Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I ask the Chair, since I was directly referred to, am I not entitled to ask a question?

Mr. INHOFE. I was making a request to yield 2 minutes to my friend from Mississippi without giving up the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have several comments to make on two different subjects, one of which was broached by the Senator from New York. Before doing that, I would like to yield to my friend from Mississippi for no more than 2 minutes and then regain the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Yes.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first, I wish to make a comment on the remarks of the Senator from Missouri. One of the most disturbing things, other than the cost of this stimulus bill, is the fact there is nothing in there to stimulate. There are two things that can be done that would be of great benefit to the United States of America. One is, as he talked about, infrastructure. I was somewhat shocked that in the bill, on the other side, there was only $30 billion, in the Senate bill $27 billion that would go toward highways, bridges, and that type of construction. I am very much in support of his amendment No. 161 that will raise that amount by $5.5 billion. I have to say, it is not enough. That would still be less than 5 percent of the total amount that would go to those items that would provide immediate jobs. In my State of Oklahoma, we can identify over $1.1 billion, just in Oklahoma, of projects that are spade ready, with environmental impact statements, everything has been done. We are ready to go on them. That is what will produce jobs tomorrow and the next day and the next day. The other area is in the military. While those two amendments have to do with the infrastructure of which I am in strong support, the Boxer- Inhofe amendment has yet to be filed. It will be filed. We are talking there about some $50 billion that would go toward construction and infrastructure. Amendment No. 262 to Amendment No. 98 I want to mention, though, there is one other amendment I do want to bring up for consideration. That is amendment No. 262. This is a recognition of investing in our Nation's defense. It provides thousands of sustainable American jobs and provides for our Nation's security at the same time. Major defense procurement programs are all manufactured in the United States, with our aerospace industry alone employing more than 655,000 workers spread across the United States. At the end of last month, conservative economist Martin Feldstein wrote in the Washington Post about the $800 billion mistake. He was referring, of course, to the stimulus bill. In that article, he pointed out the value of infrastructure spending on domestic military bases is the most significant we could do to try to stimulate the economy. In fact, it is clear that infrastructure investment alone with defense spending and tax cuts has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than anything else the government can do. If our infrastructure needs repair, we equally need the tools to reconstruct our military readiness. That is what I am trying to do with this amendment. This is amendment No. 262. I agree with everything that was said by the Senator from Missouri, that we need to do a lot of this with infrastructure. But, equally, my amendment increases defense procurement spending to manufacture or acquire vehicles, equipment, ammunition, and materials required to reconstitute military units. We are accomplishing two things: We are providing the jobs; we are also rebuilding our military. The one thing we hear on the floor over and over, with the activity that is now subsiding in Iraq but, of course, escalating in Afghanistan, is that we are overworking everyone. The term we use in the military is the OPTEMPO is too high. We all recognize that fact. We know we went through the decade of the nineties reducing spending on both end strength and modernization. What we need to do, if we are going to be having some kind of stimulative effect, if you can do it and rebuild our military, drop down the OPTEMPO for our people serving and at the same time do something about some of our FCS systems, for example, the Future Combat System, so we will become superior to our prospective enemies on the field in terms of equipment we give our kids. Right now, we all recognize that with the exception of the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter, the Russians are making the SU series that is superior to our best strike vehicles, the F-15 and F-16. This is a procurement problem. We already have the lines going on C-17s and other vehicles, and it is going to be necessary to augment that. This is fully offset. It does have $5.3 billion that would increase procurement. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment for the purpose of bringing up Inhofe amendment No. 262.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I am hoping to be able to consider this amendment in the near future. Let me mention one other point of equal significance, and it is somewhat controversial. I just got back a couple days ago from Guantanamo Bay. I have been down there several times. As a matter of fact, I was one of the first Members--I think the first Member of Congress, of either House, to be there after 9/11. I have watched it as the years have gone by, the criticism of things happening at Guantanamo Bay that have never happened at Guantanamo Bay. People are talking about torturing and all these things. This is not the truth. What really bothers me is, all you have to do, if you want to know the truth about it, is pull up on your computer the Red Cross Web site. They are down there with regularity talking about what is happening. There are no human rights abuses. In fact, 3 days ago when I was there, some of the detainees were kind of laughing about the fact they actually had better medical treatment than they ever had before. As far as the food is concerned, it is the best. There are six camps in conjunction with the severity of the problem with a particular detainee, what level of terrorist activities he was involved in. The first three are the ones ready to go back, and the last ones are the more severe. In camp 5 and camp 6, we are talking about really bad guys up there. They still have recreational activities, health care, dental care, food. So things there are good. I hope any preconceived notions by any Member of this Senate could be satisfied by going and seeing for yourself or pulling up the Web site. We even had al-Jazeera in there to evaluate how people are treated at Guantanamo Bay. It is an asset we have had since 1903. It is something we cannot do without. I have submitted an amendment, which I will not call up at this time, amendment No. 198. People such as Senator Martinez, who is from Cuba, recognize the fact that we have to keep that facility open. Right now, even though it has a capacity of 11,000, we only have about 425 detainees there. Of that, there are 170 who cannot be returned to their home country, cannot be repatriated because they will not let them back in. Of the 170, 110 are the real serious, most severe of the terrorists. What do we do with those? If something should happen--and, of course, the President came out with two edicts. One was to suspend legal proceedings at this time, which the judge down there has rejected, so they are continuing. The other is to close Guantanamo Bay within 12 months. The reason the second one is not workable is because you have to figure out what to do with all these detainees. I don't know of one Senator on the floor who would like them sent to his or her State. I know they have come up with some 17 institutions, one of which is in my State of Oklahoma, where they could relocate these detainees. That becomes a terrorist target. It is something that is not acceptable. All the amendment does, which I am hoping we get cleared before too long, is to prohibit the use of funds in this stimulus bill to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to any facility in the United States or to construct any facility for such detainees in the United States. When I say that, it will be necessary to do it. The courtroom down in Guantanamo Bay cost $12 million to build. It took a year to get it built. Because of the sensitive nature of the information, they cannot be tried in a normal court facility. This would preclude funds from being allocated toward the relocation of those detainees from Guantanamo Bay to any of the Continental United States areas. With that, I serve notice I would like to get others to look at this amendment very carefully. This may be the only opportunity they have to ensure their State is not flooded with detainees, with terrorists, and create the problems we all know would come from that transfer. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Martinez, Chambliss, Roberts, Brownback, and Bunning be added as cosponsors to the amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I move to waive the applicable portion of the Budget Act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. INHOFE. I urge adoption of my amendment.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion and complaints about there not being enough funds in terms of infrastructure--roads and buildings and all that. Actually, it is under 4 percent in this bill. We have talked about that. What we have not talked about is the need for military procurement. In a Washington Post article, Martin Feldstein talked about the fact that infrastructure spending on domestic military bases and procurement is one of the things we could do that would be very helpful, citing there are 655,000 employees in the aerospace industry alone. Now, what I am trying to do with this amendment is to increase procurement by $5.3 billion. It is offset. So you have a decision: Do you want to spend $20 million for fish passage barrier removal, $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce, or have a strong national defense? Do you want to spend $13 million to research volunteer activities or have a strong national defense?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I applaud the Senator from Washington in bringing this point to the attention of the American people, as I have been trying to do, that in this stimulus bill--and the same is true on the House side--there is far too little construction, far too little jobs. I found it very difficult to believe that in the bill that came over from the other side there was only some $30 billion. I can share now, because it has been public, that 8 days ago on Monday, President Obama addressed our conference. During that conference, we talked about the stimulus bill. He was very generous with his time. In fact, he was there for an entire hour. I said: It is inconceivable to me--and here we were talking about the bill that was being considered on the other side--that with some $800 billion or $900 billion--that is without interest--it is going to be over $1 trillion when you add interest--but with those amounts, you only have $30 billion of roads and highways. Quite frankly, President Obama was not sure my statement was accurate, and he asked Larry Summers, who was in the meeting. We were all a little bit confused about that, except I wasn't because very specifically it said $30 billion on roads and highways. To be fair, there is another $19 billion in water projects. Infrastructure was a little higher than that. My concern is roads and highways. The reason I am concerned is that we went through the 2005 Transportation reauthorization bill. At that time, Republicans were in the majority, so I was taking the lead on passage of that bill. I had the support of the ranking member at that time, who was Senator Boxer from California. We worked closely together on that bill. We actually were increasing all we could as time went by because the idea of funding infrastructure and funding roads and highways has a history to it. When I was first elected, every year we had huge surpluses in the highway trust fund. That is probably the most popular tax out there. With the highway trust fund, people know or they believe that money is going to be used to increase capacity and increase the condition, the repairs, the maintenance of the transportation system we have now. Senator Boxer and I worked together on that bill to do all we could to enhance it, to raise the amounts because even as large as that bill was, that did not even maintain what we have today. Over the years, as people saw the surpluses in the highway trust fund, their tendency, as is always the tendency around this place, was let's grab it and put it into something else. We started having hiking trails, we started having other elements of transportation, over and above roads and highways, bridges and maintenance. Those are the things that originally the highway trust fund, way back in the early fifties, was there for. That is what was established back in the Eisenhower administration. We have gone over the years, and this took a turnaround a few years ago with so many people loading on to the highway trust fund and less and less was used for maintenance and expansion of our highway system. We got into the position where in 1998, during the Clinton administration, he witnessed the very large surplus that was in the highway trust fund. He took it and put it into the general fund. The total amount was $9 billion. That was something to which I was very much opposed because I thought of that as a moral issue. The people of this country were led to believe that if they paid for gas at the pump, that money was going to enhance our highway system. That used to be the situation. Anyway, we were able to successfully remove that and bring that back into the highway trust fund a matter of a few weeks ago. We improved that a little bit. Still, we have a deficit that cannot do the job the American people expect. I am considered by some of the rating organizations to be one of the most conservative Members of the Senate. Yet I am a big spender in some areas--national defense, infrastructure. That is what we are supposed to be doing, and we have these opportunities to do it. As I said, I applaud the Senator from Washington for recognizing the need to increase the amount of money for roads and highways. During the reauthorization bill of 2005, we talked about what our needs were. We happen to have a guy in the State of Oklahoma, a guy named Gary Ridley, the best highway director anywhere in the United States. What he has done is put together what do we have in the State of Oklahoma that is spade-ready to employ people tomorrow if we are able to have enough money to take care of some of the things that are already authorized; we don't have to go through the environmental impact statements and other statements. This is all ready to go. For that reason, I thought if this job stimulus bill is going to do something to stimulate the economy, it is going to have to hire people. To hire people, you are going to have to get a much larger percentage. Getting back to 8 days ago when President Obama was before the Republicans, at that time I said: If I am right and you are wrong in terms of the fact that you only have 3.5 percent of the total amount of money that will go to roads and highways, would you be willing to raise that to some 10 percent? I am not sure the answer was very clear, but nonetheless, it is something that is very reasonable to make as a request. I have one problem with the Murray bill. First, I agree that we need to have a larger percentage of the money going into roads and highways. But I think we also need a little bit of truth in advertising. If we are going to call this package a stimulus bill, then we need to direct the resources to the programs that have demonstrated the ability to create jobs immediately. However, merely adding the total number, as this amendment does, without giving priority to programs that are truly stimulative is perhaps not all that responsible. In addition, the major problem I have is that the stimulus needs to be offset. You cannot tell me, if we are looking at $900 billion out there, we cannot find something to offset in order to take care of the immediate problems we have in this country in terms of our infrastructure. I do not see the Senator from Washington on the floor now, but I would ask her--and I asked her a few minutes ago--if she was willing to offset this money. I believe her response was not at the present time. So if it changes as this develops, then perhaps I will change. I will say this: If you are not going to be able to offset this amount, then I certainly would oppose this amendment. There will be lots of opportunities to increase the infrastructure investment over the next few days that do not add to the size of the bill. We cannot add to the size of this bill. To me, the whole idea--well, the amount is inconceivable to most people, most thinking people, in America, and it cannot be increased. We have numerous opportunities. We have the Boxer-Bond amendment to increase highway investment by $5.5 billion. It is fully offset. I strongly support Senator Boxer and Senator Bond in this effort. The program they eliminate is a discretionary program that would not even select projects for an entire year. Then the program provides an additional 3 years to finish the project. That makes sense to me. My chairman, Senator Boxer, and I as the ranking member of Environment and Public Works Committee, go along with a bipartisan group of colleagues who will have a second amendment to add $50 billion to highway transit and clean drinking water. This amendment would take funds not obligated within a year up to $50 billion from programs in the stimulus that are not spending and redirect them to infrastructure projects that are ready to have a contract awarded within 120 days after receiving the funding. That is what we call a stimulus. That puts people to work in jobs. And it doesn't add to the cost of the bill. Those are two opportunities coming up; we will have to get this done. It also moves the money from programs that are not stimulating the economy, which I think is a good idea. I at this time urge my colleagues to oppose the Murray amendment even though I agree with what she is trying to do. I want to have this offset. We have these two opportunities that I mentioned coming up where we will have the opportunity to accomplish the same objective and have them offset. Frankly, the amount she is talking about is not as much as I would like. I would like it to be an additional $50 billion which we will be talking about in another amendment coming up. Since it is not going to be offset, I make a point of order against the Murray amendment's emergency spending designation under 204(a)5A of S. Con. Res. 21 of the 110th Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who value their second amendment personal right to own their own firearms. I also believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who favor justice over political patronage. Finally, I believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who realize we are in a war on terror and want to continue the strong efforts to bring terrorists to justice. I am opposed to the appointment of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General of the United States. I take particular interest in this nomination because I, as well as the voters of the State of Oklahoma, feel strongly that the rights conferred upon us by the second amendment of the Constitution guarantee an individual freedom that no government regulation can take away. Eric Holder's record and his true beliefs about the second amendment are clear. In a brief filed in the Heller case, Holder joined other past Department of Justice officials by saying: ``[t]he Second Amendment Does Not Protect Firearms Possession or Use That Is Unrelated To Participation In a Well-Regulated Militia.'' The brief also stated that the ``recognition of an expansive individual right to keep and bear arms for private purposes will make it more difficult for the government to defend present and future firearms laws.'' During his confirmation hearing, Eric Holder noted the importance of the Heller decision and recognized it as precedent. But I certainly do not believe that the decision in Heller has changed the underlying beliefs held by Eric Holder, and his leadership as the chief lawyer of the United States will be a detriment to the gun ownership rights of American citizens. I am also very uncomfortable with Mr. Holder's judgment and record on pardons and clemency during the Clinton administration. He apparently chose to circumvent the standard process by which all pardons are considered and granted, and clouded this process with the appearance of impropriety. If the pardon of Mark Rich was not impropriety, and I believe it was, then it was at the very least extreme negligence, and such negligence has no place in any level of government. Mark Rich, whom many label a tax evader, is in fact even more than that. Rich was indicted in 1983 on 65 counts of not only tax evasion, but also fraud, racketeering, and trading with the enemy. Rich fled to Switzerland before he could stand trial, which is perhaps the most egregious element of this case--he was a fugitive and a regular fixture on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. How can one justify recommending a pardon, bypass the Department of Justice and the hundreds of individuals who worked to bring Mark Rich to justice, when the man who is being pardoned is not even willing to face the same justice system to which every other American must answer? In fact, Holder admitted during his confirmation hearing that he did not adequately acquaint himself with the facts of the case. The United States Senate should not allow such injustice to go unanswered. Equally egregious, Holder was Deputy Attorney General in an administration which granted clemency to 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN. This is a group which not only carried out violent protests, FALN set off bombs several times in New York City and Chicago and were convicted for conspiracies to commit robbery, bomb-making, and sedition. The Clinton administration granted clemency despite opposition from the U.S. Attorney's Office, FBI, and most importantly, the victims of FALN terrorist activities. Finally, we continue to be in a war on terror, however, Holder is an individual who is opposed to the military commissions which have tried terrorists and is opposed to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for detaining terrorists. This Senate and the American people should know that since October 2001, the U.S. has detained almost 800 al-Qaida and Taliban combatants at GTMO. Currently, 60 more are ready for transfer or release to another country, 70 have either been tried or in process, and 130 are a high threat to the U.S. Since 2002, more than 525 detainees have departed GTMO for other countries. Today, there are approximately 240 detainees at GTMO. If GTMO is no longer a prison, some U.S. domestic or overseas prison will have to house these men while they await a habeas hearing and trial. All the while, the military detention facilities at GTMO meet the highest international standards. The Pentagon spends $2.5 million each year on Korans, prayer rugs, and special meals for prisoners. There are on average two lawyers for every detainee at GTMO. He believes our military commissions currently in place would have to be substantially revamped and even holds the position that U.S. interrogation techniques should be published for the world to see. For at least these reasons, I cannot vote to support the nomination of an individual who holds opinions on a wide range of issues which I find so objectionable and objectionable to my constituents. I will be voting a definitive no on the Holder nomination.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me join my colleague from Georgia for some of the same reasons and for some reasons he did not mention. I declared some time ago that I would oppose the confirmation of Timothy Geithner for the position of Secretary of the Treasury. First, I do not believe Mr. Geithner has been remotely candid about his tax issues. I think he has been less than forthcoming about all of the facts. For example, Mr. Geithner accepted compensation from his employer to offset taxes when he had never paid those taxes to begin with. And, having been informed about his oversight from the tax years 2003 and 2004, he never bothered to check for 2001 or 2002. Now, I can tell you I am sure he did check, but he is denying he did. I can tell you for the people in Oklahoma and across the country, very much like the people in Atlanta who were referred to by the Senator from Georgia, that small businesses or an individual who made an honest mistake on their taxes have found their Government's treatment of them slightly more aggressive than they have seen in their treatment of Mr. Geithner, a man about to lead the IRS. It is one of those things that makes people so angry about their Government. The man who wants to be in charge of the IRS messed up with his taxes and got a pass from the Senate. Now, for as much as we talk about leveling the playing field, it sure looks as if we do not walk the walk. I was very proud of one of our Senators in the hearing; that is, John Kyl. He spent a long time--he tried; I counted about 20 different ways. He was trying to ask the same question to get an answer. He never got an answer. But he did everything he could. I emphasize my objection to Timothy Geithner's nomination to head the Treasury Department is not just about what we have been talking about-- his tax problems and the tax issues. The matter which compels my coming to the floor is far more serious in my mind. I want Senators to realize what a vote for Mr. Geithner really is. It is ratifying aggressive Federal Government intervention in the economy. It is the flippant use of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to prop up favored institutions and to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. This has created a great uncertainty in the market, which is precisely what we do not want right now. I do not criticize anyone who voted in favor of the $700 billion bailout. I looked at it. I saw we were giving the largest amount of money ever--you could use the word ``authorized''--to one person, and that person being an unelected bureaucrat. There was no oversight responsibility from the Senate. We were all criticizing Paulson. I criticized Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury. But Geithner was there putting this thing together at the same time. Let me say not all Federal intervention during a financial crisis is created equal. The FDIC did a good job managing the biggest bank failure in U.S. history while we in Congress were all debating TARP. What I object to is the midnight rescue packages, the ad hoc approach. I object to the ``say one thing and do another thing'' type of programs. I object to the complete lack of any policy framework, explanation of principles or coherent approach. I object to the absolute lack of any transparency whatsoever. I object to the indifference to the taxpayers' interests. Put very simply, I object to the bailout mania we have all witnessed. I can remember when we did this matter, the $700 billion bailout. When I was opposed to it, I made some statements. I said: We start bailing people out, if that is the new policy of Government, who is going to be next in line? I think the airline industry; they have problems. I mentioned even the auto industry. Of course, we saw what happened. People got all ecstatic, even those who voted for the $700 billion bailout. They were all upset about the fact that we were bailing out the auto industry. That amounted to 2 percent of the $700 billion. People lose sight when they hear big numbers. What I do when I am explaining it, so that I understand it and my 20 kids and grandkids will understand it and the people of Oklahoma will understand it, I try to put it in some kind of perspective to see how it affects us personally. If you take the total number of families in America who file tax returns and divide that into $700 billion, do your own math. It comes out to $5,000 a family. That is huge. We have to understand we are not talking about their money when we talk about Government bailouts, we are talking about our money; and Geithner is all a part of this. It all started with Bear Stearns a year ago. The initiator of the Bear Stearns deal was not Secretary Paulson or Chairman Bernanke, though, of course, they signed off on it. It was Timothy Geithner. After the deal was announced, Robert Novak reported in his column that an unnamed Federal official confided in him at the time that ``we may have crossed a line'' in bailing out Bear Stearns. Mr. Novak wrote that it was an understatement, and that we would not know the ramifications of this decision for a long time. Well, now we understand. We are now trillions of dollars past that line, and we are beginning to comprehend the course on which that decision has set us. I personally believe we are trillions of dollars past that line, and we are not much better off. I would say enough; the Government has gone too far, and under Mr. Geithner all indications are that we are not going to slow down anytime soon. We need a change of course, and we need to finally, trillions of dollars later, find the strength to let those who made poor decisions bear some of the consequences, instead of the taxpayers. Timothy Geithner may take the helm of the Treasury Department at a time, if he is confirmed, when the Government has entangled itself into the economy to an unprecedented extent. Given his strong support, stronger than by many accounts Secretary Paulson himself, for ad hoc bailouts of big firms, I cannot support this nomination. I think those people, and I know the people I talked to in Oklahoma because I am back every weekend--I call this going back and talking to real people, and they all look at this and say: Only in Washington could something like this happen, could we start with the $700 billion bailout. I would say this: Anyone who supported that at the time, if they want redemption, this is the time to get it because you can be redeemed by opposing Geithner in his confirmation. So, anyway, there are several reasons I hold for opposing his nomination, and I will act accordingly. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have some things that are going to happen this year that are very significant. In the committee I chaired when the Republicans were in the majority--it is now chaired by Senator Boxer--we have two major pieces of legislation coming up. We have the Transportation reauthorization bill and we have the Water Resources Development Act reauthorization bill. In the case of the Transportation reauthorization bill, we had a good reauthorization in 2005. It is scheduled to be reauthorized again, and I would suggest we use that as somewhat of a pattern of what we are going to plan to go in this coming year, in 2009. In spite of all of the things you are hearing about the inauguration and about the various confirmations, business is going to continue. The WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act, is something that should be done on an annual basis or every other year. Yet the last time we passed it was 7 whole years ago. We had a lot of making up to do. There is not one State represented on this floor that is not way behind in some of the programs that are dealt with in the Water Resources Development Act. The reason I mention this at this time is we will be dealing with some type of a stimulus bill. When they talk about $800 or so billion, I already, in my previous remarks, talked about how big $700 or $800 billion is to individual families in America. We will be dealing with this, and I regret that of the $800 billion, only $30 billion has to do with highway construction. We have a great need in this country for bridge construction, highway construction, and, hopefully--Senator Boxer and I both cosigned a letter to try to get a much larger percentage of whatever amount we end up authorizing in a stimulus bill. So I would hope--and I would ask each Member to look at their own States, as I have done in my State of Oklahoma--Senators look at State projects that are out there that we call spade-ready: they have had their environmental impact statement, they have had their AS statements, and they are ready to go. They would employ people immediately. For those like me who are conservative, who do not believe the ingredients in this stimulus package, or at least do not believe what they are looking at in the House is going to really stimulate very much, one thing we do know is that there is nothing that puts people back to work faster than to get something that has already passed all of the environmental prerequisites and is ready for construction to start. Then, after it is over, you have something. You have bridges that are rebuilt. You have roads that are rebuilt. So what I would encourage the Senate to try to do is get as much as we can out of the stimulus package that actually does provide jobs and provides things that otherwise we would have to do in the reauthorization bill. There is no way in the world we are going to take care of the real need we have with infrastructure in America unless we get a very large amount in the front end of the stimulus bill.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today, I have stated several times, and I again state, I am in opposition to S. 181, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and reinforce my support for Senator Hutchison's alternative, S. 166 and amendment No. 25, the title VII Fairness Act. What we are told by the other side of the aisle is that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is about protecting the right of employees who may not know they have been discriminated against. But in reality, this bill represents a tremendous burden on employers and a boon for trial lawyers across the country. It is an overly broad and cumbersome approach, essentially eliminating the statute of limitations. Senator Hutchison's alternative, on the other hand, takes a measured approach and applies a targeted remedy by allowing claimants to bring suit within the statute of limitations, which runs from the time they should be expected to have enough information to support a reasonable suspicion that they are being discriminated against. The rationale for statutes of limitation is to ensure fairness and balance--balance between access to the courts for aggrieved parties while allowing certainty for those who may be called to defend themselves. S. 181 clearly steps beyond this, greatly reducing confidence in the civil discovery process and forcing businesses to stage a defense on decisions that were made years--perhaps dozens of years--before the action was brought. There have been a lot of amendments. I did vote in favor of the Hutchison amendment and feel that would be one that was a very reasonable compromise. Tomorrow in Oklahoma I will be meeting with voters in Clinton and Burns Flat and other areas in southern Oklahoma. It will be my unfortunate duty to tell them that this burden has been unfairly placed upon them and their businesses in this difficult economic time. But I will be proud to say that my vote did not contribute to the passage of S 181; rather, I stood with my colleague, Senator Hutchison, and we worked for a balanced approach that provides a remedy to those who have legitimate discrimination claims and at the same time allows employers, many of whom have never made a discriminatory compensation decision, to mount a defense based upon discovery of reliable evidence. I register my opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act because it is such a clear departure from previous legal principles. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume from the Enzi time on the Enzi amendments.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, while I was given, very generously, 10 minutes, I will not take that time because I have had occasion to stand on the Senate floor since last October 10 on numerous occasions and talk about the way this vote took place in the beginning. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that this had to start somewhere, and this start was when Secretary Paulson--and I to have say this is a Republican administration; he was the Treasury Secretary--came out with this plan on how to save the world. He said: We have to have $700 billion. It has to be spent to buy damaged assets. And even at that time, it didn't make any sense because, if you read the document, it didn't say anything as to what was going to happen to this money. It just completely was a blank check. Never in the history of Oklahoma have we voted to give anyone, elected or, in this case, unelected bureaucrat, $700 billion to do whatever he or she wants to do with it. It is mind- boggling that that could have happened, but it did happen. The other thing that makes history out of this is, this is the largest single vote on an authorization in the history of this country. This amount is so big, I have tried to explain to people what this really means: $700 billion, if you take all of the families in America who file tax returns and do the math, is $5,000 a family. That is what we are talking about. I opposed it originally and said that we are going to regret that we did this unprecedented thing. I hate to say it, even though I want to encourage as many Members to vote for this resolution, it doesn't make that much difference because if it should pass both the House and the Senate--and, of course, the House will be voting on it later on--then the new President would come in and would veto it. And all he would need is 34 votes, in the case of the Senate, to sustain a veto. Obviously, the votes are there. So it is going to happen. But I think it is important that as many people get on record recognizing it is not the right thing to do for America, and to do that, this is their last chance. In October, after this passed the House and the Senate, I introduced legislation at that time, then reintroduced it with the new Congress, putting in accountability so that they would have to come to Congress. I don't care if it is the Bush administration or the Obama administration, come to Congress, tell us what they want to spend the money on. Let's debate it, go through an appropriations process so we are in the curve. That is what the Constitution says we are supposed to be able to do. But it didn't happen. To name it TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program--this is no troubled asset relief program. It was represented by Secretary Paulson to be the buying of damaged assets. I have renamed it the SOAP program, the Spend On Any Program, because that is exactly what we have done. We don't know today, and we are about to pass something or we are going to end up adopting something, and this resolution will not be able to stop it. That is going to change the behavior. It is the first time this has happened in the history of this country. We are going to be saying to somebody: You can have this big block of money. You can do anything you want with it. That has not happened before. I think the historians, 30 and 40 years from now, will look back and say that the vote that took place in October that allowed one unelected bureaucrat to have $700 billion is going to be probably the most egregious vote in the history of this institution. I look at this, and I see that this happened. I recall in October, when the majority--75 percent of the House and the Senate--voted for this thing, I said at that time that there are going to be others lined up. As this is structured, you can't stop it. You can't blame the auto industry for coming in, wanting to have a bailout. So they got a bailout. For those of you who think that is bad, I agree. But that was only 2 percent of the total $700 billion. So we need to put these things in perspective. This is something that should not have happened. I think it is going to go down in history as one of the dark moments of this institution. Lastly, we have talked to a lot of people, a lot of economists, three of them from the Reagan era. They said we didn't really accomplish anything with the first $350 billion. Our western farmers in Oklahoma-- I won't mention which bank it is, but it was a bank that initially got $20 billion. Now they are asking for more so that credit would be loosened up. They came to me way back in October and said they received this money, but the credit has not loosened up at all. I am inclined to think that the first $350 billion was pretty much wasted, and now we are going into another $350 billion. I would encourage any of my colleagues who voted for the initial $700 billion bailout to go ahead and vote for this resolution to stop this second $350 billion. That would be a redeeming feature in their careers. I would encourage them to do that. I will yield the floor. Let me inquire of the Chair: There is no one else ready to speak right now. If I were to continue to speak, would that use up time on this side? I do not want to do that.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I have been pretty outspoken in the last several weeks on the $700 billion bailout. I still believe historians will look back someday and say it was the most outrageous vote ever taken. It is the largest single expenditure in the history of the country. To make matters worse, it was giving an unelected bureaucrat total power, usurping our powers, to make all decisions over the $700 billion with no oversight whatsoever. It had never been done before. It was unprecedented in American history. Nobody seems to care. It is mind- boggling to me to know that it happened, and now it looks as though we will be voting in the other body as well as here on a motion that would be hostile to the whole idea, but it will not pass. The money is going to be there anyway. The reason is, if the legislation that will be coming before the House and the Senate is passed, it still can be vetoed by the President, and it would be vetoed by the President. So all of a sudden he is going to have the second half of the $700 billion, the $350 billion laid at his doorstep to do with as he wishes. I wouldn't want that for a Republican President or a Democratic President, for any President. It is not the way we are supposed to function. I believe it is a fait accompli. I don't see any way a resolution of disapproval is going to be effective, because I think it is going to pass the House and very likely could pass here. I am inclined to think it will not. Whatever the case is, it will become a reality. That is bad for many reasons. It establishes a precedent. People look at large numbers, and it is difficult for the American people and for me to appreciate how much money is $700 billion. What I normally do when we deal with large numbers is, I take the total number of families in America who file tax returns and do the math. This turns out to be $5,000 a family. When I say it in those terms, which I have done quite a bit on talk radio as a wake-up call to the American people, then people do understand. I have been a little critical of my own President, President Bush, because he has let this happen. This wasn't a Democratic idea or a Republican idea. It was the President's idea, in concert with the Democrats, making this happen. This vote took place on October 10. Ever since October 10, I have had legislation I have tried to get through saying that it is not going to be automatic. Accessing the second $350 billion should not be automatic, and we had legislation to keep it from being so until 2 nights ago when President Bush agreed to a wish list by our new President when he comes into power. It is going to happen. Again, this is unprecedented in American history. It has never happened before. I have been critical of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Paulson, for telling us what he was going to do with the money and then turning around and not doing it. He did not tell us the truth. It is disingenuous. Nonetheless, it is something that looks as though it will be happening and it looks as though it will happen this week. In defense of President Bush, if we take the total amount of deficits of the 8 years of his presidency from his own budget, add them up and divide by 8, it averages $247 billion a year. Compare that with what we are faced with right now with the new administration which has said it is going to be somewhere between $1.2 and $1.8 trillion. I think people will look at this and say that the Bush legacy is not going to be one of deficits, because it is nothing compared to the deficits we are projecting for the coming year, as proposed by the incoming President. The reason I mention that is because I have somewhat accused President Bush of looking for a legacy. It occurs to me that George W. Bush has a legacy that may be unlike any other President in history. I call this the invisible legacy of President George W. Bush. I will explain in detail how I have come to this conclusion. President Bush inherited a weaker America militarily. All of a sudden, after he came in, 9/11 occurred. So let's go back in history. When George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, he was already behind the power curve when it came to the war on terror. As the 9/11 Commission confirmed, the United States was not on a wartime footing with al- Qaida, even though they were at war with us. While our country took its peace dividend, our enemies continued to train, plot, and test. It was a peace dividend, a euphoric attitude that the Cold War is over, and we don't need a military anymore. That is what we were living with at the time. International terrorism took the forefront as bin Laden began his war against freedom and specifically against the United States. Afghanistan was used as a training ground for terrorists, and the Taliban regime allowed al-Qaida unfettered mobility. They took advantage of this in major attacks. Look at what happened back in the 1990s. This was a predicate leading to 9/11, the worst tragedy in the history of America. On February 26, 1993, a car bomb was planted in an underground parking garage below the World Trade Center. This was the first World Trade Center attack. On June 25, 1996, the Khobar Towers were bombed by Hezbollah, with intelligence pointing to support by al-Qaida. That was 1996. We knew al-Qaida was on the run at that time. We knew of their abilities, the increasing sophistication in their terrorist attacks. On August 7, 1998, we recall what happened in Tanzania and Kenya and Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Our embassies were bombed. Links were at that time established with al-Qaida. In October 2000, suicide bombers used a boat to attack the USS Cole while it was moored in Yemen. It was one we all remember well, and we remember how it happened. We know the terrorist links that took place at that time. The response of the United States was at best inconsistent. Operation Infinite Reach included cruise missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan, but there was no real change. This inadequate response has been cited as a factor in emboldening al-Qaida's will to undertake more ambitious plans. That was simply kind of small. They had bigger plans. We know that now. In Operation Restore Hope, we became entangled in Somalia. We remember that very well, with the naked bodies being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, and America finally woke up, but we did not do anything. We kind of let it happen. We directed our forces to stop all actions against Adid except for those required for self-defense. Well, that is not a very good message, not a consistent message with our behavior in the past. So we withdrew from the country shortly thereafter. We also failed to remain vigilant of the Chinese. Security at our national labs was deliberately destroyed. We did away with--and this happened actually in the first few weeks of the Clinton- Gore administration. They went through the energy labs and they stopped the wiretapping, they stopped the background checks they were conducting at the time. They stopped color-coded badges saying it was demeaning to have a color of a badge that was on a lower scale than somebody else's. So that is what happened. Of course, we know the results of that. In 1995, we discovered that China had stolen our W-88 warhead plans. That was the crown jewel of our nuclear program, capable of attaching 10 nuclear missiles to a single warhead. But they had it. They got it. They got it because of a lack of security that was the policy of that administration at the time, and I was critical at that time. I remember Bernard Schwartz of Loral Space and Communications. They were given a green light to improve the precision and reliability of China's satellites and nuclear missiles. To refresh our memories--I remember it very well--it required the President to sign a waiver, a special waiver, so the Chinese missile program would have greater accuracy. That happened during the 1990s. China also gained the capability of accurately reaching the continental United States with missiles and targeted between 13 and 18 United States cities. I was critical of President Clinton for claiming, at that time--he said: Not one missile is pointed at American children, when in fact missiles were pointed at American children. That was happening during the 1990s. Simultaneously, weapons of mass destruction proliferation throughout the world reached an unprecedented level. The Chinese Government learned that it could rely on our acquiescence. They transferred prohibited weapons technology to North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other countries, threatened to absorb Taiwan, and intimidated our regional treaty allies, South Korea and Japan. The vast Soviet Union nuclear stockpile became fair game for entrepreneurs, with over 40 kilograms of Russian-origin uranium and plutonium being seized since 1991. Then remember Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, who began an international network of clandestine nuclear proliferation to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on March 12, 1993, and refused to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites. And Libya further continued weapons of mass destruction research as a priority. Now, despite the increase in terrorist activities around the world and the growing signs of a direct threat to this country, we essentially broke our intelligence community through the lack of funding, an inadequate number of linguists, and no interagency cooperation. I have to say this. My predecessor to this job was former Senator David Boren. David Boren's young son Dan is a very talented young man now serving in the House of Representatives. I was in the House and came to the Senate in 1994. I took his seat. He at that time was chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the Senate, and he made the statement to me--he called me up, and he said: Inhofe, I want you to try to do something I failed to do during the time I was chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. He said: We have all these agencies--the FBI, the NSA, all the defense intelligence agencies--and none of them talks to each other. Then I found out later on that was so true. He said: You have to get this done. That has to be a high priority. I told him it would be. We were not able to do anything until George W. Bush came in. If this was not enough, with the demise of the Soviet Union, our military was essentially neutered to counter a ``perceived'' diminished world threat. I remember so well this euphoric attitude that everybody had: The Cold War is over. We don't need a military anymore. The Clinton-Gore administration cut the defense budget by 40 percent, reducing it to its lowest percentage of the GNP since prior to World War II. As a result, President Bush inherited a force half the size of the military in 1990. Now, as our forces decreased in size and capability, deployments and deployment times increased. We have all seen the results. We now have 15-month deployments. They used to be 9-month deployments. We have these because he inherited this military that was undersized for the threat we are facing. I have a chart in the Chamber I will show as documentation of this fact. During the Clinton years--and I do not say this to denigrate the administration; I am saying we have to understand how we got in the position we are in today and that we have been in since 9/11. If you take the black line on the chart--this is during the Clinton administration--if he had taken the military budget as it was at that time and had the increase for inflation, it would have been this black line going up, shown on the chart. Instead, the red line shows what his budget request was. If you take the difference between the red line and the black line, that is $412 billion reduced from when he took office. That is how we got into this position. We downgraded our military, and a lot of people believed the threat was not there anymore because the Cold War was over, not looking at the new asymmetric threats, which are much greater. I sometimes look back wistfully at the Cold War. Things were predictable back then. We knew what the Soviets were going to do--the Soviets, not the Russians--and we knew what their capabilities were. These were known things, known behavioral patterns. It was totally different than what we have today. So the programs, the modernization efforts, and the equipment replacement costs were literally kicked down the road and left waiting in the wings. This happened to our modernization program. It happened in many areas. This has been very demoralizing to most of us who believe we have to keep America's national defense strong. We saw countries coming up with better systems than we have. We have, for example, the artillery piece, the best one we have today now that we are modernizing. But we did not have that at that time. We had one called the Paladin. That was World War II technology. You have to get out and swab the breach after every shot. There were five countries at that time, including South Africa, that made a better piece than we had, and we are still using this today. It was not until a very courageous general, GEN John Jumper, came up and admitted, in 1998, that the best strike vehicles we had--the F-15 and the F-16--were not as good as some of the SU series being developed in Russia and actually were being sold to the Chinese--we know of one sale where they bought 240 SU-30 type of vehicles--again, better than anything we had. So, again, that is where we were before George W. Bush was elected. Now enter President George W. Bush. Starting with his first budget submission after inauguration, he proposed increases in defense spending and focused his Pentagon team on reform. He started with recognizing and revitalizing the military for the post-Cold War world it now faced. He provided the military with the funding required to develop force structure and modernize its aging force. So he was getting in there and starting to do something about the modernization program. Then, of course, 9/11 happened. Well, 9/11, we all know about that. We know what a tragedy it was, with the most significant attack in America in our history. It came at a time when we had a downsized military, downsized by about 40 percent. So he was saddled with trying to respond to this situation, and he did. He asked Congress for new authorities and began to implement sweeping changes in our national security policy. In this new policy he declared a war on terror. This is what he said--I want to read the quote from back at that time: We will direct every resource at our command--every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war--to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network. That is what he said at that time. Then he outlined the country's strategy. He said: First, we're determined to prevent the attacks of terrorist networks before they occur. . . . Unlike it was on 9/11. Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes and to their terrorist allies who would use them. . . . Third, we're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. . . . Fourth, we're determined to deny militants control of any nation. And he did. He asked Congress for the PATRIOT Act--listen to the things he did--the PATRIOT Act to break down walls between Government agencies. That is getting back to what David Boren observed many years ago back in 1994 that had to be done. In October of 2001, he initiated Operation Enduring Freedom to dismantle the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which is harboring al- Qaida. Bombing runs and Tomahawk missile strikes were launched. In October of 2001, President Bush established the Office of Homeland Security. This was a coordinating effort that corrects the problem that was called to my attention in 1994, so everything would be coordinated and everyone would know what everyone is supposed to be doing. The 9/11 Commission was formed and he began implementing its recommendations, including intelligence reform, which included establishing the Director of National Intelligence. There you have it. That is the key. One Director over all intelligence: military intelligence, domestic intelligence--and it worked. On March of 2003, President Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom, preemptive attacks against Saddam Hussein, a gathering threat to the United States, who was reportedly developing ties with our enemies and who openly praised the 9/11 attacks. I remember that very well because in the first gulf war--which we should have gone ahead and taken care of Saddam Hussein at that time; we did not do it, and there are some reasons it could not be done--I happened to be privileged to be with nine other people on the first freedom flight that went into Kuwait after the war was over. Now, it was so close to the time the first Persian Gulf war was over that there was still burning off the fields, and there were a lot of them. The Iraqis did not know the war was over, the ones who were in there. I remember so well one of the parties who was going over was the Ambassador from Kuwait to the United States and his daughter. I think she was around 7 years old. What they wanted to do was go back and see what was left in Kuwait of their mansion on the Persian Gulf. We got back there, and I remember going back to see their mansion, only to find out Saddam Hussein had used this for one of his headquarters. They took the little girl up to her bedroom--she wanted to see her little animals and all that--to find out it had been used as a torture chamber, with body parts stuck to the walls around there. This is what we were looking at at that time. Well, President Bush established the National Counterterrorism Center to assist in analyzing and integrating foreign and domestic intelligence acquired from all U.S. Government Departments and agencies--so, again, putting this all together. He established the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, in the Department of Homeland Security, to provide a single Federal organization to develop and deploy a nuclear detection system to thwart the importation of illegal nuclear or radiological materials. In order to consolidate terrorist watch lists and provide around-the- clock operational support for Federal and other governmental law enforcement personnel across the country and around the world, President Bush created the Terrorist Screening Center to ensure that Government investigators, screeners, and agents are working with the same unified, comprehensive set of information about terrorists. He transformed the FBI to focus on preventing terrorism. He strengthened the Transportation Security Administration through screening and prevention. He improved border screening. All of these things he did in a very short period of time that had to be done and had never been done before. He expanded shipping security through container security initiatives. He developed Project Bioshield to increase preparedness against chemical, biological, and radiological, or nuclear attack, potential attack against this country. Finally, he aggressively cracked down on terrorist financing with many international partners. Over 400 individuals and entities have been designated pursuant to Executive order, resulting in nearly $150 million in frozen assets and millions more blocked in transit or seized at the borders. President Bush also rallied international support to fight terrorism with a coalition of more than 90 countries. We didn't do this alone. He brought in neighboring countries, other countries with the same problems that we had, and the same exposure. This coalition of nations has actively worked to synchronize diplomatic intelligence, law enforcement, economic and financial and military power to attack terrorism globally. One man did this. This is George W. Bush. The result of all of these efforts is what I refer to as the Bush invisible legacy. Now, why is this an invisible legacy? I am going to show my colleagues things that were out there that could very well have happened to the United States of America--and some would have happened--but since they didn't happen, that legacy is invisible because they never happened. That, to me, is going to go down as one of the great legacies of any President in the history of the United States. There has not been another attack on this country since 9/11, and do not think this was due to a lack of effort on the part of terrorists. In fact, there have been many attempts. I am going to give my colleagues a partial list of the attacks that were stopped as a result of all of these policies and programs I just outlined that our President--current President George W. Bush--was responsible for. First, December of 2001: This is the first post-9/11 plot that was thwarted. It was the capture of an al-Qaida operative named Ali Salih Mari in the United States who was targeting water reservoirs and the New York Stock Exchange at that time. Also, he was targeting--he had his programs outlined in documents that we found through all of these efforts to attack our various military academies. He offered himself as a martyr to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Of course, we know he was the mastermind of 9/11. Anyway, all of this was planned, but I believe Bush policies stopped the attacks. I have to say at this point that I have served on the Intelligence Committee. I served for a number of years--ever since 1994--on the Senate Armed Services Committee. So I have been involved in these issues. We know this had a lot to do with stopping some of these potential attacks. Remember Jose Padilla. He is the guy who had the dirty bomb plot, an American citizen accused of seeking radioactive-laced dirty bombs to use in attacks against America. Again, this was a Bush program that brought him down. The 2002 aviation plots: An al-Qaida leader in Southeast Asia known as Humbali recruited several other operatives of Asian origin. The plot was derailed in early 2002 with international cooperation. The Library Tower is the tallest building west of the Mississippi. It was among the 25 tallest buildings in the world. There was a written program about how to bring this building down, and our policies--the Bush policies, primarily--stopped that from taking place. In September of 2002, Lackawanna Six: We all remember that. The FBI thwarted the locally recruited terrorist cell, the Lackawanna Six, by the capturing of Juma all-Dosari in Afghanistan and a subsequent interrogation while in prison in Guantanamo Bay. By the way, I disagree with the current attitude toward what is going to happen at Guantanamo Bay. I have had occasion to be there, probably more than any other Member. I can remember so well early on, those who were in prison, incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay actually had better treatment, better living quarters, and better health attention than our own troops did at that time. I think it is going to be imperative that whoever wants to close that down ask: Where are all of these people going to go? Six American citizens of Yemeni origin were convicted of supporting al-Qaida after attending a Jihadist camp in Pakistan. Five of the six were from Lackawanna, NY. The six were arrested and convicted. They are out now. They performed terrorist attacks. They were very specific. They are gone. I think the new Bush programs at that time were primarily responsible for that. In May of 2003, we had the Brooklyn Bridge plot: An American citizen was charged with plotting to use blow torches to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge. After being introduced to al-Qaida operatives, New York and Federal authorities intercepted a plan to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting suspension cables, as well as potentially derailing a train en route to Washington, DC. Iyman Faris was arrested, brought to justice, and was successfully stopped. In June of 2003 in Virginia, a Jihad network that was taking place, 11 men from Alexandria, VA--just south of here--trained for Jihad against American soldiers and were convicted of violating the Neutrality Act, a conspiracy. Eleven Muslim men were charged in the U.S. district court in Alexandria with training with and fighting with a group that was associated with al-Qaida. Several members of the group were found to have trained for future attacks by using paint ball facilities in the Northern Virginia area. It was stopped. The Bush policies were primarily responsible for giving us the resources to stop attacks such as those I am outlining. In 2004, August of 2004, the financial centers plot: This was the Indian-born leader of a terror cell who plotted the bombing on the financial centers. His name was Barot. He plotted a ``memorable black day of terror'' via a dirty bomb that targeted financial institutions in New York, Washington, DC, and in Newark. Barot was arrested at his home in Pakistan with the cooperation of others, but again, these were the Bush policies and resources that we used to make this happen. In August of 2004--the same month--a Penn Station plot: This was James Elshafay and two accomplices who sought to plant a bomb at New York's Penn Station near Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Convention. The New York City Police Department's intelligence division helped to conduct an investigation leading to their arrest, again, using the policies that President Bush had put in place. The same month, the Pakistani diplomat assassination plot: We all remember that. Two leaders of an Albany, NY, mosque, Yassin and Mohammed Hossain, were charged with plotting to purchase a shoulder- fired grenade launcher to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. An investigation took place by the FBI, and all of these other agencies coordinating under the single leadership of the new system put in place, they stopped it. With the help of an informant, the perpetrators of that plot have been brought to justice. Again, that was stopped. August of 2005, Orange County, CA, a terror plot: Seven people were involved and were arrested in Los Angeles and charged with conspiracy to attack Los Angeles National Guard facilities and synagogues, several synagogues. The plan was there; it is in writing. We know it was going to happen. Kevin James allegedly founded a radical Islamic prison group and converted Levar Washington and others to the group which was known as the JIS. After Washington and Patterson were arrested for robberies, police and Federal agents began a terrorist investigation where the search of Washington's apartment revealed a suspicious target list. We had a list of targets in Orange County that were going to be brought down. Again, these policies weren't available to us before the Bush administration, and we were able to stop that. December of 2005, the gas lines plot: Michael Reynolds was arrested by the FBI in December of 2005 and charged with being involved in a plot to blow up a Wyoming natural gas refinery, the Transcontinental Pipeline. That is a national gas pipeline that goes from the gulf coast to the east coast and into New Jersey. I believe it is owned by the New Jersey Standard Oil refinery. Reynolds was convicted for providing materials for supporting terrorists and soliciting a crime of violence. Again, we used the new resources that were available because of our President, George W. Bush. In April of 2006, the U.S. Capitol and World Bank plot: Syed Haris Ahmed and another one whose name is Ehsanul Islam Sadequee from Atlanta, GA, were accused of conspiracy, having discussed terrorist targets with alleged terrorist organizations. They met with Islam extremists and received training and instruction on how to gather videotape surveillance of potential targets in the Washington area. Their targets happened to be the U.S. Capitol--right here where we are standing today--and the World Bank headquarters. They were the targets and, again, we were able to intercept this and to bring them to justice under these new policies that were put in place by our current President. We had Narseal Batiste, and he had six others who were involved in a Sears Tower plot. They were arrested in Miami and in Atlanta in June of 2006 for being in the early stages of a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago as well as FBI offices and several other buildings. Arrests resulted from an investigation involving an FBI informant and all of the rest of them working together with the new resources they had, and they were brought to justice. Again, this was the new system we had in place. July of 2006, New York City, the train tunnel plot: It is frightening to think this could have happened. There were eight suspects, including Assem Hammoud, an al-Qaida loyalist living in Lebanon. They were arrested for plotting to bomb the New York City train tunnels. He was a self-proclaimed operative for al-Qaida. He admitted that he was with al-Qaida when we brought him to justice, and he admitted to the plot. He is currently in custody in Lebanon and his case is pending. Two other suspects are in custody in other locations. The bottom line is it didn't happen. It was precluded from happening as a result of the new resources that were put in place and the coordination of all of our intelligence committees. In March of 2007, a skyscraper plot: This was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was the mastermind of 9/11 and the author of numerous other plots confessed in court. People think of him as only 9/11. He also had plans in writing to destroy skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, as well as a plot of an assassination of Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II. Again, that was stopped. In May of 2007, the Fort Dix plot: This was another one. I will not go into detail, but this was one where the Fort Dix six were thought to be leaderless. We found that they were a homegrown cell of immigrants from Jordan, Turkey, and Yugoslavia and they had ties to al-Qaida. They were stopped, the plot was stopped, and they were brought to justice. I believe this was due to the new programs that were put together by the Bush administration. June of 2007, the JFK plot: Suspects planned to hit fuel farms and a 40-mile aviation field supply pipeline. Specifically, they targeted the symbolism of JFK, seeking to invoke an emotional reaction, saying it is like killing the man twice. We all know and remember that, and we were able to stop it. I think the bottom line has been that there hasn't been another successful attack on this country since 9/11. It didn't just happen. What this administration has accomplished in the last 5 years is phenomenal. In the aftermath of 9/11, he brought us together as a nation, prevented our enemies from striking again, and captured many who would have tried. President Bush woke the Nation so we could begin to deal aggressively with the threats that were facing us. Because of President Bush, we no longer treat terrorists like common criminals but as enemy combatants. We no longer turn a blind eye to nuclear proliferation by negotiating without the real threat of military action. We fully funded a readiness-challenged, cold-war- equipped, and organized military that had suffered from a decade of no modernization. We have removed threatening regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, freeing 50 million people. We have weakened the al-Qaida network and its affiliates. We have disrupted terrorist plots and built a coalition of more than 90 nations to fight terrorism. We have transformed our approach to combating terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. So we ask the question: Would all of these terrorist attacks have been successful? Obviously, no, but I honestly believe--it is my judgment from having the background of years of serving on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, that some of these-- to me, it is not conceivable that none of these would have occurred. I believe this invisible legacy--keep in mind, it is an invisible legacy of George W. Bush because they didn't happen. If they didn't happen, they are invisible, but nonetheless they were stopped. The bottom line is this: The New York Stock Exchange was not bombed, the military academies were not bombed, the Brooklyn Bridge was not bombed, New York and DC financial centers were not bombed, Penn Station was not bombed, Los Angeles synagogues were not bombed, and New Jersey Standard Oil refineries were not bombed. The transcontinental pipeline was not bombed. The World Bank was not bombed. The Chicago Sears Tower was not bombed. New York City train tunnels were not bombed. JFK Airport was not bombed. And our Nation's Capitol Building was not bombed. Clearly, the Bush invisible legacy may go down in history as perhaps the greatest legacy in history. I know people don't want to give credit where credit is due. This is something that took almost all of his energies at a time when otherwise something could very well have happened. It is my honest judgment that had it not been for his changes in our intelligence process, that one or more of these terrorist attacks would have been successful. I believe that in my heart. I think history will treat that as the case. Clearly, the Bush invisible legacy may go down as the greatest legacy in history. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an Oklahoman editorial dated January 13, 2009, and a Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2085.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that Ryan Levesque be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of my time.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask I be recognized as in morning business for such time as I shall consume.