Floor Statements

Mr. President, On January 22, 2011 SSG Charles Allen of Oklahoma lost his two legs and almost lost his life in an IED blast in Afghanistan in Arghandel Valley. But his will to live and the help of his wife and family have given this American Hero all the motivation he needed to win his battle for recovery. SSG Allen makes us all proud to be Americans. The following poem entitled PRAETORIANS was penned by Albert Caswell in his honor and his recovery. I ask unanimous consent that said poem be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a new bill, the Food Stamp Restoration Act. This is a bill that will completely revamp the Food Stamp program, which is something that is desperately needed. Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the number of Americans on Food Stamps has increased by 46 percent. Over 46 million Americans currently claim Food Stamp benefits, and this costs taxpayers over $80 billion per year. In 2008, just four years ago, the program cost $40 billion per year--it has more than doubled in cost under President Obama's leadership.

How on earth did we get here?

Many changes to the program that have ballooned its cost have been made in recent years. President Obama, in his stimulus package, pushed reforms that both made it easier to qualify for the program and increased the value of the program's benefits. When the stimulus bill passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the changes made to the Food Stamp program would increase the cost of it by to nearly $60 billion over 10 years.

Worse yet, the President has pursued economic, tax, and regulatory policies that are anti-business. These policies have made the business environment uncertain, which makes it nearly impossible for firms to invest in and expand their businesses. Businesses are doing well to simply hold on to what they already have. This has kept both unemployment and food stamp enrollment higher than it should be.

Since the stimulus package, there have been a few efforts to tinker with the structure and value of the Food Stamp program, but none of them have amounted to much. The Senate-passed Farm Bill reduced the cost of the program by a paltry $4 billion over 10 years, which is less than 1 percent of its total 10-year cost. That was one of the main reasons I voted against the Farm Bill.

But we have moved well beyond tinkering around the edges. If we do not do anything to dramatically reform the food stamp program, it will cost Federal taxpayers nearly $800 billion over the next decade. This program needs to change.

That is why I am introducing the Food Stamp Restoration Act.

Today, the Food Stamp program is a mandatory program, meaning that Congress does not have to appropriate money every year for the Food Stamp program to be funded. Rather, it is funded automatically. This dramatically reduces Congressional accountability over the program, leaving few opportunities to make adjustments and improvements to the program. This needs to change.

My bill tackles this problem head on. The Food Stamp Restoration Act converts the program from a mandatory program into a discretionary one. If my bill is enacted, Congress will have to decide each year how much money to spend on the Food Stamp program.

My bill also removes the power of designing and running the program from the Federal Government and gives it to the states. The new Food Stamp program will be a block grant, which

means that States will be given nearly limitless flexibility to design and implement their food stamp programs in the way that best serves their people.

This makes sense to me. I have never thought that bureaucrats in Washington understood Oklahomans. But the people in Oklahoma City do. If my bill is enacted, each State will receive an allotment from the Food Stamp appropriation that will be proportional to the number of individuals living in the State with an income at or below the Federal poverty level. Benefits will be given to the people who need them most.

States will only have to meet a few requirements to qualify for the block grant. First, their program will not be allowed to authorize benefit spending on things like alcohol and tobacco. The program should only allow benefit spending on real food. Second, all beneficiaries must submit themselves to drug testing. Finally, States must implement work requirements for the beneficiaries. This follows the general welfare reform efforts that I have been championing since first coming to the Senate.

To give States flexibility during times of economic weakness, they will be able to keep their allotment of funds for up to 5 years. This will allow States to provide benefits to more people during times of higher unemployment. After 5 years, if States have unused funds, the money will return to the Treasury for deficit reduction or debt repayment.

All told, my bill will save over $300 billion for Federal taxpayers, and it make significant improvements to the current program by giving States complete control over the design and implementation of the programs within their States.

The Obama administration has dramatically increased the cost of this welfare program, making millions more Americans reliant on federal assistance than necessary. The cost has doubled in just four short years. I urge the Senate to consider my bill soon so that we can save taxpayers $300 billion over 10 years while reducing the dependency of the population on government programs.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce a new bill, the Food Stamp Restoration Act. This is a bill that will completely revamp the Food Stamp program, which is something that is desperately needed. Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the number of Americans on Food Stamps has increased by 46 percent. Over 46 million Americans currently claim Food Stamp benefits, and this costs taxpayers over $80 billion per year. In 2008, just four years ago, the program cost $40 billion per year--it has more than doubled in cost under President Obama's leadership.

How on earth did we get here?

Many changes to the program that have ballooned its cost have been made in recent years. President Obama, in his stimulus package, pushed reforms that both made it easier to qualify for the program and increased the value of the program's benefits. When the stimulus bill passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the changes made to the Food Stamp program would increase the cost of it by to nearly $60 billion over 10 years.

Worse yet, the President has pursued economic, tax, and regulatory policies that are anti-business. These policies have made the business environment uncertain, which makes it nearly impossible for firms to invest in and expand their businesses. Businesses are doing well to simply hold on to what they already have. This has kept both unemployment and food stamp enrollment higher than it should be.

Since the stimulus package, there have been a few efforts to tinker with the structure and value of the Food Stamp program, but none of them have amounted to much. The Senate-passed Farm Bill reduced the cost of the program by a paltry $4 billion over 10 years, which is less than 1 percent of its total 10-year cost. That was one of the main reasons I voted against the Farm Bill.

But we have moved well beyond tinkering around the edges. If we do not do anything to dramatically reform the food stamp program, it will cost Federal taxpayers nearly $800 billion over the next decade. This program needs to change.

That is why I am introducing the Food Stamp Restoration Act.

Today, the Food Stamp program is a mandatory program, meaning that Congress does not have to appropriate money every year for the Food Stamp program to be funded. Rather, it is funded automatically. This dramatically reduces Congressional accountability over the program, leaving few opportunities to make adjustments and improvements to the program. This needs to change.

My bill tackles this problem head on. The Food Stamp Restoration Act converts the program from a mandatory program into a discretionary one. If my bill is enacted, Congress will have to decide each year how much money to spend on the Food Stamp program.

My bill also removes the power of designing and running the program from the Federal Government and gives it to the states. The new Food Stamp program will be a block grant, which

means that States will be given nearly limitless flexibility to design and implement their food stamp programs in the way that best serves their people.

This makes sense to me. I have never thought that bureaucrats in Washington understood Oklahomans. But the people in Oklahoma City do. If my bill is enacted, each State will receive an allotment from the Food Stamp appropriation that will be proportional to the number of individuals living in the State with an income at or below the Federal poverty level. Benefits will be given to the people who need them most.

States will only have to meet a few requirements to qualify for the block grant. First, their program will not be allowed to authorize benefit spending on things like alcohol and tobacco. The program should only allow benefit spending on real food. Second, all beneficiaries must submit themselves to drug testing. Finally, States must implement work requirements for the beneficiaries. This follows the general welfare reform efforts that I have been championing since first coming to the Senate.

To give States flexibility during times of economic weakness, they will be able to keep their allotment of funds for up to 5 years. This will allow States to provide benefits to more people during times of higher unemployment. After 5 years, if States have unused funds, the money will return to the Treasury for deficit reduction or debt repayment.

All told, my bill will save over $300 billion for Federal taxpayers, and it make significant improvements to the current program by giving States complete control over the design and implementation of the programs within their States.

The Obama administration has dramatically increased the cost of this welfare program, making millions more Americans reliant on federal assistance than necessary. The cost has doubled in just four short years. I urge the Senate to consider my bill soon so that we can save taxpayers $300 billion over 10 years while reducing the dependency of the population on government programs.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I introduce the Foreign Prison Conditions Improvement Act along with my friend from Vermont, Senator Patrick Leahy.

This bill seeks to identify and eliminate unhealthy and unsafe prison conditions found in developing countries like Haiti and on the African continent where millions suffer in inhumane conditions.

Overcrowded, unsanitary detention and incarceration facilities endanger lives. This extremely high risk environment is a breeding ground for disease, particularly HIV/AIDs and tuberculosis, and creates grave risks to communities in which released prisoners live. Studies estimate that HIV infection rates in prisons in developing countries can be as much as 50 times higher than in the general population, and tuberculosis infection rates in prisons there are more than 20 times higher than in the general population.

Our bill encourages these developing nations to provide humane and sanitary prison conditions so that prisoners can be released in good health, and thus stem one of the causes of the spread of HIV and tuberculosis among the general public. Our bill also focuses on eliminating excessive pre-trial detention and dysfunctional justice systems which frequently result in prisoners and other detainees spending years in unhealthy prison conditions before their cases are even adjudicated. Tragically, inadequate, misplaced or lost records often result in the incarcerated being held indefinitely because their cases have never been heard. Unbelievably, such poor recordkeeping has kept many in prison long after their sentences have been served.

Specifically, our bill calls upon the Department of State to submit to Congress an annual report that describes inhuman prison conditions in at least 30 countries receiving U.S. foreign assistance. It gives the Secretary of State and Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development the discretion to restructure, reprogram or reduce U.S. foreign assistance to these countries based upon whether they are making ``significant efforts'' to eliminate inhuman conditions in their prisons and other detention facilities.

The goals of this bill are noble, but it will take close monitoring and hard work by our U.S. Foreign Service personnel on the ground overseas to fulfill this work. That is why our bill directs the Secretary of State to provide training to these embassy and consulate personnel so that they can effectively investigate and assess prison conditions in foreign prisons as well as assist these foreign governments to adopt substantive prison reforms. The Secretary is also directed to designate and task a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State within the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor with the responsibility for gathering the information for the annual report and make recommendations to the Secretary based off its conclusions.

I have visited Africa frequently, and I believe that given the chance, the majority of Africa's leaders will welcome the opportunity to interact with our embassy and consulate personnel and adopt the best practices for achieving the elimination of unhealthy and unsafe conditions in their prisons and other detention facilities.

The task at hand reminds me of the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25:39:40 when he said, ``when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?'' And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' ''

We are all our brothers' keepers.

Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jennifer Joy Pinniger upon her retirement as president and CEO of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association, NSSGA. Joy joined the National Stone Association in December 1996, and she has been ``Romancing the Stone'' ever since. To her that means helping decisionmakers, the aggregates workforce, and the public understand the purpose and value of the aggregates, or the stone, sand and gravel industry. She has focused NSSGA's advocacy on those issues with the most potential impact on the industry, always aware that the most effective advocates are those members of NSSGA who work every day to produce the construction materials essential to the built environment.

Joy has reminded me on several occasions that her father's roots are in Oklahoma, although as a Navy officer he moved his family around the world. Prior to joining NSSGA, Joy served very ably as chief of staff to former Senator John Warner and as an aide to Virginia Governor John Dalton before that.

Joy has championed the industry in meetings with administration regulatory agencies, always intent on finding solutions that will not only be positive for the aggregates industry but that are right for America. The Rocks Gallery in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is an example of an NSSGA-member endowed opportunity for the aggregates story to be told from the vantage point of a world-renowned educational institution--an example of teamwork between innovative members and the NSSGA team quarterbacked by Joy Pinniger.

I have had the pleasure of working with Joy as she led the NSSGA's advocacy for passage of the last two surface transportation authorization bills. Joy realized early on that involvement of the public--those affected by the need to get to and from jobs on a daily basis, to take parents to the doctor, to attend children's soccer games; in reality all of us--was critical to success in moving surface transportation legislation forward. She worked tirelessly facilitating NSSGA member contacts with community leaders and lawmakers to build momentum for this often overlooked national priority. Success came in the form of passage of SAFETEA-LU in 2005 and MAP-21 in 2012.

Joy's advocacy leadership extended well beyond transportation to those regulatory issues affecting the aggregates industry. She continually emphasized the industry's ethics and credibility through NSSGA member company commitments to safety and health resulting in 11 years of record-breaking achievements.

With diplomatic leadership, Joy's policy, management, and motivational strength has helped NSSGA members reinforce message and guide relation bridges to fend off unjustified regulations like tightened standards for ``farm dust,'' and legislation that does not accurately distinguish aggregates operations from others.

Joy Pinniger has led the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association with distinction and integrity. I will miss her steadfast leadership, but congratulate her on her retirement and extend best wishes for whatever she chooses to do next.

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

Mr. President, several of us have talked about the tragic terrorist attack on America 11 years ago today. I think we all remember where we were and what we were doing at the time. I remember so well going up to New York to Ground Zero and seeing the people who were involved and talking to the families of some of the firemen who lost their lives. As tragic as that is, I have to ask the question: Is there any doubt that those terrorists, if they had the ability to send a weapon over to the United States, would do that?

I look back sometimes wistfully to the days of the Cold War when it was the USSR and the United States. They were predictable and we were predictable. But it is different. Such concepts as mutually assured destruction at that time were somewhat meaningful and were very effective. It is not effective now because we are dealing with people who want to die. It is a different environment altogether.

On this 11th year, on this particular day, when I think about President Obama's first budget 4 years ago, he did a lot of things I thought were very destructive to our military, and I have talked about that on the floor several times. He did away with the F-22, the only fifth-generation vehicle. He did away with our lift capacity of the C- 17. He did away with the future combat system. I think people are aware of that, but something people may not be aware of that happened in that same budget was doing away with the Poland site of the ground-based interceptor.

Think back to the decision that was made in this country that we had to prepare ourselves for Iran having the capability of a weapon that could be sent all the way over to the United States. We have ground- based interceptors in Alaska, all the way down to southern California. So anything coming from the west I feel very comfortable about, but coming from the other direction, coming from Iran, that is not the case. So we recognized some 6 or 7 years ago that we were going to have to have some kind of a ground-based interceptor that would take care of a missile coming from the east. I was part of that. So we did that in both the Czech Republic and in Poland. The Czech Republic had to be willing to have a radar site and Poland had to be willing to take on Russia, which didn't want them to have this capability, and we put a ground-based interceptor in Poland to take care of anything coming from that direction. We did that, but in his first budget President Obama did away with it. They tried to say that maybe that was not an accurate assessment, but the 2007 NIE--National Intelligence Estimate--concluded that Iran could develop an intercontinental missile capability by 2015. Less than a year later DOD stated in its April 2010 report on Iran's military that they sent to Congress--and I remember this very well:

With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably

develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)

capable of reaching the United States by 2015.

That is totally consistent with what they said back in 2007.

In place of the third site, the Obama administration pitched a new missile defense plan, the European Phased Adaptive Approach with an incremental deployment of sea, land, and air versions, and so forth. One thing we all agree on is that the SM-3 Block IB is a short- to medium-range defense mechanism. The SM-3 Block IIA is short to medium range. The one that would take the place and would have the capability of the ground-based interceptor in Poland is the SM-3 Block IIB. That is still a concept. It is on the drawing board. We know Iran is going to have that capability by 2015 and they say maybe a deployment date by 2020. That leaves the United States of America and Europe unprotected for 5 years.

Now, although I say unprotected, there is some level of protection there. They talk about the AEGIS ships; however, in subsequent budgets the President has cut the AEGIS ships in their capability and the number of missiles that they carry to the point where it leaves us still unprotected--not just us but also Europe.

Fast-forward to today and DOD's April 2012 report, the report on Iran, which, again, states:

Iran has boosted the lethality and effectiveness of

existing systems with accuracy and improvements and new

submunition payloads. Iran may be technically capable of

flight testing an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2015.

Secretary Panetta confirmed this. He is the Secretary of Defense. He said earlier this year on ``60 Minutes'' that he believes Iran would be able to produce a nuclear weapon in about a year, and then it would take them another 1 to 2 years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle. Again, that is around 2015, leaving a 5-year gap between the date when our interceptors become operational and the date that Iran fields a nuclear ballistic missile capable of threatening Europe and the United States.

In this year's budget request President Obama cut $250 million from the THAAD system procurement, procuring 36 interceptors instead of 42. He

cuts THAAD fire units from 9 to 6 and cut $175 million in AEGIS. Again, that is part of the system that would replace the ground-based interceptor in Poland that is already under construction. The SM-3 procurement would be delayed, procuring 29 SM-3 Block IB interceptors instead of 46; in other words, dramatically cutting down our capability at the same time that there could be no doubt in anyone's mind from what I said that 2015 is a realistic date when Iran would have the capability of not just the weapon but a delivery system.

Additionally, the President has failed to plan or program enough AEGIS ships in the budget to provide full coverage. In other words, they can move them around. They have a good rocket capability. I have been supportive of the AEGIS system, but he is cutting down on the number of them. Those should just be there for the protection of Europe and not the protection of the United States.

At the end of President Obama's now infamous meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on March 26 of this year, President Obama said--not knowing that the mic was open:

On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this

can be solved, but it's important for him [incoming Russian

President Vladimir Putin] to give me space.

That is President Obama's words. He continues:

This is my last election. After my election, I have more

flexibility.

Thinking back 11 years ago at the tragedy that immediately killed 3,000 people in that horrible terrorist attack, again, I ask the same question I asked a few minutes ago: Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that a person would hesitate to come over on a well-orchestrated terrorist attack on America and use a system delivered on some type of vehicle to the eastern part of the United States? I say no. I can't imagine anyone believes that is not a possibility.

As tragic as 3,000 people being killed was, it doesn't take much of an imagination to look at any type of missile hitting a major American city. We wouldn't be talking about 3,000; we would be talking about 300,000 or even 3 million.

I think this is the day, on the 11th anniversary, that we need to take the warning we received 11 years ago and look into the future not just for ourselves--in my case, for my 20 kids and grandkids. We cannot subject ourselves. We need to take care of this horrible gap in our defense of an incoming missile coming from the east as quickly as possible.

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

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

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Senator Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 3473 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Madam President, I have a little bit of a problem in that I do not want to take time from the Senator who is in line to speak after me. But I would like to serve notice that there have been several things that were said on the floor today concerning this whole idea of global warming. We had a hearing this morning. It was kind of revealing because they have done everything they can to pass cap and trade, and it has not happened.

I wish to correct some statements that were made by Members. When the time comes that I have about 20 minutes to do this, I will do that. It will probably have to be later today because of the clock that is running now.

I yield the floor for my friend to take his turn.

Madam President, I understand the floor time is pretty much used up between now and 6:30. I have made inquiries. I understand I will have time at 6:30 for 25 minutes. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at 6:30 for 25 minutes.

I understand the next speakers are in the cloakroom at this time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

That is perfectly all right. And I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks of my friend from New Jersey I be recognized for 30 minutes.

Mr. President, when we came back to session this week, I was pleased to see a very good friend of mine on the floor, of a completely different philosophy from mine and a different background and a different State, talking about--being somewhat critical of my position on global warming, which everybody knows I have been involved in for some 12 years since the Koyoto treaty, which was never before us.

Nonetheless, I appreciated the fact that we had a chance to resurrect that issue because, to my knowledge, nobody has uttered the term ``global warming'' since 2009. It has been completely refuted in most areas. But I was pleased to hear my good friend from Vermont talking about it because he and I have a very honest relationship with each other but a total disagreement. We are able to go over those things.

Then again today two things happened. First of all, we had the senior Senator from Massachusetts come down to the floor and was somewhat quite critical of me and anyone who is a skeptic. I think it is important to realize that to understand--so you understand, when we are talking, what we are referring to.

Those people who believe the world is coming to an end because of global warming and that is all due to manmade anthropogenic gases, we call those people alarmists. Those people such as myself who have looked at it very carefully and have come to the conclusion that is not happening and the fact or the assertion that global warming is occurring today and it is occurring because of the release of CO2 and anthropogenic gases, methane, and such as that, it is a hoax, which I said way back in 2003. This became quite a charge to a lot of people, a hoax that--the fact that all of this is happening is due to manmade gases. I believe it is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.

As a result of that, a lot of people are trying to do things to this country that are detrimental. By the way, we also had this morning--it was enjoyable. This is the first time since 2009 that the Environment and Public Works Committee has had a hearing on global warming, on the science or lack of science behind global warming.

I was delighted to see all these things resurrected. I know it is not proper to talk about your own books on the floor, and I do not do it, except I have to do it because it was mentioned by some of my adversaries, my book which was called ``The Greatest Hoax.'' Things were taken out of this book so I had to defend them. Let me just mention, if I can in this fairly short period of time that I have, I think it is only 30 minutes, some of the things that were stated, first of all, on the floor by the senior Senator from Massachusetts and then make some comments about the hearing this morning.

In fact, I am glad it is coming to the surface again. First of all, I was referred to as a ``skeptic.'' I mentioned just now that skeptics are those who do not believe what I referred to as the hoax. He referred to us as ``flat earthers.'' I learned a long time ago that if they do not have logic on their side, they do not have the science on their side, they respond with name calling. I have been called a lot of names. Let me just name a few. This comes right out of the book and some of the things that were said this morning. The ``noisiest climate skeptic,'' ``the Senate's resident denier bunny,'' ``traitor,'' ``dumb,'' ``crazy man,'' ``science abuser,'' ``Holocaust denier,'' ``villain of the month,'' ``hate filled,'' ``war mongering,'' ``Neanderthal,'' ``Genghis Khan''. It goes on and on. I will submit this for the Record.

But quite often we hear these things, it is only because there is not logic or science on their side. So they do name calling, which is fine. To me, that gets attention, and it needs to have the attention. The second thing, one of the other things that came out this morning, the statement was made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts, and I am quoting now, I believe: There are 6,000 peer-reviewed studies that say that no one peer-reviewed study that proves it is not happening.

There is not one, not one peer-reviewed study. A peer-reviewed study is a study that is published and then the peers review it. I think that is a process that is necessary. Consequently, that statement was made. That statement just flat is not right. In fact, let me go ahead and talk about some of these studies. If we look at the Harvard-Smithsonian study, that was a study which examined the results of more than 240 peer-reviewed papers published by thousands of researchers over the past four decades.

The study covers a multitude of geophysical and biological climate indicators. They came to the conclusion--this is a Harvard-Smithsonian peer-reviewed study. They came to the conclusion that climate change is not real, that the science is not accurate.

Dr. Fred Seitz. Dr. Fred Seitz is a former president of the National Academy of Science. He said: ``There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will in the foreseeable future

cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate.''

I would like to pause at this moment, because I see the majority leader on the floor of the Senate, and inquire if they care to have some leadership time. I would be very glad to yield to them that time. Apparently, that is not the case.

Thirdly, this is something that happened very recently. One of the universities, George Mason University, surveyed 430 weathercasters and found that only 19 percent of the weathercasters felt catastrophic global warming is taking place and is a result of human activity.

That is quite a change from what it used to be. That means 81 percent of those weathercasters that we all see every night are saying that is not true.

Dr. Robert Laughlin, a Nobel Prize-winning Stanford University physicist, said:

Please remain calm. The earth will heal itself. Climate is

beyond our power to control. The earth doesn't care about

government and legislation. Climate change is a matter of

geologic time, something the earth does on its own without

asking anyone's permission or explaining itself.

I think the statement is certainly not an accurate statement that was made this morning. By the way, in terms of the climate change, I would like to suggest there is a Web site called Climate Depot by Marc Morano. In this, we can find multitudes of peer-reviewed studies. There is not time to go over them all, but we certainly can find them on that particular Web site.

Another statement made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts this morning was when they were talking about a former climate skeptic, Richard Muller, M-u-l-l-e-r. He changed his mind through extensive research, implying he at one time was a skeptic and he is now an alarmist. Let me tell you about Richard Muller. In 2008 Richard Muller said that the bottom line is that there is a consensus. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--we will talk about that later. The President needs to know what the IPCC says. Second, they say that most of the warming of the last 50 years is probably due to humans. You need to know that this is from carbon dioxide and that you need to know the understanding of the technology.

Mr. President, I was talking about and responding to the speech made on the floor this morning by the senior Senator from Massachusetts.

I think the main thing I got across at that time was the assertion that was made that there are 6,000 peer-reviewed studies that say not one peer-reviewed study proves that global warming is not happening and that anthropogenic gases would be the cause of it. I know it wasn't the intention of the senior Senator from Massachusetts to say something that was factually wrong, but I did read several peer-reviewed studies and referred to the Web site climatedepot.com, if anyone is interested in that.

Second is the fact that the Senator from Massachusetts--and then again in the hearing this morning, Richard Muller was referred to several times as being a former skeptic who converted over to an alarmist. I suggested--and I read something to show that, in my opinion, he never was a skeptic. I would like to make some comments about Richard Muller.

If you go to my Web site, you will find about 1,000 scientists who have come around and said: No, this assertion that we are having catastrophic global warming due to anthropogenic, manmade gases is not correct. Muller is not on that list. However, when they say that he is the one and made such a big issue, I will quote a couple people about their expressing themselves on the credibility of Richard Muller.

Professor Judith Curry, a climatologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, stated ``way over-simplistic and not at all convincing, in my opinion.'' She was talking about the comments by Muller. She also said, ``I don't see that their paper adds anything to our understanding of the causes of the recent warming.'' That is on the paper submitted by Richard Muller.

Roger Peilke, Jr., said that the ``bigger issue is how the New York Times let itself be conned into running [Muller's] op-ed.''

Michael Mann is the guy who started this whole thing at the U.N., putting it together. He had the hockey stick thing that has been totally discredited. He said:

It seems, in the end--quite sadly--that this is all really

about Richard Muller's self-aggrandizement.

So much for the statements that were made to give credibility to their side by Richard Muller.

I think another thing that was stated this morning was we have evidence of climate change all around--wildfires, drought and vegetation, and all that type. Then they talked about glaciers. Well, let me just share the facts about that, which I think are very significant, as far as the droughts and all that are concerned. Again, this is a statement made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts this morning, talking about all these things that are happening as a result of global warming.

Well, hurricanes, according to NOAA, have been on the decline in the United States since the beginning of records in the 19th century. The worst decade for major--category 3, 4, and 5--hurricanes was in the 1940s.

To quote the Geophysical Research Letters:

Since 2006, global tropical cyclone energy has decreased

dramatically . . . to the lowest levels since the late 1970s.

Global frequency of tropical cyclones has reached a historic

low.

So just the opposite.

On tornadoes, NOAA scientists reject a global warming link to tornadoes. To quote them:

No scientific consensus or connection between global

warming or tornado activity.

Droughts. The Senator talked about droughts this morning. Reading from this article, the headline is ``Scientist disagrees with Obama on cause of Texas drought:'' and to quote Dr. Robert Hoerling, a NOAA research meteorologist, ``This is not a climate change drought.''

They further said severe drought in 1934 covered 80 percent of the country compared to only 25 percent in 2011.

The statements that were made about the Arctic and about Greenland this morning, if you look at a November 2007 peer-reviewed--and I stress peer-reviewed--study, conducted by a team of NASA and university experts, it found cyclical changes in ocean currents impacting the Arctic. The excerpt from this peer-reviewed study by NASA says:

Our study confirms that many changes seen in upper Arctic

Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature,

rather than trends caused by global warming.

And 2011 sees 9,000 Manhattans of Arctic ice recovery since the low point in 2007.

Let me explain what that means. When we talk about the Manhattan Arctic recovery, they use Manhattan because that is something people can identify with, and then they relate that to the recovery of ice. In this case--this is, again, from NASA. In 2011, there were 9,000 Manhattans of Arctic ice recovery since the low point in 2007. Now, this study was 2011. So that means the low point was actually below that, and it has been decreasing since that time.

Now, that was the Arctic. In the Antarctic there is a 2008 peer- reviewed paper in the American Geophysical Union, and it found a doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850. In a paper published in the October Journal of Climate Examples, the trend of sea ice extends along the east Antarctic coast from 2000 to 2008 and finds a significant increase of 1.43 percent per year.

Let's talk about Greenland. And I will always remember when I had occasion--well, one of the things I have been interested in is aviation. I have been an active pilot for, I guess, 60 years now. The occupier of the chair is fully aware of this because he and I together were able to pass the pilots' bill of rights, so for the first time an accused pilot has access to the judicial system. But as the occupier of the chair is fully aware, I had occasion to fly an airplane around the world one time, emulating the flight of Wiley Post when he went around the world. It is an exciting thing, but it is one of those things where you feel you are glad you did it, but you never want to do it again. It was kind of miserable at times.

Anyway, I remember coming across Greenland, following Wiley Post, and starting in the United States, going up to Canada, then Greenland, to Iceland,

back to western Europe, and then across Siberia. But in Greenland they are still talking up there about what it used to be like in Greenland. They had gone through this melting period where everyone up there was growing things. They were ecstatic up there, talking about the great old times. Then, of course, the cold spell came along, and it got much colder and it was much worse.

Now, the IPCC, in 2001, covered this. They said that to melt the Greenland ice sheet would require temperatures to rise by 5\1/2\ degrees Celsius and remain for 1,000 years. The ice sheet is growing 2 inches a year. So that is Greenland, and they were just talking about Greenland this morning. In fact, they talked about it during this hearing too.

Let me mention this IPCC and remind everyone of something that people tend to forget. The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was put together by the United Nations a long time ago. It all started in 1992 down in Rio de Janeiro. They had their big gathering down there to try to encourage everyone to pass the Kyoto Treaty. The treaty was never even submitted by the Clinton-Gore administration, although Gore went to this big meeting in Rio de Janeiro. They had a wonderful time down there. At that time they were all saying the world is coming to an end so we have to pass the Kyoto Treaty to stop all that. Well, that is the IPCC that I have been very critical of because that is the science on which all of these things are based that we are dealing with today.

So much for these things that were stated in terms of the disasters and the droughts and all of these problems. The next thing he talked about--and I have already talked about Greenland--is he talked about it is going to be necessary to have carbon caps. I think we talked about that this morning. Right now, there are those people who are advocating cap and trade--a very complex, difficult thing to explain--which is essentially requiring a cap on carbon emissions and then trading these emissions back and forth. That is something they do not talk about anymore because that has been completely discredited. Now they are talking about a carbon tax, and I think that was mentioned this morning.

Quoting the Senator from Massachusetts this morning once again:

The avoidance of responsibility has to stop. We have been

waiting for 20 years now while other countries, including

China, are stealing our opportunities.

Let's put up that chart. Let's talk a little about China. You know China is the great beneficiary of anything we do here to put caps on carbon because they are the ones that are doing it. So they say China is making great strides in reducing their carbon emissions. Well, look at this. The green line there is China. This is in emissions--billions of tons of emissions. It starts down at 2, a little over 2, which was in 1990, and it was fairly low until 2002.

Look at what has happened. It has doubled in tons of emissions. China has actually doubled in that period of time, from 2002 to 2012--a 10- year period.

At the same time, we have actually reduced our emissions--both the United States and the European Union. To suggest that China is sitting back there waiting for us to provide the leadership for them to destroy their economy is pretty outrageous.

By the way, the other statement that has been made in the past, not just by the Senator to whom I have referred but several others, is that we are not going to be able to solve the problem and to do something about our reliance upon the Middle East just by developing our own resources. That is wrong.

There is a guy named Harold Hamm, who is now the authority, and he has actually had more successful production in tight formations. He happens to be from my State of Oklahoma. I called him up before a speech or a debate I was involved in probably 6 months ago, and I said to Harold Hamm: You know, if we were to open up the United States--now, granted, there has been a surge in the production in this country, in the recovery, but that is all in private lands; none in public lands because we have had a reduction in public lands.

The Obama administration has said over and over and over--and I guess if you say something wrong enough times people will believe it--that even if we open these public lands it would take 10 years before that would arrive at the pumps.

So I asked Harold Hamm, and I said: You are going to have to give me something you can document, but if we were to set up in New Mexico, for example, where you are precluded on public lands from drilling, and you put up your operation, how long would it take you to bring up the oil and actually go through the whole refinery process and get it to the pump to get the supply there so we can bring down the price of oil, of gas, at the pumps? He said: Seventy days. He didn't hesitate.

I said: Seventy days? They said it would take 10 years.

He said: No. He said: It would take 30 days to go down and lift it up--60 days before you hit the surface, and in preparation of sending it to a refinery, then in 10 days you get it to the refinery and to the pumps.

Well, I am just saying there is this whole idea we have to rely on some kind of green energy that has not even been developed yet in terms of technology and ration what we have in this country. I mean, this Obama administration has had a war on fossil fuels since before he was elected President of the United States. He wants to kill fossil fuels. We all know that. And I am not going to quote all the people in his administration who say we are going to have to raise the price at the pumps to be comparable to Central Europe before people will be weaned off of fossil fuel because I think people know that now.

This morning was kind of interesting. We had a hearing this morning, and one of the witnesses was a Dr. Christopher Field. He was a witness for the other side, and he made a lot of statements. It was kind of interesting because there is an article that was sent out, written by Roger Pielke, Jr., who is from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he was actually on the IPCC at one time. But he is one of the authorities who disagrees with me, and he talked about how wrong Dr. Field was.

Now, this is what Field said, first of all:

As the U.S. copes with the aftermath of last year's record-

breaking series of $14 billion climate-related disasters and

this year's massive wildfires and storms, it is critical to

understand that the link between climate change and the kinds

of extremes that lead to disasters is clear.

Well, what did Roger Pielke say this morning? He said:

Field's assertion that the link between climate change and

disaster ``is clear,'' which he supported with reference to

U.S. ``billion dollar'' economic losses, is in reality

scientifically unsupported by the IPCC. Period.

That was the response to the assertion made this morning.

Another assertion made this morning by Field was:

The report identified some areas where droughts have become

longer and more intense (including southern Europe and west

Africa), but others where droughts have become less frequent,

less intent or shorter.

This is what was said in response to that. Again, this is Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., just today. This is in today's paper he published.

Field conveniently neglected in his testimony to mention

that one place where droughts have gotten less frequent, less

intense or shorter is . . . the United States. Why did he

fail to mention this region, surely of interest to U.S.

Senators. . . .

Myself included--that were on the panel?

The third thing he mentioned on NOAA's billion-dollar disasters; Field said:

The U.S. experienced 14 billion-dollar disasters in 2011, a

record that far surpasses the previous maximum of 9.

Field says nothing about the serious issues with NOAA's tabulation. The billion-dollar disaster memo is a PR train wreck, not peer- reviewed, and is counter to the actual science summarized in the IPCC. Again, this is Dr. Pielke, Jr., who disagrees with me on this, but he said he is tired of people saying things that are not true.

I ask unanimous consent to include his entire statement in the Record because he goes over point after point and discredits everything that was said by this witness--whose name is Christopher Field--this morning.

It is important to talk about the IPCC because if we stop and think about it, everything that has been happening comes from the science that was investigated and formulated by the IPCC-- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--that is, the United Nations. In my book I talk a little bit about that, but I don't believe it would be appropriate to mention it at this time. But at today's hearing, we talked about the IPCC.

When they were unable, through about five or six different bills, to get cap and trade through--keep in mind, cap and trade through legislation would cost the American people between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. But when that failed, we had something happen in December 2009.

The United Nations has this big party every year, and they invite countries from around the world to testify that global warming is happening and they are going to do something about it. One time in Milan, Italy, I saw one of my friends from West Africa. I said, What in the world are you doing here? You know better than this--in terms of global warming. He said, This is the biggest party of the year. Besides that, if we agree to go along with this, we in West Africa are going to get billions of dollars from the United Nations, from those countries in the developed nations.

Another big party was coming up in Copenhagen in 2009. I think Senator Kerry had gone over; Hillary Clinton had gone over. I don't believe Barack Obama was there. Nancy Pelosi was there and several others were there. They were telling all these countries: Don't you worry about it because we in the United States of America are going to pass cap-and-trade legislation this year. So I said I was going to go over as a one-man truth squad to let them know the truth, and I did. I went over and told the 191 other countries there: We are not going to pass cap and trade. It is dead. It is gone. They can't get one-third of the Senate to support it.

Before I left, one of my favorite liberals, Lisa Jackson--I really like her. She is Obama's appointee and is now the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Right before I went to Copenhagen, we had a hearing and she was a witness.

I said: Madam Administrator, I have a feeling that once I leave and go to Copenhagen, you are going to come out with an endangerment finding that will give you justification to start doing what they couldn't do by legislation through regulations. And I could see a smile on her face.

I said: When you do this, it has to be based on science. What science are you going to base this on?

She said: Well, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would be the major thing. And, sure enough, that is exactly what happened.

I could not have planned it, but she made this declaration that we now are going to be able to do through regulation what we couldn't do through legislation because the people of America had spoken through their elected representatives in the House and the Senate and had denied the opportunity to do cap and trade, so they decided to do it on an endangerment finding.

What happened after that is what I call poetic justice. Climategate occurred. I had nothing to do with it when it happened, but all the speeches I had made in the previous 10 years on the floor of this Senate were speeches saying exactly the same thing: that they were cooking the science and what they were saying was not real.

I read several of the editorials that came out after climategate. The New York Times has always been on the other side of this issue. They said:

Given the stakes, the IPCC cannot allow more missteps and,

at the very least, must

tighten procedures and make its deliberation more

transparent. The panel's chairman . . . is under fire for

taking consulting fees from business interests. . . .

The Washington Post, which has also been on the other side of this issue, said:

Recent revelations about flaws in that seminal IPCC report,

ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are

undermining confidence not only in the panel's work but also

in projections about climate change.

Newsweek:

Some of the IPCC's most-quoted data and recommendations

were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures,

newspaper articles. . . .

Christopher Booker of the UK Telegraph said of climategate, `` . . . the worst scientific scandal of our generation.''

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

A prominent physicist from the IPCC said: ``Climategate was a fraud on the scale I have never seen.''

Another UN Scientist, bails:

UN IPCC Coordinating author Dr. Philip Lloyd calls out IPCC

`fraud'--the result is not scientific.

Newsweek:

Once celebrated climate researchers feeling like used car

salesmen. Some of IPCC's most-quoted data and recommendations

were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures.

Clive Cook of the Atlantic Magazine, speaking of the IPCC, responds:

I had hoped, not very confidently, that the various

Climategate inquiries would be severe. This would have been a

first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific

consensus.

So everyone is in agreement that this is what climategate was all about. And why I am spending so much time on this is because this is the science of all of these things that started since Kyoto.

By the way, the Senator, this morning on the floor, commented about the Kyoto Treaty. Let's keep in mind, the Kyoto Treaty was back during the Clinton-Gore administration. They were strongly in support of it. Vice President Gore went down to the summit they were having in Rio de Janeiro and signed the treaty, but they never submitted it to the Senate.

To become a part of a treaty, it has to be ratified by the United States. It never was, and people need to understand that there is a reason it never was submitted.

I would suggest a couple of other things in the remainder of the time that I have that I think are significant and worthy of bringing up. One would be the one-weather event. The thing that we are hearing more about than anything else is that it has been a very hot summer. On Monday, my wife called me up and said: In Tulsa it is 109 degrees today.

I was joking around with my good friend from Vermont--we disagree with each other, but he is a good friend. Sure, it is hot. But it is so important that people understand, weather is not climate.

Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor of environmental studies at University of Colorado, said:

Over the long term, there is no evidence that disasters are

getting worse because of climate change.

Judith Curry, chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has said:

I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments

. . . that attribute a single extreme weather event, a

cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme

weather events to anthropogenic forcing.

Myles Allen at the University of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics Department:

When Al Gore said . . . that scientists now have clear

proof that climate change is directly responsible for the

extreme and devastating floods, storms and droughts . . . my

heart sank.

I consider Rachel Maddow of MSNBC to be one of the outstanding liberals, and she is one of my four favorite liberals. I have been on her program, and I have enjoyed it. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, agrees that some of these weather events have nothing to do with global warming.

The other thing I made a note of that came up this morning was that they said there is no evidence on cooling. I think it is important to talk about that a little bit because a prominent Russian scientist said:

We should fear a deep temperature drop--not catastrophic

global. . . . Warming had a natural origin . . .

CO2 is not guilty.

U.N. Fears (More) Global Cooling Cometh! An IPCC scientist warns the

I do think it is important to bring this up because this is happening right now, after 3 years, and not one mention of global warming, and all of a sudden it is global warming.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend my time by 5 minutes.

This morning I showed a picture of an igloo. I have 20 kids and grandkids. My daughter Molly and her husband have four children. One of those is adopted from Africa, a little girl. She was brought over here when she was a little baby. She is now 12 years old, reading at a college level. She is an outstanding little girl. I sponsor the African dinner every February, and she, for the last 3 years, has been kind of a keynote speaker, and everybody loves her.

They were up here 2 years ago, and they couldn't leave because all the airports were closed because of the ice storm. What do you do with a family of six when they are stuck someplace? They built an igloo. That was fun--a real igloo that will sleep four people. This became quite an issue, and we had articles from France and Great Britain and all criticizing my family. In fact, my cute little family was declared by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC to be the worst family in America because of this.

The point they were trying to make is, no one ever asserted that because it was the coldest winter in several decades up here that somehow that refuted global warming. I said: No, that isn't true. Now those same people are saying that it is.

So you can fool the American people part of the time and you can talk about all the hysteria and all the things that are taking place, but the people of America have caught on.

In March 2010, in a Gallup poll, Americans ranked global warming dead last, No. 8 out of eight environmental issues. They had a vote, and this was dead last.

A March Rasmussen poll: 72 percent of American voters don't believe global warming is a serious problem.

An alarmist, Robert Socolow, laments:

We are losing the argument with the general public big time

. . . I think the climate change activists--myself included--

have lost the American middle.

So as much money as they have spent and the efforts they have made, and moveon.org and George Soros and Michael Moore and the United Nations and the Gore people and the elitists out in California in Hollywood, they have lost this battle. Now they are trying to resurrect it. They would love nothing more than to pass this $300 billion tax increase. It is not going to happen.

But I am glad that we are talking about it again, and I applaud my friend. Senator Sanders from Vermont is a real sincere activist on the other side. We agree on hardly anything--except infrastructure, I would have to

say--and yet we respect each other. That is what this body is all about. We should have people who are on both sides of all these controversial issues talking about it. There has been a silence for 3 years. Now we are talking about it again.

So welcome back to the discussion of global warming. I look forward to future discussions about this.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Unanimous Consent Agreement S. 3326

Mr. President, I am waiting now for them to bring up a bill I have filed today and will have a number to go with it which I will announce in a moment.

First of all, let me say that the talk of the whole country right now is on the sequestration problems we are having. I would only observe that I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand, but President Obama has written four budgets and these budgets have come before us, and if we add up all of the deficits in the four budgets, it comes to $5.3 trillion worth of deficits. I suggest that is more deficit than all Presidents in the history of this country for the past 200-plus years.

So, people say, how did we get into this mess? Because when we have those kinds of deficits over a period of time, we wonder where it is coming from. Let me tell my colleagues where it didn't come from, where it wasn't spent, and that is military.

I went over the first budget President Obama had. I went over to Afghanistan so I could make sure I could get the attention of the American people and let them know how this disarming of America by President Obama is going. Of course, if one of my colleagues was part of that first budget, they would know that it cut out our only fifth- generation fighter, the F-22; our lift capacity, the C-17; the future combat system; the ground based interceptor in Poland. That was just the first budget. Then it has gotten worse since that time. Since there isn't time to go over that detail year by year, I can only say that the President has already cut in his budget over the next decade $487 billion, roughly $500 billion, $\1/2\ trillion--from defense spending over the next 10 years.

I would suggest to my colleagues that the American people--this is something that is very frustrating, because they assume that when we send our kids into battle, they have the best of equipment, and this just flat isn't true. The British have an AS90, a Howitzer that is better than ours. The Russians have the 2S19 that is better than ours. Even South Africa has a system that is a better nonline-of-sight cannon than we have in our arsenal. The Chinese have a J-10 that is better than ours. In fact, they are now cranking them out to where they rival our F-15s, F-16s, and F/A18s.

So the point I am making here is there has been no emphasis. If we go out and borrow and increase the deficit by $5.3 trillion as this President is doing, one would think we would be in a position to have a lot more robust military, but the military has been consistently cut over that period of time.

In the event the Obama sequestration as it is designed right now goes through, that will be another $\1/2\ trillion that will come out of the military. Even the President's own Secretary of Defense, Secretary Panetta, has said if these cuts take place--talking about the Obama sequestration cuts--in addition to what he has already cut, it would be ``devastating to the military.'' That means we would have the smallest ground fleet since the 1940s, we would have the smallest fleet of ships since 1915, and the smallest tactical fighter capability or force in the history of the Air Force.

So if we want the United States to continue providing the type of global leadership our people have come to expect and meet the expectations of the American people--when we talk to the American people, they are shocked when they find out other countries have things that are better than we have.

If we want to beat this, then we are going to have to do something about, No. 1, what is happening to the military; and No. 2, the sequestration.

I have it all in one bill. In a minute we will get a number for that bill. Anyway, it is called the Sequestration Prevention Act of 2012. It replaces the sequestration cuts with some smart reforms, and I am going to go over those in a minute to show my colleagues what they are. It replaces the $1.2 trillion and then has a lot of money left over.

Let me just kind of go over what this bill would do. People keep saying: We cannot do anything about it. We cannot do anything about the sequestration, the cuts.

We had this great committee that was supposed to be out there finding $1.2 trillion over a 10-year period and yet we have a President who was able to give us deficits of five times that much over just a 4-year period.

What it does, first of all, to come up with this $1.2 trillion, plus rebuilding the military--we want to rebuild the military, in my estimation, up to 4 percent of GDP. For the last 100 years, prior to 1990--for 100 years--the average defense spending constituted 5.7 percent of GDP. That was the average, in times of war and in times of peace. Now it is all the way down, after his sequestration, to below 3 percent; in other words, about half of that.

What I wish to do with additional funds that come from this bill I am introducing today is put that back into the military and bring us up to 4 percent of GDP--still considerably less than where we have been over the last 100 years.

The first thing it does is completely repeal ObamaCare and adopts Paul Ryan's approach to block granting the Medicaid Program so States have complete control over the dollars they use to reach their low- income populations with health care assistance. Together, these two changes will reduce spending by $1.1 trillion over 10 years.

Secondly, it returns nondefense discretionary spending to the 2006 levels. When this President came in, the amount of the nondefense discretionary spending surged. This would have a savings over that period of time of $952 billion.

The third thing it does is it block grants the Food Stamp Program and converts it into a discretionary program so States have complete control over the design of their nutrition assistance programs to best meet the needs of their low-income populations. This provision reverses the massive expansion we have seen of the Food Stamp Program under the Obama administration, which has literally doubled in size, up to 100 percent, since he took office.

On President Obama's inauguration day, just under 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, it is more than 46 million people, and they receive these benefits. It is going to have to stop. It will continue to go up if we do not do something about it. This provision saves $285 billion.

By the way, I think it is important to know, when we look at the farm program, the farm program is a welfare program because they increase all these provisions and call it part of the farm bill. But that is a different subject, and I will talk about it later, not today but later.

The fourth thing the legislation does is it reduces the Federal workforce by 10 percent through attrition. Nobody out there is going to be fired. There are not going to be any cuts. In fact, it would continue to have some modest increases in payment for those who are there. Through attrition, the savings would be about $144 billion over 10 years.

The fifth thing the bill does is it repeals the authority of the Federal Government to spend taxpayer dollars on climate change or global warming. This is kind of interesting because very few people know that--even though they remember that every time there has been a bill on cap and trade, there is a cost to the American people of somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion a year, and people's heads start spinning when we talk about these large amounts. Sometimes in my State of Oklahoma, what I have done is take the total number of families who file Federal tax returns and then I apply this to it. This would be about $3,000 per family in my State of Oklahoma. Yet even the Director of the EPA admits that if we did this, it would not reduce CO2 emissions worldwide. That is the Director of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, and that is on the record. I appreciate her honesty in that respect.

If we do this right now--what people do not know is this President has spent $68.4 billion since he has been President on all this global warming stuff. That is without authority because we have clearly defeated all those bills. What he has done through regulations is what he could not do through legislation. But nobody knows about it, until now. Now they know about it.

Anyway, if we stop doing that over the next 10 years, that will save an additional $83 billion.

Finally, the legislation includes comprehensive medical malpractice and

tort reform. That is the same thing that was passed by the House of Representatives and that would save $74 billion over 10 years.

All told, all the savings generated would be $2.6 trillion--not $1.2 trillion--$2.6 trillion over 10 years. So do not let anyone tell you, we cannot get there from here. Clearly, we can get there from here.

We use the remaining amount to beef up the military to get back to our 4-percent level. I believe if we were to talk to the average American, they would say: Yes, let's go ahead and do this. Why aren't we doing it now?

Let me mention one other thing before I conclude; that is, we have something called the WARN Act. What that does is require the employers--who know because of sequestration there are going to be layoffs--to give pink slips at least 60 days prior to the time that will happen. Under sequestration, if they do not adopt my act, if they do that, then those pink slips would have to be out there by the 2nd of November.

The President does not want that to happen. He does not want the Obama sequestration to be pointed out and identified as to what is causing them to lose their jobs, so he is trying to get companies not to comply with the WARN Act.

Clearly, the WARN Act says ``an employer shall not order a plant closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice of such an order.''

The WARN Act states--this is very significant because if there are companies out there that are listening to the President when he is asking them not to issue the pink slips, this is what would happen to them--it states that ``any employer who orders a plant closing or mass layoff in violation of Section 3 . . . shall be liable to each aggrieved employee who suffers an employment loss as a result of such closing or layoff.''

In other words, if they do not do it, then that opens the doors for all the trial lawyers to come in. Just imagine the cases. At Lockheed Martin, they say they are going to have to let go of some 120,000 people. If they had a class action suit, each one who was let go would receive something like $1,000. That would be $120 million that company would have to pay. I cannot imagine the board of directors of any company anywhere in America not complying with this legal act called the WARN Act.

Mr. President, I am waiting now for them to bring up a bill I have filed today and will have a number to go with it which I will announce in a moment.

First of all, let me say that the talk of the whole country right now is on the sequestration problems we are having. I would only observe that I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand, but President Obama has written four budgets and these budgets have come before us, and if we add up all of the deficits in the four budgets, it comes to $5.3 trillion worth of deficits. I suggest that is more deficit than all Presidents in the history of this country for the past 200-plus years.

So, people say, how did we get into this mess? Because when we have those kinds of deficits over a period of time, we wonder where it is coming from. Let me tell my colleagues where it didn't come from, where it wasn't spent, and that is military.

I went over the first budget President Obama had. I went over to Afghanistan so I could make sure I could get the attention of the American people and let them know how this disarming of America by President Obama is going. Of course, if one of my colleagues was part of that first budget, they would know that it cut out our only fifth- generation fighter, the F-22; our lift capacity, the C-17; the future combat system; the ground based interceptor in Poland. That was just the first budget. Then it has gotten worse since that time. Since there isn't time to go over that detail year by year, I can only say that the President has already cut in his budget over the next decade $487 billion, roughly $500 billion, $\1/2\ trillion--from defense spending over the next 10 years.

I would suggest to my colleagues that the American people--this is something that is very frustrating, because they assume that when we send our kids into battle, they have the best of equipment, and this just flat isn't true. The British have an AS90, a Howitzer that is better than ours. The Russians have the 2S19 that is better than ours. Even South Africa has a system that is a better nonline-of-sight cannon than we have in our arsenal. The Chinese have a J-10 that is better than ours. In fact, they are now cranking them out to where they rival our F-15s, F-16s, and F/A18s.

So the point I am making here is there has been no emphasis. If we go out and borrow and increase the deficit by $5.3 trillion as this President is doing, one would think we would be in a position to have a lot more robust military, but the military has been consistently cut over that period of time.

In the event the Obama sequestration as it is designed right now goes through, that will be another $\1/2\ trillion that will come out of the military. Even the President's own Secretary of Defense, Secretary Panetta, has said if these cuts take place--talking about the Obama sequestration cuts--in addition to what he has already cut, it would be ``devastating to the military.'' That means we would have the smallest ground fleet since the 1940s, we would have the smallest fleet of ships since 1915, and the smallest tactical fighter capability or force in the history of the Air Force.

So if we want the United States to continue providing the type of global leadership our people have come to expect and meet the expectations of the American people--when we talk to the American people, they are shocked when they find out other countries have things that are better than we have.

If we want to beat this, then we are going to have to do something about, No. 1, what is happening to the military; and No. 2, the sequestration.

I have it all in one bill. In a minute we will get a number for that bill. Anyway, it is called the Sequestration Prevention Act of 2012. It replaces the sequestration cuts with some smart reforms, and I am going to go over those in a minute to show my colleagues what they are. It replaces the $1.2 trillion and then has a lot of money left over.

Let me just kind of go over what this bill would do. People keep saying: We cannot do anything about it. We cannot do anything about the sequestration, the cuts.

We had this great committee that was supposed to be out there finding $1.2 trillion over a 10-year period and yet we have a President who was able to give us deficits of five times that much over just a 4-year period.

What it does, first of all, to come up with this $1.2 trillion, plus rebuilding the military--we want to rebuild the military, in my estimation, up to 4 percent of GDP. For the last 100 years, prior to 1990--for 100 years--the average defense spending constituted 5.7 percent of GDP. That was the average, in times of war and in times of peace. Now it is all the way down, after his sequestration, to below 3 percent; in other words, about half of that.

What I wish to do with additional funds that come from this bill I am introducing today is put that back into the military and bring us up to 4 percent of GDP--still considerably less than where we have been over the last 100 years.

The first thing it does is completely repeal ObamaCare and adopts Paul Ryan's approach to block granting the Medicaid Program so States have complete control over the dollars they use to reach their low- income populations with health care assistance. Together, these two changes will reduce spending by $1.1 trillion over 10 years.

Secondly, it returns nondefense discretionary spending to the 2006 levels. When this President came in, the amount of the nondefense discretionary spending surged. This would have a savings over that period of time of $952 billion.

The third thing it does is it block grants the Food Stamp Program and converts it into a discretionary program so States have complete control over the design of their nutrition assistance programs to best meet the needs of their low-income populations. This provision reverses the massive expansion we have seen of the Food Stamp Program under the Obama administration, which has literally doubled in size, up to 100 percent, since he took office.

On President Obama's inauguration day, just under 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, it is more than 46 million people, and they receive these benefits. It is going to have to stop. It will continue to go up if we do not do something about it. This provision saves $285 billion.

By the way, I think it is important to know, when we look at the farm program, the farm program is a welfare program because they increase all these provisions and call it part of the farm bill. But that is a different subject, and I will talk about it later, not today but later.

The fourth thing the legislation does is it reduces the Federal workforce by 10 percent through attrition. Nobody out there is going to be fired. There are not going to be any cuts. In fact, it would continue to have some modest increases in payment for those who are there. Through attrition, the savings would be about $144 billion over 10 years.

The fifth thing the bill does is it repeals the authority of the Federal Government to spend taxpayer dollars on climate change or global warming. This is kind of interesting because very few people know that--even though they remember that every time there has been a bill on cap and trade, there is a cost to the American people of somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion a year, and people's heads start spinning when we talk about these large amounts. Sometimes in my State of Oklahoma, what I have done is take the total number of families who file Federal tax returns and then I apply this to it. This would be about $3,000 per family in my State of Oklahoma. Yet even the Director of the EPA admits that if we did this, it would not reduce CO2 emissions worldwide. That is the Director of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, and that is on the record. I appreciate her honesty in that respect.

If we do this right now--what people do not know is this President has spent $68.4 billion since he has been President on all this global warming stuff. That is without authority because we have clearly defeated all those bills. What he has done through regulations is what he could not do through legislation. But nobody knows about it, until now. Now they know about it.

Anyway, if we stop doing that over the next 10 years, that will save an additional $83 billion.

Finally, the legislation includes comprehensive medical malpractice and

tort reform. That is the same thing that was passed by the House of Representatives and that would save $74 billion over 10 years.

All told, all the savings generated would be $2.6 trillion--not $1.2 trillion--$2.6 trillion over 10 years. So do not let anyone tell you, we cannot get there from here. Clearly, we can get there from here.

We use the remaining amount to beef up the military to get back to our 4-percent level. I believe if we were to talk to the average American, they would say: Yes, let's go ahead and do this. Why aren't we doing it now?

Let me mention one other thing before I conclude; that is, we have something called the WARN Act. What that does is require the employers--who know because of sequestration there are going to be layoffs--to give pink slips at least 60 days prior to the time that will happen. Under sequestration, if they do not adopt my act, if they do that, then those pink slips would have to be out there by the 2nd of November.

The President does not want that to happen. He does not want the Obama sequestration to be pointed out and identified as to what is causing them to lose their jobs, so he is trying to get companies not to comply with the WARN Act.

Clearly, the WARN Act says ``an employer shall not order a plant closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice of such an order.''

The WARN Act states--this is very significant because if there are companies out there that are listening to the President when he is asking them not to issue the pink slips, this is what would happen to them--it states that ``any employer who orders a plant closing or mass layoff in violation of Section 3 . . . shall be liable to each aggrieved employee who suffers an employment loss as a result of such closing or layoff.''

In other words, if they do not do it, then that opens the doors for all the trial lawyers to come in. Just imagine the cases. At Lockheed Martin, they say they are going to have to let go of some 120,000 people. If they had a class action suit, each one who was let go would receive something like $1,000. That would be $120 million that company would have to pay. I cannot imagine the board of directors of any company anywhere in America not complying with this legal act called the WARN Act.

Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks of my friend from Vermont, I be recognized as in morning business for such time as I will consume.

Mr. President, first of all, something my friend from Vermont said a minute ago would surprise a lot of people, and that is we are friends. It is kind of strange. People don't understand being violently opposed to each other in this body and yet also being very close friends. My friend from Vermont has a different philosophy than I do. That is the nice thing about both the House and the Senate. We have people with different philosophies who believe in different things. Somewhere in the midst of this, the truth ultimately does come out most of the time. I think we would probably agree with that.

One thing I like about my friend from Vermont is he really believes and is willing to stand up and fight for something he believes. I am not going to suggest there are hypocrites in this body. I wouldn't say that at all. When we look around the political scene, we see people who somehow might ingratiate a block of people who are wanting support. Maybe it is for the next election, maybe it is for a cause. That is not the case with my friend from Vermont. He believes in his heart everything he says.

Sometimes I talk to young people who come in as interns. I tell them there are varied philosophies in the Senate and in the House. We have extreme liberals who believe our country should have a greater involvement in the decisions we make. We have conservatives, like I am, who believe we have too much government in our lives as it is. It is a basic difference. But I say to them, even though I am on the conservative side, I would rather someone be a far outspoken liberal extremist than be in the mushy middle and not stand for anything. My friend from Vermont is not in the mushy middle. He stands for something.

It was not too long ago that another friend in his office, his press secretary--we are very close friends--said something, and I don't want to misquote him. He said, My boss would like to have a copy of your book. I said, Not only will I give him a copy, but I will autograph it for him, but with one commitment, and that is he has to read it. He kept that commitment; I can tell by the things he said.

Let me go over a few things that were said, and I think it is interesting. This Dr. Richard Muller--I can't recall too much about him, but I do know he was listed among scientists who were skeptics. For the benefit of people who may not know the terminology, I refer to an alarmist as someone who thinks there is great alarm because something is happening and the end of the world is coming because of global warming. Skeptics are those like myself who don't believe that. He apparently has changed from being a skeptic to an alarmist. I would only say this, and that is my Web site, epw.senate.gov, shows from probably over 12 years ago a list of scientists who are calling me, making statements, and saying that the IPCC--that is the United Nations, and that is what we are talking about. The United Nations came out with a preconceived notion that they wanted to believe a preconceived conclusion. When they did this, the scientists who were included in the process were scientists who agreed with them.

So when I questioned it by standing on the floor--I don't remember the date of this. My friend from Vermont may remember that. I made statements about two or three scientists who had called me. After that, the phone was ringing off the hook. Keep in mind there are a lot of scientists out there. We listed on the Web site up to over 1,000 scientists who declared they were skeptics about this whole thing. So I can take some gratitude about the fact that the only scientist who was on the skeptic list who has changed to an alarmist is 1 out of 1,000.

My friend was talking about the National Academy of Sciences. I think it is kind of interesting because let's remember it was the National Academy of Sciences that came out with a report in 1975 warning of a coming ice age. Keep in mind we are all going to die whether it is global warming or another ice age. That is the National Academy of Sciences, the same group. According to a lot of people, they have turned themselves into an advocacy group.

I will quote MIT's Dr. Richard Lindzen, who was a former U.N. IPCC reviewer. He was talking about Ralph Cicerone, who is the president of the NAS. He said:

Cicerone of NAS is saying that regardless of evidence the

answer is predetermined, if gov't wants carbon control, that

is the answer--

That is what the NAS will provide. If you control carbon, you control life.

So we have had a lot of differing and varying interpretations of availing science over the years. I can recall one of my first introductions to this. Of course, this came way back during the Kyoto Convention. Some people have forgotten that Kyoto was a convention that was going to get everyone to get together under the leadership of the United Nations and we were all going to reduce our carbon, and so they had this big meeting down there. I will always remember it. This is the famous Al Gore meeting that was called the Earth Summit of 1992. So they came out with this and said this is going to happen. The United Nations said it is, and so they thought everything was fine. Everyone believed it.

It was shortly after that I remember hearing someone talk about it. We can go back and look at this. This is not something I am just saying. There were statements that were made in the 30-year period-- let's take the 30-year period from 1895 to 1925. That is 30 years. During that time everyone feared that another ice age was coming. They talked about another ice age, and that the world was coming to an end. They provided all of this documentation during that 30-year period that that is what was happening.

Well, from 1925 to 1945, that 20-year period was a global warming. In fact,

the first time we heard of global warming was in that 20-year period from 1925 to 1945. So the world was going to come to an end again, and it was going to be during that period of time due to global warming.

Then came the 30-year period from 1945 to 1975. During that time they said it is a cold spell, and that is when all of these companies came in--the Senator from Vermont is right. I have given probably 30 talks well in excess of an hour each talking about these things. During that time, I remember holding up the cover of Time magazine where they talked about how another ice age was coming. Then I held up a cover of the Time magazine 20 years later, and they said, no, it is global warming. They had the last polar bear stepping on the last cube of ice, and saying we are going to die.

We went through a period of 1945 to 1975 where they declared it a period of another ice age. Then 1975 to the turn of the century--so that was another 30-year period of time--when it was global warming. So we have gone back and forth.

Here is the interesting thing about that. The assertion is always made that we are having catastrophic global warming because of manmade gases, CO2, anthropogenic gases, and methane. Yet the greatest surge of CO2 came right after World War II starting in 1945, and that precipitated not a warming period but a cooling period. So when you look at these things, sometimes--by the way, the only disagreement I would have with my friend from Vermont is that he has quoted me as saying some things.

Actually, unlike Al Gore and some of these other people, I recognize I am not an expert. I am not a scientist, but I read what the scientists say. I get my phone calls, I look at it, and I try to apply logic to it and come to my conclusions. So that is what has been happening over the last--oh, it has been now 12 years, I guess, since all this started.

I wish to mention a couple of other things that were said. For example, on the idea of the science--here it is, right here. As far as scientists are concerned, I can remember quoting from the Harvard- Smithsonian study. The study examined results of more than 240 peer- reviewed--``peer-reviewed'' is the term used by my friend from Vermont--the Harvard-Smithsonian study examined the results of more than 240 peer-reviewed papers published by thousands of researchers over the past four decades. The study covers a multitude of geophysical and biological climate indicators. They came to the conclusion that ``climate change is not real. The science is not accurate.''

Then we have another quote from a former President of the National Academy of Sciences. He is Dr. Fred Seitz. He said:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human

release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases

is causing or will in the foreseeable future cause

catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption

of the Earth's climate.

Again, he is a former President of the National Academy of Sciences.

Then we had a study from not long ago done by George Mason University. This is one my friend from Vermont may not have seen. It was called to my attention, and I missed it somehow in the media. It was a survey of 430 weather forecasters by the university, and it found that only 19 percent of the weather forecasters believed that the climate is changing and if so, that it is due to manmade gases--only 19 percent. That means 81 percent of them think it is not.

Dr. Robert Laughlin is a Nobel Prize winner and a Stanford University physicist. He said--this is kind of good. I enjoyed this one. He said:

Please remain calm: The earth will heal itself. Climate is

beyond our power to control. The earth doesn't care about

governments or their legislation. Climate change is a matter

of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on

its own without asking anyone's permission or explaining

itself.

It is happening. I think it is kind of arrogant for people to think we can change this. I am recalling one of the statements made by my good friend that we have all of these--we must provide the leadership.

We have watched these great big annual parties the United Nations has in these exotic places around the world. I can remember going to a few of them. I remember one of them in Milan, Italy. It would have been 2003. I went there. They had ``wanted'' posters on all the telephone polls with my picture and quoted me when I first came out with the hoax statement. These big parties are kind of interesting. I have only gone to three of them, but they have people invited from all over the world. The only price to pay to come to this is to believe that catastrophic warming is taking place and that it is the fault of bad old man and anthropogenic gases.

Anyway, the last one was an interesting one--not the last one, the most enjoyable one in Copenhagen. At that time--I am going from memory, but I believe President Obama had been there, Secretary Clinton had been there, Nancy Pelosi had been there, and several others. There were five different people--I can't remember the other two--and they were there to assure the other countries--keep in mind, 192 countries--they assured them that we were going to pass some type of cap-and-trade legislation. So I went. Right before I went over, I announced myself as a self-described--I don't mean it in an arrogant way--as a self- proclaimed, one-man truth squad. I went over to tell them the truth, that it wasn't going to happen.

But right before it happened--talk about poetic justice, I say to my friend from Vermont--right before that happened was a hearing we had with the director of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, whom I love dearly. She is one of my three favorite liberals whom I often talk about, and she came out and said--I looked at her and I said: I am going to Copenhagen tomorrow. I have a feeling that when I leave to go to Copenhagen, you are going to have a declaration that will declare that it is a hazard and all this and give the bureaucracy justification to do through regulation what they could not do and have not been successful in doing through legislation.

I saw a smile on her face.

I said: In the event you make that finding, it has to be based on science. What science do you think it will be based on?

She said: Well, primarily the IPCC--the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It is a branch of the United Nations. It was all started by the United Nations.

By the way, I would not mention my book; however, I checked before I came down, and if somebody else mentions my book, which is ``The Greatest Hoax,'' then it is all right for me to mention it. I see my friend from Vermont nodding in agreement. So I want people to read the longest chapter, which is the chapter on the United Nations. It goes back and tells what the motives were for this. It goes back to 1972. We were in the midst of an ice age at that time, if my colleague remembers. It talks about the meeting that was going to be held at the Earth Summit in 1992, what the motivation was, and then it goes forward from there.

Here is what is interesting. I was going to mention this in a hearing we will both be attending tomorrow. They had the Earth Summit Plus 20 just a month ago in Rio de Janeiro, the same place it was held 20 years before that when George Bush was President of the United States. He went down there even though he didn't really agree with the stuff that was going on. In this case, President Obama didn't even go down. In fact, it has been conspicuous.

I was glad to see my friend from Vermont coming to the floor and talking about an issue that hasn't been talked about now for years. I am glad it is coming up again. I am glad people realize the cost it is going to be to the American people. By the way, the $300 billion to $400 billion originated from a study that was done by scientists--I am sorry--by economists from the Wharton School, and they came up with that figure. Later on, MIT and several universities said: Well, that is the $300 billion to $400 billion, what it will cost. So that has been pretty much agreed to. Yet I am sure there is a dissenting view. But this is the first time I have heard on the floor of this Senate a denial of that assertion that was made. Everyone knows what it will cost.

I remember the McCain-Lieberman bill when Senator Lieberman said: Yes, it will cost billions of dollars. There is

no question about it. Cap and trade will cost billions of dollars. The question is, What do we gain from it?

Well, that is a pretty good question.

Getting back to Lisa Jackson, I asked the question--this was in a live hearing. I think the Senator from Vermont may have been there; I don't know for sure. It was live on TV.

I said: The assertion has been made that global warming is--that if we pass something, we are going to be able to stop this horrible thing that is going on right now. Let me ask you for the record, live on TV, in a committee hearing, if we were to pass the cap-and-trade bill--I think it was the Markey bill at that time; I am not sure. Cap and trade is cap and trade--pretty much the same. If we were to pass that, would that lower worldwide emissions of CO2?

She said: No, it wouldn't.

Wait a minute. This is the Obama-appointed director of the Environmental Protection Agency who said: No, it wouldn't, because the problem isn't here. The problem is in other countries.

I don't remember what countries she named--probably China, India, Mexico. It could be other countries; I am not sure. But nonetheless, she said: No, it really wouldn't do that.

So what we are talking about is this tax on the American people of $300 billion to $400 billion. I remember--and I think the Senator from Vermont remembers this also--way back in 1993, during the first of the Clinton-Gore administration, they had the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. That was an increase of marginal rates, the death tax, capital gains, and I believe it was the largest tax increase in three decades at that time. That was a $32 billion tax increase. This would be a tax increase ten times that rate.

I know there are people--their heads swim when they hear these numbers. It doesn't mean anything to them. I will tell my colleagues what I do. In Oklahoma, I get the number of families who file a tax return, and then I do the math every time somebody comes up. In the case of that increase, of the $300 billion to $400 billion, we are talking about a $3,000 tax increase for each family in my State of Oklahoma that files a tax return. So, fine, if they want to do that, they can try to do it, but let's not say something good will come from it when the director of the EPA herself said no, it is not going to reduce emissions.

The other thing too that my friend from Vermont mentioned was the heat. Yes, it is hot. In fact, it was kind of funny--during the remarks of my friend from Vermont, my wife called me from Oklahoma and said: Do you think I should call in and say today it is 109 degrees?

I said: No, it wouldn't be a good idea. Let me say it.

So it is true. Now and then we have some very hot summers, and in the case of my State of Oklahoma, it is hot almost every summer. We have had a lot of heat. However, the people who try to say there is proof that global warming is taking place are the same ones who--back when we had the most severe winter 2 years ago, when my kids built the famous igloo, that was one of the most severe winters. In fact, all the airports were closed at that time. It was kind of funny. I have 20 kids and grandkids. One family is headed up by Jimmy and Molly Rapert. She is a professor at the University of Arkansas. She has a little girl we helped find in Ethiopia many years ago. Zagita Marie was just a few days old when we found her and not in very good shape. We nursed her back to health. Molly and her husband, who have three boys, decided they wanted a girl, and they adopted her. She is now 12 years old. She reads at college level. Every year I have the Africa dinner in February, and she has been the keynote speaker at that.

Anyway, 2 years ago in February, she had given her keynote speech and they were getting ready to leave and go back home, but they couldn't get out because all the airports were closed. What do you do with a family of six? You go out and build an igloo. This wasn't just an igloo the kids built; it slept four people, right next to the Library of Congress, and on top of it they had a little sign saying ``Al Gore's New Home.''

Anyway, they were talking about that single weather event at that time--or some were; not me; I know better than to do that--saying global warming can't take place because we have had the most severe winters. Anyway, a lot of people have tried to use--and I don't blame them for doing it--the idea that, oh, it is really hot out there; therefore, this must be global warming.

I would suggest that--oh, yeah, the one weather event. Roger Pielke, Jr., professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, said:

Over the long run, there is no evidence that disasters are

getting worse because of climate change.

Judith Curry, chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said:

I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments

that attribute a single extreme weather event or a cluster of

extreme weather events or statistics of extreme weather

events to an anthropogenic forcing.

Myles Allen, the head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the University of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department, said:

When Al Gore said that scientists now have clear proof that

climate change is directly responsible for the extreme and

devastating floods, storms and droughts, my heart sank.

The other day, I was on the ``Rachel Maddow Show.'' I watch Rachel Maddow. She is one of my three favorite--let me just declare today that I have four favorite liberals, and the Senator from Vermont is one of them. He just graduated to that today, I say to my friend from Vermont.

Anyway, I have been on her show before--and I always like doing it because they are on the other side of these issues--but her own guy, called Bill Nye the Science Guy, agrees, one, it is wrong to try to attribute climate to a weather event. There is a big difference between weather and climate. So we have an awful lot of people who are talking about that.

My good friend from Vermont talked about the global cooling predictions. Let me correct him in saying that I did not say that. I said that quoting scientists. I try to do that because I do not want anyone to think I know that much about science because I do not.

A prominent Russian scientist, Dr. Abdussamatov, said:

We should fear a deep temperature drop--not catastrophic

global warming. . . .

It follows that [global] warming had a natural origin, the

contribution of CO2 to it was insignificant. . . .

This second thing: ``UN Fears (More) Global Cooling Commeth!'' This is the IPCC. This is the United Nations, the same people who, in my opinion--I do say this--are trying to profit from this issue. When I say that, let me clarify that because when the United Nations comes up with something that is not in the best interests of this country--I have often said we ought to correct this. I have written letters, signed by Members of this Senate, and before that by Members of the House when I was in the House, saying: You guys are going to have to come to the meeting and talk about this because it is going to be a serious problem.

When you talk about all these things that are going on, it is something that is not actually taking place.

So they said--and I am quoting now. This would be palaeoclimate scientist Dr. Bob Carter from James Cook University in Australia, who has testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on EPW. I was there at that testimony. He noted on June 18, 2007: The accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this is 8-year long temperature stability that occurred, despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million of atmospheric

Mr. President, this Friday marks the beginning of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Every 4 years, our national pride is displayed as we join our family and friends to cheer on Team USA. In this summer's London Games, the 530-member U.S. team will compete in 25 sports that span 246 medal events. Individuals and families make so many sacrifices just to have the opportunity to be a part of these competitions every 4 years. Rigorous physical challenges, early morning workouts, and total commitment are hallmarks of Olympians. Support of family and friends are also key to the success of these athletes.

Several of the team members have ties to my home State of Oklahoma. Many basketball players have Oklahoma ties--Blake Griffin, James Harden, Kevin Durant, and Russell Westbrook are all members of the USA basketball team. Many of us have followed Griffin's career from his early days, even before he was a University of Oklahoma Sooner. Then, of course Durant, Westbrook, and Harden are members of the Oklahoma City Thunder team that captivated our State and drew us together on their amazing journey through the NBA playoffs this past season.

All eyes will be on the Team USA's rowing team as they compete for a medal. Anthony Fahden of Oklahoma City, Will Newell of Oklahoma City, Tom Peszek of Oklahoma City, Nick LaCava of Oklahoma City, and Robin Prendes of Oklahoma City, will compete in rowing events.

Our State has a rich wrestling heritage. Three wrestlers, one from Oklahoma State University and two from the University of Oklahoma, will represent our Nation and State. Cowboy Coleman Scott and Sooners Jared Frayer and Sam Hazewinkel will continue that tradition in London as they hit the mat for Team USA.

Oklahoma will also be represented during the track and field events. Tia Brooks, a shot putter residing in Norman, secured a spot on the Olympic team with a big second throw at the U.S. trials. Brittany Borman, a javelin thrower also residing in Norman, secured first place and a spot on the U.S. team on her final throw at U.S. trials.

In gymnastics, Norman resident Jake Dalton will regale audiences on the vault and floor exercises. Meanwhile, in the pool, Mary Killman, who was born in Ada, will compete in solo, duet, and team synchronized swimming.

My wife Kay and I and our 20 kids and grandchildren will be watching these individuals and the entire U.S. Olympic team during the London Games, and we wish them every success as they make our State and our entire Nation proud.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Government Transparency and Recordkeeping Act along with Senator Vitter.

The purpose of this bill is to require that all records of individual payments under 31 U.S.C. 1304, which is the Judgment Fund, are reported to Congress and made available to the public. It further requires that agencies provide this information by keeping accurate and thorough records.

Simply put, most Americans have a checking account. When you write a check, you also record it in your checking book. This checking book is your record of how much you paid and to whom you paid. Simply put, the Federal Government does not do this in terms of the Judgment Fund. The Federal government has not been keeping track of its Judgment Fund payments because they are not required to do so. In this age of technology, shouldn't the federal government keep track of its finances?

If the Federal Government is named as a defendant and the plaintiffs are successful then the plaintiffs may be awarded for certain attorney fees and costs. Such payments are made from the Judgment Fund.

The Judgment Fund was created in 1956 and is a permanent fund available to pay judgments against the government and settlements resulting from lawsuits.

As the Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I had to request that GAO investigate how much the Judgment Fund has paid related to the environmental statutes in our jurisdiction and get back to me. Even GAO had trouble getting complete records over the past ten years. This is federal taxpayers' money that we are spending without keeping accurate and up to date records. This information needs to be readily available and accessible to the public.

Federal agencies that are impacted by these costs as well as policymakers and taxpayers should be able to track payments from the Judgment Fund to determine who is suing a particular Federal agency, the nature of their claims, how often agencies settle and agree to pay plaintiffs' legal fees, and so forth. If Congress and the public had access to this information in a useable form, they could identify problem areas and work to save taxpayer money by bringing loss rates down.

Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution provides ``that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts of all public money shall be published from time to time.'' The operation and payment of Judgment fund monies should not be an exception. This bill will ensure that Congress and the public have access to such information.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Government Transparency and Recordkeeping Act along with Senator Vitter.

The purpose of this bill is to require that all records of individual payments under 31 U.S.C. 1304, which is the Judgment Fund, are reported to Congress and made available to the public. It further requires that agencies provide this information by keeping accurate and thorough records.

Simply put, most Americans have a checking account. When you write a check, you also record it in your checking book. This checking book is your record of how much you paid and to whom you paid. Simply put, the Federal Government does not do this in terms of the Judgment Fund. The Federal government has not been keeping track of its Judgment Fund payments because they are not required to do so. In this age of technology, shouldn't the federal government keep track of its finances?

If the Federal Government is named as a defendant and the plaintiffs are successful then the plaintiffs may be awarded for certain attorney fees and costs. Such payments are made from the Judgment Fund.

The Judgment Fund was created in 1956 and is a permanent fund available to pay judgments against the government and settlements resulting from lawsuits.

As the Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I had to request that GAO investigate how much the Judgment Fund has paid related to the environmental statutes in our jurisdiction and get back to me. Even GAO had trouble getting complete records over the past ten years. This is federal taxpayers' money that we are spending without keeping accurate and up to date records. This information needs to be readily available and accessible to the public.

Federal agencies that are impacted by these costs as well as policymakers and taxpayers should be able to track payments from the Judgment Fund to determine who is suing a particular Federal agency, the nature of their claims, how often agencies settle and agree to pay plaintiffs' legal fees, and so forth. If Congress and the public had access to this information in a useable form, they could identify problem areas and work to save taxpayer money by bringing loss rates down.

Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution provides ``that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts of all public money shall be published from time to time.'' The operation and payment of Judgment fund monies should not be an exception. This bill will ensure that Congress and the public have access to such information.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama. A lot has been said, and those of us who serve on the Armed Services Committee have been watching what is going on with a lot of distress. I think it is important for us to understand how we got into this mess to start with. By his own budget, we have a President who has given us over $1 trillion in deficit each year for 4 years, totaling $5.3 trillion. So that is the mess we are in that we are trying to get out of. But in all that time, the one that has not been properly funded has been the military. The first budget he had he cut out the F-22, the C- 17, and the future combat system--all these systems that were so important--and it has gone downhill since then.

As you project the President's budget out, as has been said, we are talking about reducing about $\1/2\ trillion. Now comes sequestration. That is over and above. A lot of people don't realize it. They think we are talking just about the $\1/2\ trillion that will be cut over a period of time. I will use one of the charts that was actually put together by the Senator from Alabama that shows where this stuff is coming from. Everything seems to be exempt except the military. Food stamps, exempt 100 percent of it; Medicaid, 37 percent; and only 10 percent of the DOD base budget. So why is it we find ourselves in a situation where that is the problem?

The only thing other thing I want to mention is this. I have every reason to believe, because I have heard from people in industry, the President of the United States is trying to get them to avoid sending out pink slips until after the November 7 election. I would remind him that we have something called the Workers Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act--WARN Act--and that requires any of these companies, prior to sequestration on January 2, within 60 days, which would be November 2, to notify people of their pink slips.

But this is what I wish to remind people. They do not have to wait. If they want to do it today, they can do it. I think it is imperative the people--the workers who will be laid off work as a result of Obama's sequestration--know in advance of the November election, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that happens.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, earlier today, we had a colloquy on this floor talking about the devastating effects of sequestration, and I think we covered most everything. One of the significant parts of this is how we got here in the first place.

Not many people realize that in our form of government the President of the United States, whether he is a Democrat or a Republican, comes out with a budget each year. Of course, we have not actually passed a budget in the Senate, so that becomes the budget.

In his budget, starting 4 years ago, he has had, each year, in excess of $1 trillion of deficit each year. Add them all up and it is $5.3 trillion of deficit.

I only mention that in conjunction with the concern we have on sequestration. How did we get here in the first place? This is something that is very much of a concern for us because it seems as if, when we look at all the increases, the deficit increases during this administration since 2008, the only area that has not been dealt with fairly, in terms of keeping up with our obligations, is national defense.

I am not too surprised this happened, but it did. In fact, I can remember going over to--let me interrupt myself.

Madam President, it is my understanding I have 30 minutes; is that correct?

Oh, fine. I like that better.

After the first budget, I can recall going over to Afghanistan, knowing this President would be disarming America in his first budget. I think he will go down in history as the most antidefense President we have ever had. But I remember going over there. I knew, with the tanks going back and forth in the background, that I would be able to respond and to get some attention of the American people.

Of course, that first budget, I remember it so well. He did away with our only fifth generation fighter, the F-22; did away with our lift capability, the C-17; did away with our Future Combat Systems, which would have been the first ground transition in 60 years. Then what I am going to talk about in another portion of my presentation this afternoon did away with the ground-based interceptor in Poland. Now that was the first budget.

Since that time, it has been deteriorating even more. So our national defense has been doing everything it can to try to stay afloat, try to support our troops who are over in harm's way. It is becoming more and more difficult.

If we project what this President has done and would be doing over the next 10 years, it would be cutting the military by $\1/2\ trillion. Now, that is bad enough, but what is worse is what would happen under sequestration.

Under sequestration, the way he has engineered sequestration, the cuts would take place--as was pointed out very effectively by the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions--the amount of cuts that would come from sequestration would be coming almost entirely from the military. So not only is he projecting a cut of $\1/2\ trillion in our military as it is today, but if Obama's sequestration goes into effect, it is going to be another $\1/2\ trillion. So we know what this is going to do to jobs, we know what it is going to do to our ability, we know what it is going to do in terms of putting our troops in harm's way.

So I would only say, in my State of Oklahoma an article came out. It was by Marion Blakley, the president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association. She released a report, and it was covered very well by Chris Casteel in the Oklahoman in this morning's paper.

They talked about: Surely, Oklahoma could lose 16,000 jobs. Well, that is bad enough, but the figure actually is much higher than that when we throw in the uniformed presence we have and the jobs we would lose.

In my State of Oklahoma we have five major military installations. We have Tinker Air Force Base, which does a lot of the repairs on the heavy stuff, KC-135s, and so forth. We have Vance that does primary training, an excellent job. We have our depot and the ammunition depot that is in McAlester. We have Altus Air Force Base that trains people in flying the heavy stuff. And we have Fort Sill in Lawton, OK.

I have to say, this is a great compliment to my State of Oklahoma because we have had, since 1987, five BRAC rounds. It is called Base Realignment and Closure Commission rounds. These are rounds where they go through and make evaluation as to which of these military establishments are perhaps not making the contribution to our Nation's defense they should, and then they go through readjustment and realigning, and so forth.

I am proud to say in my State of Oklahoma, the five military establishments I just now mentioned all have benefited from each of the rounds in terms of numbers of missions and numbers of people. I have to say there is a reason for that. It is not political influence, as a lot of people might guess. It is community support.

I have people saying, well, every community, every State has that. No, it is not true. When there is a problem and a need, we pass bond issues such as

the very large bond issue in Oklahoma City to allow us to get the GM plant and, consequently, we have new missions going in. So I am saying that in a complimentary way.

On the other hand, with the sequestration that will be the Obama sequestration that will take place starting on January 2 of this coming year, we would have huge losses in Oklahoma. The estimate is probably closer to 22,000 jobs in the first year that we would be suffering in my State of Oklahoma.

It is bad enough what that will do to the economy in my State of Oklahoma, but what is even worse is what it does to our national defense. We have no way of knowing right now where that money is going to be coming from. I had a conversation--the first one in a long time yesterday--with Dick Cheney. Of course, we all recall not just his Vice-Presidential relationship, but he used to be Secretary of Defense.

He was one of those who was trying to make a lot of the cuts, and he did make a lot of the cuts. But he was talking about, if they do this and have these across-the-board cuts, it would be not just devastating--I mean, we all understand it would be devastating. That word was actually used by Secretary of Defense Panetta, who is under the Obama administration, saying the Obama sequestration would be devastating to our military.

But Dick Cheney was kind of pointing out some of the areas of interest. One of my backgrounds, and I still do it today, I have been a flight instructor for 50 years. I am sensitive to the need we have for pilots and how to train them. If we are to take across-the-board cuts, that would mean our pilots in the Air Force, in the Navy, and the Marines would not be subjected to the training I believe, in my opinion, would keep them as the crack pilots they are today.

The thing they would probably do is say: Well, we have simulators. We have simulators. That does not do it. Everybody knows that does not do it. So the cuts the Obama sequestration would make would be devastating to the whole country, devastating to my State of Oklahoma but more so, it would affect the lives of our troops.

You know, there is this kind of a myth out there, and the American people believe it, that the United States has the best of everything; when we send our kids into battle, that they have the best equipment always. That is not true. There are a lot of areas where we do not have the best. For example, the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon. There are five countries, including South Africa, that have better equipment than we do.

So as we look down the road and we see these cuts that are taking place, and then come back, as I just did from the Farnborough Airshow, seeing the other countries--France and all the other countries--and their propulsion systems, they are developing vehicles that are actually, in some cases, better than what we are doing over here.

The problem we are having is the deep cuts that have taken place in defense. I would have to say there is one thing that I am concerned about. This is kind of a warning shot for manufacturers, for defense contractors around the country that it is my opinion that the President--and I have heard this from several of the defense contractors, saying the administration is leaning on them not to send pink slips out on firing these people as a result of the Obama sequestration until after the November 7 election.

Well, I think they are overlooking that there is a law that was passed back in 1988 called the WARN law. It was the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification law. It says if we go through something like this, we have to send out pink slips--or the contractors have to send out pink slips to those who are going to lose their jobs 60 days prior to the time that is going to take place.

Well, if sequestration takes place on January 2, that would mean November 2, only 5 days before the election. So I just want to make sure everybody knows. The law says they must do it by 60 days. But they can do it tomorrow if they want to. I think the people of this country who are going to lose their jobs due to the Obama sequestration should be entitled to know they are going to get their pink slips before the election so that could certainly affect what they are going to be doing in an election.

Missile Defense

That is not what I came down to talk about because we already talked about that before. But I would like to mention something that occurred in the last couple of days that has put us in a more dangerous position, and nobody is talking about it.

Back in December of 2002, President Bush issued a National Security Presidential Directive, Directive No. 23, announcing the plan to begin deploying a set of missile defense capabilities that would include ground-based interceptors, sea-based interceptors--land, sea, and space, kind of a triad system.

This is a system that people did not object to at that time because they remember back when people used to give President Reagan a hard time. When they talk about Star Wars, they talk about there will be a time when people have missiles that can be aimed at the United States, and they said the idea that we could shoot down a missile with a missile or shoot down a bullet with a bullet is inconceivable. They did not believe that would ever happen, but it is happening today and we all know it. We know the missile capability of countries that would like to kill all of us. So it is a very serious threat right now.

By the end of 2008 President Bush had succeeded in fielding a missile defense system capable of defending all 50 States and had security agreements with the Czech Republic and Poland on the construction of a third missile defense site. The radar would be in the Czech Republic.

I can remember talking to one of my favorite people, who was the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, about this subject. This took a lot of courage for President Bush to go in there and say: Look, we have a serious problem.

Let me kind of get into the record--I want to make sure people understand this. We have great ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California. I am confident that any missile coming in from that direction we can kill, we can knock down. The problem is if it came from the other direction, such as Iran, we do not have that capability. Sure, we might get one lucky shot from the west coast, knock it down, something coming into the east coast. With 20 kids and grandkids, that does not give me a lot of comfort.

Instead, in his wisdom and the wisdom of the administration under the Bush administration, we started building a ground-based interceptor in Poland with the radar located in the Czech Republic. Russia did not like that. They do not like the idea that we are defending ourselves in--you have to use your own judgment to decide why they have come to that conclusion. But it took courage for the Poles and the Czechs to come up and build this thing, and they agreed to do it.

I remember talking to Vaclav Klaus when it first started. He said: We want to make sure if we make this commitment and we anger Russia that you are not going to pull the rug out from under us. I gave them the assurance that was not going to happen.

Well, unfortunately that did happen. When President Obama was elected, he first cut the budget for missile defense by $1.4 billion, and he killed the ground-based interceptor in Poland. At that time-- this is very significant our intelligence had said Iran will have the capability of sending a nuclear weapon over a delivery system by 2015.

Well, the Obama administration cut that program. They said: No, they are not going to have that capability until 2020. Well, guess what happened. Just 2 or 3 days ago, Secretary Panetta said on ``60 Minutes'' that he believes Iran would be able to procure the nuclear weapon in about a year, and then it will take them another year or two in order to put it on a delivery vehicle. That would be 2015. So now we know we were right way back in the Bush administration. We know the danger that the Obama administration has put us in. I think people are going to have to understand that is true.

For us to use the system that President Obama wants to use, we would have to have capability--it is a system called SM32B. That missile would give us that protection we would have otherwise gotten by the system in Poland and the Czech Republic and would not be developed to be able to use until after 2020.

So this is something that is probably one of the most serious matters we are dealing with right now. I remember very well when President Obama was meeting with Russian President Medvedev on Monday, March 26, of this year, President Obama said--this is when the mic was on and nobody knew that he could be heard. He said:

On all of these issues, but particularly missile defense,

this, this can be solved but it's important for him to give

me space.

He was talking about Russian incoming President Vladimir Putin. These are his words.

This is my last election. After my election, I have more

flexibility.

What does that tell us? It tells us that not only is it bad enough what he has already done in taking out our ability to defend ourselves against an incoming missile from anywhere, specifically from Iran, but it is a crisis that we are dealing with that has got to be dealt with.

Law of the Sea Treaty

I want to mention one last thing because it is new--it is not new; it is something they have been trying to do for a long time. I quite often criticize the United Nations. Many times they do not have our interests at heart. I am very glad we got the 34th signature on a letter we were prepared to send saying: Do not bring the Law of the Sea Treaty for a ratification vote to the Senate because we will vote against it.

Now, 34 Senators signed that letter, which means they cannot do it. They are still having the hearings and all of that because they like to talk about it, I guess. But we are not going to cede our jurisdiction over 70 percent of the Earth's surface to the United Nations, nor are we going to give the United Nations the power, for the first time, to tax the United States of America. That is what we would find in this treaty.

That is when he signed this treaty. I only mention that because these treaties that come along somehow--I don't know what it is, but there is something about the internationalists, and a lot serve in this body. They don't think any idea is a good one unless it comes from the U.N. It makes you wonder where is sovereignty anymore.

Here is another one, the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which they are trying to get through. Over the past 15 years, the idea of creating a global arms trade treaty has been debated at the United Nations. During the Bush administration, the United States stood in opposition to such a treaty. Yet it should come as no surprise that soon after entering the White House, President Obama reversed this position and went to work crafting and negotiating a U.N. arms trade treaty.

We all hear about gun control and what we are going to do with your ability to keep and bear arms. We hear about the second amendment to the Constitution, how it means very little to a lot of people.

It should be noted first that the treaty is currently being negotiated, so we cannot speak with certainty about the details. However, in March the president of the conference that is negotiating the treaty released a ``chairman's draft.'' Through the draft, we know that the treaty may seek to establish certain criteria that must be met before the international transfer of conventional weapons--including small arms and light weapons--is allowed to take place.

Here is what we are talking about. I remember that back during the Clinton administration they were saying: We have to do something about restricting arms in the United States. After all, they said, look at all of the things happening with the drug cartels in Mexico and in Central America; they are getting their weapons from the United States. That was the justification for having a gun treaty at that time. This isn't all that bad.

We don't know the details of this yet, but we know the draft treaty may seek to establish certain criteria to be met before we can sell to other countries. We have a lot of friendly countries out there to which we would like to sell.

Although we all agree that a committed effort must be made to prevent terrorists and criminals from acquiring weapons, the treaty could undermine our foreign policy and national security strategy and infringe Americans' second amendment rights. In Oklahoma, maybe people are a little more sensitive to second amendment rights, but I seem to be hearing from them, and they are dead right. The heart of the problem with the treaty is the notion that bad actors will continue to be bad actors. We have seen this time and time again. Law-abiding nations will constrain themselves to the terms of the treaty, and rogue nations and corrupt states will contravene the explicit text of the treaty that only months ago they were negotiating and wholeheartedly endorsing.

I can remember using this argument on gun control in the United States. Gun control assumes that people out there are going to obey the laws. But they are not the problem people; it is the people who are not going to obey the law. Why would they single out a law on gun control that would preclude them from having guns if they are criminals to start with? It doesn't make sense. Internationally, the same thing is taking place.

This treaty is rife with opportunities for such behavior. In fact, the draft requires that provisions ``shall be implemented in a manner that would avoid hampering the right of self defense of any state party.'' One need look no further than the current conflict in Syria to see how ridiculous this requirement is. The arms that Russia is currently supplying to Syria obviously have a dual purpose--for its national defense against a foreign aggressor but also to be used in the oppression of its own people. We know that is happening. Just yesterday we watched this taking place. Russia would, of course, claim they are doing it for their own defense.

How, then, does anyone expect an arms trade treaty which would not have stringent enforcement mechanisms to have any impact whatsoever? The answer is, against bad actors and rogue nations, it will not. But against nations such as the United States, the arms trade treaty may have a considerable impact.

Take, for example, the requirement in the draft that arms should not ``be used in a manner that would seriously undermine peace or security, or provoke, prolong or aggravate internal, regional, subregional or international instability.'' Does anyone deny that each and every time we supply weapons to some of our greatest allies, such as Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea, that we are, in fact, prolonging regional or international stability? The answer is no. But this is instability that is necessary for international order and the prevalence of democracy in regions where it might not otherwise exist. Yet the terms of the draft treaty could be read to prohibit such weapons sales.

We can all agree that it is a great understatement to say that we don't want American gun companies selling weapons internationally when they might be used to commit violations of human rights, but, as everyone knows, we already have laws on the books that prohibit this. The export of firearms is already subject to a very strict and complex regime.

The U.S. international trade in arms regulations--that is why I call this the foot in the door, a first step--which has been promulgated pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act, already strictly limits the transfer or sale of firearms. This regulatory regime has been in place since the 1950s. The United States has been doing this for a very long time. Other nations--our allies primarily--have mirrored our export control regime because it is so comprehensive.

This goes back to my earlier point. The United States has been very responsible in the area of exporting firearms, but other nations will not be, even as signatories to this treaty. It gets back to the nations that are the bad guys--they will not pay attention to the treaty even though they signed it.

The final point is that this treaty, even if negotiations result this month in a finalized version, is just going to collect dust in the Senate. We already have 58 Members of this body who have already signed a letter in opposition, and I feel strongly that this will meet the same fate as the Law of the Sea Treaty and so many other U.N.-sponsored treaties.

So you know the administration is in constant negotiations with international groups, such as the United Nations, and we have to go around and get people, as we did on the Law of the Sea Treaty. We have 35 Senators saying they will vote not to ratify, and that means you are wasting your time. Why are we even talking about it if it can't

be ratified because it takes two-thirds for ratification? The same thing is true here, except we have 58 Members.

Keep in mind that the collectivists who are opposed to the private ownership of firearms, opposed to the second amendment rights, are the ones who are trying to do it internationally.

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

Mr. President, I rise for an announcement. At the conclusion of these votes, I will be making what I think is a fairly significant announcement in terms of 35 Members of this body who have stated they will oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty, which, of course, means it would not be able to be passed this session. So I will be doing that immediately following the votes that take place momentarily.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.