Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it was my intention to ask unanimous consent to lay the pending amendment aside for consideration of amendment No. 2758. However, I will not make that request right now. It is my understanding, however, and I ask unanimous consent, that I be recognized for up to 7 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. Reserving the right to object, first of all, let me tell my good friend from Hawaii that I personally have no objection to the bill; however, I have been informed there are Members on our side who want to work out something. They feel very confident they will be able to work it out with the Senator, but for the purpose of today, to this unanimous-consent request, I have to object.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it is my intention to go ahead in the morning and get this amendment in the queue. This amendment, No. 2758, is a simple, one-page amendment, and I will read the amendment because there has been a lot of confusion as to what is happening down at Guantanamo Bay. Amendments have been introduced to withhold funds from construction, to withhold the opportunities for people to come to the United States, but this is a simple, one-page amendment which states the following: None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this act 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 was detained as of October 1, 2009, at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. Some may ask: Why are we adding another Gitmo amendment? Hasn't everything been covered by previous amendments? The answer is clearly no. In 2007, the Senate voted 94 to 3 on a resolution declaring: Detainees housed at Guantanamo should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods. Then, on May 20, 2009, the Senate passed my bipartisan amendment with Senator Inouye to the war supplemental bill prohibiting the transfer, release or incarceration of Gitmo detainees in the United States or its territories. It passed 90 to 6. Senator Inouye stated: We have not provided funding for the closure of Guantanamo because the administration has yet to produce a credible plan. Unfortunately, the supplemental conference deleted that language, allowing detainees to be transferred or transported to the United States for trial. Then, in October of 2009, the Senate voted 97 to 3 to pass the fiscal year 2010 Senate Defense appropriations bill that included language that prevents funding for any transfers, releases or incarcerations of Gitmo detainees to the United States through fiscal year 2010. The bill is in conference now, and we don't know what is going to be happening to it. On October 28, 2009, the fiscal year Defense authorization and Homeland Security bills were signed into law that would allow transfer of detainees 45 days after the President provides a plan. That is kind of where we are right now. This amendment will put the MILCON-VA bill into sync with previous authorizations and appropriations of the bill. So I will be trying to get this in and trying to get it passed. I will not go into any of the details. I could probably talk for 3 hours on this floor, explaining why it is we should not give up this valuable asset called Gitmo. There is no place else to send these people, and I cannot imagine why there are some people, including the President, who seem to be bent on bringing those detainees into the United States. They have tried Fort Leavenworth, they have tried Fort Sill in Oklahoma, and some 31 States have now passed legislation saying they are not going to be in any of their facilities. So I don't think it is going to happen, but we need to get language in there that is consistent to make sure we keep that resource open. By the way, this is one of the rarer resources that is very worthwhile. We have had this since 1907, and there is no place else in the world that is set up to both incarcerate and try detainees in a military court. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. It will not be more than 15 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business for such time as I shall consume.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this morning we had the first of 3 days of hearings we are having on the proposed Kerry-Boxer climate bill. It was one I never quite had an experience such as that before. Senator Kerry came in, was given 30 minutes to talk about the same thing Al Gore has been talking about for the last 15 years, without any chance to rebut. What I would like to do is take a few of the statements. It is a very confusing issue we have because we do not have a lot to work with. We were given a draft of a bill with some analysis. I think it was a couple days ago--not time to get into it. But the bottom line is, it is going to be the same thing, according to the EPA, as the Waxman-Markey bill. So what I would like to do is use them interchangeably, since that was the response we got from the EPA when we made a request that we be given time to get an analysis, an EPA analysis of the bill. I think the words were: You do not need an EPA analysis of the bill because it is the same bill, for all practical purposes, as Waxman-Markey. So that is what we have. I would like to go over it point by point. Senator Kerry is correct that cap and trade will impose higher costs in the form of higher prices for electricity and gasoline. I think we do know these costs are there. According to the National Black Chamber of Commerce, the bill--which I will refer to as ``the bill,'' it could be Waxman-Markey, it could be Kerry-Boxer--the bill would increase gas prices by 19 cents a gallon by 2015, 38 cents a gallon by 2030, 95 cents a gallon by 2050. Also, electricity bills would rise by about 4 to 5 percent in 2020. I say this because the head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce was an excellent witness. He brought the point home. Not only is this bill--this cap-and-trade bill--expensive, it would be something that would be regressive because the percentage of expendable income by a poor person is far greater than a rich person on such things as home heating and driving your cars. So his whole point was it was a regressive tax. In a recent Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Senator Jeff Sessions asked the government witnesses--the government witnesses were CBO, EPA, EIA, and the CRS--whether anyone disagreed with the finding that the net effect of cap and trade would be to reduce jobs. None did. Again, this morning, most of the witnesses responded in the same way. Then Senator Kerry talked about the NASA scientists. ``The best experts we have,'' he said, ``tell us that the last 10 years have been the hottest in decades on record.'' Of course, we know that we have--in fact, just the other day, last week, BBC, which is certainly no friend of skeptics, in their lead story said: What happened to global warming? This headline came out as a bit of a surprise; so, too, might the fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not 2008 or 2007 but 1998. It went on to say that for the last 11 years, we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. In fact, we have actually had the indication we are starting another cyclical cooling spell. Senator Kerry said: That is why countries of the world, including India, China, and the United States, have agreed to limit the global rise in temperature to just 2 degrees Celsius. In fact, this is not true. I am sure he thinks it is true or he would not have said it. But China is the world's leading emitter of CO2. India is No. 3. India has been moving up. We have a quote from the top environmental minister in India, whose name is Jairam Ramesh: ``India will not accept any emissions reduction target, period.'' He went on to say: ``This is non-negotiable.'' You cannot get any more emphatic than that. At the same time, when you talk about China, they may give you some lip service. Let's keep in mind, though, that China is cranking out coal-fired generating plants at two a week right now. So that does not show there is much interest in China to do anything close to what has been represented. The next statement made was that the pollution reduction measures in this bill are tightly focused on maximum impact. Only companies emitting 25,000 tons of carbon each year are covered, 98 percent of America's businesses. The bill still covers three- quarters of America's carbon pollution. So what he is saying is that three-fourths, as near as I can determine, of the carbon that is emitted comes from only 2 percent of America's businesses. The fact is, the Kerry-Boxer bill or ``the bill,'' I will say-- because it could be Markey or the same--contains no provision to stop the EPA's endangerment finding, which would trigger a flood of regulations under the Clean Air Act. As such, all the sources Senator Kerry mentions would be covered in some form of regulation under the act. Second, Senator Kerry ignores the fact that the sources he mentioned would be severely impacted by higher energy prices, declines in productivity, fewer jobs in the sluggish economy that would arise because of Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey. I mentioned what the National Black Chamber of Commerce had said about that. I think that should stand. He stated: Third, climate change and our dependence on foreign oil are a threat to our national security. I agree with that. We are dependent upon foreign countries for our ability to run this machine called America. Unfortunately, this is a very partisan subject because it is the Democrats who insist on having a moratorium on offshore drilling. The problems we are having right now--we have something, and this came out just last week. The new report from the Congressional Research Service reveals that America's combined recoverable natural gas, oil, and coal reserves are the largest on Earth. We keep hearing people say: We do not have these reserves. We do. Far greater than Saudi Arabia's; they are No. 3. No. 4 is China. That is not even talking about including America's immense oil shale and methane hydrate deposits. So we have the largest reserves and the capability, I believe, and I will make this statement and, hopefully, someone will refute it because I cannot find anything to the contrary; that is, we are the only country that will not develop its own natural resources. They say we are dependent on other countries. Well, yes, we are because politically they will not let us develop our own resources. I would say that between the oil and gas and the coal--and of course we are all concerned about nuclear, we want to do everything we can to overcome the obstacle that such a small percentage of our energy comes from nuclear. However, that is not going to be here tomorrow. We need to start working on that now. I am talking about things where we can get energy produced right in the United States and stop--we could actually stop our dependence on foreign oil just by developing our own natural resources. Then Senator Kerry talked about 11 former admirals and high-ranking generals who issued a seminal report warning that climate change is a threat multiplier. They talk about famines and catastrophes. These assertions, which were first made by Al Gore back when he did his science fiction movie, have all been refuted. Consequently, when I hear 11 former admirals and generals out of 4,000, if they could only find 11, I think they have a problem. The other thing is the fact that the bills would do virtually nothing to stop the pandemics, droughts, floods, and the like. According to an analysis by Chip Knappenberger of Master Resource: No matter how the economic and regulatory issues shake out, [Waxman-Markey] will have virtually no impact on the future course of the earth's climate. He went on: By the year 2050, the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill would result in a global temperature ``savings'' of about 0.05 degrees Celsius. That reminds me, back in the 1990s we had an analysis by, at that time, one of the top scientists around. This was done by then-Vice President Al Gore. The guy's name was Tom Wigley, a top scientist. Vice President Gore gave him the chart. He said: If we were to sign on to the Kyoto Treaty, if we complied with its emissions requirements, how much would this reduce the temperature in 50 years? The answer was 0.07 degrees Celsius. That is not even measurable. He didn't use that afterwards, but we found the report. Nonetheless it was there, and it is quite obvious. Stop and think about the fact that we have gone through these natural cycles year after year. We have the cycles, and they show what we are going through. It reminds me--and I am old enough to remember--of the middle 1970s when the same publication, Time magazine, and the rest of them, many of the same scientists said we would have to do something about global cooling because another ice age was coming, and we have to address it. We have to keep in mind there is a lot of money in these statements. People like to think a disaster is occurring because there is a lot of money in it. That reminds me of something else said this morning by Senator Kerry. He talked about Duke Energy and others. There are about five major corporations in America that joined a group called CAP USA. These were corporations that came in and said: We are stewards of the environment. We want to do something. We embrace cap and trade. Then we stopped and did an analysis of the five that appeared before the committee only to find that without exception, each one of the five, if we were to have some type of a cap and trade--and it doesn't matter whether it was the Markey bill or the current Kerry-Boxer bill-- if we were to do that, we know what the results would be because we have gone through this before over and over again. The idea that we could have something like this and not have the problems come has been disproven for a long period. Let's go back to the Kyoto Treaty. We actually have had five debates on the Senate floor. We had the Kyoto Treaty, then in 2005 the McCain- Lieberman bill, then the 2003 McCain-Lieberman bill, then the 2008 Warner-Lieberman bill. In each case we had analyses done by the Wharton School of Economics, by MIT, and other groups. They all agreed it would be an expensive proposition. They said it would cost the American public between $300 and $400 billion a year. I know that is difficult for people to understand. How does that impact me? But we do have an analysis that breaks that down. For the average family, it would cost about $2,000 a year. In my State of Oklahoma, it would be more than that because the price would be higher in the central part of the United States than it would be on the east coast or the west coast. The cost is going to be there, and it doesn't seem to make too much difference which of the five different approaches we soundly defeated in the past is under consideration. Senator Kerry also claims that India is working on its own domestic legislation to reduce carbon pollution. I already read what their top people have said. They have no intention of doing it. In fact, I have talked to people who are from China, people who are saying: We are sitting back and are kind of hoping maybe America will do this because, if they do, American manufacturers have to go someplace to find their energy. Since we have rationed it in this country, if we should pass such a cap-and-trade bill, then that would send more manufacturing jobs to places where there is no rationing. I appreciate very much Lisa Jackson, the new Director of the EPA. Several weeks ago--she was there again this morning--she was on the witness stand. I asked a question: If we were to pass one of these bills like the Waxman-Markey bill, and we were to pass it unilaterally, how much would that reduce emissions globally? The answer was, it wouldn't. I would go one step further. It will not reduce them unless we include Third World countries, the major emitters--China, India, Mexico, and these other countries. If we don't do that, then we will chase our manufacturing bases where there are no restrictions, and that would have the effect, common sense would dictate, of increasing CO2 emissions. We have gone through this now for 10 years. I think it is going to come to a climax in Copenhagen. Once every year the U.N. has this big party, and they have all these countries come in and say what they are going to do to try to stop emission of greenhouse gases. I had one--I will not mention his name, but he was from the West African country of Benin--who was there the last time I attended one of these conferences. It was in Spain at that time, I believe. Milan, Italy. I went up to this individual and I said: You and I have talked about this before. You know there is no relationship between greenhouse gases and global warming. He said: Yes, but this is the biggest party of the year. So you are going to have a lot of people to go to Copenhagen in December who really aren't strongly behind the effort of the United Nations. One last time, it all started with the United Nations, the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Climate Change Program. It started there. They are the ones who are perpetrating this thing. As we get into the debate-- and we will have more hearings tomorrow--I hope we will be in a position, before we send a bill to the floor from the Environment and Public Works Committee, to analyze it. We have called upon the EPA to give us an analysis so that we will have something and we will know more specifically, is this just a warmed-over bill that passed the House, the Waxman-Markey effort, or is this something that is different? According to the EPA, it is about the same. I suggest it is about the same as it was back in 2005, 2003, and back during the Kyoto discussion. We will move forward. We have seen certain incontrovertible truths that have come up. One is there is no question that if something like this is passed, something like the draft form we are discussing and having hearings on right now, if this should become a reality it would be the largest tax increase in the history of America. The last large tax increase we had was in 1993. It was called the Clinton-Gore tax increase. It increased marginal rates, inheritance taxes, gasoline taxes, capital gains taxes, all the rest. We were pretty outraged at the size of that increase. That was a $32 billion tax increase. According to all the analyses we are looking at now, this would be 10 times the size of that tax increase. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I will tell you something else I do not think is going to work. During the August recess, people were upset mostly about--because it was the most visible issue at the time--the prospect of socialized medicine for America. But at the same time, as a close second, there was another issue that was very much of concern; that is, a cap-and-trade bill. Just to refresh your memory, this goes all the way back almost 10 years when we had the Kyoto Treaty. That was back during the Clinton administration, and we were supposed to be ratifying the Kyoto Treaty, which would have been a big, massive cap-and-trade or tax increase. In fact, the analysis of that was done by the Wharton Econometric Survey, from the Wharton School of Economics. The question put to them was, What would it cost if we ratified the Kyoto Treaty and lived by its emissions standards? The answer was it would be somewhere between $300 billion and $330 billion a year. I always go back, when I am trying to figure out what that would mean to individual families, and I recall that the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993 was the largest tax increase in three decades, increasing marginal rates, capital gains, inheritance taxes, and all other taxes. That was a $32 billion tax increase. So that would be 10 times larger. That was the Kyoto Treaty. We did not ratify it. Then along came the McCain-Lieberman bill in 2003 and then again the McCain-Lieberman bill of 2005, and the same thing was true. Other universities' analyses came in and tried to determine what the cost would be. I remember MIT came in and did an analysis of those bills, and it was somewhere in excess of $300 billion a year. Then along came the Warner-Lieberman bill--not the current Senator Warner but the past Senator Warner--and that was essentially the same. What I am saying is, it does not really matter whether we are talking about Waxman-Markey or what we are going to be voting on sometime in the near future, I would assume, that is going to be a form of Waxman- Markey. By the way, I say that because when several Senators were trying to get information to analyze what it is we are going to be starting to have hearings on tomorrow and then ultimately marking up, they said the bill is a lot like Waxman-Markey, so just go look at the analysis of Waxman-Markey. If you want to do that, at least we now know there is a target out there. We have something we can talk about. While I have serious problems with EPA's analysis of Waxman-Markey and its 38-page ``meta-analysis'' of Kerry-Boxer--that is 38 pages of a 923-page bill--the latter is not entirely EPA's fault. It is a drive to ram the Kerry-Boxer bill through the legislative process before people really know what it is. Now we know what it is because it is essentially the same thing we had in the Waxman-Markey bill that went through the House of Representatives. It is kind of interesting. This massive tax increase called the Waxman-Markey bill passed the House after very little debate because it came up--in fact, they finished it at 3 o'clock in the morning the day they voted on it, so people had not had a chance to read any of it. So it passed by 219 votes in the House of Representatives. That is barely a majority. It is one that was--interestingly enough, the last time they had a massive energy tax increase such as this, it was called the Btu tax of 1994. That passed the House by 219 votes, the same margin. Obviously, that was killed later on in the Senate, as I believe this will be. I come to the floor now to talk about this because tomorrow we start hearings, exhaustive hearings, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They are not going to be talking about the specifics of the bill; it will just be more propaganda. The main thing we want to do is make sure everybody knows it is going to be a very large tax increase. It wasn't long ago that Representative John Dingell, who is a Democrat from Michigan--he said it right. He said: Cap and trade is ``a tax, and a great big tax at that.'' So we have something we know we are going to be faced with. We know we are going to have hearings. The question has to be asked: If we know there are not votes to pass it in the Senate, why are we having our hearings now? I would suggest to my colleagues we are having them because there is a big party that is going to take place in Copenhagen. Every year, the United Nations throws this party. You might ask: The United Nations? Yes, that is where it all started, the IPCC. It is going to take place in Copenhagen during the middle of December. I thought it was interesting last night when President Obama announced he probably was not going to be going to this party in Copenhagen because it didn't look as if they had the votes to pass something in the Senate. So I would only say to get ready. We are going to have more of the same. We went through it back during Kyoto, 10 years ago, and since then with four bills on the Senate floor and we are going to be talking about it more and more. I just came from my office. This is kind of interesting. This is a hat signed by the Young Farmers and Ranchers, which is tied to the American Farm Bureau or the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, in this case. It says: ``Don't Cap Our Future.'' When you stop and think about what would happen to the farmers--I hate to even single out farmers or any other groups because it is going to be just as punishing to the entire manufacturing base. It was interesting the other day, when we asked the question of the newly appointed Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, as to what would happen if we were to pass the bill in the Senate and it would become law, as did the Waxman-Markey bill, how much would it reduce CO2 emissions. She said: Well, it wouldn't reduce them. Because if we act unilaterally in the United States, then things happen where--this isn't where the problem is. In fact, we know we would have a massive exodus of our manufacturing base to such countries as China, Mexico, India, and others. But nonetheless, here are the farmers who are concerned about this because, if you look at the cost of fertilizer, one of the major ingredients there is natural gas, and you look at the cost of diesel and everything else, it is very serious. Bob Stallman, the president of the American Farm Bureau, just the other day said: Increased input costs will put our farmers and ranchers at a competitive disadvantage with producers in other countries that do not have similar greenhouse gas restrictions. Any loss of international markets or resulting loss of production in the United States will encourage production overseas in countries where production methods may be less effective than in the United States. In other words, we can do it more efficiently in the United States, but if we don't have the energy, we will not be able to do it. So I think the farmers, of all the people who should be concerned and are concerned, the wake-up call is out there. They better be ready when they come up with allocations. The allocations will not be available to us during the next 3 days of hearings. The allocations are something that are held back in secret so they can go to different elements of the society and say: Well, you are going to have an allocation where you can be a winner. They tried this with the Wheat Growers of America early on during the Warner-Lieberman bill, and they actually endorsed the bill until they realized it was a fraud and withdrew their endorsement. I think Senator Kit Bond said it well. They did a study in the State of Missouri, and the study found that the proposed cap-and-trade legislation will cost the average Missouri farmer an additional $11,000 a year in 2020 and more than $30,000 a year by 2050. So let me say to Tyler and to all my friends at the Oklahoma Farm Bureau: I have your hat, and I will wear it with dignity all the way to Copenhagen to make sure this thing doesn't pass. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, today, I recognize the service LTC Michel ``Shel'' G. Jones, on the occasion of his retirement from active duty in the U.S. Army. Lieutenant Colonel Jones is an exceptional officer who has served our great Nation for more than 28 years, including 22 years on active duty and 6 years in the Iowa Army National Guard. I have personally come to know and respect Lieutenant Colonel Jones over the 2\1/2\ years he served as an Army congressional liaison for the Army's weapons and tracked combat vehicles programs, to include the Army's Future Combat System. His expertise and commitment were instrumental in educating Members and staff in the Senate and House on Army combat systems, modernization programs and initiatives. His tireless efforts working with Members and staff of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees were instrumental in the successful authorization and appropriation of the Abrams tank, Bradley fighting vehicle, small arms and crew-served weapons, Stryker, elements of the Future Combat System and the Paladin Integrated Management programs. Lieutenant Colonel Jones' congressional liaison assignment was only the capstone to what is an outstanding career of service to the Army and our Nation. He served as an armor officer in numerous command and staff positions. His operational assignments began in the Mojave Desert at Fort Irwin, CA, serving as a platoon leader at the National Training Center where he trained thousands of soldiers in desert warfare. He served as commander for Alpha Company, 4th Battalion 37th Armor, Heavy, followed by command of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd of the 70th Armor Battalion with the 1st Armored Division at Fort Riley, KS. After transitioning in to the acquisition career field, Lieutenant Colonel Jones was assigned to Fort Knox, KY, as a combat development officer and as a project manager for the Army's Future Combat System, FCS, in Detroit, MI. The strength of our soldiers comes from their families. Lieutenant Colonel Jones' strength came from his wife Dynette, and his two sons Colton and Conner. This Nation is grateful for their commitment and personal sacrifices made throughout Shel's military service. We also thank his mother Joyce, who recently passed, and his father William ``Gerry'' Jones for raising such a fine son and patriot. Shel is from a military family. His father is a retired soldier and his brother, Dr. Keith Jones, serves as a major in the National Guard. This Nation remains indebted to your service. On behalf of the Senate and the United States of America, I commend Lieutenant Colonel Jones for his tireless efforts in the support of our Army, our military, and our Nation. As Shel and his family prepare to start a new life in the great State of Oklahoma, I congratulate him on completing an extremely successful military career and wish all of them the best in all their future endeavors.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, let me say to my friend from Texas, the wake-up call is out there. People are fully aware of what is going on right now--the fact that you have a government option; you have a form of socialized medicine; you have something that has proven not to work in areas such as Canada and Great Britain and elsewhere. It is kind of interesting to me that we see those countries trying to emulate something we are doing at the same time we are edging over in their direction. I do not think that is going to work.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I am very much concerned about some of the other things that have been approached in this legislation. One is the lack of testing capability for our existing stockpile of nuclear capability. I am concerned about the additional money, some $560 million, to continue development and procurement of the alternate engine for the F- 25 Joint Strike Fighter. We debated this over and over again. The end result would be, if this continues in the way it is right now, it would eventually knock us down by about 50 F-35 aircraft. This is something that should not take place. While this authorization bill does prohibit the Gitmo detainees coming into the United States, it does allow for detainees to be transferred into the United States 45 days after the President has submitted a plan to Congress. It does not say that Congress has to approve the plan, just that they must submit the plan to Congress. Anytime I look at what has happened and the capability we have there at Gitmo--and to think we would shut it down for no reason I have ever been able to determine--that is concerning. The last thing I would mention is, if we look at our responsibility of defending America, we are down now to a very small percentage of GDP compared to where we have been in the past. During the gulf war, our defense spending was 4.6 percent. It was 6 percent during the buildup of the Reagan years. If this trend continues on the road we are on now, it would be at 3 percent of GDP by 2019. I would only remind you, Mr. President, we went through this same thing back at the beginning of the Clinton administration. As this chart shows, this line right here is a baseline. The Clinton budget is the red line down there. So we are talking about a degradation of some $412 billion in that period of time. On the heels of that--I remember so well the jubilant cries that: The cold war is over. We don't need a strong defense anymore. I see that same sentiment coming on the horizon. I am very much concerned about that. For that reason, I will be opposing the vote we will be facing in a short period of time. There still is time to send this back to conference and get some of those things taken care of. I would encourage our colleagues to give us the opportunity to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I did not sign the conference report on this legislation. I did not do it for a number of the same reasons articulated by the Senator from Arizona. There are some good provisions in this bill. It does increase the size of our military, the Army, Marines, Air Force, and the Navy. Specifically, it authorizes 30,000 new additional Army troops through fiscal years 2011 and 2012 but provides no funding, which means the Army is going to have to take it out of its hide somewhere else. This concerns me. It does provide a pay raise. That is good. It improves TRICARE eligibility. It adds eight congressionally appointed members to the independent panel that will consider the Quadrennial Defense Review. That was a program of Senator Thune's. It does do that. That is good. It provides $350 million to train and equip. Train and equip has been one of my favorite programs for a long period. It is one that we are getting the most out of right now. I am pleased that is in there. It also adds some funding for the new AFRICOM, African Command. It used to be divided into three different commands--the European command, the Pacific command and Central Command--but now it is in one. However, even though AFRICOM is good, and General Ward is doing a great job, it was not adequately funded in terms of resources. Now it is much better. We have extra funding in there. Having said that, I would have to say that on modernization and the things I have been trying to do since I have been serving in this body and on the Armed Services Committee, military modernization has been kicked down the road. It seems all we ever do around here is take care of what is on fire at any given time. President Obama said, in his February 2009 speech to a joint session, that he would push for removal of Cold War era equipment we do not need. I agree with that statement. That is not what this legislation does though. We are still using the Bradley fighting vehicle and the M1 Abrams tank, both developed in the 1970s and 1980s. The Army's Paladin howitzer was developed in the 1950s back when I was in the Army. We do have the Paladin Integrated Management, P.I.M., program to upgrade it but, nonetheless, there is no current modernization plan to replace that cannon. It terminates the C-17 program. Fortunately, we were able to get some things in Defense appropriations to correct that and add funding for additional C-17s. It terminates the F-22 program. I can remember when that program was first introduced. We were going to have some 900 aircraft. As it turned out, that was dropped down to 750 and has now been reduced to purchasing only the 187 aircraft already produced. Let's keep in mind that the F-22 is the only fifth-generation fighter we have, and other countries--China and Russia--are cranking theirs out now. I think the worst part of this, though, was what they did to our missile defense system. The chart is complicated but it shows that during the boost phase, we have two capabilities--the airborne laser and the kinetic energy interceptor. Those were, for all practical purposes, terminated with this bill. That is the easiest and earliest phase to knock down an incoming missile, if you can get it during the boost phase. It cut down the number of missile interceptors in Alaska and California from 40 to 33. But to me the worst part is--and we have talked about this on the floor over and over--it eliminated our ground- based interceptor capability that was ongoing in Poland and the Czech Republic. I was there when this European plan was first being discussed.. I talked to the Polish Parliament as well as the Czech Parliament to encourage them to let us have that capability. I remember a member of the Parliament asked me: Are you sure that if we do this and take a controversial position in allowing an interceptor capability to take place, that America won't back down? I said: I am absolutely certain we won't. Obviously, we did back down. I am very much concerned about that. I wish there were time to go into it. There is not. I will say this: We are pretty well protected with our capability, even though they decreased the number of interceptor missiles in Alaska and California in this legislation. But the interceptor missiles based in Alaska and California are intended to protect against missile threats from the west of the United States from Asia. Something coming from the East is a different situation. We needed this added capability and protection. I know the administration says that we already have the capability of knocking down a short and medium-range hostile missiles with our PATRIOT missiles, our THAAD system and our SM-3. The problem with that is, those systems do not adequately address the long-range missile threats from nations like Iran. Our intelligence says Iran is going to have a long-range missile capability by around 2015. If we had stayed with our program to have this capability in Poland and the Czech Republic in advance of that, we would have the capability of knocking down an ICBM coming toward the United States. As it is now, we will not have until around 2020. If our intelligence estimate is right, that means we have a 5-year period, between 2015 and 2020, where we are pretty much naked on the east coast and Europe against long-range missile threats. Let me ask, because I know there is another Senator who wants part of this time, how much time remains on our side?

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, last summer in my hometown of Tulsa, OK, when gasoline prices were near $4 a gallon, a person driving a compressed natural gas-powered car was able to fuel up for just 90 cents a gallon. This was when gasoline was at $4 a gallon. That was a savings of $3 a gallon. Consequently, I was the first in Congress to introduce a comprehensive bill to promote the use of natural gas as a realistic alternative for the many Americans who were looking for price relief, which is about everybody. The bill I introduced was called the Drive America on Natural Gas Act. A year later, I am encouraged to see that several Members on Capitol Hill have introduced similar bills promoting the use of natural gas and propane as transportation fuel. Last summer, I joined with Senator Pryor to once again introduce a comprehensive bill to promote these fuels for America's drivers. Additionally, majority leader Harry Reid recently announced his firm support for natural gas vehicles and hopes to bring a standalone bill to the floor in the near future. I welcome the majority leader's support and encourage him to make this a priority for floor consideration. One of the major components of my Drive America on Natural Gas Act addressed a desperate need to overhaul the EPA emissions certification process which effectively prohibits the ability of nearly all car owners the option to legally convert cars to bifuel operation. Bifuel is a car that can run on natural gas and via the flip of a switch go to gasoline. Now, why? With certification and emissions testing expenses ranging between $50,000 and $150,000 per conversion system type, the costs are prohibitive for the aftermarket conversion system manufacturers to produce these systems for more than just a handful of different vehicle models each year. These heavy costs are ultimately borne by the consumer. Due to the rigidity and the cost constraints of these regulations, the EPA has issued less than 300 certificates over the past 8 years--that is 300 certificates over the past 8 years. This is a solution to the high price and the fluctuating price of automobile gas. Now, oftentimes the vehicle models eligible for conversion are only sold for a short period of time since the certification lasts less than a year before a conversion system manufacturer must decide it will rectify that particular system. Today, I am pleased to join Senator Wicker, Congressman Dan Boren from my State of Oklahoma, and Congressman Heath Shuler to introduce bipartisan, bicameral legislation to simplify and streamline the EPA emission certification process for aftermarket conversion systems. The Streamline Alternative Fuel Vehicle Conversions Act makes critical changes in five key ways so that vehicle conversions can become a commonplace option for all Americans: First, our bill eliminates the need for subsequent yearly recertification systems that have already been certified. I might add that the EPA is a friend in this effort. They want these changes to take place as much as we do, but they are not able to do this right now. Under the current law, you have to get recertified, so we eliminate that problem. Secondly, the legislation directs the EPA to establish criteria that would cover several different yet similar makes and models under a single certification conformity. Here is the problem. We have an organization in Tulsa that has a conversion system where they can actually change the fuel and refuel and they can change conversions into automobiles. The problem is, the way the law is today you have to get paid for this conversion each time. It might be the same engine that has already been converted before, but if it is in a different model, you have to convert it again. This is something we are going to be changing. The third thing we change is to instruct the EPA to allow the submissions of previously tested data if a vehicle or the conversion system has not changed in a way which would affect compliance--very similar to the last problem, but nonetheless it is in the current law. The fourth thing we would do is direct the EPA to promulgate regulations to help conversion system manufacturers comply with potentially different onboard diagnostics--which is called OBD-- requirements and compatibility. Since 1996, these onboard diagnostics systems have been required in all light-duty cars and trucks to monitor engine and emission components. Finally, we clarify the treatment of vehicles which are beyond their useful life as defined by the EPA. These older vehicles, typically those that are at least 10 years old and have at least 125,000 miles, are by default regulated under the Clean Air Act's tampering provision, causing regulatory uncertainty. Our legislation would allow the conversion of these vehicles as long as the conversion system manufacturer for the converter is able to demonstrate that the emissions would not degrade due to conversion. Over the past several months, this legislation has been through numerous drafting reiterations with the assistance of the Natural Gas Vehicles of America, the National Propane Gas Association, and the Environmental Protection Agency. As I said before, they have been very helpful to us. I especially thank the EPA for their input and assistance in helping us craft a bill which will aid the agency in their efforts to streamline their compliance. They actually want to streamline. This is not normally the case. I am also encouraged by EPA's internal efforts to reform the process, and I am pleased that our bill will complement and enhance their actions. By simplifying this compliance process, the Streamline Alternative Fuel Vehicle Conversion Act will not only incentivize conversion system manufacturers to offer more systems for additional vehicle makes and models but will eventually reduce the cost of these conversion systems for interested car owners, perhaps by hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Ultimately, the legislation will allow Americans to choose whether propane- or natural-gas powered vehicles are right for their own individual and business needs while simultaneously preserving the country's stringent emission standards. The promise of natural gas and propane as mainstream transportation fuels is achievable today--not 20 years from now or 25 years from now but today. It is something no one should be against. Stop and think about it. I know the price of gas is down to $3. In my State of Oklahoma, it is down to around $2 a gallon. But today's price for natural gas, a comparable gallon would be 90 cents, and that is one that would be stabilized. When we stop and think about the reserves that are out there in natural gas, what we can do and what is available for us today, it can only get better. Hopefully, this bill will pass. I am very proud of the bipartisan support, the bicameral support. I encourage our colleagues to get involved in this very logical response to the high price of motor fuel. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it was called to my attention a few minutes ago that our deadline for comments about Ted Kennedy is coming up tomorrow. I wanted to beat the deadline. I always wait until the last minute, it seems. One of the reasons I did is because there are so many things people are not aware of, so I took the time to send to places such as Western Sahara and elsewhere to get documents that better explained a little bit more about who Ted Kennedy was than has already been stated on the floor of the Senate. I have a good friend whose name is Mouloud Said. He is the Ambassador at Large of Western Sahara. He and I worked together for many years trying to bring some sanity into what has happened over the last 35 years in Western Sahara. For the record, since people are not aware of this conflict that took place, back in 1975, the Moroccans invaded what was then called Spanish Sahara, later called Western Sahara. There were a lot of people chased out at that time. They fled. War ensued between 1975 and 1991. It continued during that time. When Morocco invaded that area that was later called Western Sahara, the refugees, the people who were living there who rightfully should be in that area, who should be living there today, were chased into Algeria. Tindouf is an area I have been to a couple times. The refugee camps there are so large. There are actually 175,000 refugees who were chased out of Western Sahara and have been wanting to be repatriated ever since then. One of the former Secretaries of State, James Baker, was a hero in this area. He did the best he could to see that repatriation would take place. It seemed like every time they got close to working out something with Morocco, they would get right up to the altar and then they would cut it off. They would agree something should be done, but as they would come to agreement and get together, Morocco would back down. That took place for a long period of time. You cannot be empathetic with the people who are there until you have walked through the little alleys and the stucco houses in Tindouf and see how these people are living, hearing their chants, their cries for freedom. Three generations now have been trying to escape, to be repatriated, and it hasn't worked. I have a letter--I will read part of it--that ties Senator Kennedy and me to this issue. This is from Mouloud Said, who is Ambassador at Large of Western Sahara: Indeed, this was precisely the case when Senator James Inhofe and the late Senator Edward Kennedy reached across the political aisle to jointly promote the cause of justice and freedom in the Western Sahara, and respect for human rights of the Sahrawi people. As recognized by the United Nations Charter, the African Union, and the American Constitution, all people have the inalienable right to freedom and self- determination, and the Sahrawi people will be forever indebted to these great Senators for their principled and bipartisan stand on behalf of the Sahrawi's fundamental rights. That is what it is all about. We would see these people out there, and they had no one to take care of them. The Moroccans, they have friends. I have to say this: I testified probably 2 or 3 years ago at a House committee hearing. At that time, we made a list of all the lobbyists Morocco had hired. They had everybody. The money was all on one side, and only the Lord and a few people who were sympathetic to them were on the side of those people who have been living on the Algerian border for the last 35 years. That is what they are going through at this time. It is very sad. I want to mention, talking about Ted Kennedy, how persistent he was. This goes all the way back to his involvement, back to the time when the war was still taking place. I have statements I am going to enter into the Record. They are not long. One goes back to October 1, 1992, a ``Statement by Senator Edward M. Kennedy at Senate Foreign Relations Africa Subcommittee Hearing on the Western Sahara.'' He goes through and tells the story of what he has attempted to do, and he had not been able to successfully get it done. The same as with James Baker and myself. January of 1994, ``Statement by Edward M. Kennedy in Support of Amendment Promoting Implementation of Peace Plan in Western Sahara.'' January of 1994, we thought at that time we had it done. Again, an arrangement was made. It was agreed to by all parties until they got together. June 23, 1999, ``Senator Kennedy Calls for Greater Progress in the Western Sahara Referendum.'' A referendum is all they want. They want self-determination. They want to be able to vote as to whether they want to be repatriated, which is something we in America would assume everybody has that right. But that is not the situation. Senator Kennedy, again, went to battle to help them in June 23, 1999, and was not able to get it done. Then, again, in 2000, he actually offered amendments for holding referendums in Western Sahara. Later in that same year, he appealed to King Mohammed VI of Morocco to give these people a chance, at least, of self-determination. He was unable to get that done. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record these documents.

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me conclude by saying that other things were happening too. When you think about countries, I often said Africa is the forgotten continent. I can remember so well back when they were talking about taking our troops into Bosnia and then later Kosovo, the excuse they were using--this is back in the Clinton administration--they were saying it was ethnic cleansing taking place there. I said on the Senate floor standing at this podium--this is way back in the late nineties--I said for every person who has been ethnically cleansed in Bosnia, there are hundreds on any given day in any Western Africa country. But people did not care about it. Senator Kennedy did. I know this is a little bit sensitive subject, but even to this day, right now, every other week, there is a group of people, staff people, who get together. They have nothing in common except a heart for Africa. There are liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. They meet every other week, in Senator Kennedy's office and then in my office, and they pray for Africa. This is something about Senator Kennedy people did not know. That is something that takes place even to this date. I have a letter written recently by Lindsey Gilchrist of Senator Kennedy's office: I know Senator Kennedy and Senator Inhofe had always been thought of as the bipartisan leaders on this issue. The Africa prayer group was not something Senator Kennedy was directly involved in [or Senator Inhofe]-- But they have stimulated and motivated us to do this very thing. That was one of the things that occupied 20 years of Senator Kennedy's time. I feel committed to continuing to work with the people of Western Sahara to try to make that a reality. When that happens, we are going to be able to say--he will be watching down: All right, we finally did it. Let me share a couple personal experiences I had with Senator Kennedy. One is a little bit humorous. In 2005, the Republicans were in the majority. I was chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We did the 2005 transportation reauthorization bill. It was a huge thing. I am a conservative, but this is something we need to be doing in this country, something about infrastructure. As is always the custom of the Senate, as the Chair is well aware, when we pass a big bill, we stand on the floor and thank all the staff people and talk about the significance of it and how important it is. We had just passed the bill when I was getting ready to make my speech about what a great job we did when the bells went off. They said: Bomb threat, bomb threat; evacuate, evacuate. Everybody started running. I had not made my speech yet, so I stood up. It is kind of eerie when you are the only person in the Capitol and giving a speech. Of course, there was nobody here, and the cameras were still going. I remember, after finishing my speech, I looked down at the bottom of the stairs and saw a very large man walking out. I went down and I said: Ted, we better get out; this place might blow up. He said: Well, Jim, these old legs don't work like they used to. I said: Let me help you. It happened, by the way, this was right after the American Conservative Union came out with the ratings where I was the No. 1 most conservative Member of the Senate and he was the second from the most liberal Member of the Senate. I said: Let me help you. I put my arm around his waist and he put his arm around my arm. Someone took a picture. It ended up on the front page of a magazine. The caption was: ``Who Says Conservatives are Not Compassionate?'' That is the kind of relationship we had. I will always remember this. He did things that people are not expected to do. There was a show-- they don't have it on television anymore--called ``Crossfire.'' Some might remember that. It was an aggressive program, where you get two people debating each other on an issue. The issue that particular day-- this was back in 2000--was Vieques. Vieques is an island off Puerto Rico. They were trying to shut it down. They were successful. I don't blame it on the Democrats or Republicans. President Bush went along with Al Gore and closed down the live range at Vieques, which was the only place the Navy and marines could do integrated training. I was actually debating Bobby Kennedy--he was his nephew--on the ``Crossfire'' show. It was one of these things where I really knew the issue. I knew I had him on this debate. It came down to the end, and I could have put the knife in at that time. I didn't have the heart to do it. I was sitting, Madam President, where you are sitting the next day, presiding over the Senate, and Ted Kennedy came up. He said: Well, Jim, I came up to say thank you. Thank you for what? He said: I was watching this debate you had last night, and I knew what you were thinking and I knew that you had won this thing and right at the last you could have inflicted great harm to Bobby. You elected not to do it. I want to tell you I appreciate it very much. That was Senator Kennedy. There are things still going on today to which he committed his life. We are going to win some of those, and we are going to rejoice when that happens. He will be right here with us. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. It is my understanding that we have someone coming down wanting to speak, but there are a couple of things I wanted to mention. First of all, when the Senator from South Dakota talks about health care reform, there are some things we can do for health care reform that we have promoted for quite some time. Certainly, medical malpractice is very significant. It is a huge cost. Defensive costs are a very large part of our health care costs. HSAs came into being a few years ago, and we have pilot programs where they--let's keep in mind, health care is the only product or service in America that I know of where there is no encouragement to shop around. Well, if you have HSAs, this is encouragement because if you spend less, you can enjoy the benefits of that; that is, put that into other programs. So I think there are some things we can do. The second thing I would say about the subject that was covered very well by the Senator from South Dakota is that we don't know for sure what is going to be in the bill that comes out, but we do know this: Speaker Pelosi, over on the House side, has said that any bill that comes out of conference is going to have a government option. So they can masquerade it, they can talk about co-ops, they can talk about all of these things; we are going to eventually get something that comes out of conference and it is going to have a government option. That is, some people would say, socialized medicine. You can't compete with the government and have a system that has delivered the benefits our system has. Cap and Trade Secondly, the Senator from South Dakota could just as well be talking about another piece of legislation that is up right now; that is, the cap-and-trade bill. It is another one that has the same thing where you do not know the blanks. Last Wednesday, there was a news conference by the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry, and the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, and they gave this program--they talked about this new kind of cap and trade, but they did not give any specifics. Nothing that was in there was specific in terms of where is the cap, how does the trading take place, how does the rationing take place. The bottom line is this, though: Anything that has to do with any kind of cap and trade is going to be at least--at least--a $300 billion annual tax increase. That was true back as long ago as the late 1990s when the Kyoto bill was up. We had the Kyoto bill; they did a study on this thing; it was done by the Wharton School of Economics. They said that the cost of this, if we were to comply with the restrictions of that treaty, would be somewhere between $300 and $330 billion a year. To put that into perspective, because sometimes it is confusing when you are talking about billion dollars and trillions of dollars, I remember the largest tax increase that was a general tax increase was back in 1993 in the Clinton-Gore White House, and it was $32 billion. So this would be 10 times that amount. So we have had several bills in the Senate since that time, and I would only say this: This is a different debate. It is going to come up and we are going to have a chance to talk about it. But the bottom line is that the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, a very fine person, a person who was appointed by President Obama, made the statement that if we were to pass the Waxman-Markey bill, something like that, sign it into law, it wouldn't have the effect of reducing CO2 at all. The reason is very obvious: We would only be doing that here in the United States. Amendment No. 2566 to H.R. 3326 Lastly, I did want to make one comment about a couple of votes that are going to come up, or at least one vote that is coming up at 3:45 today. My junior Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, has an amendment. It is an excellent amendment. It is one I will support, although I have to say that I was tempted not to because I would only like to start the ball rolling, that if this body is willing to redefine what an earmark is, we could be unanimous on this side. An earmark should be an appropriation without authorization. This has been a 200-year fight between authorizers and appropriators, and if we will get to the point where we will accept the fact that if something has gone through the scrutiny of an authorization--the highway bill is a good example of this. We have 30 criteria in that authorization bill. We come up with criteria to determine how much should be spent in different categories. And on the floor, there are always things coming up that did not go through the authorization process, and therefore I would call those earmarks. So I would only say this: In the amendment Senator Coburn has, it is going to address some 55 that are called earmarks, of which 6 were authorized. I would like to be able to take those six out. I don't know whether we can do that. It would be very difficult to do prior to the vote. But nonetheless, for future reference, if we are going to talk about earmarks, I think we need to define what an earmark is. It is an appropriation that has not been authorized. That is the thing we need to get after, and that will be one of my new wars I am starting. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, back in August of 2008 there was a directive that we should try to privatize as many of the Army Corps as possible. All this does is say, before any more are privatized, the Army should have to certify that--two things--it would not increase the cost or negatively impact national security. It has been cleared on both sides. I urge its adoption.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2618. I send a modification to the desk for its consideration. It would not require a rollcall vote.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I object.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, it is my understanding the Senator from Louisiana is going to be the next speaker, but I ask unanimous consent at the conclusion of her remarks that the Senator from Georgia be recognized, and that I be recognized after him.

Mr. INHOFE. I reserve the right to object. Let me inquire as to what is pending now.