Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was somewhat shocked last October when the vote came up and actually 75 Senators in the Senate and about 75 percent of the House of Representatives voted to give an unelected bureaucrat $700 billion to do with as he wanted with no accountability. I believe that 20 or 30 years from now, historians will look back and say that was the most outrageous vote, maybe in the history of these institutions. The administration has now requested the second $350 billion sometime this week. If you are a reasonable person and were to assume that a major event in the financial world has prompted the negotiations that led to the decision to release the second $350 billion, you would be wrong. The true reason Congress may be asked to release the second $350 billion-- it is just politics. It is a hot potato; nobody wants it, but they all want the money, and that is what we are faced with now. Again, no event in the financial world has prompted the request for the second $350 billion. I was critical of the Bush administration, and particularly of Secretary Paulson, since the October 10 vote giving Paulson, an unelected bureaucrat, $700 billion to do with as he wished. It is hard for me and it is hard for most Americans to understand, when they talk about these huge numbers--billion dollars and trillion dollars, whatever it means. But I think the time has come to count the actual number of families who file tax returns in America and, if you do your math, with your $700 billion it comes to $5,000 a family. That is what we are talking about. This is not a little deal. It is huge. I think, if people look at some of the things that have happened since then, it is the fault of passing the $700 billion bill; that precipitated all the problems we have. Congress is asked as an institution to prepare to say yes to the next $350 billion in deficit spending simply because we received a letter of assurances. I do not know what letters of assurance are, or what a letter of assurance is, but I suppose it is the same kind of assurance we got from Secretary Paulson when he said to us we have to have $700 billion, and it has to be used to buy damaged assets. The letters of assurances are a bunch of promises on paper and that is not sufficient justification for this institution to let go of the $350 billion in taxpayers' money. Congress needs to put itself back in the process when we are talking about this kind of money. That is why I introduced legislation, S. 64, with a bipartisan group of Senators. That says the executive branch can only have access to the remaining $350 billion if Congress approves the submitted plan and votes on that plan. What is so bad about that? This is the way we have been doing business for years and years. The administration will make a request. That is what they do in the budget process. It comes to Congress. We evaluate that and determine whether we, who are elected representatives, believe it is something that should take place. We have already seen the legislation we passed last fall is a blank check for one person to do whatever he wants with billions of dollars. Take, for instance, the auto bailout. The interesting thing about the auto bailout is everyone expressed all this outrage over the auto bailout. I said back in October, when 75 percent of the Members of the House and the Senate voted to give Secretary Paulson $700 billion to do with as he wished: Who is going to be next in line to be bailed out? I suggested aviation, then the auto industry and farmers and everybody else. That is exactly what did happen. So those people who expressed such outrage with the auto bailout should stop and realize, if it had not been for that vote to turn loose and turn over $700 billion, that could not have happened. People talk about whatever it was, $15 billion or whatever it was in the auto bailout. That only constituted 2 percent of the $700 billion. That is what we have to keep our minds on, as to what precipitated the problem we have now. We were told what was going to be done with the money. Paulson came to us in September and said if we didn't immediately come through with $700 billion--that is what he said it would take to buy bad assets--the total economy would collapse. It was a panic scenario. Then the plans changed and Paulson began--and this happened right after he got his hands on the $700 billion. He didn't use it to buy damaged assets. He used it to pass out to various financial institutions--banks. It is my belief the rationale for releasing any more of the $700 billion no longer applies. As a matter of fact, a prominent economist from the Reagan administration last Wednesday said the first $350 billion did absolutely no good, in terms of dealing with the recession we are currently in. It was clear to me at the time it was a mistake to sign a blank check to one man for such a tremendous amount of money. Although there are still significant challenges in the financial markets, it appears the threat of the financial crisis spinning so out of control that we face another Great Depression--which was the original justification for the grant of such sweeping authority--has subsided. Has the need to allow one person, whether it is Secretary Paulson or Timothy Geithner, to give away hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars to banks subsided as well? That is a question that needs to be asked, and that answer is yes. I fully understand the severity of the ongoing financial crisis that erupted in this past year. I am fully aware of the need to take extraordinary actions in such situations. From the rescue of Bear Stearns in March to the announcement of the bank equity purchase program in mid-October, to two bailouts for AIG, to hundreds of billions extended to Citigroup, the U.S. Government has, indeed, undertaken extraordinary efforts to calm financial markets. However, it is clear to me and many of my colleagues that the Treasury accessing the remaining $350 billion would do little to fix the recession we are in now. It is time for the U.S. Government to cease announcements of new programs or plans designed to inject confidence in markets. Moreover, I think confidence would be better instilled by halting the announcement of new billion dollar programs designed to fix markets. I understand the need to move in accordance with changing conditions. I simply think the time has come to stop having the Government trying to fix markets. The markets are going to have to fix themselves. That is going to take some time. It is not going to be a pleasant process, but we are fooling ourselves if we think we can come up with some easy shortcut to solving these problems. One of the major causes of this crisis was the accumulation of far too much debt on the part of some financial institutions. The U.S. Government can make the same mistake. We are now anticipating an astounding $1.2 trillion deficit this year alone, and that is before any accounting of the roughly $800 billion stimulus proposal. I can remember so many people in this body criticizing President Bush on his deficits. If you take the total deficits in the Bush administration and add them up and divide by 8, the years he has been in there, the average is $247 billion. Now we are looking at $1.1 trillion. This massive debt accumulation poses a serious threat to future stability and economic growth. We are on track to have a budget deficit this year that exceeds the size of the entire Federal budget only a few years ago. However, we can immediately make progress on reducing that deficit amount by not releasing the $350 billion. That is something that deserves sufficient debate. Finally, as a fiscal conservative, the thing that concerns me about the $700 billion bailout is it permanently changed the perception about what is ``big'' in big government from now on. What is another $50 billion here or another $100 billion there, after we give $700 billion to banks? What is the big deal about a trillion dollar deficit or $800 billion stimulus package or a multibillion health care proposal or whatever plan is dreamed up around here to spend the taxpayer money on, once we gave $700 billion to an unelected bureaucrat with no oversight. We have simply lost our perspective. People now think that the amount has changed. I will close by noting the cost of the following defining events in the 20th century, much our shared history, and compare them with the $700 billion bailout, to hopefully bring a little perspective to the debate over the request for the second half of the $700 billion bailout. The Marshall Plan was a long time ago, but if you bring it up-to-date that would amount to $115 billion. This is after inflation. The race to the Moon, $237 billion; the entire Korean war, $454 billion; the New Deal, $500 billion; the Vietnam war, $698 billion; and then 8 years in Iraq, in the liberation of Iraq--people were complaining about how much money it cost--it is less than the $700 billion we are talking about here. We cannot put on fast track the remaining $350 billion in this package. Congress is going to have to actively debate any further funding. What my legislation does, first of all, if we do not do anything at all, if we sit back and act like everything is fine and wait until the proposal comes to us, then the only thing we can do under the law we passed in October of this past year is to have a resolution of disapproval. If the leadership, if Senator Reid and the leadership decide we should not have a vote on that, I am sure they will have procedural ways to have this kept from having a vote, but even if there is a vote, they would have that control. That doesn't do any good at all. The only way to do it is to pass this bill that says we cannot spend the last $350 billion until they come forth with a program, we evaluate it, we take our prerogative as given to us in the Constitution and determine whether this is a wise expenditure of these funds. I hope I will have several others wanting to join S. 64. Who can argue with accountability? I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for whatever time I shall consume.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, yesterday I spent over an hour on the floor talking about a report that we put together that is pretty incredible, the numbers of scientists coming forth now who were always on the other side, or 10 years ago were on the other side of this issue and at that time were agreeing with former Vice President Gore in saying that manmade gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2 and such were the major causes of global warming. Now these scientists are coming over in droves, even individuals who are leading riots in the streets throughout the world talking about having to do something or we are all going to die. I spent more time than I should have on it because it deserved the time. But I had to read a lot of the stuff. I know you go to sleep when you think about things like this, and it does get to be heavy lifting. What I am trying to say is, we need to view this with a fresh look because so many things have happened. It is going to be difficult for many of my colleagues whom I deeply respect who crawled way out on the limb saying it is manmade gases and we will have to have expensive cap-and-trade solutions to the problem; they now are facing a very liberal constituency that is saying: Wait a minute. Now we have the White House, the House, and the Senate. We have everybody lined up on this issue, as if it is a done deal, a fait accompli; we are now expecting you to come forward. This is totally ignoring the fact that everything has changed from what it was before. Last year we had the Lieberman-Warner bill. Let's go back further than that. Let's go back to the original Kyoto Treaty. Quite frankly, way back 7 years or so ago, when I became chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, all we ever heard was that manmade gases were causing global warming and, therefore, we have to do something about it. Frankly, when the Kyoto Treaty was first suggested, I was one who thought it must be true because that is all we heard in the media. When I became chairman, I knew that I would have an impact on the decisions that were made that would concern global warming. I thought at that time it was something we should address. Then the Wharton School of Economics came out with the Wharton Econometric Survey. This was something that was pretty well done, and it is still out there. In fact, I have a Web site, epw.senate.gov. If you access that, you can see this in more detail than you probably really want. If you are not a believer in the cost of this issue, then you would want to do that. The Wharton Econometric Survey asked: What would it cost the United States if we were to ratify the Kyoto Treaty and live by its emission requirements? They came to the conclusion that it would be in the range of between $300 to $330 billion a year. I always hesitate to use figures such as that because it is hard for people to conceive how that affects them. What I normally do is take the number of families in America who file tax returns, and then I do the division. That $330 billion a year it would cost us to comply with the treaty comes out to be almost $3,000 a family. We are talking about something that is big. This is huge. After looking at that, I thought: If it is going to cost that much, let's be sure the science is real and it is there. After looking at it, we found that the science was not there. Even though you had the appearance of it being there because the National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations all said the science was there, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, something started by the United Nations--I hasten to say I have never been much of a fan of the United Nations to start with. Maybe I am a little bit biased in this analysis. When they put together the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they did so for the purpose of trying to do something to force the whole world to be involved and say: This is a world problem that we will have to correct. This is just a suspicion I have. Every once in a while the United Nations comes out with something that totally contradicts our interests. My good friend from Alabama and several of us put together resolutions. These resolutions say we will withhold 20 percent of our dues to the United Nations unless they reverse their position. The United Nations doesn't like that. They would like not to have to answer to anyone. Consequently, if they could ever get in a situation of global taxation, which is what they have openly been promoting for many years, they would be in a position not to be accountable to anyone. This is kind of what happened. So this was the Kyoto Treaty. Fastforward then to 2003 and 2005 when we had two bills, the first of which was McCain-Lieberman. Those bills were also cap and trade. Cap and trade costs about the same amount of money. This is very interesting. You will hear a lot of people during the next few months say: We want some kind of controls on CO2. But we are not going to do it in a way that will cost a lot of money. We will have offsets. The bottom line is, it is going to cost about the same $300 billion regardless of what scheme we adopt and how we massage it. I have to say, there has been an awakening in the last few years. In 2005 there were only two Senators who came to the floor and helped me. I was the one, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who was charged with fighting this issue. It was on the floor of the Senate for 5 days, 10 hours a day. That is 50 hours. We only had about 3 hours of other Senators coming to assist me. Now fastforward to 2008. That was the Warner-Lieberman bill. We had 25 Senators, including the Senator in the Chamber presently from Alabama, who came down to assist in this debate. That is a huge difference. We resoundingly defeated that bill, mostly on the economic arguments, not on the scientific arguments. When we started the debate, I said: I don't believe the science is there. Evidence is showing that it is not there. But let's assume for purposes of this debate that the science is there, that manmade gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane, are all responsible for climate change and for increasing the temperature or global warming. Let's assume that. So the debate started, and we talked about the economics of the issue. Even assuming the science is there, we defeated that by a huge margin. In fact, Barbara Boxer was handling the Democratic side. They only had 37 Democrats committed for final passage. That is a big change from 2005. Now we have something where everybody is assuming that it is going to pass because the Democrats have control of everything. They have the White House, the House, and the Senate. I remind them not to get too arrogant because we went through the same thing, or they went through the same thing in 1992, and things turned out pretty well after that. If you look at where the attitudes of people are right now, that we are going to be passing something, I wouldn't get too far ahead. What we are trying to do and what I did yesterday--and I took far too long in doing it--was talk about the size of the tax and the fact that the tax is going to be a regressive one. I have to say also that I was one of the few people who actively opposed the $700 billion bailout. Again, when we relate that to each family that files a tax return, it is about $5,000 a family. That was giving an unelected bureaucrat the sole control over $700 billion. One of the things I don't like about that, not only was it the wrong thing to do, but that also got people changing their thinking as to these large numbers. Now that $300 billion a year that it would cost us, if we had a cap-and-trade policy, doesn't seem nearly that big. But it would be, and it would be regressive. The argument on the other side is, you may be right in the regressive nature of a tax because everybody has to buy energy. Everybody has to buy gasoline and heat their homes, so a larger percentage of the expendable income of someone who is in a lower income is going to be far greater than it would have been otherwise, but we can take care of that by redistribution of wealth toward low-income consumers. They have actually said that. That sounds a little bit un-American to me. Keep in mind, if we are talking about redistributing wealth, somebody has to create wealth before it can be redistributed. Right now--and we are looking at the figures going around now--there will not be a lot of wealth to redistribute, if we get to that point. Anyway, that was the main argument I was using yesterday and have used up through the last 7 years. I have had occasion to give 13 rather lengthy floor speeches on the science on global warming. What I did yesterday was use this report that we put together of the 650 very top international scientists who refute all the arguments used heretofore. I would like to concentrate for a moment on some of the left-of-center scientists, environmentalists, and activists we are talking about, the so-called consensus. The Huffington Post is a left-leaning publication. We all understand that. Harold Ambler was demanding an apology from Al Gore for promoting unfounded global warming fears. The Huffington Post article accused Gore of selling ``the biggest whopper ever sold to the public'' in American history. We see a former Greenpeace member who was in Finland. His name is Jarl Ahlbeck. He says there has been little or no global warming since 1995. This is interesting. Everyone is talking about global warming. We are in a cooling spell now. It has been that way since the turn of the century. Nobody argues that. I am sure that upset a lot of people, the promoters, because it is kind of hard to be talking about some very expensive scheme to fight global warming when we are going through global cooling. Nonetheless, we have all types of people, and I cited a long list of them, who say we are in the middle of this cooling period right now. Going into the liberal side or the left-leaning scientists, one of them is Martin Hertzberg, a meteorologist with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. He said: As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal fear mongering clap- trap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science. You have some of the punishment that has been covered in this report. They talk about how they no longer can get grants from various organizations, whether it is the Heinz Foundation or others, unless they go along with their philosophy. The other argument that has come up that we want to use and make sure everybody understands is, even if you are a believer that manmade gases cause climate change, global warming, the things we are looking at now and the things we looked at after Kyoto, Kyoto actually made more sense than some of the bills I have been talking about that happened in 2003 and 2005 and 2008 because that would single out the United States and say: This is what we are going to do regardless of what they do in China and Mexico and India and other countries. So, obviously, if we did it, and we had this punitive tax arrangement, that would drive our manufacturing base overseas to places where they wouldn't have this heavy expense. Consequently, it would be going to countries such as Mexico and China where they have almost no restrictions on their emissions. It would have a net increase on the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere. As to the manual we have with over 650 scientists, I would like to suggest to you that you compare that to the IPCC reports. The IPCC-- that is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-- report is called a Summary for Policymakers. We never saw the report. We just see the summary. That was put together by 52 scientists who are pretty much owned by the politicians who are wanting to come to these conclusions. So if you canvas the scientists now in Canada who came out with a report just recently--51,000 Canadian scientists--68 percent of them disagree that global warming is a science that is settled. At the same time, you have the same percentage--and this came from the International Geological Congress which just had their meeting in Norway--an overwhelming number of the scientists were skeptical. Two- thirds of the presenters and question askers were hostile and even dismissive of the U.N. IPCC report. So the same two-thirds keeps reappearing in terms of what the scientists are saying about this issue. Now, yesterday, I did not get into this, but if you look at those scientists who are on the left side, Dr. Robert Giegengack, the former chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, actually was a strong Gore supporter in the 2000 election. He now states that global warming does not even qualify as 1 of the top 10 environmental problems facing the world. This is not me or any other Senator talking. This is one of the far left leaning environmental scientists. With Alexander Cockburn it is the same situation. He is a maverick journalist who leans left on almost all topics. He lambasted the alleged global warming consensus on a political Web site called counterpunch.org, arguing that there is no evidence that humans are causing the rise in global temperature. This gets to the intimidation factor. He said: I have been treated as if I have committed intellectual blasphemy. Alexander Cockburn stated: This turn to climate catastrophism is tied into the decline of the left, and the decline of the left's optimistic vision of altering the economic nature of things through a political program. I guess what he is saying is, these intellectuals, any of these scientists who were formerly on the far left side who have come over-- as most of them now have; more than 50 percent of them have--are beat up pretty badly by the scientific community, or at least by the National Academy of Scientists. Another left-leaning individual is Denis Rancourt, professor of physics and an environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa. He stated that the global warming campaign does a disservice to the environmental movement by beating this drum. He is a big environmentalist. When, obviously, the science is not there, it is doing a great disservice, and I think that is right. Then you get into the three I like the best. Dr. Claude Allegre is a socialist. He is one of the top French scientists. He is the one who was marching in the streets with Al Gore 10, 15 years ago. Claude Allegre is recognized by everyone. He has now totally reversed his position. He was the top guy in France. With Dr. David Bellamy from the UK, it is the same situation. He was on the far left side of this issue. He has come around. I have all the quotes by these individuals. There is not enough time to read them. The same thing is true with Nir Shaviv. Nir Shaviv was a scientist in Israel who is now quite outspoken in his opinion that the science just flat is not there. Ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore, he was a founder of Greenpeace and has now joined the ranks of the dissenters. He said: It is clear the contention that human-induced CO2 emissions and rising CO2 levels in the global atmosphere are the cause of the present global warming trend is a hypothesis that has not yet been elevated to the level of a proven theory. So this goes on and on and goes over many of these areas. I think even some of the mainstream media has begun to take notice of this issue. An article in Politico noted the other day--that is a paper we are all familiar with in the Senate--that a ``growing accumulation'' of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the ``science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.'' Canada's National Post, which is always promoting cap and trade, is now saying ``the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly.'' So I leave with three thoughts: First of all, the left is now abandoning the whole global warming fear concept, and we have all the names. I can recall when we had our 2-hour session with former Vice President Al Gore, and I never saw any sweat coming off his forehead until we started talking about people such as Claude Allegre, David Bellamy, and Nir Shaviv, who were always on his side before. Second is the cost. If you do not want to use my $300 billion-a-year tax increase figure, use the figure that was used in the Boxer- Lieberman-Warner bill last year. It was $6.7 trillion. The third thing to keep in mind has to do with Kyoto. It would have been bad enough, but for us to do it unilaterally would really be a very bad idea. I would suggest people go to a Web site. I have the Web site: epw.senate.gov/minority. ``EPW'' stands for Environment and Public Works--epw.senate.gov/minority. I have a lot of documentation there for anyone who might be interested in the truth, not that that always produces a lot of interest around here. Bailout And Jobs Lastly, Mr. President, I want to go into one other thing unrelated, and I do not want to use too much time because others want to speak. I have said--I do not think it is unfair, at least in my mind--that as to this whole idea of the $700 billion bailout, 75 percent of the House and the Senate supported this legislation. Let's keep in mind that was to give an unelected bureaucrat the power to do with the first half of the $700 billion anything he wanted to do. In fact, when Secretary Paulson--he actually said at one time: I promise this is going to be used to buy damaged assets. Well, we found out that, obviously, 3 our 4 minutes after he received the money, it did not go to that. I have heard, and just this past Wednesday an economist gave a presentation, that if we had used that for the intended purpose, it might have had an effect. They contend this did not have any effect at all on what has happened. So with the concern that several of us have, I would only like to say that it has fallen on deaf ears. But I have been trying to get Members of this body to understand--I am talking about Democrats and Republicans; we have some Democrats, such as Bernie Sanders, who do understand this--and that is, the concept of giving the money to an unelected bureaucrat is wrong. This is something we can do now on the second half of the $350 billion that remains. They spent every cent of the first $350 billion. As to the second $350 billion, if we leave the law like it is today, they can come forward and say this: Well, I want to have the other $350 billion. I am going to spend it on this and this and this--and maybe not even talk about the whole amount. They may be very uncertain as to what he is going to use it for. But then the only way to stop that would be to pass a resolution of disapproval. Now, it would be very difficult to pass a resolution of disapproval. In fact, for obvious procedural and other reasons, it could not be done. What I have proposed, in S. 64, is to make a modest change in that law, and instead of saying it is going to automatically pass unless a resolution of disapproval, in a 15-day period, is successfully passed, say that you have to come forward and show us what it is going to be, how you are going to spend the money. I have been trying to get more sponsors on this legislation. As I say, I already have some Democratic sponsors, and I applaud them for having the courage to come out and say: We want accountability. We don't care who it is in the White House, we need to have accountability. So as we get toward the bailout bill, the last thing I want to mention is something I have very strong feelings about, and that is this: The figures I have heard--and at this point I do not think anyone can intelligently say exactly what the bailout bill is going to be--we have heard figures batted around about $1.2 trillion, huge amounts of money. But the report I got from the President-elect's team, they talked about out of $1.2 trillion, only $25 billion in total investment would be on infrastructure. That is nothing, $25 billion out of $1.2 trillion. Now, I would say this: My good friend, Jim Oberstar, over in the House of Representatives, with whom I served on the Transportation Committee for 8 years before coming over here, has come up with a much more ambitious portion of it. Now, if we are going to spend money for a stimulus bill, let's spend money on something that will actually come up with some jobs. I am not saying I want to spend all this money, but if it is going to be spent anyway. I do not want to play down the whole idea of tax relief. We all know--we have learned from experience--what can happen if tax relief is done in the right way. We all remember what Woodrow Wilson did after World War I. He decided to cut taxes because the war was over. He did not need them anymore, and he expected revenue to drop down. It did not. It increased. A very smart President of the United States, in the 1960s, John Kennedy, said--this is an exact quote--we need more money for the Great Society programs, and the best way to increase revenue is to decrease marginal rates. So he decreased rates, and it increased revenue. Remember in 1980, the total amount of money that was raised from marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. That was during the 10-year period that had the largest tax reductions in the history of this country. So we know we can stimulate the economy. I fear that is not going to be that type of tax reduction if we just merely have a redistribution of wealth and give money to people who do not pay taxes. That is not going to do it. So I say that because if tax relief were done properly, I would not be standing here and saying we ought to have a larger percentage of this spent on infrastructure. We have huge critical needs in the United States on our infrastructure. We are in a position right now where we had passed the last authorization bill, and it was a $286 billion bill in 2005. That was the transportation reauthorization. We are going to do it again. But if we could get a running start and spend some of the money that is going to be spent anyway on providing jobs immediately, we have $80 billion ready to go right now for jobs, where we could have the spade in the dirt tomorrow. Then we have the categoric exclusion projects that are out there in addition to this. Those are projects that do not increase capacity, do not increase the footprint, but just maintain some of the crumbling bridges and infrastructure that is out there. So all that can be done. I think Gary Ridley is the best director of highways anywhere in America. He is our highway director in Oklahoma. We have, just in our State, one billion dollars' worth ready to go right now. So this is what we want to do. On Monday, I am going to elaborate a little more on our opportunities that we have for infrastructure. I have been ranked most of the time as the most conservative Member of the Senate, and yet I am a big spender in some areas. One is in national defense, but another certainly is in infrastructure. That is what we are supposed to be doing. I think we have an opportunity to do what we are supposed to be doing and at the same time produce jobs, and that will be my intent. I plan to talk about this in more detail on Monday. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a very special person and remember his life and sacrifice as a young man. I can identify with this; I was a specialist in the U.S. Army. Stephen Zapasnik of Broken Arrow, OK--that is right outside of Tulsa--lost his life. He was only 19 years of age. He died on December 24--that was on Christmas Eve--in Baghdad, Iraq, along with two other soldiers in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Stephen followed in the footsteps of his father by joining the Army and went on to complete basic training in Fort Sill, OK. He was stationed at Fort Carson, CO, and assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. He deployed to Iraq in 2008. Stephen, or Bud, as his mom called him, or Zap, as his friends called him--he had lots of names--is survived by his parents, Gary and Chris, and his sister, Ashley, and a very close friend, also named Chris, who lived with the Zapasniks since he was 15 years old, whom Stephen considered to be his brother. Stephen's mother described his determination to enter the Army by losing over 90 pounds to get in. He was grossly overweight, but he made that sacrifice. She said she barely recognized him after basic training because he lost even more weight at that time. His friends and fellow soldiers affectionately nicknamed him ``Zap,'' describing him as a jokester who would happily make fun of himself if anyone needed to be cheered up. Zap would create short skits and record them on his camera in order to share them with anyone who would watch. After the accident, many of his fellow soldiers from his battalion got together and watched the movies he had made, staying up throughout the night, telling stories about him and laughing--exactly what Zap would have wanted them to do. Stephen loved video games, particularly his flight simulator game. He wanted to become a pilot someday. His colleagues described Stephen as a fantastic shot, always a qualifying expert in every weapon. Chris Hamil said his brother volunteered to man the machine gun on top of his humvee. As we all know, and certainly the occupant of the Chair knows, that is one of the most exposed positions a person can take. He was willing to do that. In his tribute comments, Staff Sergeant Barry summed Stephen up by saying: Zap would give the shirt off his back or the last dollar in his pocket to anyone that needed it. A comment from a friend: My family will be forever grateful for young men like Stephen who risk themselves to provide protection and security to this great country of ours . . . A spouse stationed at Fort Carson wrote: Zap was one of my husband's soldiers and friends. Zap left an impression on our lives that we will never forget. He would come to my house and have the best manners and be so respectful . . . Zap always cared about others before himself, even offering to babysit my three children so that my husband and I could have a date right before he deployed. He left an impression on our lives that will never be forgotten and most of all my son loved him dearly . . . He was a hero in so many ways and he was a respected soldier always giving 100 percent. His mom Chris wrote: I am so proud of my son and what he accomplished as a member of the military family. I would not take back the man he had become or the hero he will always be for anything, even if I could have him beside me again. He was an outstanding young man and he will live forever in my heart and soul. Stephen was committed to what he felt he was called to do and fully understood the sacrifice he would be making by serving his country in Iraq. All those guys and gals over there know the risk they are under. They are willing to do that. Before Stephen left for Iraq, he said: Mom, if I ever don't come back, you know I will always be with you, and I will be with Jesus, and I will be fine. Stephen had a strong faith in God, a strong commitment to his family and his friends, and a calling to protect our Nation by his service in the Army. His mom said: I know that he is perfectly safe and spending Christmas up there with Jesus. Keep this in mind: This happened late on Christmas Eve. She also expressed Stephen's pride to serve in the Army and to serve our country by fighting terrorism. She told me just a few minutes ago what a man he had become, and she thanked the U.S. Army for doing for him what was done for him. The pride is now in Stephen, this young Oklahoman who enthusiastically joined the military at age 17 and was willing to lose 90 pounds in order to serve his country. He sacrificed his life in order to provide us with the precious freedoms we enjoy each day. His life embodies what it means to be a hero. We remember you today, Stephen, your sense of humor, your commitment to your family and to the Lord. Having just talked with his mother, she reaffirmed how strong Stephen was in his love for Jesus. I think we can say today--and we understand this--as fleeting as life is, this wink of time we are here--and I talked with Chris about this--that this today is not saying goodbye to Stephen, it is saying we will see you later. Thanks for your job well done. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, under the rules, have we been in a quorum call or in recess?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, first of all, I appreciate your coming from your meeting to preside. As we begin the new Congress and a new administration, we begin a new chapter on energy and environmental policy, and it is a time that environmental activists, the United Nations, and many of my Democratic colleagues have been salivating for for years. The stars are all aligned. Democrats control both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Supreme Court has spoken now that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clear Air Act, even though it was a 5- to-4 decision. It is kind of interesting how something can be a pollutant with a 5-to-4 decision. It is believed the stage has been set for a home run on mandatory Kyoto-like climate controls and the dawn of a new bustling green energy economy. However, before many of my colleagues rush to leap before they look, I wish to remind them of some very unfortunate developments that may complicate their early action on items on their wish lists. I ask my colleagues to at least consider some of the facts I will be revealing over the next series of speeches and to keep an open mind before rushing to sweeping action after waiting for so many years. The scale and pace of the climate proposals and the regulatory actions we have debated in the past, including the recently failed Lieberman-Warner bill and the ones we will likely be debating this Congress, leave little room for error in this fragile, recession-ridden economy, and the inflated promises of a sweeping green jobs revolution need an honest and frank reality. The proponents of mandatory global warming controls need to be honest with the American people. The purpose of these programs is to ration fossil-based energy by making it more expensive and therefore less appealing for public consumption. It is a regressive tax that imposes a greater burden relative to resources on the poor than it does on the rich. Let me say that again. The purpose of these programs is to ration the fossil fuel-based energy by making it more expensive to all Americans and therefore less appealing for public consumption. But it is a regressive tax, and we have talked about this before. It is one that punishes those whose resources have to be used for such purposes as being able to operate their vehicles and heat their homes. Advocates may argue that the redistribution of wealth toward the income consumers will offset the balance of revenue or taxes being taken in, but we learned firsthand during the Lieberman-Warner debate that this simply is not true. I don't like the argument that we have equal distribution of wealth efforts that are going to take a regressive nature out of the punitive values of this type of program. To me, there is something un-American about that. But while the bill's sponsors try to convince us there is actually tax relief in the bill, we learn that families--now I am talking about the Lieberman-Warner bill, and this was only about 8 months ago, the Lieberman-Warner bill-- we learn that families with workers will still have to pay $6.7 trillion into the system in the form of higher energy costs to get back an estimated $802 billion in tax relief. That is a return of $1 out of every $8.40 paid. It is time that proponents of climate policies be honest. It is expensive, and it is going to cost taxpayers a lot of money. You know, it doesn't really matter which form we use. We have gone through, first of all, the Kyoto Treaty. We came this close to passing the Kyoto Treaty, and it wasn't until the Wharton School of Economics came along with the econometrics survey and they determined it would cost some $300 billion a year to join onto and actually try to achieve the emission requirements of Kyoto. Then along came the McCain- Lieberman bill and then after that the Warner- Lieberman bill. And cap and trade is going to be about the same amount. They may massage it a little bit, but we are still talking in the neighborhood of $300 billion a year. That equates to over $2,000 for each taxpaying family in America. So it is huge. In the coming weeks, I will go into more detail about other false promises proponents of mandatory global warming policies are advocating. Among them are a reality check on green projects--the number of new green jobs from a climate regime are overstated compared to the number of manufacturing jobs lost, and we know from the National Association of Manufacturers how many jobs would have been lost with any of these schemes in the past; a review of the weaknesses of offset policies--companies have bought offsets which are not real; and a review of the attempts to estimate the cost of inaction. Many advocates are claiming it is more expensive to do nothing than the cost of a cap and trade, but they are untested and nontransparent economic modeling. All these issues will play a vital role in the debate on both energy and global warming policy, which have become unavoidably intertwined. You can't really talk about one without the other. You can't talk about what you are going to do on greenhouse gases or CO2 or cap and trade without affecting our overall energy policy. When there are sensible proposals debated in Congress that can achieve double benefits of reducing emissions and making America's energy supply more stable, diverse, and affordable, then we will look forward to working on a bipartisan basis to achieving these goals. Increasing our domestic energy production and lowering our dependence on foreign oil are two issues that are critically important to myself and my State of Oklahoma, and of course this will include renewables and new green jobs. However, we need to be smart and realistic about these policies. Unfortunately, I fear that the scale and pace many of my colleagues will be advocating with mandatory climate policies are unrealistic, extraordinarily narrowly expensive, and ill-advised. What is the driver for these unrealistic proposals that seem to make unnecessarily abrupt and painful increases in our energy costs in the near term? It is all rooted in global warming science. I have given over 12 speeches, averaging over an hour apiece, on the science of global warming over the past few years. Today, I wish to update my colleagues on some of the latest science that has not yet been reported in the mainstream media. I will simply be a disseminator of this information and not a commentator. I have to say that because I am not a scientist, nor is anyone else that I know of in this body a scientist. So the statements I will make will be quoting people who are qualified and are scientists, and this is what my role will be. Before I do that, I ask all my colleagues to think about the issue. Science should not be reviewed through any one frame. It is not partisan, it is not regional; however, the political process has largely engulfed science behind climate change. As I have documented in speeches before, the politicizing of the global warming science has become one of the most unfortunate developments in the last 8 years. Anytime one questions a hypothesis or a conclusion that does not fall in line with ``the sky is falling'' doom and gloom scenario of global warming alarmists, it is ridiculed, written off, denigrated, and not reported by the mainstream media. Yet anytime a more severe interpretation or alarming statistic is related, it is headline grabbing in the news. Objective, transparent, and verifiable science gets lost in the public dialog. Funding has a way of influencing this debate. The other day there was an article in the Bloomberg News--and I say this for those individuals who might be feeling sorry for Al Gore--it was reported that his net worth in 2000 was between $1 million and $2 million and it is now in excess of $100 million today, so he will be all right. When the stakes of the policy outcomes with cap and trade and other mandatory climate proposals are this high for the American people, I hope the Senate this year will embrace my calls for objectivity and transparency in science and modeling. As policymakers, it is our duty to make sure models developed by agencies and used in policy are useful for their intended purpose, articulate major assumptions and uncertainties, and separate scientific conclusions from policy judgments. However, with global warming science this has not been the case. With many left-of-center scientists, the environmental activists now realize the so-called consensus on manmade global warming is not holding up. The leftwing blog Huffington Post--this is a left-leaning organization--surprised a lot of people by featuring an article on January 3, 2008, by Harold Ambler demanding an apology from Gore for promoting unfounded global warming fears. The Huffington Post--again, left leaning--article accused Gore of telling the biggest whopper ever sold to the American public in the history of mankind because he claimed the science was settled on global warming. The Huffington Post article, entitled ``Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted,'' adds, ``It is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers, not the skeptics.'' Again, it is not myself, not Jim Inhofe saying this about Gore; it is the leftwing blog, the Huffington Post, saying these things. The Huffington Post article continues: Let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated day after day. Another left-of-center atmospheric scientist who has descended on the manmade climate fears is the U.K.'s Richard Courtney, a U.N.--and let's keep in mind where all this started. A lot of people forget this was started by the United Nations--the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They came out and said: Oh, it is manmade gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane that are causing climate change. And this person used to be on that panel. He was an expert reviewer in the U.K.-based climate and atmospheric science, a consultant, and a self-described Socialist who also happens to reject manmade climate fears. Joining Courtney are many of the other progressive environmental scientists. Former Green Peace member and Finnish scientist Dr. Jarl Ahlbeck, a lecturer of environmental technology and a chemical engineer at the University of Finland who has authored 200 scientific publications, is also skeptical of manmade climate doom. Ahlbeck wrote in 2008: Contrary to common belief, there has been no or little global warming since 1995, and this is shown by two completely independent data sets. But so far, real measurements give no ground for concern about catastrophic future warming. This is kind of interesting because what he is saying--and this is a guy who started out with the United Nations in the beginning, with the IPCC--is that right now we are actually in a cooling period. I think no one debates that now. We have had the most severe weather, and I will have another talk I will try to get in next week about what is happening around the country right now. It isn't global warming, it is global cooling. People forget God is still up there and we go through these cycles. I can remember the middle 1970s when they were saying there is another ice age coming and we are all going to die. Those same people--and there was an article in Time magazine at that time--are the ones now saying we are going to die, but it is for a different reason, it is global warming. Lifelong liberal Democrat Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired Navy meteorologist with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, also declared his dissent of warming fears in 2008. He said: As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering claptrap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science. Finally, CNN--not a bastion of conservatism--had yet another of its meteorologists dissent from warming fears. Meteorologist Chad Myers, a meteorologist for 22 years, certified by the American Meteorological Society, spoke out against anthropogenic climate claims on CNN in December. You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant. Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big--I think we are going to die from the lack of fresh water or we are going to die from some type of ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure. Myers joins fellow CNN meteorologist--by the way, CNN has been very biased all this time. I think we know that, as has the Weather Channel, because there is a lot of money in perpetuating this myth. Myers was joined by his fellow CNN meteorologist, Rob Marciano, who compared Gore's film to fiction in 2007, and CNN anchor Lou Dobbs just said of a global warming fear promotion on January 5 of this year, ``It's almost a religion without any question.'' Recently, I released a new report on climate scientists which documents many of the studies ignored by the mainstream media. Here it is right here. This is one that is actually too large to put into the Congressional Record. In here, in the report, are 650 scientists who have challenged manmade global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We talked about that. I have been detailing these science issues for a number of years. In a July 28, 2003, floor speech in this Chamber I said: The issue of global warming ``is far from settled, and indeed is seriously disputed.'' The science continues to evolve. I explained that ``anyone who pays even cursory attention to the issue understands that scientists vigorously disagree over whether human activities are responsible for global warming, or whether those activities will precipitate natural disasters.'' I noted--and this is what I said in 2003: Not only is there a debate, but (at least in certain corridors) the debate is shifting away from those who subscribe to global warming alarmism. That was in 2005. After that speech, I led the charge against the McCain-Lieberman global warming cap-and-trade bill--that would be in 2003, then again in 2005--both times easily defeating the bills. At the time it was a lonely battle. Only a few people came down to help me on the floor. I remember so well in 2005 when I was alone down here on the floor of the Senate for 5 consecutive days that we had it on the floor, about 10 hours a day. Very few people came down and were willing to join me on the Senate floor. That has changed. If you fastforward from 2005 to 2008, we had the Warner-Lieberman bill on the floor. At that time I had over 25 Senators come down and join me. You are seeing people who no longer fear the money generated by the moveon.orgs, the Hollywood elitists, those individuals who have millions of dollars to put into campaigns, to throw into the system. We are getting a lot of encouragement. Things have changed. In fact, at the end of the bill that we had that is referred to sometimes as either the Lieberman-Warner bill or the Boxer climate tax bill, they are only able to get about 37 people from their own party, from this side of the aisle over here, who would support it. That is a major change from the past. After this election that number has only gone up from 37 to 39. You are not getting close to the 60 votes necessary to try to inflict this economic damage on the United States. The Republicans were prepared to debate the bill--this is the Warner- Lieberman bill--and were ready to offer amendments, but the Democrats didn't want to debate, much less vote, on our amendments that were aimed at protecting American families and workers from the devastating economic impacts of the bill. When faced with the inconvenient truth of the bill's impact on skyrocketing gas prices, it was Democratic Senators who wanted to see the bill die a quick death. By the way, we had a list of some 10 Democratic Senators who, in a very responsible way, said we will go ahead and vote on some of these amendments, but when it comes to final passage, we are not going to vote on it. After the bill failed, the Wall Street Journal aptly noted that environmentalists are stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse. The paper added: The green groups now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who has sand kicked in his face. The paper quoted a political analyst who noted that ``this issue is starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan again.'' Despite the claims that we must act now to prevent climate crisis, the climate tax bill would not have resulted in any action whatsoever. The bill, often touted as an insurance policy against global warming, would instead have been all economic pain and no climate gain. This is because without a global treaty, the binding commitments by both the developing and developed countries is not going to work. Let's say we believed that manmade, anthropogenic gases were the major cause of climate change and the debate was over if we do something just unilaterally in the United States of America. All that would do is cause a flight of our manufacturing jobs overseas to countries such as India and China and Mexico--places where they do not have any kind of a restriction on the greenhouse gases. So it would have a net increase, if we were to pass one of these. Yet we are the ones who would be saddled with a $300 billion-a-year tax bill. Americans are suspicious of the need for solutions to global warming. The Gallup Poll released on Earth Day 2008 revealed the American public's concern about manmade global warming has remained unchanged since 1989. According to Gallup, and this is a quote from the report, they said: Despite the enormous attention paid to global warming over the past several years, the average American is in some ways no more worried about it than they were in years past. In other words, after all the money, all the hype, all the biased media over the past few years, people have not moved in that direction. They know better. They know when they have been duped. What perhaps is the most striking is that, aside from the economics of global warming solutions, the science has continued to move in the direction I predicted in 2003. In 2007 I released a Senate minority report detailing over 400 scientists disputing manmade global warming claims. In the inconvenient real world climate study, developments are refuting global warming fears. That was 2007, just a year ago. In 2008, in the tail end of 2008, for the benefit of public dissemination we have updated our report, and the so-called consensus on global warming is even more in dispute. That is the report I have right here. Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenge manmade global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and by former Vice President Al Gore. Our new 233-page U.S. Senate minority report features the skeptical voices of over 650 prominent international scientists, including many current and former U.N. IPCC scientists who have now turned against the U.N. IPCC. This updated report includes an additional 250--and growing, I might add; it has grown since then--scientists and climate researchers since the initial release in December of 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of the U.N. scientists-- only 52 of them--who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. This is very significant. I know it is kind of heavy lifting to understand this, but the U.N. IPCC, that started this whole thing, they have this analysis that is made and updated, but you never get the full report by any of the scientists. It is merely the summary for policymakers. That is us. That is for the politicians out there. So they only have 52 scientists who signed this report. We are talking about 650 scientists versus 52. The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real-world data, and inconvenient developments challenged the U.N.'s and former Vice President Al Gore's claims that the ``science is settled,'' and there is a ``consensus.'' Despite what is now being portrayed in the media on a range of issues, 2008 proved to be devastating for the promoters of manmade climate fears. In addition, the following developments further secured 2008 as the year the ``consensus collapsed.'' Russian scientists ``rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming. Frankly, they laugh. I have had meetings with them. They laugh at it. In Milan, when they had one of the big United Nations meetings where they tried to coerce countries into supporting this, the Russians at that time were in a position, since they have these vast areas that are totally undeveloped--I remember flying across Siberia a few years ago. I am a pilot and flew an airplane across the world, and I remember flying across Siberia and looking down and seeing time zone after time zone where you don't see any people, nothing but natural resources. Yet all of those would go in the formula, so they would be great big recipients if they are able to get some kind of international treaty. In addition to that, the American Physical Society editor conceded that ``a considerable presence'' of scientific skeptics exists. An international team of scientists countered the U.N. IPCC, declaring, ``Nature, not human activity, rules the climate.'' India issued a report challenging global warming fears. A team of international scientists demanded the U.N. IPCC ``be called to account and cease its deceptive practices,'' and a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed that 68 percent disagree that global warming science is ``settled.'' We are not talking about politicians, people, Senators like me and others in this room. We are talking about real scientists who are out there. We are talking about 68 percent of the scientists in Canada now have come to recognize this. That was not true 5 years ago. Most were on the other side of this issue, but they have now looked at it and realize they have been duped. This new report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition challenging significant aspects of the claims of the United Nations IPCC and Al Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologist's equivalent of the Olympic Games, and held in very high esteem, was held in Norway in August 2008, just a few months ago, and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of manmade global warming fears. The conference was reportedly overwhelmed with skeptical scientists, with ``two-thirds of the presenters and question-askers who were hostile to, even dismissive of, the United Nations IPCC.'' Even the mainstream media in 2008 began to take notice of the expanding number of scientists serving as ``consensus busters.'' A November 25, 2008, article in Politico--everyone in Washington reads that--noted that a ``growing accumulation'' of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the ``science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.'' Canada's National Post noted on October 20, 2008, that ``the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly.'' New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin noted on March 6, 2008, ``As we all know, climate science is not a numbers game (there are heaps of signed statements by folks with advanced degrees on all sides of this issue).'' I agree with him, and it's a shame that we have had to resort to a numbers game. It should be focused on objective, transparent and peer reviewed science, and debate should not be quarantined. In 2007, Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics ``appear to be expanding rather than shrinking.'' Skeptical scientists are gaining recognition despite what many say is a bias against them in parts of the scientific community and are facing significant funding disadvantages. Dr. William M. Briggs, a climate statistician who serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee, explained that his colleagues described ``absolute horror stories of what happened to them when they tried getting papers published that explored non-`consensus' views.'' In a March 4, 2008, report Briggs described the behavior as ``really outrageous and unethical . . . on the parts of some editors. I was shocked.'' Again, this is not me saying this; there are scientists. Here are some of the highlights of my 2008 Senate minority report featuring over 650 international scientists dissenting from man-made climate claims. Incidentally, this report I have--it was my intention to make this report of these 650 scientists a part of the Record. However, very wisely this body has said we do not want the expense. Something like this would be so overwhelming that some Senators who are conservatives would rather not do it. The report is here. It is a matter of public record. You can get a lot of this on my Web site, ewo.senate.com. Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever, stated: I am a skeptic . . . Global warming has become a new religion. Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called ``among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years,'' stated: Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly. . . . As a scientist I remain skeptical . . . The main basis of the claim that man's release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air- surface system. Here, no one can argue with Dr. Simpson. The United Nations IPCC Japanese scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist, stated--this is from all over the world now, this is in Japan. Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in the history. . . . When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists. Indian geologist Dr. Arun Ahluwalia of Punjab University, and a board member of the U.N.-supported International Year of the Planet, stated: The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it does not listen to others. It does not have open minds. I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Price has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists. Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Center in Oslo, has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the Sun and solar interaction with the Earth. Brekke stated: Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time. These are all top scientists. No one can discredit these people. You might wonder, why is it that so many people want us to believe that maybe bad old man is responsible for those horrible things that are going to happen, that are not going to happen? There are a lot of reasons for that. A lot of money behind this comes from organizations such as those we find in some of the Hollywood groups, moveon.org, George Soros, and different foundations such as the Hines Foundation that do want to stop the progress in this country. But, anyway, back to some of these scientists. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico--I am covering all of these countries now. These are the top scientists in these countries--states: Models and forecasts of the UN IPCC are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results and scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity. Surprise, surprise. The Sun warms things. U.S. Government atmospheric scientist Stanley Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA stated: It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem that there is only a fringe of scientists who do not buy into anthropogenic global warming. Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, stated: Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapor and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will. This has always happened. We have gone through these stages. I do not want to make this part without documentation, but when we went through one of the other warming periods in this country, it was back before they had the combustion engine, back before CO2 was even around yet. Here we are today with all of these people, the names are the top scientists in the world who are making these statements. A lot of them used to be on the other side of this issue. That was back when they were being threatened with withdrawal of various funding for the projects they had, and now they are back on the other side. Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher, stated: The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way around . . . A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 United Nations conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact. Prominent Hungarian physicist and environmental researcher Dr. Miklos Zagoni reversed his view. He was on the other side of this issue, on manmade warming. He is now a skeptic. Zagoni, once Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, stated that: Nature's regulatory instrument is water vapor: more carbon dioxide leads to less moisture in the air, keeping the overall greenhouse gases content in accord with the necessary balance conditions. Again, that is a very prominent scientist, perhaps considered the most prominent scientist in Hungary. Geologist Dr. David Gee, the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress, who has authored 130-plus peer- reviewed papers, who is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden, stated: For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on? Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief--he was another one on the other side of this issue, another one of the many scientists who reversed his belief on manmade warming to become a skeptic--is a former member of the Dutch U.N. IPCC committee. He stated: Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp . . . Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact. South African nuclear physicist and chemical engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd was also one of them who was very prominent in the United Nations IPCC in years past. He was the co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications, and he stated: The quality of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of natural circulation between air, water and soil . . . I am doing a detailed assessment of the U.N. IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policymakers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science. I am actually getting that report. As we have said, we have been looking at these reports for policymakers for a long time. And those people on the other side would have you believe that is the National Academy of Sciences, that is the United Nations. It is not scientists. This is a summary for policymakers. These are politicians who have an agenda. Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, stated: Many scientists are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined. This is the intimidation I was talking about. Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, who served as staff physicist at MIT, stated: All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead. Which, incidentally, happens to be going on right now. Environmental scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast Group, who has more than 150 published articles--these guys are smart guys. This is not politicians talking, these are the incontrovertible scientists who cannot be challenged-- stated: Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is dangerous nonsense . . . The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major business and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning. Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan, stated: CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another . . . Every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so . . . Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing nations walking barefoot. Award-winning paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and the head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata said: The global warming scaremongering has its justifications in the fact that it is something that generates funds. There we go again. All of these different groups and these foundations who will fund people who will agree to support their political positions. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Art Douglas, former chair of the Atmospheric Sciences Department at Creighton University in Omaha, NE, and author of numerous peer-reviewed publications, stated: Whatever the weather, it's not being caused by global warming. If anything, the climate may be starting into a cooling period. And this is, by the way, something that nobody questions now; we are going well into a cooling period. Chemist Dr. Patrick Frank, who has authored more than 50 peer- reviewed articles, stated: But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gasses, because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all. Award-winning NASA astronaut and moonwalker Jack Schmitt, who flew on the Apollo 17 mission and formerly of the Norwegian Geological Survey, and for the U.S. Geological Survey, stated: The global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decisionmaking. It has no place in the Society's activities. By the way, I would have to add to that, another one of the motivations in the United Nations is they are always critical of us when we threaten to withhold some of the funding, when they are advocating policies that are contrary to our policies in the United States. They would love nothing more than to have some type of a funding mechanism where they did not have to be accountable to the United States or any other nation. Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen, of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, stated: Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the U.N. IPCC . . . The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium . . . which is why global warming is now called climate change. This is kind of interesting. Next week I am going to put together what has been happening recently in this cooling period, the fact that we have had records that are set all around the United States and all around the world, and that is exactly what Dr. Richard Keen is talking about now. We are in a cooling period. It has to drive these global warming people nuts to have to recognize that. Dr. G. LeBlanc Smith, a retired principal research scientist with Australia's CSIRO, stated: I have yet to see credible proof of carbon dioxide driving climate change, let alone manmade CO2 driving it. The atmosphere hot-spot is missing and the ice core data refute this. When will we collectively awake from this deceptive delusion? That is G. LeBlanc Smith of Australia, one of the top scientists in Australia. The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including climatology, geology, biology, glaciology, biogeography, meteorology, oceanography, economics, chemistry, mathematics, environmental sciences, astrophysics, engineering physics, and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the U.N. IPCC Nobel Peace Price with Al Gore. The notion of hundreds or thousands of U.N. scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny--just not true. Recent research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean revealed that the IPCC's peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. The 52 scientists who participated in the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers had to adhere to the wishes of the United Nations political leaders and delegates in a process described as more closely resembling a political party's convention platform battle, not a scientific process. Only 52 scientists wrote the media-hyped U.N. summary for policymakers, and it was actually published by the politicians and not the scientists. One former U.N. IPCC scientist bluntly told EPW, our committee, how the United Nations' IPCC summary for policymakers distorted the scientists' work. He said: I have found examples of a Summary saying precisely the opposite of what the scientists said. This was from South African nuclear physicist and chemical engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a U.N. IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 referred publications. A 2008 international report of the U.N. found its climate agency ``rife with bad practices.'' Others like to note that the National Academy of Sciences and the American Meteorological Society have issued statements endorsing the so-called consensus view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and the AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially only two dozen or so members of the governing bodies of these institutions produced a consensus statement. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process. So they are very thankful. Many of these scientists are glad that we have this report so that they now have access to the truth and they can come out from hiding. The more than 650 scientists expressing skepticism comes after the U.N. IPCC Chairman Pachauri implied that there were only about a dozen skeptical scientists left in the world. Former Vice President Gore has claimed that scientists skeptical of climate change are akin to flat Earth society members and similar in number to those who believe that the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona. It is a shame that proponents have now been reduced to name calling. That is what we are getting now, name calling and insults. When you lose your logic, this is what happens. They start the name calling and insults because they don't have logic. Examples of consensus claims made by promoters of manmade climate fears: The U.N. special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harmel Brundtland, on May 10, 2007, declared that the debate is over and added that ``it's completely immoral, even, to question the U.N.'s scientific consensus.'' The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary said it was criminally irresponsible to ignore the urgency of global warming. This was on November 12, 2007. ABC News global warming reporter Bill Blakemore reported on August 30, 2006: After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such [scientific] debate on global warming. While the dissenting scientists contained in the report hold a diverse range of views, they generally rally around four key points. No. 1, the Earth is currently well within national climate variability. We are talking about 650 of the top scientists in the world. No. 2, almost all climate fear is generated by unproven computer model predictions. No. 3, an abundance of peer-reviewed studies continues to debunk rising CO2 fears. No. 4, consensus has been manufactured for political and not scientific purposes. Those four things, all of these 650 top scientists in the world agree to. Since I released the report on December 11, other scientists have contacted us to be included. On December 22, 11 more scientists were added, including meteorologists from Germany, the Netherlands, and CNN. Even CNN, very much on the other side of this issue, two more of their meteorologists have come over and become skeptics, as well as professors from MIT, the University of Arizona, and other institutions. One prominent scientist added was award-winning Princeton University physicist Will Happer, who was reportedly fired by former Vice President Al Gore in 1993 for failing to adhere to Gore's scientific views. Happer has now declared manmade global warming fears as mistaken. Happer is a professor in the Department of Physics at Princeton University and former director of energy research at the Department of Energy who has published over 200 scientific papers and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Scientists, and the National Academy of Sciences. Happer does not mince words when it comes to warming fears. He said: I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken . . . Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science. As we face a new administration and a U.N. eager to draw the U.S. into its climate policy, let's not forget that this aspect of the debate is still alive and well and only growing. We should not become weary of calling into question policy choices when they are driven by still evolving scientific assessment, especially when the stakes are so high and the costs are so extraordinary. Let us hope this administration and our news media recognize this new reality as we move forward into this new Congress. On a personal note, it has been a lonely fight. For the last 6 years I have been talking about the Hollywood and media-driven fear that tries to convince us that those who are fueling this machine called America are somehow evil and fully responsible for global warming. This is absurd. We all know better. It does take power to run this machine we call America. In the past, the only argument that defeated all the cap-and-trade schemes was the economic argument. I think you can argue each one differently, saying no, this wouldn't cost the same as adhering to emissions required by Kyoto back in the Kyoto treaty days. But any time you get into a cap and trade of CO2, it is going to cost about $300 billion annually in taxes. I was critical of my colleagues, the 75 Senators who voted to give an unelected bureaucrat, Secretary Paulson, $700 billion to do with as he wished with no oversight. I was critical of that. Of course, that is a one- shot deal. This was every year, a $300 billion annual tax increase. It was too much, even if the science was fully settled. Now the science is shifting dramatically to the other side. So I believe we need to be looking, even if we use their own figures of $6.7 trillion as the cost of the life of a similar bill to the Lieberman- Warner bill. I conclude by repeating something I have said many times: Even if you believe this, if you believe that manmade gas is a major cause of climate change, what good would it do for us unilaterally in the United States to impose a financial hardship, $300 billion a year, on people in the United States, when all that would do logically is cause our manufacturing base to further erode and to go to countries such as China and India and Mexico, other countries that have no emission restrictions at all. It would be a $300 billion tax on us every year, and it would have the effect of increasing the net amount of emissions worldwide. Last year I didn't say very much about the science. In fact, when we had the Lieberman-Warner bill up, I made the statement: Let's assume, for debate of this bill, that the science is all there and that it is settled. Then I pursued the economic argument. The other side didn't like it because they wanted to debate the science. I said: Let's assume you are right. You are not, but let's assume you are. This is something that we could not afford, the cost. Sometimes we throw around big figures. I often have said about the $700 billion bailout that I opposed and that 75 Senators voted for, if you stopped and realized the number of taxpayers or families who file a tax return and do the math, this comes to $5,000 a family. If you look at this, this would be over $2,000 a family every year. We want to be sure we are right if we do something. Let's go forward. Let's look at it, but let's pay attention more than anything else at this time not just to the economics but the fact that without doubt, the science is shifting. This report, 650 of the top scientists and growing every day, is conclusive in my mind that many of those individuals who were on the other side of this issue are now standing up to the intimidation and have become skeptics. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I also thank the Senator from Tennessee for all his labors and what he has been through. Quite frankly, I came back from the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan on Saturday or Sunday-- anyway, over the weekend--and when I saw all this stuff coming up, I knew from my experience in the Senate that nothing was going to happen for a few days, so I did not stay and work hard like my friend from Tennessee. I went back to Oklahoma. I do that now and then just to talk to normal people, to hear what these people have to say, as opposed to the bureaucrats and the stuff we get in Washington. In a way, it is a little bit humorous. We went through the $700 billion bailout. I can remember everybody talking about Secretary Paulson coming down and saying: The world is going to come to an end if we do not do this. He said: We are going to have to do it. Well, we did some calculations, and I do not think most of the American people realize when we talk about these numbers--whether it is $14 billion or $700 billion--how much it really is. If you did your own math when this stuff comes up--this is what I always do--there are 139 million families in America who file tax returns. If you take the 139 million families and divide that number into $700 billion, that is $5,000 a family. Now we are talking about something that is serious. When I tell people in Oklahoma that, that gets their attention. So here we are talking about $14 billion right now. Nobody seemed to care before, and we just passed that matter by a huge margin: 75 to 24. I was one of the 24 who voted against the $700 billion bailout. But we passed it by that huge margin, more than 2 to 1. It is something that is so much bigger than the $14 billion we are talking about now. We are making a big issue about the $14 billion. Where was all the concern and outrage when we were talking about $700 billion? So we watched it come along, and we saw that we gave the Secretary of the Treasury all the money that he was asking for. Then we find out that as to what he was going to use the money for, it was not used for that at all. He said, and I heard it myself--everyone in here heard it: the Democrats heard it; the Republicans heard it--if we don't have this $700 billion to buy out troubled assets, this whole country is going to go down--this doom and gloom. Once he got it, he did not do it. He did not come to us and say: Well, there is a different plan now. We are going to use it in some other way because I don't think this is going to work. So that got my attention. I decided at that time: Well, if they are going to go ahead and give him this $700 billion, let's see what there is in that law that we passed that might be to the benefit of people who are concerned about this issue. I saw that it was broken into two parts. The first $350 billion pretty much was given to him to use at his discretion, which he did. He did not come to us and say he was going to use it in a different way. He just went ahead and did it. It is the first time in the history of America that anything close to $350 billion was spent in such a way. Then we have in the law that was passed a provision that says if he needs the other $350 billion, he can go ahead and do that, and if there is not an objection--as a matter of fact, if he does this, and does this when we are out of session, we would be helpless to try to do anything to stop it. So I introduced a bill. It is S. 3683. It is not going to be considered. I am not a member of the club, so that is not going to come up, although we have made an effort and we actually have some Democrats on the bill. That is something that uses the rules that are out there and says we can change the second $350 billion so it will take a positive act of Congress to allow them to access the second $350 billion. Now, let's quickly jump back to the current issue. I wanted to put that in perspective because when we talk about $14 billion, compared to $700 billion, I just wish there was that much outrage when we were making that commitment. So here we are talking about one unelected bureaucrat to be known as the car czar--get ready for the car czar. We have only had one good czar in the history of America that I know of, and that was Bill Bennett when he was the drug czar. However, he was not given a blank check to spend a whole bunch of money. He is just a brilliant guy who was going to try to stop some of the stupid things we were doing in this country. That was back in the 1980s when the drug problem first surfaced as a major problem. He did a great job. I draw him out as an exception when I talk about czars. Now we are talking about a car czar. This guy is going to have the same bureaucratic power that Secretary Paulson had during the time he pulled off this $700 billion bailout. Now, this bill makes the U.S. Government, the taxpayers, part owners of these companies. This $14 billion bill is one that is going to surface probably today. People are talking about, and the leader talked about, maybe we will go all the way through the weekend if we do not get something done. But the instrument that came over from the House yesterday to the Senate is most likely what we are going to be considering, and it is one that makes the Government part owners of these companies. The car czar does not have any specific instructions, such as renegotiating some of the union contracts and some of the things that will have to be done. I looked at this early on, and I thought, as undesirable as bankruptcy is, I do not know of any other way you can actually force the tough negotiations that will have to take place. It has to be management and labor. It is not just labor; it is not just management. There has been mismanagement. But they would have to satisfy the courts that we have a system that will work. I read an article in the New York Times from the middle of November, and it was entitled ``A British Lesson on Auto Bailouts.'' It discussed the British treatment of the Leyland automobile in the 1970s and 1980s. The article reported that the British Government ultimately spent-- well, transferring this or putting this in U.S. dollars--they spent $16.5 billion--that is comparable to what we are talking about now--to bailout the British automobile company called Leyland. The article quoted a top official from the Thatcher government, which reluctantly but ultimately backed the bailout. He said: I'm not telling the U.S. what to do, but the lesson of the British experience is don't throw good money after bad. British Leyland carried on for a few more years, but they are not there now, are they? No, Mr. President, they are not. They are bankrupt after burning through the taxpayers' bailout dollars. Now, why we now believe Government bailouts and Government ownership of shares of these companies is going to be a successful venture without a clear idea of what these companies would do to significantly alter their business models, and at least until well into next year--I do not know why we think this because it has not happened. It has not happened successfully before. In the New York Times, just a few days ago, Jeffrey Garten, who served as Under Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration, and who is now a professor at Yale University, was quoted as saying this: We're at this moment in history, in which the Chinese are touting that their system is better than ours with their mix of capitalism and state control and our response, it looks like, is to begin replicating what they've been doing. Now, that is what he says we are doing: replicating now what the Chinese have been doing. I have to say this: I am very much concerned about the Chinese. I have spent quite a bit of time in Africa and other parts of the world. But in Africa, the Chinese, I think, pose the greatest threat to us. It is an economic threat as well as a military threat. But, nonetheless, does that mean we should be doing what they are doing? And we are replicating their system, according to Jeffrey Garten. I cannot support Congress using taxpayer dollars to bail out yet another industry. I can remember when we were talking about this a few weeks ago with the $700 billion bailout. We were talking about this as if this were something that was going to be a one-shot deal. I said, standing on this Senate floor, that as soon as this goes through, they are going to start lining up. I said: You are going to get not just the bankers, you are going to get the auto dealers and the airlines and everybody else out there saying, well, if this is what is out there, bail me out, too. I want to be bailed out. So this is what is happening. We are now looking at one unelected bureaucrat administering a brandnew Government program with taxpayer dollars buying ownership in an industry. I think we have heard this one before. I know the American people have heard this before also. This is exactly what Secretary Paulson did. I am talking about the massive $700 billion financial bailout legislation. Let's keep in mind, we are talking about an amount that is far less than that. We are talking about $14 billion. I remember talking on the Senate floor when it looked as though we had $350 billion that was not going to be used. In fact, Secretary Paulson said--this was interesting--right before we went into recess, Secretary Paulson said: We have no intentions of using, no reason to use the other $350 billion. We have a reserve that we have not spent yet of about $15 billion. I responded and said: Well, if you do not have any intentions of using it, let's go ahead and change the system so you cannot use it. I do not want to have us adjourn and find out: Oh, I think we will use another $350 billion, which is comparable to about $2,500 per family filing a tax return. Well, the Congress gave Secretary Paulson the $700 billion in two installments, and we all know how that second installment is. I have authored two bills. One of them is S. 3683, sponsored by, of all people, Bernie Sanders, the one who is a self-proclaimed socialist, a guy who is on the opposite end of the philosophic specter from me. Yet he knows this is something that is wise: to have accountability for the $350 billion. I do not have her name on here, but I think Senator Mikulski might also have been on here because I was on the Senate floor with her, and she said it would be a good idea. We have Senators Barrasso, Wicker, DeMint, Roberts, and Vitter. This legislation would freeze the unexpended expenditures of the original $350 billion and require an affirmative vote--is that asking too much--an affirmative vote to access the remaining $350 billion. It is automatic now. That is all we are asking for. So I think that as we talk today--and, hopefully, this will be over tonight; I anticipate that it will because it goes on and on and on, and nobody, right before Christmas, wants to be working over the weekend when it looks like nothing meaningful is going to happen--let's bring it on, bring on the bill. Let's have a vote on it. Let's get it over with today, and, hopefully, we can reject it. think a lot of Members in this body, some of those who supported the $700 billion bailout, have a chance at redemption right now by opposing this legislation. So, once again, let me just put it back in perspective. I came back from Afghanistan on the weekend and I saw the discussion take place, and I had an idea, through the experience I have on the Senate floor, that nothing was going to happen for the next 2 or 3 days, so I went back to Oklahoma and talked to real people. By the way, I have to say this: I talked to a lot of dealers in Oklahoma about the idea of a car czar, and because of the prospect of a Washington bureaucrat telling the car manufacturers how to run their businesses and what kind of cars to make, it did not give them hope for the future. These people were opposed to it. I know a lot of the car dealers are for this. They are concerned about keeping the parts inventories and all of that, but I look at this, and I don't see any other way it can happen. By the way, I would say concerning this bailout bill, I don't think they did anything to address the California waiver. This is something that has to be done if they are really sincere about this bill that came over from the House. Someone can correct me if they have corrected the problems of the California waiver; I don't think they have. Right now, there is litigation out there, where California wants to be able to determine what its tailpipe restrictions are. It is in the courts right now, but if they are successful, then that would mean we have 50 States that can determine what their emission requirements are in their State. You talk about one factor driving up the price of cars, that would be it. Again, I don't know for sure what all is in this thing from the House, but I do know this: The basic bill is the same bill that we had before. It is based on a concept that the bureaucracy can run the free enterprise system better than the free enterprise system can, and it doesn't work. Let's solve the problem of the $14 billion, but let's get some people to join in with me on the Senate bill that will allow us to require an affirmative vote for the second $350 billion. Let's put that in perspective: $350 billion as opposed to $14 billion. I think it deserves the attention of the Members of the Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. About 15 minutes.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Tennessee be given the amount of time he wants, and immediately following that, that I would be recognized for such time as I shall consume.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized in morning business for whatever time I shall consume.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, Americans are once again being asked to foot the bill for yet another very urgent bailout, as it is termed. In October, Congress voted for an unprecedented $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. Now much of the same alarmist rhetoric is being employed to pressure Members to act quickly. The latest bailout demand making the rounds of Washington is for the Big Three in the auto industry. The Democrats would have you believe the proposed bailout is all about saving jobs. But having been in Washington long enough, my instincts led me to dig deeper, where I unearthed the green roots hiding behind the ``bailing out'' rhetoric. It now appears that much of what you have heard in the media about the auto bailout being about jobs has been misleading. In fact, there are the usual suspects working behind the scene to subvert the auto bailout and ultimately betray autoworkers. These are the facts. The proposed $25 billion bailout of Detroit now appears to have been hijacked by the powerful environmental lobby. When I say ``powerful,'' it is by far the most powerful lobby and best financed lobby--those out in Hollywood I have referred to many times, moveon.org, George Soros, the Michael Moores--they talk millions and millions of dollars. They are indeed the powerful lobby. I suggest there is an idea that came to fruition from the November 19 Wall Street Journal. They ask, in this Wall Street Journal editorial: When is $25 billion in taxpayer cash insufficient to bail out Detroit's auto makers? The answer: When the money is a tool of the Congressional industrial policy to turn GM, Ford and Chrysler into agents of the Sierra Club and other green lobbies. According to the Wall Street Journal, the auto bailout has degenerated into a tool to ``make Detroit a subsidiary of the Sierra Club.'' We hear proponents of the auto bailout endlessly saying this is all about jobs. But the truth is, this bailout appears to be about environmental lobbies taking over the U.S. auto industry. The Wall Street Journal explains further, and I am quoting again: In their public statements, proponents describe the bailout as an attempt to save jobs, American manufacturing and the middle-class way of life. But look closely and you can see that what's really going on is an attempt to use taxpayer money to remake Detroit in the image of the modern environmental movement. Given a choice between greens and blue-collar workers, Congress puts greens first. That was an interesting quote in the article, that really has delved into this thing and talks about what the real motivation is behind it. How did this attempt at a green takeover of Detroit come about? Congress approved $25 billion for Detroit earlier this year for ``green retooling.'' President Bush--when this came up, the need came up to have the $25 billion--proposed to revise that $25 billion, the same amount of money, and allow it to be used for Detroit's general purposes by eliminating the green conditions. In other words, the amount of money there that everyone is so anxious to get in there, that they say is going to resolve the problem, is there and it is available today, but it has been rejected. That shows the choice between green and blue collar is very clear. The Wall Street Journal reported: Democratic leaders refused. They are insisting instead that the Bush administration give Detroit another $25 billion in cash. Let's keep in mind this is the second $25 billion we are talking about, not the first. ``The Bush administration's proposal is unacceptable,'' declared my colleague, Senate majority leader Harry Reid. The Wall Street Journal asks, and I am quoting again now: If the problem is so urgent, why keep the green chains on that first $25 billion? General Motors in particular is saying that it may have to declare bankruptcy by the end of the year without a taxpayer capital injection. Aren't jobs at stake? Again, this is the choice being given. But the jobs do not appear to be the overriding concern when it comes to the proposed bailout. A November 13 commentary in the Chicago Sun-Times bluntly declared that Congress should ``attach environmental strings to the Big Three bailout.'' The auto industry occupies a critical position, not just in the U.S. economy, but also in the struggle to cope with climate change and the energy crisis. The government has immense leverage right now to force the Big Three to make progress on multiple fronts and should and should not be afraid to use it. This is what Andrew Leonard wrote in the Sun-Times. Barack Obama has spoken many times of his ambitious plans to steer the U.S. toward a future where Americans are driving fuel-efficient cars that run on renewable energy. If the government is going to bail out the auto industry, it should do so only with the explicit requirement that the Big Three accelerate down that road as fast as they can. Again, I am quoting from the Sun-Times. One of the key ``green strings'' that the environmental lobby wants to impose on Detroit is making the Corporate Average Fuel Economy--that is the CAFE standards-- more draconian than they are today. My colleague, Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, wants conditions on the auto bailout that would mandate auto companies increase their average fuel economy to 40 miles per gallon in 10 years and then 50 miles per gallon a mere 2 years later, in 2020. He also reportedly wants requirements for an ``increased production of hybrids, flex-fuel and electric vehicles,'' according to Congress Daily. My colleague, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, has also tied auto bailout money to increased CAFE standards: Congress should require that the automakers shift to a new business model that focuses on hybrid, electric, and other next generation vehicle technologies. She wrote that on November 14. She even expands the mandates to include costly global warming concerns by ``requiring the NHTSA to use the Energy Information Administration's most accurate gasoline price projection and consider global benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions when setting CAFE standards.'' Again that is a quote. The Wall Street Journal countered with a commonsense alternative to increasing CAFE standards. If Congress wants to ease the immediate burden on Detroit, it could also ease the onerous fleet-mileage standards (CAFE rules) that force the companies to make cars domestically that are unprofitable. A mere tweak would help a lot--for example, simply allowing Congress to meet CAFE standards by counting the cars it makes at home and abroad. If you include them all, they would be able to meet these standards. This alone might save Chrysler from bankruptcy. But Congress won't budge on that simple change. This latest bout of environmental thuggery is not an isolated incident. The legislative goals of Democrats and their environmental allies reveal that saving jobs is not their highest priority. President-elect Obama has pledged to grant California a global-warming- motivated waiver to allow the State to demand its own standards of emission reductions from new automobiles. This would essentially allow a State-by-State approach, thus creating a patchwork of regulatory compliance regimes in addition to the Federal standard that would be even more costly for automobile manufacturers. We have gone through this before. We have had this same suggestion being made. If there is any single thing that would increase the price of cars and drive them out of the market, it would be to let each State determine what its own standards are going to be. It cannot work. The Wall Street Journal summed up this attempted hostile green takeover and the efforts to create an ``Environmental Motor Company'' this way: All of this shows that Democrats don't merely want to save jobs. They want an entirely different American auto industry that serves goals other than selling cars to consumers. The green lobbies have disliked Detroit for decades--for resisting fleet mileage standards and having the audacity to make SUVs, trucks and other vehicles that people have wanted to buy but that violate the modern environmental pieties. For the greens, the bailout is their main chance to remake Detroit according to their dictates. That is the height of us in Government saying our wisdom is so much greater than the private sector that we are going to impose that on this industry. Now the problems are there. They continued: The more realistic alternative to this utopian green vision is to let GM or Chrysler file for Chapter 11 like any other company that can't pay its bills. The immediate cost would be severe. At least bankruptcy would provide the political and legal means for them to evolve into smaller, more competitive companies. Taxpayers should not be asked to finance a green industrial policy promoted by lobbyists and Congressmen who know nothing about what it takes to make a car, much less what it takes to make a profit. You have to look at this. I wonder sometimes, if we had not been so quick and so generous to come up with $700 billion in this bailout, that perhaps they would not be lining up. Who is going to be standing in line after the auto industry? I don't think anybody knows--I don't-- but someone is. They are waiting to see what kind of results there are. Is it Government's role to run businesses from Washington and to finance those businesses? Is it necessary? I have gotten a lot of criticism because I have been quite outspoken in opposition to the $700 billion bailout. But I would like to do one thing; that is, if there is one thing people have not stopped to think about, that is the amount of $700 billion. What is $700 billion? It is very difficult for me and for anyone else, I think, to think in terms of those billions of dollars. But I did some research. I found that there are 139 million families, households in America, who file tax returns. If you do your simple math, 139 million families and $700 billion in a bailout, that is $5,000 a family. If people think in terms of that, maybe they will get a little bit concerned. We have already spent, of that--Secretary Paulson--$125 billion on nine large banks. This is not what they said or what he said 2 weeks prior to the October 1 vote. What he said at that time was: We have to have $700 billion to buy damaged assets, and it is going to take $700 billion. If this continues to happen, we are going to have another Great Depression. And we got all excited and concerned. Granted, I know Secretary Paulson is a very knowledgeable person. But for him to make that case, get the money, and then spend it on something else is something that is very difficult to understand. I would suggest that when we drafted that law, which I opposed at the time, that was in two increments--actually, three. The first $250 billion was going to be handed to him to go ahead and spend as he wanted to, and then, if he needed $100 billion more, the President could see to it that they got it. That has already happened. They have $350 billon, of which $60 billion is left and has not been spent as of this moment in time, to my knowledge. I got my information personally from them last Tuesday. So where we are today is we are sitting on $60 billion. He has described this as a cushion. When I say ``he,'' I am talking about Secretary Paulson. So we need to now think about the other $350 billion because it appears, as he said, the financial markets have been stabilized. If this is true, then maybe we do not need to get into that other $350 billion. Keep in mind, we have $60 billion there on the table ready to be used anyway. So what I have done is drafted legislation that is called S. 3697. We have some Democrats and some Republicans cosponsoring this. It is not a freeze. I wish it were. I wish I could craft a piece of legislation that said: Let's take the $350 billion and give it all back to the taxpayers; it belongs to them. But we know that would not fly. So instead of that, we went ahead and did it to make a modest change in the system. As the law is drafted right now, if the request is made by the Treasury Secretary, whether Secretary Paulson or another person, that money is going to automatically come to them if no one objects while we are in session for 15 days. Well, we are going to go out of session probably tomorrow and very likely will not be coming back until January 6. That means that if any need is there, all he has to do is say so and the money will come forward. So what we have done is change--actually, we only changed one word. The word we changed was ``unless'' and ``until.'' I do not have it right here, but it says the money can be accessed unless Congress stops them from doing it. However, by changing that to ``until,'' that means it cannot be accessed until we take a positive action in the Senate. That is what I think is perhaps not nearly enough protection, but it is some protection. I would encourage colleagues to rally around this because there is no other means out there right now, no other vehicle that anyone has put forward that is going to resolve this problem. It is going to keep the other $350 billion, and that is about $2,500 for every family in America who pays taxes and files a tax return. There is no other way of doing it except for this bill. So I would encourage our Members to join in this effort. And it is going to have to be done today. If it is not done today, it is not going to be done. I hope the people outside realize there are a few of us here who realize we want to stop this train, particularly if Secretary Paulson is correct, as he believes he is, when he says the financial markets have been stabilized. So we have S. 3697. I would encourage my colleagues to come down and sign this so we can actually bring it up and vote on it and have it become a reality. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator for yielding. I appreciate the very favorable comments she has made about my legislation. What is interesting about this is it is supported by a whole host--Senator Sanders is supporting it, as well as on the far right we have Senator Coburn and Senator DeMint. So we are not the only ones who feel this way. But the point I would like to make and ask you if you agree is, $700 billion--you heard me describe how to put that in and understand how much that means to the American people. It is $5,000 for each family who files a tax return. We have an opportunity to save half of that right now. I would encourage the Senator from Maryland to join in this effort because I think it can get done and it could get done during this time.

Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield for one question?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize GEN Bruce Carlson, one of our most distinguished commanders who will retire from the U.S. Air Force on January 1, 2009, after completing 37 years of distinguished service to our Nation. General Carlson currently serves as the Commander of the Air Force Materiel Command--AFMC--in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH. As Commander of AFMC, General Carlson manages the command's 77,000 people in research, development, test, and evaluation while providing the acquisition management services and logistics support required to develop, procure, and sustain Air Force weapon systems. His workforce of active duty, civilian, and contractor personnel are the unsung heroes, managing an annual budget of over $56 billion, more than 40 percent of the total AF budget, and ensuring our warfighters are equipped with the best equipment in the world. General Carlson was born in Hibbing, MN, and began his accomplished career in 1971 when he graduated as a ``Distinguished Graduate'' from the Air Force ROTC program at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. From the day he pinned on his butter bars through his four silver stars, Gen Bruce Carlson has been a leader and continues to lead and mentor airmen in the air and on the ground. After graduating from the University of Minnesota, he went on to undergraduate pilot training at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma--a base I know well and the finest pilot training base in the U.S. His first assignment out of pilot training was in the F-4 Phantom II and then he transitioned into the OV-10 Bronco and A-10 Warthog. During his career he logged over 3,300 flying hours to include combat time in the OV-10. His work ethic and unparalleled skill resulted in his posting to positions of influence in the offices of the Secretary of the Air Force and Secretary of Defense. His skill as a pilot and a leader led to various flying assignments, including commanding the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force Base, NM, the Air Force's first stealth fighter wing. As with every great officer, his star continued to rise as he met every promotion with dedication and integrity. Moving on to serve as the Director of Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment on the Joint Staff and finally, prior to assuming Command of AFMC, General Carlson served as the Commander, 8th Air Force, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana and Joint Functional Component Commander for Space and Global Strike, U.S. Strategic Command, Offutt AFB, NE. General Carlson has received several distinguished awards including the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, Air Force Commendation Medal with two oak leaf clusters, and the 2007 Order of the Sword, Air Force Materiel Command. He was also awarded master's degrees from Webster University in St. Louis, MO, and the Naval War College in Newport, RI. In the Chief of Staff's recommendation for the Order of the Sword, General Schwarz wrote, ``General Carlson culminates a distinguished career of more than 37 years of Air Force service, with focused leadership, a selfless commitment to excellence and tireless dedication. His vision and leadership transformed Air Force Materiel Command into the preeminent provider of war-winning capabilities . . .'' I cannot agree more. In an era of persistent conflict and constrained budgets, General Carson's dedication to making sure the warfighter has what he needs to fight and win is inspiring. I offer my sincere thanks and appreciation to Gen Bruce Carlson, his wife Vicki, and his three children, Bryan, Jani, and Scott. The strength of our airmen is in their families, and their support allowed him to dedicate 37 years of leadership and service to the men and women of the Air Force and our country. I wish him and his family well in all his future endeavors.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, given the recent news about Secretary Paulson's execution of the TARP program, I firmly believe action is required by Congress. This morning, I introduced S. 3683. That is legislation that would do two things. It would freeze remaining money of the first $300 billion that has not already been expended and, secondly, it would change the process by which Secretary Paulson would access the second $350 billion. When Secretary Paulson first came to the Senate and explained his plan, it was on a conference call. I happened to be in on that conference call. It was September 19. At that time, he was talking about the crisis that is upon us, that we have to do something, we have to do something big. It has to be $700 billion. It has to be done right now. The only way to do it is to buy troubled assets. At that time, I asked some questions. One question was: If there are assets that are going to be bought, what is the criteria that will be used to determine which assets should be bought? There was not an answer to that question. The second question was: Which institutions that are holding these assets would be the ones that would be eligible for this buyout? There were no answers to that question either. That was on a Friday. Then as the next few days went by, we had several conversations. I didn't have any personal conversation with him except in one conference lunch, and that is, Is this the only way to do it? Yes, it is going to be buying out troubled assets. Still the answers were not there to those questions. In my statement opposing--I voted against the Paulson plan last month-- in my statement opposing it, I laid out three primary reasons I voted no. The first is that I was not convinced that the asset purchase program was the right way to do this. Apparently, he didn't think so either because that is not what he did. The second is that it would lead to increased lobbying for handouts and bailouts by any industry facing financial trouble. Now we are seeing that. We are seeing the auto industry coming in, some insurance companies and others coming in. It is kind of a new way of life: If you are not successful, don't worry about it because you have the Federal Government there to help you. The third is that we were handing over, as I read it--and I don't blame Secretary Paulson for this because I suppose if this is what he wanted, somebody else was willing to put it together. He was not the one, I suppose, who drafted it. But it gave one person, in this case Secretary Paulson, the sole authority over $700 billion. I have a hard time with big numbers, putting them into perspective that is understandable. But it is my understanding that there are 139 million American families who file tax returns. If you do your math, this would be $5,000 per family. We are talking about any family out there who files taxes. This is a huge thing. So it does require extraordinary thought in addressing it. As I stated at the time, my vote was against the Paulson plan, not against taking action to provide necessary confidence in financial markets. I do know and agree that there is a problem out there. I am not convinced that is the way to address it. We critics were right. On October 14, in a significant shift, Treasury outlined a plan to directly purchase equity stakes in major financial institutions. The Wall Street Journal noted that ``critics . . . say Treasury should have formulated a comprehensive plan earlier in the crisis.'' This past week, Secretary Paulson announced that he has completed a remarkable about-face, as summarized by the November 13 Investors Business Daily front-page headline which read: ``Major Reversal, Treasury Won't Buy Bad Mortgage Debt.'' This is a complete reversal. Why did Paulson reverse course? Last Thursday's Los Angeles Times provides the answer: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's decision to abandon plans to buy troubled bank assets shows that he has come to two conclusions about what was once the chief focus of the government's $700-billion bailout: The first is that it wouldn't work. That is kind of full circle. This is what we thought at the time, and this is where we are today. I know many have serious concerns about how Secretary Paulson has executed the financial rescue program, and I share those concerns. Congress completely abdicated its responsibility by signing a truly blank check. If we look at this and if we read it, there is nothing in there that says we have to do this. Never before in the history of America has anyone--elected or, in this case, unelected--been given a blank check or a check in the amount of $700 billion to do with as he wishes. It has never happened before. It is unprecedented. But that is exactly what happened. Now we are faced with a lameduck session. We can do something about resolving this problem now, and that is supporting and passing the legislation I introduced this morning. It is officially introduced. I believe I requested it be sent to the Senate Banking Committee. I am sure there are several there who want to resolve this problem before we recess. My concern is this: The way it is set up by law, there is $350 billion already out there, and he has been spending that money. Frankly, I don't know how much has already been spent. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago that said all but $60 billion has been spent. That may be true; it may not be true. I have no way of knowing. That alone is enough concern that a senior Member of the Senate doesn't even know how much of the taxpayers' money has been spent or what percentage of the $350 billion has been spent. We have a second $350 billion to make up the $700 billion that will come, but it is rather nebulous, it is rather vague as to how that would be put into the hands of Secretary Paulson. My interpretation is that he would indicate, yes, we do need to have the second $350 billion, and if there was not a resolution to stop that, to preclude that from happening, then he would be able to do that. My concern is that we will stall around and do nothing. We will adjourn and not come back until January. That would give him the opportunity of stating his intention, what he wants to do, and then have 15 days go by when we are not even in session. I think the only way to do this is to do it the way we are planning to do it now; that is, to bite the bullet. I know it is difficult. It is difficult for members of any body, particularly the Senate. This legislation, as I recall, passed 75 to 24. Those of us who are among the 24, who voted against it, are fine in terms of doing something such as this, but at least a third of those who voted for it would have to say he didn't do what he said he would do, he didn't buy the troubled assets. Therefore, that gives me reason to change. I can't help but think that at least half or even more of those who voted for this legislation would find themselves in that position. When we look at where we are today and see that there is something that can be done, I think it is necessary that we go ahead and do it. One of the things that is going on now--and this bothers me a little bit--is that there is an argument going on right now between some of the committees--the Finance Committee and the Banking Committee--as to who has jurisdiction. Then there is a debate as to whether a special inspector general should be appointed, and they have talked about some names. If they do that, confirmation probably would not take place for another couple months. By that time, all the money is gone. So we are sitting around twiddling our thumbs doing nothing. Our last shot to do something is to do something while we are here. This lameduck session, I suspect, is only going to last 3 or 4 days. So we have that length of time to stop this from happening. If the American people are concerned about this, concerned as I am and as many Members of this body are, that this was done without the consideration it should have had, this amount of money, $700 billion is out there now in the hands of one person to do with as he wishes, that is not good Government and it needs to be stopped. We can stop it by the passage of the legislation I introduced this morning. Again, it will do only two things. It will preclude and freeze any further expenditure by the Secretary of the Treasury and, second, it would preclude the second $350 billion from coming up for consideration. In other words, that would stay in the Treasury. I think this is the only chance we have to get it done. We better do it now or it is going to be too late and we will be out of here and it will be history by the time we come back at the end of January. With that happy note, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

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

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I strongly agree with Senator Kyl in regard to the space-based interceptor study. This study provides the Secretary of Defense an independent assessment of a space-based interceptor element of our missile defense system. I think we all agree that a layered missile defense capability provides us with the best defense against ballistic missile delivered weapons of mass destruction as well as a defense against attacks against our satellites which have become so necessary to what we do militarily and economically. This study will be an independent investigation into the technical feasibility and cost effectiveness of incorporating a space-based layer to our ballistic missile defense system. The study is neither a procurement program nor an attempt to weaponize space. It could lead to the development of new technologies and concepts that would provide the United States, our allies and our deployed forces protection from the threat of rapidly proliferating ballistic missile technology, as well as the rising threat of attacks on our vulnerable national security space systems. As Senator Kyl stated, last year 120 foreign ballistic missiles were launched. North Korea, Iran, and China remain likely suspects in ballistic missile proliferation and China has proven its ability to attack satellites. Recent Russian aggression in Georgia and reports on the state of China's military raise concerns about accidental or unauthorized launches of ICBMs. The threat exists. It is important to do these studies now in order to develop the technologies and the defenses we need. Waiting until our Nation or our allies are attacked is too late. Wishing away the threat, as some in this Congress would have us do, is not a solution. I thank my colleagues for this important move to ensure the safety of our Nation. Having the knowledge gleaned from this study will allow us to decide on the next step, should it be necessary.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Senator from Iowa deferred in order to finish his speech in a very short period of time. I ask unanimous consent that when he finishes, I then be recognized for not more than 10 minutes, and then the senior Senator from Washington be recognized after me.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I would like to explain why there are objections to bringing up H.R. 3999, the National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act of 2008. As has been mentioned by several of my colleagues on the floor today, the Highway Bridge Program in its current form needs to be reformed to make it more useable for States. Unfortunately, H.R. 3999 hinders, rather than strengthens, States' abilities to address their greatest bridge priorities. It would force States to follow a risk-based system developed in Washington to prioritize the replacement or rehabilitation of bridges. There is great concern that this one-size-fits-all approach would not allow for important local factors, such as seismic retrofit. This legislation also forces States to spend scarce resources on new procedures that will provide little or no new information to State bridge engineers. SAFETEA-LU will expire on September 30, 2009. Any major policy changes at this point in the process will distract from the overall goal of completing a comprehensive bill on time. For that reason, a policy change of this magnitude should be handled in the context of reauthorization. Furthermore, it is counterproductive to attempt to fix our crumbling infrastructure through piecemeal efforts. Comprehensive reform is necessary and should be addressed in a holistic approach in the reauthorization bill the Environment and Public Works Committee will work on in the coming months. There has been a lot of press about the poor condition of the nation's bridges in the wake of the Minnesota tragedy. Our bridges are certainly in need of additional investment, but the roads on the National Highway System, NHS, are actually in greater need. According to the Federal Highway Administration, FHWA, the Nation's bridges receive an average of 15 percent less funding from all levels of government than the maximum amount that could be economically invested. In contrast, the roads on the NHS receive 78 percent less funding than the maximum economic level. This is not to say that there are not enormous bridge needs. These are simply 20 year averages, and much more could be economically invested in the short term. According to the same study by the FHWA, $62 billion could be invested immediately in a cost-beneficial basis. It is critical, however, to view investment in the Nation's highways and bridges in a comprehensive fashion. The authors of H.R. 3999 tout one of the benefits of the bill is that it prohibit transfers from the current bridge program to other highway programs. I would like to take a few minutes to explain that while that sounds good, it will not accomplish what the authors of the bill want. Many States rely on the flexibility allowed under the Federal highway program to transfer money in between core highway programs as an important cash and program management tool. This flexibility in the bridge program is needed by States as bridges are enormous, ``lumpy'' investments and it often becomes necessary for States to wait a few years between major bridge replacements. If they did not do so, bridges would consume too much of their highway resources to address nonbridge needs. This bill would prohibit all transfers from the bridge program on the incorrect assumption that all transfers are bad. Many States find the bridge program requirements too bureaucratic and prefer to replace or rehabilitate structurally deficient bridges using more flexible programs. These States transfer money out of the bridge program and then obligate those same dollars to structurally deficient bridges. Also, when bridges are being replaced or rehabilitated as a part of a larger project, States frequently transfer money into a single category of funding that can be used on the entire project. Because of the narrow eligibility of Highway Bridge Program funds, the flexibility to transfer funds is oftentimes necessary and does not necessarily detract from the goals of the Highway Bridge Program. H.R. 3999 incorrectly assumes that all bridge construction and reconstruction is done through the bridge program. In fact, only about 55 percent of obligations on bridges are through the Highway Bridge Program. The remaining obligations of funds on bridges, about $2.4 billion, are done using other categories of funding. By prohibiting transfers, H.R. 3999 would effectively punish States that are spending more on bridges than is provided in bridge funding, by denying them an important cash and program management tool. In addition, H.R. 3999 requires States to follow a risk-based system developed in Washington to prioritize the replacement or rehabilitation of bridges. Many fear that this will produce a ``worst first'' approach to replacing and rehabilitating our bridges an approach that is widely criticized among economists as it costs far more money than a targeted approach. In many aspects of government this is a prudent method to make decisions, but the approach set forth in this bill lacks the cumulative factor analysis required to make the most cost-beneficial and safety-driven bridge investment decisions. Under H.R. 3999's risk- based system, a lower rated bridge that is rarely used and poses no public safety threat could be prioritized ahead of a slightly higher rated bridge with more traffic, greater relative importance to the rest of the system, and overall more need for investment. This bill would create yet another level of bureaucracy to a bridge program over- burdened with red tape, as State risk-management plans will have to be approved by the Department of Transportation. The requirements for the risk management system set forth in H.R. 3999 are vague and unspecific. However, there is a wide concern among State departments of transportation that they will be interpreted by FHWA to force one-size-fits-all Federal standards that ignore local considerations and variations in risk factors across the country, such as seismic retrofit. States are already using a highly effective bridge management system to address risk when making State-wide bridge investment decisions; this bill will disrupt these efforts. In closing I will reiterate that I fully agree that the current Highway Bridge Program needs work, but so does the entire Federal Highway Program and I believe we need a comprehensive solution. I look forward to working with my colleagues to that end.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Certainly.

Mr. INHOFE. That is true, and I think anytime you increase that debt, you are going to be selling to large purchasers somewhere, and those could be foreign countries and others. Another thing I would observe is that things don't happen in a vacuum. The Senator from North Dakota mentioned it could result in a devaluation of the dollar. If that happens, one of the major reasons we have high gas prices at the pumps--the major reason is supply and demand, but the other reason is the devaluation of the dollar. So that would be affected also. We need to consider all these things and we need to be deliberate. I know a lot of smart people are in rooms now trying to figure out some solutions, and I hope they come up with a good one and something I can support.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, the reason I came here today was to recognize and pay tribute to SSG Brandon Farley. He is from Haworth, in southeastern Oklahoma. Since April of 2007, he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, and 1st Infantry Division at Fort Hood. Brandon died Thursday, September 18, of wounds sustained a day earlier when his patrol was attacked by enemy forces in Able Monti, Afghanistan. This was his third deployment, serving in Operation Enduring Freedom at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. Brandon was born in Sulphur Springs, TX, and spent his teenage years in Haworth, OK, where he graduated from high school. Soon after graduating from high school, he joined the Marines and served 4 years. It was during those first 4 years in the military that he served his first tour in Iraq. So he was there first as a marine. Later, he was honorably discharged, went into the National Guard, and then he missed the regular services so he joined the Army. So he was stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan both as a marine and as an Army soldier, a truly outstanding young man. His uncle William Gilpin is quoted as saying: It was his intention to retire from the army. He had a commitment to his country. So he was going to stay there for a career; the kind of people we look for all the time. Corey, Brandon's brother, also spoke about his brother's commitment and service to the military and our Nation. He said: He loved serving his country. He was a go-getter who had talked about joining the military ever since he was 16. As Corey talked to him about his deployments, Brandon told him that although there were good and bad times, he reenlisted because he ``loved what he was doing.'' As the oldest of four, Brandon was committed to his family and enjoyed spending lots of time with them and his many friends. He leaves behind his father Wade and mother Sherry, and many others. He is also survived by a brother and sister-in-law, Corey and Brandy, sisters Ashlyn and Lauren, and two nephews. Brandon loved being outdoors, four wheeling, and riding his motorcycles around. Brandon's brother Corey said: I can remember fishing down at the creek and being outside when we were like 10 or 12 years old. Usually it had something to do with a slingshot or a BB gun. Brandon's sister Lauren left this heartfelt message to her beloved brother on his on-line guest book: Brandon, you are my brave big brother. I miss you so much-- words cannot describe. I sit here thinking of you day and night. All the memories we had and all the memories that were cut short. I am so proud of you. You will always be my big brother. Thank you for all you have done for us. All my love, your little sis Lauren. Lauren's expression of Brandon's bravery is clearly true. With bravery and courage he faced war and fought for our freedom. He willingly went into battle not only one time but three times. Brandon was a true patriot who gave the ultimate sacrifice--his life--for his country. A friend wrote in his journal--and I will end with this particularly touching and revealing sentiment: You were truly amazing. A dear friend, a top-notch soldier, and a super human being. This is a great loss and it will be grieved greatly. I am so proud of you and bragged about your service all the time. I shed tears for you a little bit but I smile knowing that you believe in God and accepted Christ as your savior and that I will be reunited with you one day. Thank you Brandon. It is kind of coincidental. We had three other Oklahomans who died in a helicopter crash that we visited about yesterday, and all three of them also knew the Lord. So you kind of look at that and you say: Well, this is a wicked time we are in right now, and we will be with you shortly. I say to Brandon's family: I pray you will feel God's peace and comfort and know that we appreciate you very much and the price Brandon paid for us. You will be together again soon. Mr. President, I yield the floor.