Floor Statements

Yes, I will.

Mr. President, let me, first of all, respond to the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. I agree. We have talked about the anguish.

We had a hearing yesterday where the service chiefs discussed the disaster facing our armed forces if we go through sequestration. I do not think most Members of this body fully understand what it means, not just to the defense of our country as a whole, but to each of the individual States.

In my State of Oklahoma, I am very concerned about Tinker Air Force Base

and its 16,000 civilian employees. What is going to happen there?

Anyway, let me just wind up this part by saying I have been ranked as the most conservative Member for many years. But I have always said: I am a big supporter of using our resources in two areas: One is national defense and the other is transportation and infrastructure.

A short while ago, the majority leader was kind enough to call my office and tell me I would be objecting to the consideration of the nomination of former Senator Hagel to be Secretary of Defense.

However, this is not a filibuster. I keep getting stopped by people out in the hall: Oh, we are going to filibuster. Who is going to filibuster?

What we are doing is not a filibuster. We are seeking a 60 vote threshold for a controversial nomination. If the majority really wanted to move forward quickly, all they have to do is agree to a 60-vote margin, like they did with the Sebelius and Bryson nominations.

In addition, as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am obligated to assist the members of the committee.

First of all, the vote in the committee was a 100-percent partisan vote. Every Republican there voted against moving the Hagel nomination out of committee. Well, there has to be a reason for that.

One of the reasons--the major reason, I would say--and if you do not believe this, go back and look at the tape of the meeting yesterday where many of our members said: Why is it we are rushing to confirm Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense when he has not given us the information we have requested? One such Member is the junior Senator from Texas, who is in the Chamber with me right now.

But let me first clarify there is nothing unusual about requesting a 60-vote threshold. This happens all the time. I can remember when the majority leader agreed to a 60-vote threshold in the 2009 nomination of Kathleen Sebelius. She was confirmed.

There is nothing unusual about a 60-vote threshold.

John Bryson was nominated to be the Secretary of Commerce. Several of us had concerns about this nomination. Ultimately, he was confirmed. But once again the entire Senate agreed to a confirmation vote by a 60- vote margin.

I can remember when the majority leader--let me say this about the majority leader. He has been exceptionally good to me on things I have been involved in. I have two major bills that were my bills. One was in concert with Barbara Boxer--the highway bill. Frankly, I could not have gotten it passed without them. Another was my pilots' bill of rights. I could not get a hearing on it in committee. I tried for a year. He stepped in and helped me. I have said in national publications I could not have gotten it passed without Leader Harry Reid. So we have a very good relationship, and one which will continue.

However, Senator Reid, on numerous occasions, was concerned about Republican nominations. During the Bush Presidency, Stephen Johnson-- who, incidentally, was a Democrat--was nominated to be EPA Administrator. I thought he would be good Administrator. There were several Democrats who thought he would not be good Administrator. So Harry Reid did what he is supposed to do, and he interceded on behalf of the Democrats who opposed him. As result, cloture was filed and, therefore, the nomination needed 60 votes to proceed. Well, the Administrator got 61 votes.

Another example was Dirk Kempthorne. He was nominated to be Secretary of the Interior. My colleagues will remember he is a former Senator from Idaho. Some objected to his confirmation. Of course, this was during the Bush administration. Senator Kempthorne was nominated, and he went ahead and was confirmed. It was a 60-vote margin. There is nothing unusual about this.

Getting back to Stephen Johnson, this is even more analogous to what we have right now because he was a Democrat who was nominated by a Republican President. Unfortunately, once again we were forced by the Democrats to have a cloture vote which requires 60 votes.

Stephen Johnson was a Democrat. So here we had the Republicans wanting Stephen Johnson and the Democrats not wanting Stephen Johnson. It is very analogous to what we have today. Today, we have former Senator Chuck Hagel, who is a Republican.

But in this case, we have a situation where cloture has been filed by the majority leader. I have no objection to voting. I do not want to wait. I do not want to string this out. I have other places to go other than hanging around here. I would vote tonight if we could just get the information that has been requested by the Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Keep in mind, the Hagel nomination was reported out of committee by a 100-percent partisan vote. All Republicans voted against sending him out. Why did they do it? They did it because we have not gotten the information we want.

I have a letter. This is a letter that is signed by 25 Republicans stating that we have not received the information necessary for a proper vetting of the Hagel nomination.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

This letter is signed by several Senators, but it was promoted, more than by anyone else, by the Senator from Texas. The Senator has repeatedly requested this information. I have personally heard Senator Cruz request this information, just yesterday, and on several previous occasions.

In a previous letter, he said: We express our concern--several Senators also signed this letter--on the unnecessary rush to force through a vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination before he has been able to respond adequately to multiple requests from members of the Armed Services Committee for additional information.

I'm reading now from the letter: Those requests have included a request to Chuck Hagel for the disclosure of his personal compensation he has received over the past 5 years.

We are talking about Chuck Hagel.

This is information which he controls. He can provide this information. It is there.

The letter also requests the disclosure of foreign funds he may have received indirectly. This is important because some have raised questions of a potential conflict of interest.

Why does he not want to disclose this? Somehow he would like to be confirmed without disclosing this information.

As Senators we have a responsibility here. I do not care if you are a Democrat or Republican. If a member of the Armed Services Committee requests this information and the information is available and he is able to obtain it and does not provide it, we have a process problem.

Mr. President, my primary objection to Chuck Hagel's confirmation is for policy reasons. That is why I think he is not qualified for that job. Others do not agree with that. That is fine. But they have to agree on the process.

In fact, I cannot remember--and I have been on the Armed Services Committee in both the House and Senate for 25 years. I do not remember one time when information that was requested, which was perfectly within the purview of the committee was not provided. This has not happened. This is unprecedented.

I heard some people say: you are filibustering a Cabinet appointee. That is not what we are doing. What we are trying to prevent is an unprecedented event where committee members do not receive information which is important for Members to have in order to consider a nomination.

So I will continue to read the letter.

The letter includes a request for a complete list of his prior public speeches, notably, multiple additional speeches on controversial topics that have been made public by the press.

For example, I understand FOX News is going to run a story tomorrow regarding some speeches made by former Senator Hagel. If so, these speeches would certainly give rise to a lot of interest because, I have been informed, we are talking about speeches which were made and paid for by foreign governments. I have also been told, some of these foreign governments may not be friendly to us.

Therefore, I believe Senators are entitled to review this information. Are we entitled to that? Yes; we are entitled to that.

So this letter includes a request for a complete list of his prior public speeches, notably, additional speeches on controversial topics that have been made public in the press, despite those speeches having been omitted from his own disclosure.

I remember in the early stages of the confirmation process, requests were made of Senator Hagel about information we knew existed because the press had written about it in the past. Some may argue that Senators are not entitled to review these speeches. I disagree. A member of the Armed Services Committee has a responsibility to review that information.

The letter also makes the critical request from the administration for additional information on their precise actions during and immediately following the tragic murder of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

Regardless, if the administration has answered these questions, the Senate is entitled to review speeches that have been made by the person who is up for confirmation to be Secretary of Defense.

I would say to the majority leader, the request for a 60 vote threshold is based on precedent. It is what the majority leader agreed to on the John Bryson and Kathleen Sebelius nominations. It is what he insisted upon when the Democrats forced cloture to be filed on the Dirk Kempthorne and Stephen Johnson nominations. There are several others. Michael Leavitt was one. John Bolton went through this twice. We all remember Miguel Estrada. We remember Robert Portman, now one of our fellow Senators.

So there is nothing unusual about this. But there is a problem with the process we are entering now. That process is, we have made requests--I am talking about Members such as Senator Cruz from Texas and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have made perfectly reasonable requests for information. In this case, it is on speeches reportedly made to foreign audiences. However, these concerns can be clarified in a matter of minutes.

That is why we should not rush. If this information is provided we could resolve this matter tonight. The information is out there. I have personally talked to Senator Cruz. He said: Look, if they will just give us that information we have been requesting now for weeks, we can have the vote tonight.

That is our reasonable request. We are not talking about merits. We are not talking about substance. We are talking about a process. Never before in my memory has a Senate Armed Services member's reasonable request been denied before someone has come up for a confirmation. It is a simple request. It has been done on a regular basis. A 60-vote margin is not a filibuster. We are merely saying the Senate is entitled to this information. Hopefully, this will jar some of the information loose. Maybe we can get it now. I hope we do.

I want to move this on and move it as rapidly as possible.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object.

First of all, let me make a comment, if I could, to the Chair. It is my hope that we don't have sequestration with the military, with the Defense Department. I have been very much concerned about that. I am going to do everything I can to preclude that from happening. In the event that did happen--we are looking at about a month from now--I have an amendment I wanted to put on this bill. I could do it another way too, but perhaps as a freestanding bill. I wish to explain what it is, and then I wish to ask the distinguished majority leader a couple of questions.

The amendment I had, or that could be in a freestanding bill, would give the Secretary of Defense the flexibility to implement the cuts under the sequestration in the least harmful way possible, that would authorize him to have the power to make adjustments within the confines of the sequestration so if there would not be any more money, it would not change that. It would allow the Chiefs to examine and determine whether they could make some changes to make something that could be catastrophic maybe less catastrophic. I have supplied a copy to the leader's office.

What I wish to do--I don't want to object to this, because I want to make sure this continues. I wish to ask if I could have some latitude to help me to get this before the Senate so we could accomplish this.

I would say this, through the Chair, to the leader, that I have already talked to not just the Chair of the Joint Chiefs but all of the Chiefs. They all say that in a period of 1 month, quite frankly, they are starting right now to see if there is something they could put together to make it less onerous should we have to have that.

So I would like to ask if there is something that could be done through the leadership to help me get this done if the worst should happen and we should be faced with sequestration a month from now.

Through the Chair, I would make a comment that many times the distinguished leader has been helpful, such as with the highway bill and the pilots bill of rights and others, and I have to say I would not have been able to get them through without that support. What I would ask for is the same support to help me overcome some of the problems that would come with sequestration.

To give an example, sequestration would cancel flying operations for four out of nine aircraft carriers, which would take about 9 to 12 months to restore at a cost of two to three times as much. What they could do with this bill, which I plan to introduce tomorrow, is have the latitude, while spending the same amount of money, to keep the flying hours where they are so they would not have to be restored in another vehicle. Little things such as that are significant.

It also would address the problems we hear of every day from the Secretaries in the military--the various departments and the Chiefs-- having to do with the other problems on the CR. So this would address both of them and give latitude and make it better.

I would just say I hope the leader could assist me in getting this bill through in a timely fashion that I will be introducing tomorrow.

I appreciate that very much, Mr. President. I do not object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 22, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period for morning business be extended until 5 p.m. today, and that all provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Mr. President, yesterday President Obama made a beautiful speech. I think everyone agrees that he is a very persuasive speaker. Although I didn't agree with anything he said, it was said beautifully.

I want to read one part of his speech because I don't want to get it wrong. He said:

We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing

that the failure to do so would betray our children and

future generations . . . The path towards sustainable energy

sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America

cannot resist this transition. We must lead it. We cannot

cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs

and new industries. We must claim its promise. That's how we

will maintain our economic vitality and our national

treasure.

That is a direct quote which came out of the President's speech, and it has a lot of little subliminal things in there that people did not pick up on, but I did.

One is--and they talked about that--we must show the leadership. That is because of all the things they try to do to damage the economy, to destroy the economy, in terms of the cap-and-trade agenda. And all of that are things that other countries are just waiting for us to do. It is not that we are going to provide the leadership, and all of a sudden China is going to say: Hey, they are doing it, so maybe we ought to do it. China, instead, is sitting back hoping that will happen in this country, so they can have all the jobs that are chased away from our manufacturing base.

There are a few sentences the President dedicated to global warming, and the rest of his speech could be labeled as a liberal laundry list. And I think everyone was expecting that.

I was not surprised that the President decided to do this. All during the campaign and during the weeks since the election, the President's extreme environmental base has been very vocal with their frustrations.

A lot of them go back and say: At one time, Mr. President, you had the White House and you had the House and you had the Senate, and yet you did not even try to get this stuff done. They are talking about, of course, the cap-and-trade system. In fact, there is one good reason he did not get it done, and that is because the votes just are not there.

They want the President to immediately regulate hydraulic fracturing, officially reject the permit for the Keystone pipeline, advance the regulatory powers of the EPA to cut CO2 emissions, use all of his political capital to push a legislative fix to climate change, and to kill America's oil and gas industry.

That is what was expected of him. And now, since he does not have to run for reelection, you are going to get a lot more than you did before. So that should make them happy. But it is a lot more rhetoric and not a lot more action.

Studies done during the most recent debate--and that would have been the Waxman-Markey bill; that was the cap-and-trade bill just a couple years ago that they had; I think that might have been the last one we had--the estimates--this is interesting--going all the way back to the Kyoto treaty, they said, the cost, if you try to do cap and trade, is going to be between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. Well, that is between $300 billion and $400 billion a year.

I do something in my State of Oklahoma, and I suggest that the Presiding Officer may do this in his State of West Virginia. Every year I get the figures on how many families there are in my State of Oklahoma who file a Federal tax return and actually pay Federal taxes. Then I do the math. The way it works out, if you are talking about $400 billion a year--and I have not had one person argue with that figure that I have been using for over 10 years now--but if you do the math, that means for each person in my State of Oklahoma, it would cost them about $3,000 a year to do it. The interesting part of this is, you do not really accomplish anything by doing it.

This same agenda at the EPA, under authority he is claiming is under the Clean Water Act, has to be something we are going to talk about. And I do not have any hesitation in doing that.

Bills such as the Waxman-Markey bill--and I believe Senator Boxer and several others have had bills--the cost of that being of some $400 billion a year, would affect industries and emitters of CO2 that emit 25,000 tons of CO2 or more a year--25,000 tons. That would truly be just the big emitters. However, the effort of this administration--since they cannot get it passed through legislation--is to do it through regulation under the Clean Air Act.

The Clean Air Act is specific. And the Clean Air Act goes after anyone who emits at least 250 tons of CO2. So stop and think about that because it is very difficult to try to evaluate it and determine just how much it would cost. The regulations they have would force these facilities to receive--anyone who is regulated under this-- EPA construction permits, rehabilitation permits, monitoring devices, and install unnecessary and costly technology to reduce CO2 emissions without any corresponding benefits. This would give the EPA a hand in everything.

The cost of this is so great that it cannot be calculated. Stop and think about this. If the Waxman-Markey bill--or any of the other pieces of legislation that were called cap-and-trade regulations--were passed, that would regulate only those 25,000 tons or more of emissions. However, the Clean Air Act is 250 tons. So 25,000 tons would be $400 billion a year. How much would it be for just 250 tons? That means every

university, every school, every hospital would be subject to the regulation. That is something they have been attempting to do for a long time.

I have to say, there are a lot of appointees of President Obama whom I do not like at all. One I do like--and I am sorry she is not staying--is Lisa Jackson. Lisa Jackson was the Director appointed by President Obama to be the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. I found one thing really curious about her. While she is very liberal philosophically, she does not lie. That is all I can really ask of people.

I can remember in this case, when they finally gave up--this is just 2 years go. They finally gave up and said: We are not going to be able to pass any kind of a bill for cap and trade, but we are going to go to Copenhagen and tell them we are going to do it another way. If we cannot get a bill passed, we will do it through regulation.

To do it through regulation instead of legislation--this is kind of in the weeds--you have to have an endangerment finding. That is what the law says. So Lisa Jackson was before our committee, and I asked her a question. I said: Madam Administrator, tomorrow I am going to leave for Copenhagen to be the one-man truth squad--because everybody has been over there lying to these other countries saying we are going to pass something over here--and I have a feeling that once I leave town, you are going to have an endangerment finding and do this through regulation. I could see her kind of smiling. I said: When you do that, the regulation that you have is going to have to be based on science. That is what the law says. What science are you going to use? Her answer was: Well, we will use mostly the United Nations IPCC.

A lot of people do not realize--I wrote a whole book about this--this thing all started way back 12 years ago, and it was a thing by the United Nations. They formed the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They are the ones who came up with all this stuff. So she said it is going to be on the IPCC.

Well, poetic justice. It could not have been done better if we had planned it, because it was not weeks after that, it was days after that, that what happened? Climategate. All of a sudden, they realized, through some leaked information, that the IPCC had been lying all those years.

I will mention a couple things.

The UK Telegraph said it is the ``worst scientific scandal of our generation.''

Clive Crook of the Financial Times said: ``The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.''

IPCC prominent physicist resigns because ``Climategate was a fraud on a scale I have never seen.''

Further, another U.N. scientist bails. U.N. IPCC coordinating author Dr. Phillip Lloyd calls out IPCC ``fraud.'' ``The result is not scientific.''

And the list goes on and on. Just stop and think about it. The UK Telegraph--one of the biggest publications in the UK--saying it is the ``worst scientific scandal of our generation.''

So we now know that was the science they were going to use. I will always be appreciative of Director Jackson for being totally honest in her response.

But we can guess that would be devastating and cripple the Nation and bankrupt our economy. We know what would happen. The contrast here is stark. On one hand, you have the President saying he wants to control carbon for the sake of protecting our economy and, on the other hand, you have the President's EPA embarking on a regulatory crusade that potentially would be devastating to our economy and America.

The President and the EPA have been working for 4 years to build a case to justify the need for Federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing. A minute ago I listed all the things that were in his speech that I think would be devastating to the economy. One is hydraulic fracturing. I will bet you, 5 years ago, if you said hydraulic fracturing, people's eyes would glass over and they would not know what you were talking about. They all know now because hydraulic fracturing is a process that is used to get oil and gas out of tight formations. I know quite a bit about it because it all started in 1949 in my State of Oklahoma.

In 1949, in Duncan, OK, we discovered that you could unlock these reserves using hydraulic fracturing. So it is something that has been used that way for over a million--a million--applications, and the States have been regulating it and doing so quite well. Everyone is satisfied with the way it has been regulated.

There has never been a case--getting back to Lisa Jackson, I asked her a question in one of our committee hearings--and it was live with TV covering it--I said: Can you tell me and can you identify one case in a million--a million applications of hydraulic fracturing--one case where there has been groundwater contamination? She said she could not. So there has never been a confirmed, documented case of groundwater contamination because of hydraulic fracturing.

Because of these facts, the only reason for EPA regulation of hydraulic fracturing is to significantly limit, if not ban, its use. It would kill the domestic oil and gas industry, which I believe, more often than not, that is exactly what they want.

Well, in closing, the President's remarks yesterday were not surprising to me. But it did confirm the fact that this President is not interested in pursuing an agenda that would help the growing segments of the economy, such as the oil and gas industry.

People talk about our reliance upon the Middle East and people who could become our enemies for oil and gas. All we have to do is produce our own, get the political obstacles out of the way, so we can be totally independent.

I wish to mention two things President Obama has said. One, he says that oil and gas production during his administration--his 4 years--has boomed. This is true, but not in the public sector. It has done so because of hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, and all these technologies that have been very successful and have worked. He has made the statement over and again that: Well, it would not do any good if we opened public lands for production because it would take 10 years before that would affect the supply and the cost of oil and gas.

Well, there is a guy whose name is Harold Hamm. Harold Hamm is arguably the most successful independent oil man in America today. He is from Enid, OK. I called him because I was going to be on a very liberal TV show and knew they were going to ask this question. I called him so I could document an answer. The statement they were going to make was: Well, President Obama has said it would take 10 years for that, for oil to reach the pumps if you opened public lands. How long do you think it would take?

So I called Harold Hamm. I said: Harold, you have to be accurate in responding to this question because I am going to use it on national TV tonight, and I am going to use your name. So I said: If you were to set up your rig in New Mexico and start drilling--you say: Go right now-- how long would it take for the first barrel you brought up to reach the pumps? Without hesitating, he said 70 days--not 10 years, 70 days. Then he went on and told me what would happen each day, how long it would take to go through the refining process and reach the pumps.

So that is just one of the things that has been said over and over to make people believe it is true.

Let me mention a couple of things in winding this down.

Richard Lindzen is from MIT. Richard Lindzen is probably the foremost authority. No one has really questioned him in the past. His statement was: Regulating CO2 is a bureaucrat's dream. If you regulate CO2, you regulate life.

That is exactly what it would be. Everyone would fall into that regulation.

Getting back to why--I do not want people to sit around and worry about it--you are going to hear a lot of talk and the President is going to do all he can under regulations to try to do cap and trade. We found out--it took extensive research--that the President, in his first 4 years, has actually spent $68.4 billion on cap and trade, and that was not authorized.

So he can do a lot of it through regulation, but it is not going to pass. The reason it is not going to pass is, as we have stated, the cost would be extensive. And what would be accomplished--again, going back to when I asked a question of the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, in another

hearing--I said, if we were to pass any of the regulations, any of the legislation, the Waxman-Markey legislation or any of the rest of them, would this reduce CO2 emissions worldwide? She said: No, it would not. She said: Because the problem is not here in the United States. The problem is in China, in India, in Mexico, and other places.

So you can carry that argument even further. If we were to do this in just the United States, if you were one of those who really believes that CO2 emissions are causing all these problems--which I do not agree with--but if you really believe that, it still would not reduce them. It would actually have the effect of increasing them because as we chase away our manufacturing base--because we cannot generate the electricity to sustain it--where do they go? They go to countries such as China and India and Mexico and other countries where they have little or no emissions regulations.

So with that, while it sounded real good yesterday in his speech, and I do have a great deal of respect for the President and his persuasive abilities, I want people to realize, those who are out there recognizing that we can become independent in our energy development in this country, that they are not going to be able to pass cap-and-trade any more now than they have failed to do so in the last 10 years.

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

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

Mr. President, it is my understanding that at 4 o'clock, Senator Durbin from Illinois will be speaking. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak at the conclusion of his remarks, at or around 4:15.

Mr. President, I yield for a point of inquiry. It was my understanding that under the unanimous consent that I would get the floor. I don't mind waiting for the time that they have requested, but I want to make sure I do get recognized after the conclusion of this for such time as I shall consume under morning business.

Yes, I certainly agree to that. Keep in mind I have already asked for unanimous consent not to proceed for more than 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I am going to expand my remarks from my original intent because of what I have been listening to on the floor. I really reserved this time to talk about two very significant things that happened.

In fact, 53 years ago in 1959--and I have to ask the question as it gets closer and closer to Christmas: Why are we here? There is always a lot of theater right before Christmastime. The things we are talking about now could well be taken care of afterward. It could be done after we have a chance to look and assess the damages of Sandy.

As far as the fiscal cliff is concerned, this is something that we have known about for a long time. Right now it seems that in this body--and the other body down the hall in the House--that they don't want to do anything until it gets close to Christmas, that somehow people are at home watching, and sitting with bated breath and wondering what wisdom we are going to extol. I don't know if that is true in other States, but I know that it is not true in Oklahoma. I told them this was going to happen. I told them before the election in October. I introduced a bill, S. 3473. I introduced that bill because I knew what was going to happen.

What we have been talking about here in the last few minutes during the colloquy that I came in and caught the last part of is this Sandy issue. This is always interesting. When a disaster occurs in America and emotions are high, everybody all of a sudden wants to pour money on it, and in this case it will be $60.4 billion. How did they come up with $60.4 billion? I don't know because I wasn't in on that.

I come from Oklahoma. We have disasters all the time. We have our tornadoes that are very serious, and of course we take care of the problems when they come up. We do get some Federal help, but nonetheless we analyze what the damages are and what was caused by the particular disaster. We don't just use that to open the door and have something in there for everybody, and that is what is happening now. They are asking for $60 billion, and there is something for everyone in it. That is what we are talking about today.

Again, we should not be talking about it right before Christmas and use this as an excuse to take this right up to Christmas. Right now we don't have time to get all the way through this and analyze the actual losses that were attributed to Sandy. It was a disaster, and I understand that. People lost their lives and their property. Nonetheless, we don't know, and we are guessing right now.

Some say: Well, how about $60.4 billion? That sounds good. It could be $70 billion, it could be $80 billion, or it could be $30 billion. The Heritage Foundation did an analysis of the damages of Sandy. We talked about the $60.4 billion, which is the amount directly attributed to Sandy. We should get the study before it is criticized. The Heritage Foundation did the study, and it is actually $12.8 billion. That represents the amount that individuals lost as a direct result of this disaster called Sandy that tragically hit our east coast.

Now what about the other $47.6 billion? As an example, they have $28 billion in there for future disasters. Oh, wait a minute. We are supposed to be addressing a disaster that just occurred. The $28 billion is for future disasters. Here is a good one. There is 3.5 for global warming. They always have to get global warming in there. That is kind of interesting because we actually had several debates and several pieces of legislation called cap-and-trade. We took it up before this body and we defeated it. I am talking about going back 12 years ago. The last one was the House bill, and that was called Waxman- Markey. It was defeated because people realized that cap-and-trade would be the largest tax increase in the history of America, somewhere between $300 and $400 billion a year. That equates to about $3,000 for each family in my State of Oklahoma who files a Federal income tax return. So people realize that is true. Yet at the same time, the Administrator, appointed by President Obama, Lisa Jackson, when asked the question, If you were to pass any bill here for cap and trade in Oklahoma, would this reduce CO2 worldwide, said: No. That is because the problem is not here; the problem is in countries such as China, India, Mexico, and other places.

Nonetheless, how many people in this body even know what this President has done through his executive powers? He has spent $68.4 billion on global warming initiatives in the 4 years he has been President and that is without any authority from this body.

Here is another one: $150 million. I was listening to my good friend Senator Begich from Alaska--and I have a great deal of respect for him. He and I have worked on legislation together such as the pilots' bill of rights legislation. Nonetheless, fisheries in Alaska were significant, but they were not on the east coast. This didn't happen-- the last time I looked at a map, it was on the west coast, not the east coast, so it should not be in here.

Then we go on to the fiscal cliff. We are all here talking about this fiscal cliff that is here and all of a sudden we have to do something about it. How many people realize that we knew this was coming a long time ago? I mentioned my bill, which is S. 3473, that showed we don't have to raise $1.4 trillion, we can raise $2.7 trillion without any cuts to the military, and it is all right there. Look it up: S. 3473. Now, months later, right before Christmas, we come here and say, Oh, trauma has set in; it is going to be a disaster, so we have to come up with $1.4 trillion.

How many people realize that this President--and this is not the Democrats, not the Republicans, not the House, not the Senate--it was the President of the United States, in his budget--there were four budgets he had in his 4 years. He had over $1 trillion of deficit in each budget. If we add up all of his deficits--this is what the President gave us now. Again, it was not the Democrats or Republicans, House or Senate; this was his budget that he drafted and signed, with $5.3 trillion of deficit in it--that is more deficit than all budgets of all Presidents combined since George Washington--and nobody cares. We say this and people shake their heads and they don't seem to care. He said it so it must be all right.

So now after this President has given us $5.3 trillion of deficit, now all of a sudden--he did that in 4 years, but in 10 years we can't even come up with $1.4 trillion. It is easy. We could do it. I did it in a bill introduced several months ago. We knew it was coming, but Christmas is coming too so we are all lined up to grandstand--I don't mean grandstand; that sounds demeaning. I don't mean it that way.

When we think about the money this President has spent--what about the $800 billion stimulus that didn't stimulate? How many people in America--how many Members of this body--know what that $800 billion was spent for? I suggest not very many. I do, because I made a point to look. There are things that it did not stimulate. Only 3 percent of it went to roads and highways and that type of thing. But, again, he came up with in one fell swoop $800 billion, and now we wonder--that was in the first couple of months and now in 10 years, how can we come up with this much more? So, anyway, I just wanted to say that.

While we are talking about the budget, I think it is appropriate to say something else about it, because it was in the budget that was part of disarming America. I can remember going over to Afghanistan after the President's first budget because I knew he was cutting the military and I knew if I were over there responding with the tanks going back and forth that it would get people's attention, and it did. In that first budget he did away with the only fifth-generation fighter, the F- 22; he did away with our lift capacity, the C-17; did away with our future combat system, did away with the ground-based interceptor in Poland; all of these things in one budget. That is what took place.

Jon Kyl is retiring, and I noticed that when he made his going-away speech today he talked about the disasters we are facing right now. We are talking here about weather disasters. What about nuclear disasters? What about the fact that we had the New START Treaty, which I opposed, but nonetheless, that put levels on both Russia and ourselves. In terms of our nuclear stockpile, which was supposed to go down equally to 1,550 warheads, it is now down, and they are talking about doing away with them altogether. It is another subject for another time, but I will spend some time talking about it later.

Anyway, as we started, I mentioned two significant things happened in 1959. One was--and we are all revering now Danny Inouye. Senator Inouye is different than most other Senators. I remember when my daughter Katie was much younger and she said, My two favorite U.S. Senators--I thought I was going to be one of them--my two favorite ones are Senator Inouye and Senator Jesse Helms. They are such kind, older guys. She wanted to know if they ever got angry at anything. No, they didn't. As a conservative Republican I have gone to him many times for favors, really, to ask if we could get something done, and he never turned me down during that time. I had a long visit yesterday with his son and told him what we feel about Danny Inouye and how much we are going to miss him. So that happened in 1959. That was when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate.

The other thing that is significant that happened in 1959, 53 years ago today, is I was married. So this is my 53rd wedding anniversary, and it happened we were married in 1959. In fact, she is watching now. She hardly ever does, but I called and said watch because I can't be there for our anniversary so I have to do it this way, and so she is. Today is only the second time in 53 years that we haven't been together on our anniversary.

But I would ask the question: Who will be there today? That is who will be there today, our 20 kids and grandkids. Look at them all. Isn't that neat? Yes, they are going to be there, but I am not, but she won't be alone. Isn't that significant? All of that happened and it started with just us, right there, and there they are. A person might look and see that one little girl is a little bit different than the rest of them. That is the little girl right here. We call her Zegita Marie. There she is. We found her 12 years ago, only 2 days old. She was a cute little girl and she was just near death in an orphanage in Ethiopia and we went back there and got her nursed back to health. My daughter Molly, who had nothing but boys, adopted her.

I want to say to my wife who is listening right now, even though I won't be home, 3 days from now on the 22nd--that is Saturday--I want you to watch the ``Mike Huckabee Show'' because she is going to be interviewed and talking about adoption.

Senator Landrieu and I head the adoption caucus in the U.S. Senate. There are hundreds of thousands of little kids out there and people who want to adopt little kids, and they can't do it because of the problems. This little girl wouldn't even be alive today and here she is now, 11\1/2\, almost 12 years old, reading at college level and doing wonderful things. So, Kay, be sure to tune in to Mike Huckabee and watch her being interviewed 3 days from now.

The last thing I will say is that this is bad enough not to be home during our anniversary, but it is also bad as we get closer to Christmas. If you can only see the celebration that is going on right now, all those kids. They are all there and they are participating.

I remember what happened in the year 2009. In 2009, we played the same game here: You know, we were here doing a little theater, making sure everybody knew we were working, and we didn't get out until the afternoon, just about noon, on Christmas Eve. I remember that was the worst snowstorm in the history of northern Texas and of Oklahoma. Where is global warming when you need it? It was terrible. I got to DFW and I wanted to go on to Tulsa. I was in a hurry to get there because Kay and I belong to a church in Tulsa where we were married, all of our kids were married there, and my wife was even baptized there, and every Christmas Eve they have the most beautiful setting and three of my grandkids were going to be singing in that and I never missed it in 50 years. We got to Dallas; they weren't going to take off. I pleaded with them. They took off, the only plane that took off from DFW, and went to Tulsa that day. We went through 6-foot drifts, if my colleagues can believe it, to get down there to see my little grandkids singing. Well, that is not going to happen this time, because I will be back there.

I would say this to my wife. We have had kind of a tradition for 53 years now: I always get Kay roses. She loves roses. So I am not there today, but I want to say to Kay that if you will go out in our front yard now and look under the giant oak tree that you and I planted over 50 years ago, your roses are there.

Finally, I want to say two more things. One is I want to assure Kay that I love her more today than I did 50

years ago; and secondly, I am not Bing Crosby, but I am going to say-- and all the people in Oklahoma understand this--there may be 99 Senators here playing their games on Christmas, but as Bing said, I'll be home for Christmas and you can be sure of that. You can count on it.

With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, first of all, let me thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for allowing me to say something about our vote that is coming up.

Mr. Dowdell has been nominated to a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, which sits in my hometown of Tulsa. In fact, he is a neighbor of mine in Tulsa.

After graduating from the University of Tulsa's College of Law, Mr. Dowdell began his legal career as a clerk to the chief judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Since 1983, Mr. Dowdell has accumulated extensive State and Federal litigation experience representing a variety of clients working at the same firm in Tulsa of which he is a partner.

Mr. Dowdell is a native Tulsan and has been extensively involved in the community, in addition to being widely recognized for his work on behalf of his clients. I received a number of letters from members of the legal community throughout Tulsa highlighting Mr. Dowdell's work ethic, his character, and his abilities as an advocate for his clients.

Mr. Dowdell already has experience as a mediator and arbitrator and has served as an adjunct settlement judge in the Northern District for the past 14 years, which is the district for which he is nominated. He and his wife of 24 years, Rochelle, like my wife and I, have four children, which I always remind people is just the right amount. If you are ever going to have 20 kids and grandkids, you have to start with 4, and he understands that.

Although it often seems as if I am on the opposite side of many of this administration's judicial nominees, I can say with confidence that this is not the case with Mr. Dowdell. Mr. Dowdell has the requisite experience and judicial temperament to make a fine judge in the Northern District of Oklahoma.

I am particularly impressed with Mr. Dowdell's commitment to ``render decisions fairly and impartially, applying the relevant law to the facts without bias or prejudgment,'' to interpret a statute or constitutional provision in a case of first impression by first considering ``the statutory text or provision in the context of its plain and ordinary meaning''--that says a lot--and to not consult foreign law when interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Too often in this country we have judges applying their own meanings to the Constitution and to the laws passed by Congress or allowing their own biases to affect their decisions. I can state confidently to my colleagues that Judge Dowdell will not be this type of a judge.

In his Questions for the Record to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Dowdell has stated that he does not agree with the notion that the Constitution is a ``living'' document that constantly evolves as society interprets it. He further states that the ``Constitution changes only through the amendment process, as set forth in Article V of the Constitution.'' That is refreshing. ``A court's job is to interpret and apply the Constitution, not to add or amend the rights contained therein.'' That is a quote by him.

Based on these statements, I can say that Mr. Dowdell's judicial philosophy is in keeping with the Framers and in lockstep with my own philosophy. My only wish is that we would get more of this type of judicial nominee from the administration.

It is for these reasons that I support Mr. Dowdell's confirmation to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, and I hope my colleagues will do the same.

This vote should be coming up in about 10 minutes. I do encourage a positive vote on Mr. Dowdell.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, may I ask what we just decided in terms of time?

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I want to make sure people understand there are different thoughts on this convention. It seems as though most of the time when the U.N. conventions or treaties come up that I have been opposed to them, and my concern always has been that of sovereignty. I do oppose the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities because I think it does infringe upon our sovereignty, establishing an unelected United Nations bureaucratic body called the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and a Conference of State Parties. These unelected bureaucratic bodies would implement the treaty and pass so-called recommendations that would be forced upon the United Nations and the United States if the United States is a signatory.

We already have the 1980 act. We all remember that. We went through that a few years ago. I was here at that time. It is considered to be the gold standard for the disabled. We don't need the United Nations bureaucrats changing it in our country in the name of worldwide advocation.

While the Obama administration affirms that no changes to the Federal or State law will be necessary if the CRPD is ratified, the CRPD can be amended. The Senator from Indiana talked about the fact that there are no changes in this. But it can be amended by the bureaucrats and, therefore, require changes to U.S. law.

Further, the ability of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to investigate and recommend changes chips away at the ability of a sovereign nation in governing itself.

I know a lot of people feel that no idea is a good idea unless it comes from an international organization. I kind of fall at the other end of the spectrum. Specifically, the treaty could be used to interfere with the ability of parents with disabled children to decide what action is in the best interest of their children. This would especially affect those parents who homeschool their children.

I have a daughter--the runt of my litter, I say to the president--who is No. 4. Katie homeschools her children. She and I have talked about this, and this is very much a concern in that community, that unelected foreign bureaucrats--not parents--would decide what is in the best interests of the disabled child even in the home. No less than 40 organizations and tens of thousands of parents who advocate children and parental rights have written us, and me, specifically opposing the treaty.

The Home Schooling Legal Defense Fund writes:

Article 7 of this treaty establishes the ``best interests

of the child'' legal standard, which would override the

traditional fundamental rights of parents to direct the

education and upbringing of their child with special needs.

This could result in forcibly transferring a disabled child from the home to government-run schools if these unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats deem it necessary, even if the Senate puts reservations into this treaty.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two letters, one from the HSLDA and one from the Concerned Women of America.

Mr. President, I have been a consistent advocate for human rights around the world and support ensuring that the world is accessible to those with disabilities. However, I do not support the cumbersome regulations and potentially overzealous international organizations with anti-American biases that infringe upon American sovereignty.

If we had not passed what I consider to be the gold standard for the disabled--and I do remember at that time the activity of the Senator from Massachusetts very strongly supporting it. But we have done our job. Other nations maybe haven't, but in our case I think we are looked upon by the outside as doing the responsible thing within our Nation: taking care of our own disabled.

I would be glad to respond to a question.

Yes, I do understand that.

But I would also say that the bureaucrats who would be running the program would have points of clarification where it is otherwise vague, and I think that could happen. And the point I am making here is we don't need to do that when we have our own here.

I understand there is a difference of opinion on this, and there are a lot of emotions. I saw in this morning's Roll Call magazine all the people lined up here with the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts. It doesn't say anything in the article, but it certainly attacks the emotions of individuals.

So I am not satisfied they would not interfere or through their clarifications could change the intent. And even if they don't, we have taken care of our problem here.

To answer the Senator, I am not aware of the specific Risch request and what kind of response it drew.

I would only say this: It is important to understand that while the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts and I differ on most of these treaties--we had the same disagreement on the Law of the Sea treaty. The question is, in my opinion, our sovereignty. I believe this infringes upon our sovereignty.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I request that the order for the quorum call be rescinded for a point of inquiry.

It is my understanding that the chair has an amendment that is going be considered at the present time, and my question is, Are we ready to go into that? Is the Presiding Officer going to be able to do that from up there?

Not more than 7 or 8 minutes.

Madam President, I was not here when the Presiding Officer spoke last night; however, I am familiar with the amendment that is here.

Let me share with some of the Members here. I hope they don't look at this amendment as just part of the amendment that was defeated yesterday.

We talked about biofuels. There are a lot of people here who are supportive of biofuels. I am supportive of biofuels. In fact, we are very active in Oklahoma right now in developing various biofuels. We are one of the leaders in the Nation, and we actually have a lot of plants located in my State of Oklahoma. This is not that issue. It is not whether you believe biofuels is something we are working toward in the future. We are. We all know that. This is whether we should take our very scarce defense dollars--in this case, the dollars that would otherwise go to the Department of Navy--and put them into subsidizing the private sector in building these plants.

What we are looking at now is to either retrofit or build biofuel refineries. This is interesting because right now I have a list of about 100 different biofuel plants--many of which are in my State of Oklahoma--that are not subsidized by the Federal Government, and there is no reason for these to be subsidized by the Federal Government. This is something that can be done.

If you look at the Navy and the problems they are having right now, I think people realize their operation and maintenance funds are stretched to the maximum. They have readiness problems right now. They have a higher op tempo than they have had in the past. And I think it is important for people to understand that if you keep giving away $170 million here and more there, that is coming out of O&M. It is coming out of our readiness. Right now, if you talk to any of the higher levels in the Navy, they will say they have never been in this situation before. They have already had readiness problems over the past few years, with more than one-fifth of the ships falling short of combat readiness and fewer than half of their deployed combat aircraft being mission-ready at any given time.

I urge us to reconsider whether we should be in the business of building these plants or retrofitting them because this is something we haven't done before.

Now, Energy and Agriculture are doing it currently. Yesterday I stood on the floor and talked about how we are taking over the responsibility of the Department of Energy. We are trying to make the decisions as to how we are going to do this. Should we be developing the progress of the biofuels--which we are doing in the State of Oklahoma without any Federal Government assistance--or should we be defending America with these dollars? Now, Energy, yes, they are going to spend money on this, and the Department of Agriculture is certainly currently spending money on it, but we have not been doing it.

I understand that the Presiding Officer, who is the author of this amendment and who is from North Carolina--and I am reading now from one of the Web sites, from a newspaper there saying that a private company backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will build a $130 million biofuel refinery in Sampson County, with an estimated 300 jobs there. They talk about what they may be doing through the Department of Defense. ChemTex was awarded a $3.9 million grant in June to convert more than 4,000 acres across 11 counties to begin producing miscanthus and switchgrass and biofuel conversions. The USDA, which is supposed to be doing this, estimates that farmers will see a net revenue increase of $4.5 million in growing and selling grass.

I come to two conclusions on this. One is, as I just read, they are already doing it now in the State of North Carolina. They are already paying, subsidizing these plants. That is their job, to evaluate and decide whether to subsidize these biotech plants or whether that should be a function of the Department of Energy.

When we look at these--I asked my staff before this--we didn't have notice, to my knowledge--I asked my staff on the floor to tell me whether there are any of these plants currently being subsidized in any way by the Department of Defense. His answer was no, after a very cursory look.

We do have the DOE and DOA, Department of Agriculture and Energy, doing that. I hope everyone here will look at this. I will actually join the author of this amendment in encouraging the Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy to look carefully at this, as well as some of our plants in my State of Oklahoma. On this list I am going to submit as part of the Record, there are about 100 plants scattered throughout the country, including my State of Oklahoma. We need to look at those and evaluate those and make the determination is this a function government should perform? If so, wouldn't it be more logical to do it as we are doing it today, through the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy and not use our scarce readiness--in this case Navy--dollars that are desperately needed to subsidize this?

I retain the remainder of my time. I know the Senator who is offering the amendment may want to make some comments. Maybe not. But I urge my colleagues to stop and realize this is something brandnew, having the Department of Defense do a function that has heretofore been done by the Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy, and keep it that way.

When the appropriate time comes, I will ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

I yield the floor.

With reference to the Udall amendment yesterday, I want to make sure our colleagues note this is not the Udall amendment. This is something different. This would mean for the first time we would be spending our DOD dollars, very scarce dollars--in this case the Department of the Navy--to build refineries or retrofit refineries. That has not been done before. As I said to the Senator from North Carolina when she was presiding: This is a function that has always been performed by the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture. In my State of Oklahoma we have several of these refineries and potential refineries and retrofits that are needed. However, we went through the proper channels, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. So if we vote for this amendment, it will be the first time we are using our readiness dollars to do something the DOA and the DOE are supposed to be doing. That is what distinguishes the difference between the two.

I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside for the consideration of amendment No. 2972.

Madam President, I call up amendment No. 2972.

I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, this is something that I know will be accepted by both sides, by every Member in here. It is a request by all the associations, the veterans and all the others. It is something I wasn't familiar with until fairly recently, and that is, in July of 1862, following the Seven Days Battles, Union GEN Daniel Butterfield and bugler Oliver Wilcox Norton created ``Taps'' at Berkeley Plantation in Virginia.

This is something we are all familiar with, those of us who served in the military. We know what ``Taps'' is. It is a big deal to a lot of people, but it has never had an official designation. We have an amendment now that would be a sense-of-the-Senate that would designate the bugle call commonly known as ``Taps'' to be designated as a national military song of military remembrance. The reason I think it is significant to do it is it raises the song known as ``Taps'' to a national level of significance, specifically for the military veterans as a tribute when played during military funerals and ceremonies. This is a request of various veterans organizations, and I would ask that it be adopted.

Mr. President, let me elaborate a little bit on what the Senator from Ohio just said. I think it is important to remember that the whole idea was a Democratic idea and not a Republican idea. Some of us remember. We were not actually here at the time, but in the 1960s during the Kennedy administration--of course, the last time I checked he was a Democrat--he was the one who made this statement. I have quoted him very often. He said, We need more revenue to take care of the great society programs that he had kind of inherited and was furthering. He said, The best way to increase revenue is to decrease marginal rates. He did that. I remember the top rate went down from 90 percent to 70 percent, and during his period of time, the total amount of revenue that came from marginal rates raised from $94 billion to $153 billion.

Then, a few years later, along came Ronald Reagan and the total amount of revenue that was raised for marginal rates in the year 1980 was $244 billion and in 1990 it was $466 billion, which almost doubled in the decade that had the most streamlining and reduced reduction in marginal rates in our history.

So I think it is interesting to observe that this is not--it wasn't all a Republican idea, but it is something that has worked every time it has been tried.

I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Ohio. I would go a little farther and say this obsession that the only way to do these things is to raise taxes, I think that flies in the face of history.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I also ask to be recognized as in morning business.

Mr. President, the Senator from Georgia is exactly right. I do not think, in the years I have been here, I have ever seen one issue where everyone is in agreement. If we go back to 2007, 94 Members of this Senate got together and they said--and this is all documented-- that: Detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities.

We all agreed on that. Then we agreed again in 2009 and every year since then, as the Senator from Georgia has said. But a lot of people have forgotten. We have had this issue for so many years now, they have forgotten some of the original reasons why. One of the obvious reasons--there are three reasons. One was that prisons that hold these detainees become magnets. I do not think people understand that a terrorist is not a criminal. He is a terrorist. His job is to train people to kill other people, to engage in terrorist activities.

Do we truly want them in there talking to all our prisoners? That was one of the major reasons people were all coalescing around the idea that we have a great place to put these guys; that is, Guantanamo Bay.

The second reason is the prison guards. They have to be specially trained in order to guard a prison that has terrorists as opposed to the normal criminal element.

The third is what FBI Director Robert Mueller has said; that there is a very real possibility that Gitmo detainees will recruit more terrorists from among the Federal inmate population and continue al- Qaida operations from the inside, which is how the New York synagogue bombers were recruited.

We should not even be debating this. The Ayotte amendment is one that will take care of this so we do not have to worry about it from year to year, we do not have to stand here and anguish over this thing that we have decided several times.

I can remember--I guess it was back in the early administration of Obama--when he identified 17 areas in the United States that would be appropriate for incarcerating terrorists whom we would take out of Gitmo. One of those places happened to be Fort Sill in my State of Oklahoma. So I went down to Fort Sill. I looked at the facility we had that was within the Fort Sill facility.

There was a lady there whose name is Sergeant Major Carter. I can remember when she came up to me she said: Senator, why in the world? Go back and tell those people back there that they do not understand what is going on. This is coming from a sergeant major. She happened to be a Black lady. She had been down there for some time. She said: Go back and tell them I had two tours in Gitmo. There is no place that is more humane. There is no place that is taking care of them, no place where we can secure the area so we protect our prison guards like Gitmo.

She even went on to say one of the biggest problems we had with the inmates in Gitmo is an overweight problem because they are eating better than they have ever eaten in their lives. They had medical attention for diseases they did not know existed.

So we have an opportunity there to do it. I applaud Senator Ayotte for wanting to address this so we do not have to go through this every year. Nothing has changed. We know it is a revolving door. People who go out from there, many of them return to the battleground, and there is no place else that offers this security and the confinement.

The last thing I would say, we do not have many good deals in government, and let's see anyone here find a better deal. We have had this--it was either

since 1901 or 1904. I cannot remember the year. But as I do recall we are still under the same lease agreement. That whole facility that we have at Gitmo, along with the court system down there, all we pay is $4,000 a year.

Ever heard of a better deal than that? About half the time Castro does not bill us. So let's take advantage of one of the few good deals we have, one of the few security deals we have, and make this a permanent arrangement. I hope we have the chance to vote on it. It is my understanding we are going to be able to address these and bring them up, put them in the queue and have votes. Hopefully, that will even be tonight.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment for the consideration of amendment No. 3201.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment has been cleared on both sides. This is the one that originally we had several years ago concerning the Lord's Resistance Army in Africa and the showing that we have a policy in this country to bring this man down, the man called Joseph Kony. And we want to renew this so that we will have this pending again. It doesn't change anything that is going on at the present time except it keeps our policy in effect; that we are after the Lord's Resistance Army, and we will do what we have been doing in the past until it is completed.

So I ask my colleagues to adopt this amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I think we may have someone--we want to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Utah.

Mr. President, I have been attempting to contact the primary author of amendment No. 3199, Senator Durbin. Let me first of all ask unanimous consent that I be added, if I am not already, as original cosponsor to the amendment No. 3199.

Mr. President, I think it is interesting that this amendment is coming up at this time. It is a matter of just a couple of hours ago that we passed an amendment on this floor extending our effort and policy against the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, and that is Joseph Kony, the individual who for now over 20 years has been abducting young people, training them, taking them up and forcing them to go out and fight with the LRA. If they did not do it, they would have to go home and murder their own family. It has been just horrible. We are making great progress now. I spent a lot of time primarily in Uganda where this all began, and it looks now as though we are getting closer to doing that.

The reason I am interested in amendment No. 3199 by Senator Durbin and am supporting it is because a very similar thing is going on right now. I happen to have spent some time in the eastern part of the Congo, where I have seen the rise of another individual, Colonel Makenga. He is very much like Joseph Kony. In fact, he is training the young people, young kids to be fighters. We all know about the effort out there with what they call the rebel leader of M23. That is very similar to what is happening up in Uganda. In fact, the Uganda effort and the LRA effort were very prominent, actually, in eastern Congo, the same place where this--and I suspected myself that there is a relationship between the two efforts. So I strongly support that.

I want to say one thing, though. I have strong feelings about this, and I want to get it on the record, and I would like to have my comments placed in the Record at the time this amendment comes up for consideration.

A lot of people were feeling that one of the problems with the M23 leaders came from Rwanda itself. At some time, they talked about President Kagame, President Paul Kagame, as if there were a relationship between this butcher over there, Colonel Makenga, and President Kagame. There is no relationship whatsoever. In fact, President Kagame rejects what this rebel leader is trying to do.

I had occasion to spend some time with Louise Mushikiwabo, who is the Foreign Affairs Minister for the Republic of Rwanda. I was with her. I have her picture right here. I was with her recently, and she gave us the assurance that the President, President Paul Kagame, is just as adamant about doing away with this rebel leader, Colonel Makenga, of the M23 rebel movement. I am happy to join in with this. I wanted to make sure I have my assurance in this that there is no relationship between this rebel movement and the President of Rwanda.

I yield the floor. I see the author of this amendment is on the floor.

Mr. President, let me compliment Senator Durbin for his concern for this activity that is going on there. I wish to clarify the record because I have had personal conversations with the President and with many members of the staff and good friends over there.

Africa is a little bit different than other areas. Sometimes there can be rebel groups within a country that are doing something people attribute to a country. In this case, that isn't true with Rwanda. In the case of Rwanda, if they say that some of the Rwandan

military was supporting the M23 movement, that would not be with the authority or the knowledge even of President Kagame himself and his administration. I want to make sure to clarify that.

Also, I want to mention, the area of Goma that the Senator from Illinois is talking about is something that a lot of people are not-- they don't understand what that is. Goma is in the far eastern part of Congo. The capital is Kinshasa. It is further from Kinshasa to Goma than it is, of course, all the way across this country twice. So we are talking about an area where there is not much control.

It happens that Robert Ruberwa, Parliamentarian Ruberwa, is the one who is responsible for that area. The way it is working there, they don't have any control over there. This is a rebel movement.

The reason I say I believe, and I have always believed, that there is a relationship between the LRA and the M23 is because I was over there when the LRA had just left. We were hoping to be there at the same time. It was a matter of a couple of days before. They went north up through the Central African Republic and up through south Sudan, over to Uganda, where they originally started. That is the same area and the same motive, the same way of operating as M23.

They are abducting little kids. People don't realize this. They abduct little kids and teach them how to use weapons and make them go back to their villages, murder their parents and their siblings, and if they don't do that, they cut their noses off and their ears off. We have pictures. We have seen this happen.

I am pleased that we have adopted as a policy of this country to intervene.

Let's keep in mind, we have a war against terrorists. These are terrorists and this has spread throughout--starting actually more in the Horn of Africa, Djibouti, and then moving down into the continent. This is the type of terrorism that comes from it. I consider this as a part of that war.

But I do want to emphasize that the accusation that Rwanda and their leadership, specifically President Kagame--let's remember what happened with Paul Kagame. He was the one back during the genocide of 1994 who was able to come in and pull everybody together. A lot of the rebels went to the west out in Rwanda and went into the eastern part of Congo. We know that is right. But they have been rejected. There is no accusation that there is even a relationship there. But I hope people realize we do have some great Presidents throughout the continent of Africa, and he is one of them. It is a difficult situation there. It is one on which we need to focus our attention.

By the way, I would say I don't believe it has been cleared on our side. It would be with me, but it hasn't happened yet, and we hope to work in that direction so we can take this up.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Captain Chris Bala, an Army fellow in Senator Murkowski's office, be allowed floor privileges for the duration of the Senate's debate on S. 3254, the National Defense Authorization bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Gary Mayo, an Army fellow in Senator Hutchison's office, be granted floor privileges during the consideration of S. 3254.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Senator from New Hampshire has a time issue and she would like to have 5 minutes before my time will begin. That is acceptable.

I yield 5 minutes to my friend from New Hampshire.

Mr. President, I hear all the time from my good friend who is involved in this. In this rare case it is true. The Senator from Colorado and I are very close friends, and he and I disagree on this issue. I think it is important for us to understand where this came from. Senator McCain and I are responsible for section 313, and I think when people understand what it is, all of these arguments I have heard against it, none of them holds weight. What we are trying to do is experiment in green energy at the expense of our ability to defend America, and our readiness. Our military is deployed in more locations around the world at a greater rate than was ever the case during the Cold War. I sometimes say, I look wistfully back on the days of the Cold War. Back then we had an enemy we could define. It was an enemy who was predictable. That is not the case anymore, and after almost two decades fighting and all of these contingencies worldwide, including four major regional conflicts with a force structure that is 40 percent smaller and equipment that is decades older than the military readiness during its decline, this is what we are faced with right now. All of this is coming at a time when the Obama administration has cut the defense budget, projecting over the 10-year period, by some $487 billion. If the Obama sequestration becomes a reality, that would be $1 trillion over this period of time coming out of our defense budget.

Even the Secretary of Defense, President Obama's Secretary of Defense, said that would be devastating. He used the word ``devastating.'' But if that were not enough, the Obama administration continues to force the military to spend greater proportions of its already depleted funds on an expensive green energy agenda, to include the purchase of biofuels for operational use and construction of commercial biofuel refineries.

I fully support the development and the use of alternative fuels, including biofuels, but not at the expense of the military. Secretary Mabus's primary focus must be or should be on the readiness of the Navy, not on propping up the biofuel industry.

By the way, I have to remind everyone we have a bureaucracy called the Department of Energy. They are the ones who are supposed to be doing all of this experimentation we talked about. Our Navy, according to the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Jon Greenert, will see a 15- percent increase in the number of ships set to deploy, with the number of ships and attack boats deployed at any time rising from 93 today to 107 by 2016. This increased deployment rate will impact sailors and marines as well as the required maintenance of ships and aircraft.

President Obama talked about pivoting to Asia from the Middle East and some of the concentrations. This is going to create another very serious problem. When every defense cut dollar degrades our military readiness, why should we want our Navy to pay four times the amount than almost any other fuel, or in some cases 100 times the amount? With a military budget that continues to decrease, where is the Navy going to get additional funding to pay its biofuel bill?

What is the Navy willing to give up in order to pay this bill? What is DOD willing to give up in order to pay the higher fuel bills? They have been talking about this on the other side. However, the higher fuel bills are not what this section 313 is all about. We discussed this in the committee. I fully support the efforts that make it affordable are mixed in, but biofuels still face challenges in technologies that remain imprudent. Again, we have a Department of Energy that is supposed to be doing this.

This is a 2011 RAND report, which says:

There is no direct benefit to the Department of Defense and

the services from using alternative fuels rather than

petroleum-derived fuels. In short, the military is best

served by efforts directed at using energy more efficiently

in weapon systems and at military installations.

That is a 2011 RAND Commission direct quote.

Despite the recent assertions by biofuel lobbyists that the two biofuel provisions in S. 3254, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year

2013, do not restrict the Department of Defense from purchasing alternative fuels, including biofuels, section 313 allows the continued use of the Department of Defense funding for biofuels for testing but precludes them from using the funds authorized for readiness and training. That is what this is all about, readiness.

Section 313 contained in the bill is intended to restore fiscal responsibility and accountability for defense spending at a time when our Nation simply cannot afford to waste taxpayers' funds on speculative green initiatives such as Solyndra and dozens of other companies that are foundering or bankrupt despite billions of government investment, as they call it.

A recent DOD report revealed that the biofuels program will amount to an extra $1.8 billion a year in fuel costs to the Navy alone. That is just the Navy, not the Air Force, not the rest of them. This ludicrous pricetag is not surprising.

Through congressional oversight efforts, we found that in 2009--now listen to this, this is significant--the Navy paid an outrageous $424 a gallon for 20,000 gallons of renewable diesel. In December of 2011, the Navy purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuels for $12 million, equaling about $27 a gallon. That is $27 a gallon we are talking about in our defense budget when we are paying for something that should cost $3, maybe $4 a gallon.

The Navy is not the only service being subjected to this greening agenda. Last month the Air Force bought 11,000 gallons of alcohol to jet fuel at $59 a gallon, twice as much per gallon as what the Navy was forced to spend. So we are talking about amounts such as $400, $450, and $29 a gallon for fuel just to experiment, and this is something the Department of Energy should be doing if anyone is going to be doing it.

DOD has been forced to drastically cut its personnel, the number of brigade combat teams, ships, fighters, and airlift, and it has had to eliminate or postpone critical military modernization programs. Now thanks to President Obama's defense budget cuts, DOD can't afford to do business as usual. Yet they are being coerced to spend $27 a gallon.

Secretary Panetta has warned repeatedly that President Obama's deep cuts will have a devastating effect to our economy. He used the word ``devastating'' when he talked about what was going to happen if he is successful in the next step, which would be the sequestration.

Knowing this, how could anyone support including another $1.8 billion from an already stretched budget? President Obama's climate chief, Heather Zichal, defended the green fleet by arguing that even a dollar rise in gasoline prices would cost DOD $30 million. I think my good friend, the Senator from Colorado, said essentially the same thing. I agree with it. If every $1 of rise in gas prices costs $30 million, a $27 increase in fuel costs due to the forced use of biofuels would add up to about $660 million. So that argument falls completely flat.

Realizing that the economic angle is a political loser, the Obama administration has tried to say that it is about national security in getting off of foreign oil. That is where I want to get.

I spent several years as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and several years as the ranking member. All during that time, people were saying the one thing we all agree on is we need to be off of foreign oil. We need not to be dependent upon the Middle East. Yet right now we know no one is going to refute this fact, no one in this room, no one today or in the future, that when we had the USGS reports and the other reports saying that we now are in a different position than we have been before. People are saying of the resources and the reserves in fossil fuels--and I am talking about ``oil and gas''--we are No. 1 in the world now. We didn't used to be. Two years ago we couldn't have said that. Right now we are. We have the opportunity, and we can look at the opportunity, in terms of our reserves that are usable, of being totally self-sufficient.

The other thing that is so disturbing, when people talk about they don't want to be dependent on the Middle East, therefore we have to spend billions of defense dollars to experiment on biofuels when, in fact, we could be completely self-sufficient, all we have to do is do what every other nation in the world does, and what is that? Every other nation in the world depletes it. They go after their own resources. We have recoverable reserves in gas and oil to take care of this country for the next 50 and 90 years, respectively, and yet we are trying to use this as an argument to go and spend this money on experimental biofuels. I think that part of the argument has to be exposed for what it is. It is a phony argument.

You know, we look, we see, and people ask from around the world, they say why is it that your country, the United States--in my position on this committee I have been asked this many times--why is it that you are the only country that won't exploit its own resources, and I say, well, it is a political thing.

Right now if you want to do something about becoming energy totally sufficient--I asked the other day, because the President keeps saying, well, you know, you are wrong because if we were to develop all of our public lands and be able to get the resources off of that, it would take 10 years for that to reach the pump--I actually called up a man named Harold Hamm. He has testified before our committees up here in Washington several times. I said, let me ask you a question. I am going to be on a TV show and they are going to ask me, if this administration would lift all of the restrictions we have on public lands how long would it take for the first barrel of oil that would come from that to reach the pumps? Otherwise, you go through the refining process and all of that, because we have heard this administration say it would take 10 years. Well, in fact, it would take--his answer was--and I said: Be careful, Harold Hamm, because I am going to use your name on nationwide TV. He said: Yes, I have thought about this. It would take 70 days. Not 10 years but 70 days.

So we are talking about sufficiency that we could have just in this country in a matter of days, not in a matter of years. And I only bring that up--and I know people don't think it should be part of this debate, but it is because they are using the argument that we have to use billions of defense dollars in experimenting with biofuels to wean us off fossil fuels when, in fact, we are doing that now. And we have a Department of Energy that is responsible for actually carrying that out. The argument completely falls on its face.

It was the U.S. Geological Survey report that revealed that America has 26 percent of the world's recoverable conventional oil reserves-- which is more than we are using, so we could become independent--and almost 30 percent of the world's technically recoverable conventional gas resources. So with all these things in mind, the Congressional Research Service agrees and the USGS agrees we could become independent. So it all comes together.

This isn't happening in a vacuum. We have a good bill here, and we need to get it done in the short period of time given us by the leadership. I think we can do it. I agree with the chairman of the committee that we can get this done. But this one amendment is one that would, probably more than any other amendment, take away our ability to spend this money on readiness--on readiness for the experimental program on green energy.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that CAPT Tony Pankuch, a defense fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this year.