Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I was listening with some interest to the Senator from Alaska and what she is trying to do. I think, once again, we are faced with a backhanded attempt to regulate greenhouse gases without the transparency of public debate. Section 429 of the omnibus currently includes yet another congressional handout to some of the extremist groups and to the trial bar. This rider is clearly an attempt to legislate on a spending bill, the sort of bad habit that Democrats in Congress and the White House promised to give up during the last election. As ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I strongly support the bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Murkowski and Begich to revise the omnibus section 429. This subject is particularly important to me since the EPW Committee holds jurisdiction over all issues impacted by the offending provision, including endangered species, the regulation of greenhouse gases, and the transportation infrastructure which we are going to be pursuing in the next few weeks. Without the amendment, section 429 allows the agencies to make dramatic changes to the Endangered Species Act rules and regulations without having to comply with longstanding Federal laws that require public notice and public comment by the American people and knowledgeable scientists. These changes have the potential for far- reaching and unintended consequences in our economy. Specifically, this activist-friendly rider would allow the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of Commerce to undo a regulation making commonsense adjustments to the ESA as well as withdraw a special rule and listing for the polar bear. By ignoring the protections of the Administrative Procedures Act, the rules in question could be withdrawn within 60 days of adoption of the omnibus bill and then reissued in whatever form the agencies preferred, without having to go through any notice or public comment period and without being subject to any judicial review as to whether their actions were responsible or justified. This is exactly what the two Senators from Alaska are attempting to correct. Existing ESA rules clearly lay out the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service position that oil and gas development in the Arctic and Alaska Native subsistence activities are not the reason for the polar bear's recent listing status and are not affecting polar bear population. I might add that we have made quite a study of the 13 polar bear populations in Canada. All but one are increasing. The one that is not is the western Hudson Bay. That is due to some regulations in hunting that have adversely affected them. That is being corrected at this time. So if you stop and realize over the last 40 years, we have increased the population of polar bears in the world by fivefold, then there isn't a problem. However, let's assume that there is a problem, and we want to be sure that we are able not to have the intended consequences. If enacted, implementation of section 429 would mean that any increase in carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the country could be subject to legal challenges due to assertions that those activities are harming a polar bear or that there has not been sufficient consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding activities that are funded, carried out, and authorized by the Federal Government. In other words, you could have someone who is cooking on his Hasty Bake in his backyard in Tulsa, OK and have a lawsuit filed saying: You are emitting greenhouse gases; therefore, you are affecting the polar bear. Any permit for a powerplant, refinery, or road project that increases the volume of traffic anywhere in the United States could be subject to litigation, if it contributes to local carbon emissions. Lawsuits and ESA-prompted delays could extend to past fossil fuel- linked projects, if those projects could increase greenhouse gas emissions or reduce natural carbon dioxide intake. If this provision is allowed to stand, it will likely endanger the delivery of the majority of the construction projects funded by the recent stimulus bill since these projects have not gone through a section 7 consultation regarding their impact to the polar bear. In other words, we passed the stimulus which I opposed. I had an amendment that would have actually provided a lot of jobs. That amendment they would not let me bring up. I believed that since it was an Inhofe-Boxer amendment, it would have passed. But it didn't. So now we have a few jobs out there, a few things that are going to contribute to the employment problem of this country. If this provision is in there without the correction found in the bipartisan amendment by the two Senators from Alaska, then it is going to say the very thing we are trying to stimulate--in terms of jobs, construction, roads, bridges, and highways--cannot be done because of the section 7 consultation regarding the impacts on the polar bear. Ironically, President Obama today announced the release of $28 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to States and local transportation authorities to repair and build highways, roads, and bridges. This investment will lead to 150,000 jobs saved or created by the end of 2010. State highway departments have already identified more than 100 transportation projects throughout the country, totaling more than $750 million, where construction can start within the month. In other words, we have already undergone all of the environmental requirements. We have the environmental impact statements. We are ready right now. In my State of Oklahoma, we have $1.1 billion worth of work that could be started tomorrow. Now, President Obama stated that the projects funded under the ARRA are deemed so important to America's economic recovery that they will bear a newly designed emblem. The emblem is a symbol of President Obama's commitment to the American people to invest their tax dollars wisely and to put Americans back to work. Rest assured that section 429 of the omnibus bill will not bear this emblem. I applaud the President for highlighting infrastructure spending as a main driver of immediate job growth in the stimulus plan, but I am concerned by the conflicting priorities created by section 429. You cannot support large infrastructure spending as an economic stimulus while simultaneously endangering its translation into job growth with more redtape. The Murkowski-Begich amendment correctly requires that if these ESA rules are withdrawn or revised, the action is subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act, with at least a 60- day comment period. This is a good government amendment. The fact that this amendment is even needed to restore the public participation protections is exactly the sort of nonsense that makes the American taxpayer so suspicious of Congress. From the public's perspective, the effect of this amendment would be to bring us back to the longstanding process where the agencies may withdraw and revise regulations by following the law established to do so. We have heard from the Democratic managers of this bill that nothing new was added to this bill since last year. We have been told there is no controversial legislative language in this bill. We have been misinformed. This rider was not a part of the negotiations or the appropriations bills last year, and I assure you, it is very controversial. I urge the leadership to allow the Senate to vote on the Murkowski-Begich amendment, and I ask for my colleagues' support for ensuring regulatory transparency. I believe this is very important because, without this, there is so much uncertainty as to what the application would be in terms of the Endangered Species Act. So I encourage the adoption of that amendment. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, last week I joined 86 of my colleagues to pass Senate amendment No. 573, offered by Senator DeMint to the DC Voting Rights Act, which prohibited the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the fairness doctrine. This has become an issue over the years where you can recall the action that took place back in the middle 1980s--I think 1986--that recognized the fact that we have so many opportunities for people to get at information that it is no longer necessary to have what they call the fairness doctrine. Last week's vote was the first nail in the coffin of the fairness doctrine, but it was not the end of the attempt on the part of some people to regulate the airwaves. I have long been outspoken on this issue. It gives me great satisfaction that so many of my colleagues voted in favor of free speech over Government regulation last week. But the debate has changed. In a straight party-line vote, Democrats chose to adopt Senator Durbin's amendment No. 591, which calls on the FCC to ``encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.'' Essentially, it makes an end run around the fairness doctrine. Those on the other side of the aisle believed this would allow them to proclaim their opposition to a reinstatement of the fairness doctrine, which has always been a losing issue for them, while at the same time replacing it with an equally heinous piece of legislation that gives the FCC unfettered authority to interpret that language however they please. So we have potentially taken away the threat of the fairness doctrine, which requires broadcasters to ``present controversial issues of public importance in an equitable and balanced manner,'' and replaced it with ``encouraging and promoting diversity in communication media ownership.'' At least with the fairness doctrine, broadcasters had an initial choice of how to interpret ``controversial issues of public importance'' before answering to the FCC, but this new authority gives all the power to a Government agency and none to the people of the broadcast industry. One thing I know: When you take choice out of the market, and when you impose the Government's will on an industry, that market and that industry will suffer, and that is exactly what Senator Durbin's legislation attempts to accomplish. What was once the fairness doctrine has now become the Durbin doctrine. What, I ask, does ``encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership'' really mean? I certainly cannot tell you what it means, and that is what concerns me because it is up to someone else's interpretation. The legislation offers no words of clarification or specificity. If I were an FCC commissioner, I would not know what to do with this language, and in any other line of work, I would send it directly back with a little note attached asking to please be more specific. But Federal agencies love this kind of language because it gives them greater leeway to interpret it however they like--which could be interpreted differently by different governmental agencies-- and impose their will upon the industry they regulate. My Democratic colleagues who promoted this amendment like this type of language because it, first, means that they do not have to spend the time drafting quality legislation aimed at solving a specific problem, and, two, it means they can disavow their true intention of having greater Government regulation of the airwaves. Now, at the same time, they can say: Well, I voted for the DeMint amendment. So that offered cover for these individuals. This legislation is so incredibly vague and so potentially far reaching that I cannot say with any certainty what the end result will be. This is not good governance, and it is not good legislative practice to cede such authority to any agency of our Government, especially when the right to speak freely over the airwaves will most certainly be impacted. Another threat to our freedom of speech is a stealth proposal called ``localism,'' which could force local radio stations to regulate the content they broadcast. It is important to note that ``localism'' as FCC policy already exists, but new policies that have been proposed reach far beyond ensuring that broadcasters serve their local communities. The FCC gave notice of proposed rulemaking. This was back on January 24, I believe it was, of 2008. While the regulations were ultimately dropped, they are indicative of future attempts to regulate the airwaves through localism and something about which all Americans need to know. Among other things, the proposal would have required radio stations to, one, adhere to programming advice from community advisory boards; two, report every 3 months on the content of their programming, the producers of their programming, and how their programming reflects community interests; and, three, meet burdensome license renewal requirements. The localism rule, had it been promulgated, would have meant that radio stations would have to comply with blanket regulations and broadcast programming that may not be commercially viable, rather than taking into account the diverse needs of communities across the country. One of my constituents, Dan Lawrie, who is vice president and manager of Cox Radio Tulsa, and president of the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, stated that: regulations requiring additional and unnecessary documentation of programming in order to show proof of broadcasting that we already provide to our local communities is entirely unnecessary. To burden our Tulsa radio group with this type of ascertainment documentation would cause us to lay off several staff members to offset the expense of completing the increased paperwork. As you can see, this is a real threat to broadcast media as a whole. Let's look at this from a market standpoint. I have often said: People who think maybe the content is too progressive or not progressive enough or too conservative--I have heard some pretty heated accusations made at various popular talk radio hosts--forget about the fact that this is market oriented. The market is determining how this should be. I can remember it was not too long ago--last year--I believe Senator Harkin wanted to regulate the type of content that was going over the airwaves to our troops who were listening overseas, and we were able to stop that because they overwhelmingly wanted, in their eyes, conservative content to be broadcast. We won that one. But the effort is still out there. Look at it from a market standpoint. Stations strive to endear themselves to the local community to be successful. It makes programming sense to cover local news and events because it increases the ratings. Why should Washington regulate what local stations are already doing? They are doing this now because people who listen to the radio may want to hear some talk show host, but you find right through intermingled within these comments, every 15 minutes or so, or every 10 minutes, they stop and tell what the local weather is, they tell of different activities, what is happening in the local community. They are doing this already. That is just good business sense, and that is why in the highly competitive environment we find our local radio stations, they have to do these things. They are already doing it. The reason is this: These community advisory boards, or local content boards, coupled with the threat of license renewal requirements, are just one more way liberals can affect what is broadcast over the airwaves. They have created a regulatory avenue by which to accomplish their goal of silencing talk radio because they are incapable of competing in the broadcast radio market. President Obama has expressed support for new localism regulations, and it is expected to come up again under his administration. All those who value their right to listen to the things that are important to them, and important to their community, must be aware of the great potential for infringement on free speech that localism will bring. What is perhaps most concerning to me is the enforcement procedure for breaches of localism and diversity promotion. We simply do not know which pathway the FCC will choose when it comes time to enforce these nebulous regulations. License revocation is a real threat to the willingness of the broadcasters to appeal to their market rather than to conform to FCC regulations. Senator Durbin's amendment requires affirmative action on the part of the FCC, stating: ``The Commission shall take actions to encourage and promote diversity.'' It doesn't stipulate what actions or to what degree but instead leaves the enforcement mechanism up to the determination of the FCC. I find this to be extremely dangerous. Any enforcement of Government regulation of the airwaves could have a serious detrimental effect, not only on talk radio but also on the willingness of Christian broadcasters to air political and perhaps even religious messages. It is well known that the only radio station ever taken off the airwaves was a Christian radio station, WGCB in Red Lion, PA. In that particular instance, the supposed offense was a personal attack against the author of a political publication. The ACLU and other liberal organizations could attempt to file lawsuits against anyone who presents a message that they deem to be counter to Federal localism and diversity regulation, and though I believe these lawsuits would ultimately fail on first amendment grounds, the chilling effect that the mere threat of a lawsuit will have on religious broadcasters could be substantial. Free speech is fundamental to what it means to be an American, and we must protect it. Reimposing any form of a fairness doctrine threatens first amendment rights. Some on the left of the political spectrum are frustrated that more talk show hosts have conservative political leanings than liberal political leanings. In response, I say the content is market driven. When the market is on the other side, they will do that. The market has worked well throughout the history of this country, and people listen to it. I think we are also forgetting about the fact that the broadcasting industry is very competitive. We have companies that own broadcast media. They are not making a lot of money. It is competitive. A lot of them go broke every year. What they are trying to do is come up with something they know people want and is sellable. They depend on people buying advertisement for them to exist. So this is what this is all about. I believe there are two attacks out there. I applaud Senator DeMint for the language he was able to get in, and I applaud all the Republicans and most of the Democrats for voting for it. But to turn around and pass something that undoes what he did with that amendment I think is something that needs to be looked at. So I am concerned. I am concerned that so many of these stations out there that are right on the border of surviving in this very difficult economy we have are now looking at another threat, another bunch of regulations that are there, as well as the fear of the unknown, the nebulous language that says what a localism is, what power does the local community have. So that is a difficult thing. I will only say to those individuals who think the problem of the fairness doctrine being reinvoked is not over: It is there, and our first amendment rights are threatened at this time. I would anxiously pursue any effort we can that is going to preclude the fairness doctrine, and I think the first thing we should do would be to rename the fairness doctrine because it is certainly not fair and not fair to the people in the broadcast industry.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I request the regular order.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I have been listening to the remarks of the Senator from Florida. I find myself in agreement with him. I want to elaborate a little bit. For that reason, I ask unanimous consent that my 10 minutes be extended to 15 minutes should I need that time.

Mr. INHOFE. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am introducing today a joint resolution, S.J. Res. 10, with Congressman Trent Franks introducing the identical joint resolution in the House, which sets a minimum baseline for defense spending. By establishing a minimum defense base budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic growth. For the past few weeks, this Congress has been debating an economic stimulus plan. Defense spending, along with infrastructure spending and tax cuts, has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than some of the provisions in there. In fact, I had amendments, which I will describe in a minute, that would have increased the percentage in this huge bill, so that you would have maybe up to 10 percent for transportation infrastructure and then defense--I will explain that in more detail later. Our level of defense spending must consider the resources needed to meet current and future needs. In order to provide this stability, Congress needs to guarantee a not less than baseline in defense funding, enabling the Pentagon to execute sustained multiyear program investments. Guaranteeing a baseline budget, not including supplemental, that sets the floor based on our GDP is the best way to accomplish this. At this point, I acknowledge that I had an experience back during the first hearing we had for the confirmation of then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. I asked the question at that time: We have serious problems. We don't know what our future needs are going to be. We may think we know what they are going to be today--and we have a lot of smart generals who will tell us, but they are going to be wrong. I remember at that time I said that in 1994 someone testified and said in 10 years we would no longer need to have a ground force, that everything would be done from the air in a precision, clean way. That would be awfully nice, but that is not the way it happened. I said, recognizing that we need to have the best of everything, what would be your recommendation? He said that he made a study of this--it was not his, but he said that if you will go back and study it over the last 100 years, the average amount of defense spending has been 5.7 percent of GDP. That was all during the 20th century, for 100 years. Now, we went down at the end of the 1990 to as low as 2.9 percent, and now we are at 3.6 percent. The problem is the predictability. It is not there. We don't know in these systems what we can rely on. We know the cost of closing down a manufacturing line, but we don't have the predictability we need. There are some who think by cutting unnecessary weapons systems along with reforming DOD's procurement process, we can reduce defense spending and still maintain a military level that could defend our Nation and reach the minimum expectations of the American people. The problem with that is that it doesn't happen that way. Yes, we need acquisition reform, I agree. But the overall budget outlays and the problems we have--this alone will not rebuild our military. We could eliminate weapons systems that are called low-hanging fruit. That has already been done several years ago. I think we all remember-- and some would rather forget--that after the Cold War, there were so many in this Chamber who said we were in a position then where we did not need the military because the Cold War was over. We talked about all kinds of schemes that would transfer previous military spending into current spending for social programs. This is the way people were thinking at that time, that the Cold War is over. They had this euphoric attitude that we didn't need to continue a strong defense. We have been trying to get past a bow wave created in the 1990s. As a result, the amount of defense spending actually appropriated during that 8 years, the 1990s, was $412 billion above the budget request. In other words, the budget request was $412 billion below what was sustained at the beginning of that 8-year period. This is what we are paying for now. Little did we know at that time that 9/11 would come, and that while we are trying to rebuild our military in terms of modernization, force strength, we would be attacked and have to start defending America and prosecuting a war. I believe we should spend only as much as we need to ensure our national defense--no more, no less. This joint resolution sets a minimum baseline for defense spending. By establishing a minimum defense budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic health. First, it will allow our military to develop and build the next generation of weapons and equipment. This is something we have been concerned about--weapons and equipment that will be needed to maintain our national security over the next 40 years or more. The age of the last KC-135R, when it retires, will be 70 years old, and the B-52 will be even older than that. We are still doing this. We need this contribution for more heavy equipment. Right now, we have gotten into a problem of not developing them. They say the old KC-135R--we have a few more years on that. If we started today on a new lift vehicle to replace that, it would be several years before we would be able to have these replaced. The second thing is it will create and maintain jobs across America and sustain our military industrial base. Investing in our Nation's defense provides thousands of sustainable American jobs and provides for our national security at the same time. Experts estimate that each $1 billion in procurement spending correlates to 6,500 jobs. Major defense procurement programs are all manufactured in the United States with our aerospace industry alone employing 655,000 workers spread across 44 States. The U.S. shipbuilding industry supports more than 400,000 workers in 47 States. Establishing a minimum baseline defense budget will allow the Department of Defense and the services to plan for and fund acquisition programs based on a minimum known budget through what we call our FYDP program. We are no longer able to complete purchases of large acquisition programs in 3 to 5 years. The KC-X will take over 30 years to complete once its contract is awarded. We will still be flying these up until that time. Programming from a known minimum budget for the outyears will translate to less programming and more stability for thousands of businesses throughout the United States at decreased costs. This week, I voted against this massive Government spending bill that provided plenty in the way of more wasteful Government spending and little in the way of stimulative opportunities such as defense spending. I offered two amendments. One would have increased defense spending, and without changing the top line of the bill that was before us, it would change within it to have more defense spending and provide jobs. At the same time, in this entire $900 billion--or whatever it ends up being--bill that we are prepared to vote on out of conference, only $27 billion was in roads, bridges, and the things that Americans know we need. If we had that along with the additional amount or percentage that would go to defense spending, it would equate to an increase of an additional 4 million jobs. This is what we have heard President Obama talking about for quite some time. That is one way to do it. At the same time, we have something that is lasting. We--and certainly the Chair knows this because she sits on the same committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee--we are going to be doing a reauthorization of the highway bill. There is more we could have done in this particular bill that is totally inadequate in terms of putting people to work. The amendments we offered were defeated. Today Congressman Trent Franks and I are simultaneously offering a joint resolution to keep this country safe, restore our military to the level of capability and readiness the people of this country demand, and provide for sustainable jobs in almost every State in the country. By voting for this joint resolution, we send a clear signal to our military, to our allies, to our enemies--all alike--that we are committed to the security of this Nation and that we will not have to go through something like we went through during the nineties. One of the great heroes of our time is GEN John Jumper. Before he was Chief of the Air Force, he stood in 1998 and made a very courageous statement. He said now the Russians are cranking out through their SU- 30s, SU-35s, a strike vehicle better than anything we have in this country. The best ones at that time were the F-15 and F-16. Had it not been for his statement as a wakeup call to the American people, China, that bought a bunch of SU vehicles from Russia would have better vehicles than we were sending up with our fliers in potential combat. All of a sudden, we were able to turn around and start programs such as the F-22 and F-35 so we could be No. 1. The American people assume all the time we are No. 1, and obviously we are not. When the American people find out the best artillery piece we have right now, which is called Paladin--it is World War II technology. You have to get out and swab the breach after every shot. It is outrageous. Prospective enemies in the field would have better equipment than we would have. The best way to do this and ensure this in the future is to have a baseline. I am hoping we will get the support of enough Senators to get this passed in both the House and the Senate since it is a joint resolution. Lastly, let me address some of the points that were said by the Senator from Florida. I agree with all his comments. He is a little nicer about it than I am, I guess. Don't lose sight of the fact that this is supposed to be a stimulus bill, not a spending bill. But it is a spending bill. We had people analyze what in this bill will stimulat the economy. There are two things that can do it: the right types of tax relief. We know this is true. We remember what happened during President Kennedy's term and the recommendation he made when he said we have to have more revenues to run our Great Society programs. The best way to increase revenue is decrease marginal rates. He decreased marginal rates. Between the years 1961 and 1968, our revenues increased by 62 percent. Unbelievable. In the year 1980, the total amount of money that came from marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. It almost doubled in the decade when we had the greatest reductions in capital gains rates, in marginal rates, inheritance tax rates. There are only two very minor items in this bill that address the tax situation. One has to do with accelerated depreciation. Another is with loss carryback, increasing it from 2 years to 5 years, I believe it is. If you add that together in terms of the cost that is in the bill, this $900 billion bill we are going to be passing, we have to keep in mind that is a very small part. It amounts to about 3\1/3\ percent. The other way you can stimulate is to increase jobs. I mentioned we had an amendment to increase jobs. It is outrageous that there is only $27 billion worth of highway construction, road construction, and bridge construction that we desperately need in this country in this bill. We have right now $64 billion worth of shovel-ready jobs that we could actually produce in this country, and all we have is 3\1/3\ percent of the entire amount of $900 billion going to that type of program. That is where I come up with the conclusion that this bill is 7 percent stimulus and 93 percent spending. I have to tell you, back when the first $700 billion program came along in October, yes, that came from our administration, a Republican administration, a Republican Secretary of the Treasury. But also the Democrats were all very enthusiastically behind it. I opposed it at that time and said there are two problems with it. No. 1, this amount of money, $700 billion, is more money, it is the largest expenditure, largest authorization in the history of the world, and we are giving it, No. 2, to a guy with no guidelines, without any kind of oversight. We have seen now that has not worked. Now we have the second half of that, and we find out yesterday the current Secretary of the Treasury is going to use it any way he wants. Again, no oversight. This was a horrible mistake. That was the $700 billion last October. Now we are faced with something far greater than that. I know it is going to go through. It is a Democratic bill. It is not a bipartisan bill. It is not a compromise. It is a Democratic bill. They took the House bill and the Senate bill and something will come from that. Whether it is closer to the House bill or the Senate bill, it does not matter. It is going to be close to $900 billion, something we should not have had. We are thinking in new terms now. I used to say back during the $700 billion, if you take the total number of families in America who are filing tax returns and do your math, it comes to $5,000 a family. That was bad enough. This bill comes to $17,400 a family over a 10-year period. That is what we have to start thinking about. I am hoping the American people will look at this bill and realize this gigantic spending bill follows a philosophy that you can spend your way out of a recession. It has never happened before. It is not going to happen with this bill. We want to do the very best we can. I know President Obama did not want to go as far this way. I think the House and the Senate have steered this into a bigger spending bill than he would have liked. I think he would have liked more stimulants in this bill. Let's do the best we can with it and then let's get busy and try the things we know have worked in the past and will work in the future.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I am 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. Authorization of EDA's programs expired on September 30, 2008. I originally introduced this bill in July 2008 so that we could avert this lapse in authorization. Unfortunately, my bill was never enacted, so I am reintroducing it today. Unlike the majority of the spending in the so-called ``stimulus'' bill passed by the Senate earlier this week, 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. Knowing that, I was pleased to see some funding for EDA included in that massive spending bill; I only wish more of that bill had been legitimate economic stimulus. Last year, I was disappointed to see an Obama campaign document refer to EDA as wasteful and ineffective government spending and propose cutbacks in funding for the agency. While I, too, am committed to eliminating wasteful spending, I couldn't disagree more with that characterization of EDA. 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, Oklahoma City, Seminole, Miami and Elgin are just some of the Oklahoma communities that have made good use of EDA assistance. In fact, over the past six years, EDA grants awarded in my home state have resulted in more than 9,000 jobs being created or saved. With an investment of about $26 million, we have leveraged another 30 million in State and local dollars and more than 558 million in private sector dollars. I would call that a wonderful success story. Particularly in these difficult economic times, we should be doing all we can to ensure the continuation of such successful programs, and reauthorization is an important step. I hope now-President Obama reconsiders the rhetoric of then-candidate Obama and recognizes the effectiveness and importance of this agency. I look forward to working with my colleagues here in the Senate, as well as in the House of Representatives, to reauthorize the programs of the Economic Development Administration as quickly as possible.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I am 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. Authorization of EDA's programs expired on September 30, 2008. I originally introduced this bill in July 2008 so that we could avert this lapse in authorization. Unfortunately, my bill was never enacted, so I am reintroducing it today. Unlike the majority of the spending in the so-called ``stimulus'' bill passed by the Senate earlier this week, 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. Knowing that, I was pleased to see some funding for EDA included in that massive spending bill; I only wish more of that bill had been legitimate economic stimulus. Last year, I was disappointed to see an Obama campaign document refer to EDA as wasteful and ineffective government spending and propose cutbacks in funding for the agency. While I, too, am committed to eliminating wasteful spending, I couldn't disagree more with that characterization of EDA. 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, Oklahoma City, Seminole, Miami and Elgin are just some of the Oklahoma communities that have made good use of EDA assistance. In fact, over the past six years, EDA grants awarded in my home state have resulted in more than 9,000 jobs being created or saved. With an investment of about $26 million, we have leveraged another 30 million in State and local dollars and more than 558 million in private sector dollars. I would call that a wonderful success story. Particularly in these difficult economic times, we should be doing all we can to ensure the continuation of such successful programs, and reauthorization is an important step. I hope now-President Obama reconsiders the rhetoric of then-candidate Obama and recognizes the effectiveness and importance of this agency. I look forward to working with my colleagues here in the Senate, as well as in the House of Representatives, to reauthorize the programs of the Economic Development Administration as quickly as possible.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am introducing today a joint resolution, S.J. Res. 10, with Congressman Trent Franks introducing the identical joint resolution in the House, which sets a minimum baseline for defense spending. By establishing a minimum defense base budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic growth. For the past few weeks, this Congress has been debating an economic stimulus plan. Defense spending, along with infrastructure spending and tax cuts, has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than some of the provisions in there. In fact, I had amendments, which I will describe in a minute, that would have increased the percentage in this huge bill, so that you would have maybe up to 10 percent for transportation infrastructure and then defense--I will explain that in more detail later. Our level of defense spending must consider the resources needed to meet current and future needs. In order to provide this stability, Congress needs to guarantee a not less than baseline in defense funding, enabling the Pentagon to execute sustained multiyear program investments. Guaranteeing a baseline budget, not including supplemental, that sets the floor based on our GDP is the best way to accomplish this. At this point, I acknowledge that I had an experience back during the first hearing we had for the confirmation of then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. I asked the question at that time: We have serious problems. We don't know what our future needs are going to be. We may think we know what they are going to be today--and we have a lot of smart generals who will tell us, but they are going to be wrong. I remember at that time I said that in 1994 someone testified and said in 10 years we would no longer need to have a ground force, that everything would be done from the air in a precision, clean way. That would be awfully nice, but that is not the way it happened. I said, recognizing that we need to have the best of everything, what would be your recommendation? He said that he made a study of this--it was not his, but he said that if you will go back and study it over the last 100 years, the average amount of defense spending has been 5.7 percent of GDP. That was all during the 20th century, for 100 years. Now, we went down at the end of the 1990 to as low as 2.9 percent, and now we are at 3.6 percent. The problem is the predictability. It is not there. We don't know in these systems what we can rely on. We know the cost of closing down a manufacturing line, but we don't have the predictability we need. There are some who think by cutting unnecessary weapons systems along with reforming DOD's procurement process, we can reduce defense spending and still maintain a military level that could defend our Nation and reach the minimum expectations of the American people. The problem with that is that it doesn't happen that way. Yes, we need acquisition reform, I agree. But the overall budget outlays and the problems we have--this alone will not rebuild our military. We could eliminate weapons systems that are called low-hanging fruit. That has already been done several years ago. I think we all remember-- and some would rather forget--that after the Cold War, there were so many in this Chamber who said we were in a position then where we did not need the military because the Cold War was over. We talked about all kinds of schemes that would transfer previous military spending into current spending for social programs. This is the way people were thinking at that time, that the Cold War is over. They had this euphoric attitude that we didn't need to continue a strong defense. We have been trying to get past a bow wave created in the 1990s. As a result, the amount of defense spending actually appropriated during that 8 years, the 1990s, was $412 billion above the budget request. In other words, the budget request was $412 billion below what was sustained at the beginning of that 8-year period. This is what we are paying for now. Little did we know at that time that 9/11 would come, and that while we are trying to rebuild our military in terms of modernization, force strength, we would be attacked and have to start defending America and prosecuting a war. I believe we should spend only as much as we need to ensure our national defense--no more, no less. This joint resolution sets a minimum baseline for defense spending. By establishing a minimum defense budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic health. First, it will allow our military to develop and build the next generation of weapons and equipment. This is something we have been concerned about--weapons and equipment that will be needed to maintain our national security over the next 40 years or more. The age of the last KC-135R, when it retires, will be 70 years old, and the B-52 will be even older than that. We are still doing this. We need this contribution for more heavy equipment. Right now, we have gotten into a problem of not developing them. They say the old KC-135R--we have a few more years on that. If we started today on a new lift vehicle to replace that, it would be several years before we would be able to have these replaced. The second thing is it will create and maintain jobs across America and sustain our military industrial base. Investing in our Nation's defense provides thousands of sustainable American jobs and provides for our national security at the same time. Experts estimate that each $1 billion in procurement spending correlates to 6,500 jobs. Major defense procurement programs are all manufactured in the United States with our aerospace industry alone employing 655,000 workers spread across 44 States. The U.S. shipbuilding industry supports more than 400,000 workers in 47 States. Establishing a minimum baseline defense budget will allow the Department of Defense and the services to plan for and fund acquisition programs based on a minimum known budget through what we call our FYDP program. We are no longer able to complete purchases of large acquisition programs in 3 to 5 years. The KC-X will take over 30 years to complete once its contract is awarded. We will still be flying these up until that time. Programming from a known minimum budget for the outyears will translate to less programming and more stability for thousands of businesses throughout the United States at decreased costs. This week, I voted against this massive Government spending bill that provided plenty in the way of more wasteful Government spending and little in the way of stimulative opportunities such as defense spending. I offered two amendments. One would have increased defense spending, and without changing the top line of the bill that was before us, it would change within it to have more defense spending and provide jobs. At the same time, in this entire $900 billion--or whatever it ends up being--bill that we are prepared to vote on out of conference, only $27 billion was in roads, bridges, and the things that Americans know we need. If we had that along with the additional amount or percentage that would go to defense spending, it would equate to an increase of an additional 4 million jobs. This is what we have heard President Obama talking about for quite some time. That is one way to do it. At the same time, we have something that is lasting. We--and certainly the Chair knows this because she sits on the same committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee--we are going to be doing a reauthorization of the highway bill. There is more we could have done in this particular bill that is totally inadequate in terms of putting people to work. The amendments we offered were defeated. Today Congressman Trent Franks and I are simultaneously offering a joint resolution to keep this country safe, restore our military to the level of capability and readiness the people of this country demand, and provide for sustainable jobs in almost every State in the country. By voting for this joint resolution, we send a clear signal to our military, to our allies, to our enemies--all alike--that we are committed to the security of this Nation and that we will not have to go through something like we went through during the nineties. One of the great heroes of our time is GEN John Jumper. Before he was Chief of the Air Force, he stood in 1998 and made a very courageous statement. He said now the Russians are cranking out through their SU- 30s, SU-35s, a strike vehicle better than anything we have in this country. The best ones at that time were the F-15 and F-16. Had it not been for his statement as a wakeup call to the American people, China, that bought a bunch of SU vehicles from Russia would have better vehicles than we were sending up with our fliers in potential combat. All of a sudden, we were able to turn around and start programs such as the F-22 and F-35 so we could be No. 1. The American people assume all the time we are No. 1, and obviously we are not. When the American people find out the best artillery piece we have right now, which is called Paladin--it is World War II technology. You have to get out and swab the breach after every shot. It is outrageous. Prospective enemies in the field would have better equipment than we would have. The best way to do this and ensure this in the future is to have a baseline. I am hoping we will get the support of enough Senators to get this passed in both the House and the Senate since it is a joint resolution. Lastly, let me address some of the points that were said by the Senator from Florida. I agree with all his comments. He is a little nicer about it than I am, I guess. Don't lose sight of the fact that this is supposed to be a stimulus bill, not a spending bill. But it is a spending bill. We had people analyze what in this bill will stimulat the economy. There are two things that can do it: the right types of tax relief. We know this is true. We remember what happened during President Kennedy's term and the recommendation he made when he said we have to have more revenues to run our Great Society programs. The best way to increase revenue is decrease marginal rates. He decreased marginal rates. Between the years 1961 and 1968, our revenues increased by 62 percent. Unbelievable. In the year 1980, the total amount of money that came from marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. It almost doubled in the decade when we had the greatest reductions in capital gains rates, in marginal rates, inheritance tax rates. There are only two very minor items in this bill that address the tax situation. One has to do with accelerated depreciation. Another is with loss carryback, increasing it from 2 years to 5 years, I believe it is. If you add that together in terms of the cost that is in the bill, this $900 billion bill we are going to be passing, we have to keep in mind that is a very small part. It amounts to about 3\1/3\ percent. The other way you can stimulate is to increase jobs. I mentioned we had an amendment to increase jobs. It is outrageous that there is only $27 billion worth of highway construction, road construction, and bridge construction that we desperately need in this country in this bill. We have right now $64 billion worth of shovel-ready jobs that we could actually produce in this country, and all we have is 3\1/3\ percent of the entire amount of $900 billion going to that type of program. That is where I come up with the conclusion that this bill is 7 percent stimulus and 93 percent spending. I have to tell you, back when the first $700 billion program came along in October, yes, that came from our administration, a Republican administration, a Republican Secretary of the Treasury. But also the Democrats were all very enthusiastically behind it. I opposed it at that time and said there are two problems with it. No. 1, this amount of money, $700 billion, is more money, it is the largest expenditure, largest authorization in the history of the world, and we are giving it, No. 2, to a guy with no guidelines, without any kind of oversight. We have seen now that has not worked. Now we have the second half of that, and we find out yesterday the current Secretary of the Treasury is going to use it any way he wants. Again, no oversight. This was a horrible mistake. That was the $700 billion last October. Now we are faced with something far greater than that. I know it is going to go through. It is a Democratic bill. It is not a bipartisan bill. It is not a compromise. It is a Democratic bill. They took the House bill and the Senate bill and something will come from that. Whether it is closer to the House bill or the Senate bill, it does not matter. It is going to be close to $900 billion, something we should not have had. We are thinking in new terms now. I used to say back during the $700 billion, if you take the total number of families in America who are filing tax returns and do your math, it comes to $5,000 a family. That was bad enough. This bill comes to $17,400 a family over a 10-year period. That is what we have to start thinking about. I am hoping the American people will look at this bill and realize this gigantic spending bill follows a philosophy that you can spend your way out of a recession. It has never happened before. It is not going to happen with this bill. We want to do the very best we can. I know President Obama did not want to go as far this way. I think the House and the Senate have steered this into a bigger spending bill than he would have liked. I think he would have liked more stimulants in this bill. Let's do the best we can with it and then let's get busy and try the things we know have worked in the past and will work in the future.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 412 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 10 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a bill I had introduced with then-Senator Hillary Clinton on two previous occasions. It is interesting, because this bill didn't have a lot of opposition in the Senate. It did, however, have some opposition from the Bush administration. What we were attempting to do was to take the Federal Emergency Management Agency out from under where it was put, in the Department of Homeland Security, by the previous administration and give it independent status. This is something that has been talked about for a long period of time. We can draw from our experience in Oklahoma and the fact that we had a devastating tornado go through--as we did last night, although it was even worse--which killed many people. At that time, James Lee Witt was the FEMA Director. He was President Clinton's appointee. I will always remember when that happened. A matter of a few short hours after it happened, I called Mr. Witt and he met me in Oklahoma, and we got it done. At that time, FEMA was under the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was under the Stafford Act and virtually had independent status at that time. Contrast that with only a few months ago when GEN Russel Honore, the general placed in charge of the military's relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, said that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security should be separate agencies. In an interview reported in Politico, General Honore said of FEMA: I just think we've had some experience that demonstrates that the best thing to do is separate it and make it a separate agency. Most importantly, President Obama said in remarks he delivered in New Orleans in February of last year: If catastrophe comes, the American people must be able to call on a competent government . . . the Director of FEMA will report to me . . . and as soon as we take office, my FEMA director will work with emergency management officials in all 50 States to create a National Response Plan. Because we need to know--before disaster comes--who will be in charge; and how the Federal, State and local governments will work together to respond. I talked to the President a few minutes ago. He still has these same feelings. I think it is very appropriate now to bring up something we had talked about before. I know the Democratic platform, for example, has a provision which states that the FEMA Director will report directly to the President, and I couldn't agree more. I don't agree with a lot of things from the Democratic platform, but I do agree with that. Oklahoma has had more than its share of natural disasters. Only last night, three confirmed tornadoes touched down throughout Oklahoma, impacting the communities of Oklahoma City, Edmond, Pawnee, and a small community called Lone Grove. In Lone Grove, this very tiny community, eight people were killed. There are 35 still missing, so I think the death toll, unfortunately, could rise above that. I had occasion to talk to civic leaders there--Gary Hicks and city manager Marianne Elfert--this morning, and the number of Lone Grove residents who are missing right now is still not determined. So I think it is a real disaster. It wasn't that long ago that we had the Eagle Picher area of Oklahoma hit by a tornado, and that was a very similar thing there, with seven deaths in that case. On May 1 of last year, I surveyed other tornado damage up there with Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Director Paulison, Governor Henry, and Congressman Boren. As I said, seven people were killed, but that didn't go quite as smoothly as we would have hoped. FEMA's integration into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 added an extra layer of bureaucracy and removed much of the autonomy that once kept the agency operating efficiently. We learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that the extra coordination required between the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was at least partly responsible for the shortcomings of the Federal response. I visited the area right after Katrina, and I think they did a much better job than the press portrayed, but I still think that extra level of bureaucracy created a problem in getting things done immediately. My legislation takes the necessary steps in giving the Director of FEMA Cabinet level status in the event of a natural disaster and acts of terrorism and makes that person the principal adviser to the President, Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. So we are kind of reversing it, and he is going to be in a Cabinet-level position. Obviously, things can then be done a lot faster and a lot better. Perhaps most importantly, the legislation defines the primary mission and specific activities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Director, and places directly upon them the obligation to ensure FEMA's mission is carried out. Now, that is exactly what President Obama said while he was campaigning for President and what he reaffirmed to me today on the telephone. Let me explain some other events that originally led me to introduce this legislation. Oklahoma first encountered significant problems with FEMA when wildfires ravaged the State in 2005 and 2006. These devastating wildfires swept through the entire State, leading to declarations for public assistance, individual assistance, and hazard mitigation funding. In January of 2007, Oklahoma encountered severe winter storms with devastating results. These storms led to prolonged loss of power and extensive building damage for many of my constituents. One of my constituents happened to be my wife--we have been married 49 years--and she was without electricity for 9 days, so that does get your attention. Later this year, Oklahoma was hit by heavy rain, tornadoes, and flooding from May through September. The State made a number of disaster declarations during each of these periods, but each and every time, the process it took to obtain aid from FEMA became increasingly difficult, wrought with indecisiveness and an inability of Homeland Security to communicate with each other. Prior to the placement of FEMA under DHS, my State had not encountered nearly the same level of bureaucratic delays or communications as it has since that time. Oklahoma has also struggled with FEMA regarding the determination of dates of incident periods, which is why I put language in my bill to give deference to the State's documentation regarding the dates of such incidents. Now, some of you guys are not from States where you have the number of disasters we have had, so it is something you are not as familiar with. But we certainly are. I see the junior Senator from Oklahoma on the floor here, and he knows too that we live through these things on a regular basis. We have had tornadoes, ice storms, windstorms, and other things people haven't had. I think Senator Clinton and I were right when we introduced this the first time, and I believe it is consistent with what President Obama has reaffirmed to me as recently as today. It will be a better arrangement and I will be looking for supporters. We have introduced the bill. It is S. 412. Again, this bill takes FEMA out from under DHS and gives it more of an independent status so it can respond in a more rapid way as it did prior to 2003.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a bill I had introduced with then-Senator Hillary Clinton on two previous occasions. It is interesting, because this bill didn't have a lot of opposition in the Senate. It did, however, have some opposition from the Bush administration. What we were attempting to do was to take the Federal Emergency Management Agency out from under where it was put, in the Department of Homeland Security, by the previous administration and give it independent status. This is something that has been talked about for a long period of time. We can draw from our experience in Oklahoma and the fact that we had a devastating tornado go through--as we did last night, although it was even worse--which killed many people. At that time, James Lee Witt was the FEMA Director. He was President Clinton's appointee. I will always remember when that happened. A matter of a few short hours after it happened, I called Mr. Witt and he met me in Oklahoma, and we got it done. At that time, FEMA was under the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was under the Stafford Act and virtually had independent status at that time. Contrast that with only a few months ago when GEN Russel Honore, the general placed in charge of the military's relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, said that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security should be separate agencies. In an interview reported in Politico, General Honore said of FEMA: I just think we've had some experience that demonstrates that the best thing to do is separate it and make it a separate agency. Most importantly, President Obama said in remarks he delivered in New Orleans in February of last year: If catastrophe comes, the American people must be able to call on a competent government . . . the Director of FEMA will report to me . . . and as soon as we take office, my FEMA director will work with emergency management officials in all 50 States to create a National Response Plan. Because we need to know--before disaster comes--who will be in charge; and how the Federal, State and local governments will work together to respond. I talked to the President a few minutes ago. He still has these same feelings. I think it is very appropriate now to bring up something we had talked about before. I know the Democratic platform, for example, has a provision which states that the FEMA Director will report directly to the President, and I couldn't agree more. I don't agree with a lot of things from the Democratic platform, but I do agree with that. Oklahoma has had more than its share of natural disasters. Only last night, three confirmed tornadoes touched down throughout Oklahoma, impacting the communities of Oklahoma City, Edmond, Pawnee, and a small community called Lone Grove. In Lone Grove, this very tiny community, eight people were killed. There are 35 still missing, so I think the death toll, unfortunately, could rise above that. I had occasion to talk to civic leaders there--Gary Hicks and city manager Marianne Elfert--this morning, and the number of Lone Grove residents who are missing right now is still not determined. So I think it is a real disaster. It wasn't that long ago that we had the Eagle Picher area of Oklahoma hit by a tornado, and that was a very similar thing there, with seven deaths in that case. On May 1 of last year, I surveyed other tornado damage up there with Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Director Paulison, Governor Henry, and Congressman Boren. As I said, seven people were killed, but that didn't go quite as smoothly as we would have hoped. FEMA's integration into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 added an extra layer of bureaucracy and removed much of the autonomy that once kept the agency operating efficiently. We learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that the extra coordination required between the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was at least partly responsible for the shortcomings of the Federal response. I visited the area right after Katrina, and I think they did a much better job than the press portrayed, but I still think that extra level of bureaucracy created a problem in getting things done immediately. My legislation takes the necessary steps in giving the Director of FEMA Cabinet level status in the event of a natural disaster and acts of terrorism and makes that person the principal adviser to the President, Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. So we are kind of reversing it, and he is going to be in a Cabinet-level position. Obviously, things can then be done a lot faster and a lot better. Perhaps most importantly, the legislation defines the primary mission and specific activities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Director, and places directly upon them the obligation to ensure FEMA's mission is carried out. Now, that is exactly what President Obama said while he was campaigning for President and what he reaffirmed to me today on the telephone. Let me explain some other events that originally led me to introduce this legislation. Oklahoma first encountered significant problems with FEMA when wildfires ravaged the State in 2005 and 2006. These devastating wildfires swept through the entire State, leading to declarations for public assistance, individual assistance, and hazard mitigation funding. In January of 2007, Oklahoma encountered severe winter storms with devastating results. These storms led to prolonged loss of power and extensive building damage for many of my constituents. One of my constituents happened to be my wife--we have been married 49 years--and she was without electricity for 9 days, so that does get your attention. Later this year, Oklahoma was hit by heavy rain, tornadoes, and flooding from May through September. The State made a number of disaster declarations during each of these periods, but each and every time, the process it took to obtain aid from FEMA became increasingly difficult, wrought with indecisiveness and an inability of Homeland Security to communicate with each other. Prior to the placement of FEMA under DHS, my State had not encountered nearly the same level of bureaucratic delays or communications as it has since that time. Oklahoma has also struggled with FEMA regarding the determination of dates of incident periods, which is why I put language in my bill to give deference to the State's documentation regarding the dates of such incidents. Now, some of you guys are not from States where you have the number of disasters we have had, so it is something you are not as familiar with. But we certainly are. I see the junior Senator from Oklahoma on the floor here, and he knows too that we live through these things on a regular basis. We have had tornadoes, ice storms, windstorms, and other things people haven't had. I think Senator Clinton and I were right when we introduced this the first time, and I believe it is consistent with what President Obama has reaffirmed to me as recently as today. It will be a better arrangement and I will be looking for supporters. We have introduced the bill. It is S. 412. Again, this bill takes FEMA out from under DHS and gives it more of an independent status so it can respond in a more rapid way as it did prior to 2003.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Five is fine.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to continue speaking for another 10 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first, let me state something that is unexpected at this time. I was with Wade Paschal yesterday, and we were talking a little bit about love, something we don't see or sense a lot of in this body. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, there are three things--faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. I find myself faced with this dichotomy sometimes with feeling this and yet telling the truth at the same time because sometimes the truth isn't that prevalent around here either. I had an unpleasant experience last Thursday with the junior Senator from West Virginia. I was pretty well assailed in different ways, and yet it really didn't bother me. Keith Oberlin called me the worst person in the world; Vanity Fair, a conspiracy theorist. I have to say this, though: At least they are all liberals. I love them all. Having said that, let me discuss the politics of what is happening right now because this is something I think is going to end up being a positive thing for Republicans. I know not many people have thought this through in the same way I am going to present it. Tonight the Senate will vote on whether to shut off debate--well, first of all, it needs to be clarified. A lot of people do not know what is going to happen tonight. I have been asked a lot of questions: Is it tonight at 5:30 or tomorrow? The key vote is tonight. This one needs 60 votes to cut off a filibuster. They have to have, in this Senate, two Republicans. If all Republicans stuck together in this Senate, such as they did in the House last week, this legislation would be dead. It wouldn't go anywhere. However, that is not what is going to happen. Martin Feldstein called this an $800 billion mistake. He is not the only one disappointed in the Senate. Democrats worked hard in the past week to make this nearly a $900 billion mistake. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office reported, during the House consideration of its $820 billion version of this spending bill, that the cost of servicing the debt on all new debt created by this bill would be roughly $347 billion over 10 years, which means at $820 billion, the real cost, as we have heard before from many other people, would be $1.2 trillion. It is a hard thing for people to grasp. It is hard for me. I remember when we were talking about the $700 billion bill that came up last October in the bailout, as it has been called, trying to put that into words so people would understand it. If you take the 140 million families who file tax returns--and do your math--that is $5,000 a family. Now we are talking about something far greater than that. I have been quoted as saying this bill we are going to be considering at 5:30 p.m. today is 93 percent spending and 7 percent stimulant. We know what stimulant is. We know what it takes to stimulate the economy. When I talk about what is in this bill to stimulate, I find only two things. One, a very small tax provision, accelerated depreciation and a loss carryback provision and, second, it has $27 billion in highway construction. This is interesting because the House bill actually had $30 billion. My feeling is if we are going to spend all this money, let's at least get something for it, provide some jobs, get some roads, highways and bridges, things this country needs. But they elected not to do that. If you add together the accelerated depreciation and the tax benefits, that is about 3\1/2\ percent, and the $27 billion is about 3\1/2\ percent of the total amount we are going to be talking about. That is where you get 7 percent of stimulus and 93 percent spending. We know what works. That is the issue that is frustrating to a lot of people. We know how to stimulate the economy. We have done it. At the end of World War I, they said: We raised taxes to support the war. Now we are going to reduce taxes because we don't need that money anymore. They reduced taxes, and it increased the revenues. The real one who discovered this who had the foresight was President Kennedy. President Kennedy, during that time, made a statement that we have to have more revenue to run all these Great Society programs, and the best way to increase revenue is to reduce marginal rates. He did. He lowered tax rates across the board. He helped create the longest economic expansion in American history. Listen to this: Between 1961 and 1968, the economy grew by 42 percent--42 percent. Fast forward to the eighties. In the eighties, we had a President named Ronald Reagan. In 1980, the total amount of revenue that was derived from the marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. It almost doubled in the decade that had the largest tax reductions in this Nation's history. So we know what we can do. I have to say that a lot of this started with the $700 billion mistake that was made, in my opinion, back in October. The Senate voted 74 to 25 to empower one unelected bureaucrat to buy billions of dollars' worth of troubled assets. As it turned out, interestingly enough, he didn't do that. That is what he said he was going to do. That is what he told me personally he was going to do. Finally, after all this bailout mania extended to the auto industry, Congress had the opportunity to redeem itself on the second half of that $700 billion mistake. In that vote, 33 Republicans and only 9 Democrats voted disapproving release of the second $350 billion. We have to look at what has been going on in the debate. We are debating this multibillion-dollar legislation, and I think some of my Republican colleagues are too gracious to lay collective blame where it should be, and that is clearly on the Democratic side. As the House considered this spending bill in a vote of 244 to 188, not a single Republican voted in favor of the $820 billion spending bill. Only by Republicans sticking together, 100 percent together in the Senate, can we stop this $1.2 trillion mistake. But should it pass this week, no one should be fooled and think it was done in a bipartisan way. At the end of the Senate's consideration of H.R. 1, we are voting tonight to end debate on what is going to be called a compromise proposal. It is being called a compromise proposal. Let me tell the American people that the vote tonight on a proposal supported by all the Democrats and two Republicans is the furthest thing from a compromise proposal. In fact, the proposal we are now considering makes this past week in the Senate a waste of all our time. Why do I say that? Let's look at the numbers. The House passed an $820 billion bill. In the Senate, we started with nearly $855 billion, more than the House. Although the compromise proposal reportedly only costs $780 billion, it includes the cost-raising amendments the Senate considered, bringing the price tag to around $827 billion. So what we are going to be considering tonight is actually $7 billion more than the House bill. I do believe Senator McCain made an excellent statement. I am going to read the statement because I think he captures it. This is on the floor of the Senate. He said: There are 178 Members of the House of Representatives who are Republicans. They all voted against the bill, plus 11 Democrats. There are 40 Republican Senators here. We now have 2, count them, 2, who have decided behind closed doors, without consultation with the other 38, to come to an agreement, which you can call it a lot of things but bipartisan isn't one of them, unless you say that 2 individuals and possibly a third, but no more than that out of 40, are in agreement. I've been involved in a lot of bipartisan legislation . . . What we are talking about is 2 out of 535 in the Congress. This cannot be considered by anyone to be bipartisan. I offered some amendments I thought would be good that would actually stimulate the economy. There are two of them. One was to redirect over $5 billion from programs, such as television coupons, trail improvements, renovations to Federal buildings in Washington, DC, to military spending and procurement. According to economic reports by Standard & Poor's, defense spending along with infrastructure investment and tax cuts has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than anything else the Government can do. However, how did my amendment fare? Thirty-seven Republicans and Senator Lieberman voted in favor of it. All the Democrats voted against it.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, that is part of it. The other is infrastructure. To cut this short, the Department of Transportation recently estimated that for every $1 million invested in highways and bridges, 27,800 jobs were created, and the last jobless numbers show that 899,000 construction workers have lost their jobs. If you do the math and take both these amendments, had they been adopted, it would have provided over 4 million jobs. This is the number President Obama has talked about doing. Again, it should not have been defeated, but it was right down party lines. We have had several amendments. Senator McCain had probably the best one because it substituted reducing payroll taxes, lowering marginal rates, lowering corporate rates, offering accelerated depreciation for small business. This is exactly what Presidents Kennedy and Reagan did. On this amendment, all the Republicans voted for it and all the Democrats voted against it. A bipartisan amendment was offered to allow repatriation of foreign earnings at a reduced tax rate. Senator DeMint offered a substitute with provisions to reduce corporate taxes and individual marginal rates, repeal the AMT, reduce capital gains and estate taxes. The result of that amendment was 36 Republicans supporting it and 57 Democrats opposing it. Senator Thune offered a substitute to reduce marginal rates, offer AMT relief, offer bonus depreciation and small business tax relief, deductions for health coverage, and homebuyer assistance. The result of that amendment was 37 Republicans supporting it and 57 Democrats opposing it. All these amendments would have stimulated the economy; however, they were all killed down party lines. The reasons I said at the beginning--and I planned to get into a lot more detail, but I didn't know we would be operating under the rules under which we are operating. This does have a happy ending. Katie, my daughter--Senator Kyl was talking about his two grandchildren. These are my 20 kids and grandchildren. I equally have a great concern over what is happening. This little girl, Katie, my daughter, and these little girls asked the question: What does the United States do? If we did that, would our country go bankrupt? I said: No. I want you to remember 1992. In 1992, a very similar thing happened. We had a Democrat in the White House, we had a Democratic-controlled House, a Democratic-controlled Senate, and we saw what happened. They started spending money. We had Hillary health care. All these things the American people know won't work. So I would say this: I believe what is happening today, as bad as it sounds to conservatives right now, are things that can change this, if it will get the attention of the American people. I believe we are going through the same thing we did in 1992 and we are going to have the same results we had in 1994. This is the largest spending in the history of humankind and in the history of the world, and it is something we should not let happen, but it is going to happen right down party lines. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. That is fine. I think I have 4 minutes left. I had another amendment, which is amendment No. 198. We had a rather unpleasant conversation on the floor yesterday with myself and the junior Senator from West Virginia. It is regrettable because he would not yield for me to respond to accusations that were made about me. I even suggested a point of order and was turned down. The other amendment I had was one having to do with the subject we talked about yesterday; that is, Guantanamo Bay. I have spent time down there. I will not go on to the same things, because there is not time that is given to me right now. But what has happened, what is happening down there, this resource we have had since 1903, is something we need today. We all know the consequences and certainly even those individuals who want to close Guantanamo Bay know if that happened, you would still have to make a decision of what to do with the some 110 detainees who are considered to be pretty hard-core terrorists. Some people say they might be integrated into our U.S. court system. We all know the rules of evidence are different and there is a possibility they could be released. I do not think anyone wants that. There has been a list of some 17 installations within the United States to which these detainees might go. One of those happens to be in my State of Oklahoma, Fort Sill. We do not want that to happen. And I do believe that this is something that we are going to need, so I want to at least make the motion. I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside for the purpose of considering amendment No. 198.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been talking for a couple of days now about two amendments that if the American people knew we had the option to do this, they would be very enthusiastic about joining us. We supposedly have a stimulus bill that should be coming in two categories, one in tax provisions that would stimulate the economy, and the other is in work that needs to be done. I am talking specifically about highways. I am the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. The chairman of the Committee, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, and I have introduced the amendment No. 374. To me it is a little bit naive to think we would have a bill that only has less than 3 percent of the money that would actually go to highways and to the projects that are ready, as they call them spade ready. So this would increase that amount to $50 billion. But it is done in a rather unique way. The amendment would not take funds, only the funds that would be not obligated within a year up to $50 billion from programs in the stimulus that are not spending or redirecting them to highways. Now, I would assume that if something has been hanging around here for 12 months, it is not going to be stimulating the economy immediately. So that is what I want to bring up. I at least want to make an effort--I would hate to think that after all of this we have gone through, that I did not even make an effort to get it up. I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside for the consideration of the Inhofe-Boxer amendment No. 374.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, the answer to the question of the Senator from Mississippi is yes. Let me make a couple comments. The Senator from New York talked quite a bit about this stimulus bill. I contend it is not a stimulus bill, and I will touch on that point in a moment. He was talking about coming here in 1980. I remind him that there are ways you can stimulate this economy. This bill does not do it. This bill spends money, astronomical amounts of money. It is just inconceivable that we could be thinking about it. Certainly, if you wind the clock back to 1980, no one ever talked in terms of the hundreds of billions of dollars we talk about today. I remind the Senator from New York that back in 1980, the timeframe he was talking about, we had a President who came in 1980 by the name of Ronald Reagan. He repeated something that was said by another great President, who was John Kennedy. Back during the time John Kennedy was President, they were getting involved in the New Frontier programs. They had a great need for increased revenue. This is a quote from John Kennedy. He said: We need to increase our revenue, and the best way to increase our revenue is to reduce marginal rates. And he reduced marginal rates, he reduced capital gains rates, and he reduced inheritance rates. That resulted in a massive increase in revenue. If you take the decade that is called the Reagan decade of the eighties, look at 1980, the total amount of money that came in. Revenue generated from marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. The revenue that was generated almost doubled in a decade. We had the largest tax reductions, I believe, in the history of this Nation. Now we are looking at a bill that does not have that. It has two little, small things that might stimulate the economy in terms of depreciation in small business. The total amount does not even exceed 3 percent of the bill. The area where I felt--and I know a lot of people disagree--we could do something to provide jobs for Americans, what should have a greater part of this, is road construction and infrastructure. But that did not happen. We are looking at something that right now has a total of $27 billion in highways, roads, and bridges. Certainly the occupant of the chair understands, having served for many years on the Environment and Public Works Committee, the great needs in this country. We have had several statements made by economists who have said that if there is a way we can provide jobs, do something that is going to have to be done for America, this is the time to do it. If you look at the total amount in this bill, out of some $900 billion, we are talking about $27 billion is all there is in that area. I say in responding to the comments of the Senator from New York, if he is talking about 1980 and what happened after that time, it is very clear that precipitated a decade in the history of this country where we had more revenue generated as a result of taxes being reduced than any other time in the history of the country. When we look at what is in this bill that would really stimulate, all the rest of it is spending. I am not going to start reading the list of the $650 million to have people change their TVs and all these things. There are two areas that would stimulate. One would be in the area of hiring people--road construction, providing jobs. In my State of Oklahoma, we happen to have a highway director who I think is the best one in the Nation. His name is Gary Ridley. He has identified just in my State some $1.1 billion of shovel-ready jobs. They already have the environmental impact statements. They are projects to get people to work tomorrow. Yet we cannot do that in this bill, and that is the type of thing we should be doing. If you add together the tax stimulus and the amount of work that is being done in terms of roadwork and providing jobs, that comes to somewhere around 7 percent of the total amount. What about the other $900 billion? I think it is absurd. The Senator from New York was talking about how Republicans did not respond favorably to the Pelosi bill on the other side. No wonder. It is the same type of bill we are looking at here. It actually had $3 billion more for construction than this bill. I think they acted responsibly. I wish Republicans--and I hope this will be the case--would be willing to stand up and jointly, all of us, agree that this is not going to work and that there is a choice now. We do have a substitute that Senator McCain put forth. It resolves these problems. It has items in it that will actually stimulate the economy. I am hoping we will all be able to stick together. I would be very proud if the Republicans are able to do that. Now, that is not the reason I wanted to get the floor. I want to mention an amendment I have that has not been cleared yet. I compliment Senator Inouye. I visited with him, and even though it is something he said he wouldn't vote for, he would still not object to having it considered because he thinks it is very important. It has to do with Guantanamo Bay. On Monday, I was at Guantanamo Bay, and that was my third trip there. The first was right after 9/11. At that time I realized the statements that were being made about the treatment of detainees were not true; that a lot of the media had misrepresented it. Nonetheless, it is something that was out there and people felt this was something bad that was taking place in GTMO--Guantanamo Bay. I might mention that we have had that resource since 1903, and it has served us very well. Ironically, our annual lease is $4,000 a year, and we are getting all this for that amount. But I want to share with my colleagues here what we witnessed this past Monday--a few days ago. At this time, we are down now to 245 detainees. Of the 245 detainees, there are 170 of them where their countries will not take them back. In other words, what are we going to do with these guys? And by the way, even though President Obama came out in his first or second day in office and said two things about Guantanamo Bay--No. 1, we should cease all legal proceedings down there; and No. 2, close it within 12 months--there is a very courageous judge down there who, I guess, felt the separation of powers in the Constitution meant something, so he said, no, we are not going to do this; we are going to continue with our trials for now. He is trying such people as Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the brainpower behind 9/11, and four of his coconspirators; and Ali al- Shihri, who is the person who was involved in the USS Cole tragedy that killed many people, including 17 of our brave soldiers. These are the types of hard-core people who are being tried there. These are military tribunals, and they need to continue. That is what the judge said, and he is continuing to this day. By the way, if we ended up starting to try those in our Federal court system, because of the rules of evidence and because of the nature of the terrorists and the testimony that would come up, they are estimating it would take about 12 months to build a courtroom--as it did down there--at a cost of about $10 million. So my concern is this: In the event we were forced to close Guantanamo, it would not work to do it at the present time until some solution comes up as to what we are going to do with all these detainees. Some of the detainees are clean, ready to go back, and will be transferred back. But we have about 170 where there is no place for them to go, even if we tried them and turned them loose. There has been a suggestion that if we close Guantanamo, there are some 17 military installations in the continental United States that would be able to accept some of these detainees and so that is where they would end up going. The problem with that is, I don't know of one Senator serving in here who wishes to say it is all right to go ahead and put them in Mississippi or put them in Iowa or put them, in my case, in Oklahoma. One of the 17 installations happens to be Fort Sill, located in Oklahoma. We don't want that. You don't want them in West Virginia. So there is no reason for us unnecessarily to target ourselves in this case. I have to also say that anyone who believes people have been abused down there, all you have to do is go down. I have done tours of prisons all over the United States, as well as military prisons elsewhere. I can say without any doubt in my mind that I have never seen a prison where people are cared for better than they are there. There is one medical practitioner for every two detainees who are down there. The medical facilities even do colonoscopies for anyone over 50, if they want them. None of these detainees would ever have treatment like that back in their country of origin. The food they are getting is better than they have ever had before. So it is not true they are being abused. In fact, they have six camps, numbered from one to six, starting with those who have the least problems, to those who are ready to be returned someplace, and getting up to the real hard-core terrorists. Even in camp six, which is supposed to house the toughest guys, they are outside having recreation 3 hours a day. So people are not being abused there, and I think it is important that people understand that. That is not, however, where I am coming from on this amendment. I know for a fact, if we can get this voted on, it would pass. Those individuals who believe we should close GTMO are always very careful to say we have to figure out what we are going to do with the hard-core detainees down there, because we can't turn them loose. You can't bring them back and try them in our court system because the rules of evidence in a tribunal are different. You can't read them their rights when you are apprehending them--apprehending a terrorist. It doesn't work. In a tribunal, hearsay evidence is admissible, but it is not in our court system. So that is something that wouldn't work. So even though I think we should not close GTMO, now or ever--because I think it is a resource and an asset that we have in this country that we can use--for those individuals who feel we should at some point close it, I agree--and I can't find anyone who disagrees--that we should not close it until we determine what is going to happen to those 110 to 170 detainees where they do not have anyplace to go. Let me explain my amendment, and it is No. 198, which I have not been able to bring up for consideration yet. It would prohibit the use of any of the funds that are in this stimulus bill--and the stimulus bill does have money that goes into modernizing and doing things for various penal institutions--toward preparing our institutions in the continental United States to accept these terrorist detainees and housing them in the continental United States instead of at GTMO. I think if you look very carefully at how simple this legislation is, it says: None of the funds appropriated or otherwise being made available to any department or agencies of the United States Government by this Act may be obligated to expend it for the following purposes. To transfer any detainee of the United States housed at the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to any facility in the United States or its territories. Who is going to oppose that? Is there one person who would vote against that? Or to construct, improve, modify, or otherwise enhance any facility in the United States or its territories for the purpose of housing any detainee described in paragraph 1. Those are the guys who are down there--the bad guys; the terrorists. And thirdly: To house or otherwise incarcerate any detainee described. I know the Senator from Iowa doesn't want the detainees coming to Iowa; the Senator from West Virginia doesn't want them coming to West Virginia; I seriously question whether they want them in Ohio; and I certainly don't want them in Oklahoma. So that is all this is. It is an amendment that, should this bill pass--and of course if it goes to conference, I don't have any way of knowing what will stay in and what will come out--and I hope it does not pass when we vote on it tonight or tomorrow, or whenever that time is--but if it does pass, I want an amendment in it so that no one will try to transfer those detainees now down in Guantanamo Bay to any of the prisons in the continental United States. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?