, we are going to have my amendment having to do with Gitmo. This is a very simple one-page amendment that states that none of the funds appropriated, or otherwise made available by this act--on MILCON--or any prior act may be used to construct or modify a facility or facilities in the United States or its territories, to permanently or temporarily hold any individual who is detained as of October 1 of 2009 at Gitmo. You might wonder, we have been talking about this, and I have actually had pass two amendments that do almost the same thing. We passed an amendment to the 2007 resolution 94 to 3--a bipartisan amendment to the war supplemental offered by me and Senator Inouye from Hawaii. It passed 90 to 6 in the current Senate Defense appropriations bill. It is in conference. My concern is, in conference, it may be removed. Keep in mind, we sent this language to conference once before, and it came back and merely said that if the President announces a plan of what to do with those individuals who are incarcerated at Gitmo, we would have 45 days to discuss that. It doesn't say we have to agree with the plan he gives. Consequently, there are no teeth in that. This may be our only chance. This is an issue that has always passed by over 90 votes. So I will have that amendment. I hope people will understand the whole country was upset when they found out on Friday the 13th--and that was kind of an interesting day for this--when Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as announced by the President, was going to be tried in New York City, and they were going to move five terrorists into the New York City area. I will not debate this thing. It has been worn out in the press. People realize that if we are going to bring these terrorists to the United States, they will become targets for terrorist activities. Besides that, you cannot try someone under our court system who should be tried under a tribunal. The rules of evidence are different, and we have a perfect place for that down in Gitmo. Again, I will be offering that amendment.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. As I am rounding third and heading home, I am concerned that we are going to be voting this afternoon on the nomination of David Hamilton to be a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. I think Hamilton is, without question, a liberal activist judge. He believes judges do not simply interpret the Constitution of the United States but that judges have the power to actually change the Constitution when deciding cases, stating that--this is his quote, Mr. President--``part of our job here as judges is to write a series of footnotes to the Constitution.'' This is exactly what our Founding Fathers did not want us to do. Judges are supposed to interpret what we do in this Chamber. When he was nominated to the district court in 1994, the American Bar Association rated him as not qualified. I voted against him for a number of reasons back in 1994. I don't very often agree with Vice President Biden, but I have to say this. Vice President Biden made a statement some time ago with which I do agree. That is, if you are in the Senate and you have a judge who is coming up for confirmation by the Senate, and if you oppose that judge when he comes up to be a Federal judge, then later on when he wants to become a circuit judge or even a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, if you opposed him at a lower position, you have to oppose him at the next position because the bar necessarily goes up. For that reason and many other reasons, I will be opposing him. I think it is important that in 2003, in A Woman's Choice v. Newman, Hamilton issued an injunction against an Indiana law that required abortion clinics to give women information about alternatives to abortions in the presence of a physician, nurse, or somebody else--just to have that information. This is inconceivable to me this could happen. Let's keep in mind also this is the same judge who had a ruling-- perhaps the most infamous because of his 2005 decision while presiding over the case of Hinrichs v. Bosma in which he enjoined the Speaker of Indiana's House of Representatives from permitting sectarian prayers to be offered as a part of that body's official proceedings, meaning that the chaplain or whoever opened the proceedings with a prayer could not invoke the name of Jesus Christ in his prayer. In his conclusion, Hamilton wrote: If the Speaker chooses to continue any form of legislative prayer, he should advise persons offering such a prayer (a) that it must be nonsectarian and must not be used to proselytize or advance any one faith over another. This is the first time and only time I believe this has happened in a nomination. This will be coming up for confirmation. I hope all of America will be aware of the fact this is happening.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the President's trip to China. It appears evident--which we have known all along--that we are not going to be passing anything in this country on cap and trade. We have the bill that is up right now by Senators Kerry and Boxer, who have talked about this now for 8 years. Every time they talk about it, there is more and more opposition to it. Right now, the interesting thing is that the most recent polling shows that only 4 percent of the American people think this is a problem. Four percent are wrong and the 96 percent are right. Nonetheless, in China, keep in mind, their output of CO2 emissions could amount to twice the combined emissions of the world's richest nations, including the United States, the European Union, and Japan. Consequently, the problem there is China, India, Mexico, and the developing countries. We all know nothing will pass this body that doesn't treat the developing countries as developed nations. I will not dwell on this. At a later time, I will. I plan to make a very long--well over an hour--talk. I am trying to get some time now to do that. This will be the fifth time I have done this in the last 6 years concerning this particular subject, which is the alleged global warming attached to the CO2 emissions. I will say this: As far as what is going on right now in China, the Chinese are not going to line up and agree, in Copenhagen or anyplace, to start reducing their own emissions. Frankly, they are the ones who are the big beneficiaries. This is kind of interesting, because even if we did it and the developed nations did it, it still wouldn't have any material reduction in CO2. Even if you believed CO2 or anthropogenic gases caused global warming or climate change, it is still not going to work, as Tom Quigley said it would back when Senator Gore--Vice President Gore at that time--tried to do a study to determine what wonderful things would happen if we joined the Kyoto treaty. The question was, to his own scientists: If all nations, all developed nations, including the United States, the European Union, and all of them, were to sign the Kyoto treaty and live by its emission requirements, how much would it reduce the temperature? Tom Quigley, a renowned scientist, came out with this report and said it would reduce it by less than seven one-hundredths of 1 degree Celsius by 2050. So all of the pain, all of the taxes, the largest tax increase in the history of America, and it does not reduce anything. Consequently, I don't think it is necessary to belabor that. China is not going to do it, no matter what the President does on his trip to China.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, during the course of the day today--and I feel I can do this since it is my birthday--I had five different subjects I wish to cover. I will make one comment about the talk just given--the eloquent speech just given by the Senator from South Dakota. I think the thing that surprises most people is, we will have meetings and people will say: Wait a minute, you don't even know what is in the Senate bill being written up behind closed doors. The comments we are making--most of them--refer to the bill passed in the House. The reason for that is, that is the only thing we have to talk about. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized until such time as we move on, and I understand that is 11:20.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I am joining some of my colleagues from the Environment and Public Works Committee in introducing a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration, EDA. EDA works with partners in economically distressed communities to create wealth and minimize poverty by promoting favorable business environments to attract private investment and encourage long-term economic growth. I have long been a strong supporter of EDA. I believe the agency does an outstanding job of providing relatively small grants that help secure significant amounts of private investment in distressed communities across the country. Contrary to what some people would say, the government itself does not--frankly, cannot--expand the economy and create long-term jobs. That is the role of the private sector. What the government can do, however, is help provide the right conditions for private sector investments to flourish. EDA does this in a myriad of ways, but primarily through infrastructure investments. I only wish more of the so-called ``stimulus'' bill enacted earlier this year had been dedicated to programs like EDA that are truly successful at spurring economic development. Unlike the majority of the spending in the so-called ``stimulus'' bill, EDA investments actually provide economic benefits. In fact, studies show that EDA uses federal dollars efficiently and effectively, creating and retaining long-term jobs at an average cost that is among the lowest in government. In my home State of Oklahoma, for example, EDA has worked long and hard with many communities in need to bring in private capital investment and jobs. Durant, Clinton, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Seminole, Elk City, Muskogee, Woodward, Shawnee, Claremore, Miami and Elgin are just some of the Oklahoma communities that have made good use of EDA assistance. In fact, over the past seven years, EDA grants awarded in my home state have resulted in more than 9,000 jobs being created. With an investment of about $33 million, we have leveraged another 32.7 million in State and local dollars and more than 625 million in private sector dollars. I would call that a wonderful success story. Authorization of FDA's programs expired on September 30, 2008. I had introduced a reauthorization bill in July, 2008, and the EPW Committee reported a bipartisan bill in September 2008. Unfortunately the bill was not enacted. I again introduced my own reauthorization bill in February of this year. Today I am happy to join my colleagues in introducing a similar bill that I hope will be approved by the Committee and the full Senate in the very near future. Particularly in these difficult economic times, we should be doing all we can to ensure the continuation of successful economic development programs, and EDA reauthorization is an important step.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I am joining some of my colleagues from the Environment and Public Works Committee in introducing a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration, EDA. EDA works with partners in economically distressed communities to create wealth and minimize poverty by promoting favorable business environments to attract private investment and encourage long-term economic growth. I have long been a strong supporter of EDA. I believe the agency does an outstanding job of providing relatively small grants that help secure significant amounts of private investment in distressed communities across the country. Contrary to what some people would say, the government itself does not--frankly, cannot--expand the economy and create long-term jobs. That is the role of the private sector. What the government can do, however, is help provide the right conditions for private sector investments to flourish. EDA does this in a myriad of ways, but primarily through infrastructure investments. I only wish more of the so-called ``stimulus'' bill enacted earlier this year had been dedicated to programs like EDA that are truly successful at spurring economic development. Unlike the majority of the spending in the so-called ``stimulus'' bill, EDA investments actually provide economic benefits. In fact, studies show that EDA uses federal dollars efficiently and effectively, creating and retaining long-term jobs at an average cost that is among the lowest in government. In my home State of Oklahoma, for example, EDA has worked long and hard with many communities in need to bring in private capital investment and jobs. Durant, Clinton, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Seminole, Elk City, Muskogee, Woodward, Shawnee, Claremore, Miami and Elgin are just some of the Oklahoma communities that have made good use of EDA assistance. In fact, over the past seven years, EDA grants awarded in my home state have resulted in more than 9,000 jobs being created. With an investment of about $33 million, we have leveraged another 32.7 million in State and local dollars and more than 625 million in private sector dollars. I would call that a wonderful success story. Authorization of FDA's programs expired on September 30, 2008. I had introduced a reauthorization bill in July, 2008, and the EPW Committee reported a bipartisan bill in September 2008. Unfortunately the bill was not enacted. I again introduced my own reauthorization bill in February of this year. Today I am happy to join my colleagues in introducing a similar bill that I hope will be approved by the Committee and the full Senate in the very near future. Particularly in these difficult economic times, we should be doing all we can to ensure the continuation of successful economic development programs, and EDA reauthorization is an important step.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I wish to recognize a gentleman who has served in law enforcement at the State and Federal levels since 1977. Steven C. McCraw is a native of El Paso, TX, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Arts degree from West Texas State University. Mr. McCraw began his career in 1977 as a State Trooper and later a Sergeant Narcotics Investigator for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Becoming an FBI Special Agent in 1983, Mr. McCraw served in the Dallas, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Antonio Field offices. He worked at FBI headquarters in assignments that included Unit Chief of an Organized Crime Unit; Inspector; Deputy Assistant Director; Assistant Director of the Office of Intelligence, which was established in February 2002; and Assistant Director for the Inspections Division where he was responsible for strategic planning, internal investigations and bureau-wide performance evaluations. He also served as the Inspector-In-Charge of the Southeast Bomb Task Force. After the attacks on our Nation on September 11, 2001, the President created the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force and named Mr. McCraw as the director. At the point when our Nation seemed most vulnerable, Mr. McCraw led the charge to identify and locate additional terrorist threats. Mr. McCraw retired as an FBI Assistant Director in August 2004. After more than 20 years of exemplary Federal service, he could have simply retired. Instead, he answered the call of Texas Governor Rick Perry and was appointed the Director of the Governor's Office of Homeland Security. Mr. McCraw has been instrumental in leading the State's homeland security efforts, from border security to hurricane response, including the successful humanitarian relocation of hundreds of families left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. His extensive background in law enforcement and intelligence has enabled him to make well- informed decisions in preparing for and responding to all hazards and threats in Texas. On July 17, 2009, Mr. McCraw was selected as the Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. He will be leading nearly 8,500 commissioned and non-commissioned personnel in the department where he started his law enforcement career. On behalf of the Congress and the country, I would like to thank Mr. McCraw for his service to the Nation and wish him well as he continues his contributions to the safety and security of the State of Texas.