Floor Statements

Madam President, I am about to make a major announcement that I think is very significant and, hopefully, would give us more time to attend to some of the problem areas we are trying to attend to, such as the Defense authorization bill, sequestration, expiring tax cuts, and all the spending bills. The announcement I would make is that we now have a letter containing 34 signatures of those who say: If you bring up the ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty this year, we would oppose it. So we actually have 35 such signatures.

I want to make a couple of comments. I was going to talk for a little longer, but I know there are a lot of Senators wanting to get the floor. So I will try to do this in a shorter period of time.

First of all, I have been involved in this treaty for a long period of time. Way back during the Reagan administration this treaty that was actually first negotiated back in the 1970s was defeated for a variety of reasons. A lot of people are saying the reasons Reagan opposed it at that time have been answered. That is just flat not true. Ambassador James Malone, who renegotiated the lost treaty during the Reagan administration, stated:

All the provisions from the past that make such a [new

world order] outcome possible, indeed likely, still stand. It

is not true, as argued by some, and frequently mentioned,

that the U.S. rejected the Convention in 1982 solely because

of technical difficulties with part XI.

That is the seabed mining portion of it.

The Collectivist and redistributionist provisions of the

treaty were at the core. . . .

They are still in there today.

I think it is important to recall what happened in 2004. In 2004, when Republicans were the majority, I chaired the Committee on Environment and Public Works and was also one of the senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. At that time the Law of the Sea Treaty passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee without--I believe it was without a dissenting vote. I think it was 16 to 0. So we started having hearings before the two committees that were my committees, the Environment and Public Works Committee, talking about how this would subject us to other countries imposing their will on us, as well as ramifications that would affect the Senate Armed Services Committee. As a result, of course, we recall it was defeated.

We have this happening again. I do appreciate Senator Kerry and his efforts to get this through. We have had several hearings. They have been pretty lopsided. I believe the count today is there have been 16 witnesses supporting it and some 4 witnesses opposing it. That is not really important because I think it is worth mentioning a couple of things about it but then actually going into the detail as to why, if it is brought up, it could not be ratified during this year or during a lameduck session.

First of all, when I talk to someone about the problems with this I tell them this would cede authority to the

United Nations over 70 percent of the surface of the Earth, along with the air above it. I remember one time a witness came--this was back during the Bush administration which was supporting the treaty, but I asked the question, I said: If you have 70 percent of the surface area, does that mean you also have 70 percent of the air above it? They could not answer that question. Now I think it is pretty well understood that would be the case.

I tell people three things: First of all, we would be submitting our sovereignty, surrendering it to the United Nations, over 70 percent. That really is enough. But when we talk about the fact that for the first time in the history of this country it authorized the United Nations to have taxing authority over the United States of America, people go ballistic. That is something that is not conceivable we would even be considering.

Then when we are talking about the lawsuits, how we have lawsuits we could be facing--let me be a little more specific.

The area that is in controversy in terms of its ability to tax or otherwise get royalties from the United States, would otherwise go to the United States and put those into the United Nations, is an area called the Extended Continental Shelf. That would be in excess of 200 nautical miles offshore. Nothing within this treaty is going to affect this within the 200 miles, but outside it would be.

As it is right now, it is important to understand how the royalties are paid at the present time. The royalties the United States usually collects from the Extended Continental Shelf is an amount between 12.5 percent and 18.75 percent. The reason there is a disparity between those is because the royalties go along with how much money can be made out there if things go well and how deep it is, how far out it is, how expensive it is to drill, and all of that. So the range the United States currently collects is between 12.5 percent and 18.75 percent from the Extended Continental Shelf.

Under article 82, if we pass the Law of the Sea Treaty, at the end of the 12th year, 7 percent of the royalties would be taken away from the United States--that is roughly half the royalties we would have--and given to the International Seabed Authority to redistribute those in accordance with whatever they want to do. It is not specific. This all would take place in Kingston, Jamaica, of all places, where they would make this redistribution of wealth. I have often said that is something the United Nations has always desired; that is, to have the ability to redistribute the wealth.

It is hard to say what amount would fall into the royalties within the Extended Continental Shelf. There is a group that was appointed to try to approximate these things, and they have said it would be in the hundreds of billions or maybe even in the trillions.

For each trillion that would be in production, that would equal about $70 billion that would be taken out of the U.S. Treasury and put into the United Nations, sent to the Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica, to be redistributed around the world in accordance with whatever criteria they would have. That is a huge amount, and it is very significant, and it is specific that the figure would be up to 7 percent after the 12th year. That is a very significant amount.

When we stop and think about it, we have been talking about how we can come up with $1 trillion in the next 10 years. Now all of a sudden we have an amount that could come close to equaling that just from losing our royalties that would otherwise come to the United States of America. Of course, there is the lawsuits. I think this is significant. Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, any country could sue the United States in an international tribunal and not in the U.S. courts.

In other words, we could be subjected to lawsuits from other countries. There are already a number of Pacific Island nations that intend to sue the United States for environmental damage to their seas and air if the United States joins the Law of the Sea Treaty. In other words, we would be voluntarily allowing people to sue the United States on what they would allege to be environmental damages.

The members of the convention and regulations to prevent pollution in maritime is very specific. Article 212 of the Law of the Sea Treaty states to ``adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce, and control pollution of the marine environment from or through the atmosphere, applicable to the air space under their sovereignty''--we are talking about the United Nations--``and to vessels flying their flag or vessels or aircraft of their registry, taking into account internationally agreed rules, standards and recommended practices.''

If the EPA--as we found out in their endangerment finding--is able to declare an endangerment, just imagine what they could do under this case. In fact, article 235 states that countries ``are responsible for the fulfillment of their international obligations concerning the protection and preservation of the marine environment. They shall be liable in accordance with international law.''

That is why we have so many of the far-left environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, and all of them fervently supporting this treaty because they want to use it admittedly to bring the United States and all other countries into conformity with their environmental agenda.

I am going to submit this for the Record. It is interesting because we have, for example, Andrew Strauss, who is a law professor and is very well known, who states that the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol ``makes the United States the most logical first country target of a global warming lawsuit in international forum.''

I commend to the attention of my colleagues the various legal entities that are rejoicing about the fact that they might be able to sue this country.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter signed by 31 Members of the Senate stating that they will object to and vote against any ratification effort that would take place this year. It doesn't restrict it to this year. There are 31 Members.

I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a separate letter that is signed by Senators Portman and Ayotte stating essentially the same thing.

I also have a statement from the Web site of Senator Isakson, and I was given permission to speak on behalf of Lamar Alexander, that while he hasn't taken a position on the Law of the Sea Treaty, he does object to having it brought up this year. So we have 35 Members of the Senate who have stated they would object if it is brought up before the Senate this year.

So with these items I referenced included as a part of the Record, I would like to say that something isn't going to happen this year. It could be they want to bring it up, and that is up to the leader. If he desires to do so, of course, he could do it. If it does come up, it will take a lot of time from other business that this body should address.

With that, I would only say there are some 35 Members--and many more I might suggest--who would vote against it should it come up.

I have used my time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Russia's weak rule of law is bad for the people of Russia, of course, but it also harms American citizens. As Congress considers legislation directed at strengthening human rights and the rule of law in Russia, we also should address the economic impact on Americans, including those Americans who are owed $12 billion when Yukos Oil, in which they held 15 percent of its stock, was expropriated by the Russia Government. To date, none of the American owners of Yukos caught up in Russia's renationalization of this company has received any compensation for this unlawful taking. And without a bilateral investment treaty, BIT, with Russia, the only recourse available to U.S. investors is for our State Department to espouse the case of its wronged citizens. I support this course of action, and I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter I wrote with Senator Scott Brown to Secretary Clinton last October 27, 2011, that addresses this issue.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from Florida the Senator from Wyoming be recognized, and then I be recognized after the Senator from Wyoming for up to 35 minutes.

Mr. President, I have to say that I enjoy these second opinions when they come from such a well-known doctor who knows what he is talking about. Quite often we in this body are forced to kind of assume we are experts in every area. It is nice to have a few who really are. I think I don't say it very often, but I actually learn something when I hear him talk.

Anyway, that is not why I am here today. I hope to help provide some sense and balance and accuracy which is clearly lacking in the mainstream media trying to drum up support for the global warming hysteria again.

I have to say it is like we are back to the good-old days. We talked about this for 10 years. There are different people coming up with legislation, the cap-and-trade legislation. They found out, of course, that the American people realized it was a gigantic tax and there were no benefits, so it kind of went by the wayside. But there is a new thing happening, and it was interesting because just last Friday one of the Obama appointees to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Association said to the Associated Press:

The wildfires and hot temperatures over the past few weeks

will likely convince Americans that global warming is real.

In other words, they are now trying to tie them together. They have never tried to do this before because that is one of the few things that all experts agree on: that one isolated case doesn't make a case for major changes in the weather. This is kind of a dangerous game to play because what are they going to say when winter comes and it is going to get cold? As soon as it gets cold I can tell you what they are going to say. They are not going to use global warming; they are going to use climate change.

As the season changes, the terminology changes, and they will start saying just because the temperatures are freezing doesn't mean the planet is not overheating--if you follow through the double negatives.

My good friend from Rhode Island commented on the famous igloo. This was pretty prominent two summers ago. Let me tell you the story of where we got to the igloo. As most people know, because I brag about it all the time, I have 20 kids and grandkids.

This happens to be one family. You cannot see them as well. It is six of the most beautiful people we have ever seen. It happens to be my daughter and her husband and their family of four kids.

Anyway this would have been in February 2010. Some of us remember how cold it was during that time. It happens that one of my kids--the only one who is adopted is a little girl, an orphan from Ethiopia, whom we found and nursed back to health. My daughter Molly, who had nothing but boys, adopted this little girl.

Put her picture up there. She is a pretty little girl. She has become kind of a hero.

Every February I sponsor something called the African dinner where about 400 of our friends from Africa come over, and we are establishing close, intimate relations with them. It happens that 12 years ago, we found the little girl who is pictured on the poster. She is now a 12- year-old little girl. She reads at college level. She is smart and she is the main speaker every time we have this dinner.

In February 2010, little Zegita Marie was up here and she brought her whole

family and made her speech. It was a beautiful thing. Afterwards, as they were getting ready to take the plane back home, the blizzards came, and all of the airports in the area shut down. There was no way they could get back. So what do you do with a family of six when you are snowbound and there is nothing but snow and ice on the ground? You make an igloo. So they did.

That is a real igloo. It sleeps four people. I know that; I was in it. It was right by the Library of Congress. The sign on the top said: Al Gore's new home. Actually, I think it may have said: Honk if you want global warming--or something like that. Anyway, everyone was having a good time.

Some of my liberal friends were so upset. One of them was Keith Olbermann. Keith Olbermann, who was with MSNBC, designated my daughter Molly's family of six as the worst family in America. Now, there is her husband who is very prominent in Fayetteville, AR. My daughter Molly is a professor at the university. She was designated as Outstanding Professor of the Year this year. She will be marching out during the homecoming on November 3 to accept that award. It is quite an outstanding family, and the kids are all straight-A students and all of that wonderful stuff.

So that is the famous igloo. It has been a long time since we had a chance to talk about it. There we have Molly, James, Jase, Luke, Jonah, and Marie enjoying that. Believe it or not, that is the worst family in America.

Well, just after the igloo story broke, a reporter by the name of Dana Milbank warned the alarmists. Keep in mind the terminology we use. Those people who think the world is coming to an end because catastrophic global warming is coming is all due to manmade gases, so we need to shut down America. Those are the alarmists.

The skeptics are people like me, those who look at it and say science has been stripped out by the United Nations for an ulterior motive. Dana Milbank has been very much on the other side of the issue and warned the alarmists to stop using weather to justify global warming because then what do they do when the weather doesn't cooperate with their predictions of the melting planet.

He wrote:

In Washington's blizzards, the greens were hoist by their

own petard.

He said:

If the Washington snows persuade the greens to put away the

slides of polar bears and pine beetles and to keep the focus

on national security and jobs, it will have been worth the

shoveling.

But not everyone got that memo. In July 2010, the hot summer that followed the intense blizzards when my family put up the igloo, Jon Karl of ABC News asked me to do an interview outside in the heat. It was obviously an ambush. People who know me well know I enjoy ambushes, so I went out there in the heat. They got ready with the cameras rolling, and they had a pan with an egg on it. They were going to fry it, but it didn't fry. Nice try, but it didn't work.

I am sure some here may have noticed that somebody else tried this last weekend. Last weekend I happened to be in the Farnborough Airshow, which I go to every year. While I was at the airshow, I got a call from home telling me that they have kind of resurrected the igloo, and they were talking about that. They were planning a great big event on The Mall, and in the event they were going to take the thing, called ``Hoax''--let me go back to 2003.

In 2003 when I realized and I started hearing from a lot of the real scientists that it was a hoax, I made the comment that the notion of catastrophic global warming is due to manmade anthropogenic CO2 and manmade gases. It is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. So that is where ``Hoax'' came from.

So they had a great big thing made of ice. Apparently, it was the size of a car. It said ``Hoax'' with a question mark. They were going to put it out there and it was going to melt and they were going to make a big issue out of it.

The problem is nobody showed. So what did they do? They felt they couldn't do this if there were no cameras, so they called it off. They used the excuse that there had been a storm, and they thought this might be offensive to people who lost electricity in the storm. Anyway, that thing went under too.

So in addition to the recent activity from my alarmist friends, the hot weather has also brought some of my favorite global warming reporters out of hiding, and they have been all too eager to link today's weather events to manmade greenhouse gases. Of course, many of the most outspoken global warming alarmists and scientists have been happy to play along. The important point is that no one, not even the most committed alarmist, can claim that any percentage of the warm weather is due to manmade greenhouse gases. I will go into more detail in just a minute.

This is an inconvenient truth that global warming reporters have kept out of their headlines, and in some cases their stories as well.

Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press is a good guy. He is on the other side of this issue, but he is one of these guys I still like. He is one of the most prominent global warming reporters. He came out last week with another scary headline proclaiming: ``This US summer is what global warming looks like.''

Some quotes and stories appeared in Reuters, The Hill, and Politico. Yesterday morning Time magazine ran a piece by Bryan Walsh with the headline, ``Now Do You Believe in Global Warming?'' I was happy to see that Mr. Walsh began his article in Time magazine with a picture of my family in their igloo. He concluded his piece with:

We're living in an igloo in the summertime, and the ice

melting all around us.

It is kind of interesting that they try to talk about global warming, but all of a sudden they changed it to cooling.

This was in the New York Times. They said:

This summer has been conspicuously different in New York

City, not one 99-degree day in Central Park. Not a single day

that the temperature even approached 90. For just the second

time in 140 years of record keeping, the temperatures failed

to reach 90 in either June or July.

The daily average last month was at or below normal every

day but two. The temperature broke 80 on 16 days in New York.

So it goes on to say that the problem they are having is it is unusually cool. But that didn't inure to the benefit of the alarmists, so that wasn't used.

So it is time to take a trip down Memory Lane. Don't forget that Time is the same publication that told us in 1974 that we should be very concerned about the coming ice age.

There it is. Every magazine had it. Newsweek had the same thing. All the other magazines said another ice age is coming, and we are all going to die.

Since there is time to do this, I will mention one thing which is not in my notes. Think about how many times this has happened. Let's look at the last 100 years. We will start with 1895. From 1895 to 1925, we went through a 30-year period that was a cooling period. Everyone back then was saying another ice age is coming, and we are all going to die.

From 1925 to 1945, for that 20-year period, we went through a warming period. That is when they coined the phrase ``global warming.'' That was way back in the 1930s. From 1945 to 1975 we went into a cooling period. Again, we talked about how an ice age is coming. After that, we went into a warming period that went up to the turn of the century. Now it is actually going down into a cooling period again, but that was actually a chart.

I guess what I am saying is every 20 or 30 years, we go through this. We go through the same hysteria, and everyone goes crazy and says the world is coming to an end. The interesting thing about this is that the time in world history when we had the greatest surge of CO2 was right after World War II. That was in 1945, and that precipitated not a warming period with all of that CO2, but a cooling period that endured for 30 years. Those were the headlines in the paper.

Now 30 years later, during the height of the global warming movement, they changed their tune. The image that is sealed in everyone's mind is the Time magazine cover, which we have: ``Be Worried, Be Very Worried.'' There is the last polar bear standing on the last cube of ice. Everything is melting, and we are all going to die. Again, that is Time magazine.

If I were on the board of directors of Time magazine, I would probably do

the same thing. It is a competitive business, and they have to sell magazines. The truth is when we ask the alarmists directly, they will specifically link the recent weather events to human activity. How do we know this? We recently came across a reported conference held by a group called Climate Communication. This is a very liberal group. As their Web site confirmed, this call was held to spoonfeed talking points to reporters on how to link the heat over the past few weeks to manmade global warming.

To his credit, AP reporter Seth Borenstein asked the most important question of the call. He asked: What percentage of the recent warm weather can be attributed to manmade gases? I want to be completely accurate, so I would like to quote in full Borenstein's question as well as the answers he got from Dr. Michael Oppenheimer and Dr. Steven Running, two of the foremost global warming alarmist scientists. This is what Seth Borenstein said:

Let me try to put you more on the spot, Mike and Steve: I

know there's attribution--you haven't done attribution

studies, but if you ballparked it right now and had to put a

percentage number on this, on the percent that the heat wave,

the percentage of blame you can put on anthropogenic climate

change, on this current heat wave, and on the fires, what

percentage would the two of you use?

Dr. Oppenheimer, who is a scientist, said:

Come on, I'm not going to answer that. Yes, I will answer

it, and my answer is: I won't do it. You know, we have to do

things carefully, because if you don't, we are going to end

up with bogus information out there. People will start

disbelieving because you'll be more wrong, more often. This

is not the kind of thing I want to do off the top of my head.

Nor do I think it can be done, you know, convincingly without

really taking--doing careful analysis, so I'll pass on this

one and see if Steve has a different view.

Well, Dr. Steve Running said:

Well, I already got way too hypothetical on my last answer.

Yeah, it's . . . probably really dangerous for us to just lob

out a number.

Well, this goes on and on and on. I have all of this down. It is actually all in the record at this point, so it is redundant. He keeps trying to get them to say there is a percentage of chance that this warm weather is due to global warming.

Now, we have to stop for a minute because we have seen that Seth Borenstein was asking the inconvenient question. One of the moderators tried to step in and tell the AP reporter that his question was a bad one.

Let me quote that one again, Susan Hossel, moderator for the event, said:

Seth, most of the scientists I talk to say it is a

contributing factor and that's what we can say and that it's

really not even really a well-posed question to ask for a

percentage, because it just--what you're asking really is for

a model to determine the chances of this happening without

climate change or with climate change and models are not very

good.

So we see how he responded. He said:

I understand, I've been covering this for 20 years, I

understand. I don't need a lecture, thank you very much. What

I'm asking for is--

And he went on. Obviously, he was never able to get it.

Here is the irony: Their Web site specifically explains that the purpose of the call is to give reporters a link relating hot weather to human-caused global warming.

It states:

Climate Communication hosted a press conference featuring

experts discussing the connections between extreme heat and

climate change.

But when pressed, they couldn't make the link. Again, Borenstein asked a great question, a question that badly needed to be asked. Unfortunately, none of the information appeared in his article for the AP. Without that link, Borenstein was forced to make his article about what global warming could look like in the future. But in doing so, he left out any mention of uncertainty expressed by the scientist.

Borenstein quoted Chris Field, a leading author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That is the United Nations that started this whole thing, and they are the ones who were stacking the scientists. He is one of the individuals. According to Field, this report warns of ``unprecedented extreme weather events'' due to global warming. But, as usual, Borenstein failed to mention that even the IPCC, which normally heightens the fear factor as much as possible, admitted in that same March report that there is significant uncertainty regarding linking extreme weather events to human causes.

Also missing from the article was the mention of Borenstein's interview from climatologist Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Fortunately, she was good enough to post her answers on her blog since he didn't use it. Curry explained:

We saw these kinds of heat waves in the 1930's, and those

were definitely not caused by greenhouse gases. Weather

variability changes on multidecadal time scales, associated

with large ocean oscillations. I don't think that what we are

seeing this summer is outside the range of natural

variability for the past century. In terms of heat waves,

particularly in cities, urbanization can also contribute to

the warming.

There was another interesting part of the conference call that I think is worth mentioning. When ABC News reporter Bill Blakemore asked about the effect of La Nina and El Nino on today's hot weather, Dr. Oppenheimer was again uncomfortable about this question and said it was ``off message.'' Yet NOAA--that is, the N-O-A-A--came out yesterday with a different opinion. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times explained on his blog:

In a briefing and several postings today, the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reviewed the most

notable climate and weather events of 2011. Many of these

events--from an extreme East African drought to Australian

deluges--were significantly driven by a ``double-dip La

Nina'' cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, agency

scientists said.

In other words, it is La Nina and El Nino that made the difference.

In yesterday's Tulsa World, there was an opinion piece that directly addressed this El Nino and La Nina debate and how it affects Oklahoma specifically; that is, my State of Oklahoma. The editorial mentions an interview in April of 2008 with Tulsa National Weather Service meteorologist Nicole McGavock regarding Oklahoma's record rainfall that month. McGavock said:

Don't go blaming global warming, but rather blame El Nino's

counterpart, La Nina. La Nina happens when the weather is

cooler near the equator along the Pacific Ocean.

It has nothing to do with global warming.

That same opinion piece mentioned another article published in December of 2011 which was about Oklahoma's drought-filled summer of 2011. In it, associate State climatologist Gary McManus said:

Did this hot summer happen due to global warming? [No.] I

think when we study this summer, we will find that we would

have had the warmest summer regardless of global warming.

With all this in mind, it is no wonder that when Time magazine asks the question, ``Now do you believe in global warming?'' the answer is resounding: The American people are no longer buying it. As the Washington Post recently reported, global warming is no longer an issue of concern for Americans, and one of the reasons is that the public doesn't trust those who try to use hot weather as proof of global warming. The public has clearly grown weary of the alarmists' fear campaigns. After all, they have been going on for 12 years.

Just how bad have things gotten for the global warming movement? Well, one indication is that no one is even talking about global warming except for myself and Representative Markey over in the House. As a Politico article said yesterday, Representative Markey accused Republicans of being silent on the threat of global warming and called for Republicans to hold hearings.

While Representative Markey is quick to accuse Republicans of silence, he says nothing about the silence we are hearing from the Democrats here in the Senate. We haven't heard anybody. I haven't heard the term ``global warming'' coming from any Senator. When was the last time anyone heard President Obama or the Democrats mention global warming? In fact, their campaign has failed so miserably that President Obama, running for reelection, is pretending to support oil and gas to gain votes.

The irony is that the President, who came into office promising to slow the rise of the oceans and all that, has presided over the complete collapse of the global warming movement. Since

President Obama took office nearly 4 years ago, not one global warming cap-and-trade bill has been debated on the Senate floor. In fact, if anything, they are regressing in support for their pet issue. Last year 64 Senators went on record as wanting to rein in the Obama EPA's global warming regulations.

We have said several times that there have been numerous bills introduced ever since the Kyoto Treaty was never submitted for ratification. That was back in the early 1990s. Ever since that time, there have been numerous bills that would be cap-and-trade bills and they have gone down. Each time, they go down by a greater percentage than the one before did. In fact, if anything, they are regressing in their support.

So the far-left environmental community has clearly been instructed to keep quiet, although sometimes they can't help themselves and they get into trouble, like 350.org that I referred to. They are no doubt assured that if President Obama is reelected, he will do everything he can to achieve his global warming agenda through regulations because the American people have rejected legislation. That is what has happened. Actually, the cost of it, which is not controversial--it is because people recognize and nobody has actually refuted the fact that if it were to pass either by legislation or by regulation, it would cost the American people between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. So people now realize that and know we can't afford to do something that really is not going to accomplish anything.

Anyway, the Obama administration is already doing--we have identified right now some $68 billion that he has, through regulations, been able to have on all of his climate agenda. So it has already been very expensive. Nobody is really aware of it, but nonetheless that is what is happening. He just doesn't want the American people to know it. How can he convince them that so much economic pain is necessary now that the global warming movement has completely lost its trust in the public? That would stop some of the usual suspects from continuing to try to drum up global warming hysteria, but we wouldn't count on Al Gore coming out of hiding to help or President Obama saying anything to back him up--at least not now, before the election.

Just the other day, George Mason University, I believe it was, did a polling of all of the 480 TV meteorologists. Only 19 percent of them said we are having global warming due to manmade gases. Now, that is a major change from before. So the trendline is going back the other way. The polling has definitely gone the other way.

Back to last weekend's failed effort to blame hot weather on global warming, I would like to mention three things on which scientists agree.

First of all, we can't blame global warming on one event. Let me share with my colleagues what Roger Pelke, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, said:

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

getting worse because of climate change.

Judith Curry, whom I already mentioned, is a well-established scientist. She said:

I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments

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

cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme

weather events to 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.

I was on ``The Rachel Maddow Show.'' She doesn't have Republicans on very often. She is one of my favorite liberals, and I enjoy being on. I found out then that Bill Nye, her science guy, actually is one--one of the things he states is, don't fall into the trap of trying to say that because somebody is at some place that is very, very hot, that somehow that supports global warming. In fact, Dana Milbank, a Washington Post columnist who is a major Maddow contributor, said:

When climate activists make the dubious claim, as a

Canadian environmental group did, that global warming is to

blame for the lack of snow at the Winter Olympics in

Vancouver, then they invite similarly specious conclusions

about Washington's snow . . . Argument-by-anecdote isn't

working.

That was Dana Milbank, who is really on the other side of this issue.

So I mentioned that there are three things. One is a fact that is incontrovertible, that people agree on, which is that one or two events aren't going to reflect climate change or global warming.

The second thing is the cost. Years ago when the Kyoto Treaty was up, I wasn't sure which way to go. I assumed the scientists were all together on this, only to find out they weren't.

One thing we did find out when we got a report from several universities, including MIT, was that the cost of this, if we were to pass any of the bills, would have been between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. What I always do when I hear about billions and trillions of dollars is I try to, if I can, find out how that affects my family and the State of Oklahoma.

Back when we had the largest tax increase in 1993 called the Clinton- Gore tax increase, they increased marginal rates, the death tax, capital gains tax and all of that, and it was at that time the largest tax increase in three decades. We were all pretty outraged about it. Yet that was a $32 billion tax increase. Here we are talking about a $300 billion to $400 billion tax increase.

The last thing I would say is that if we have a tax increase like this, what do we get for it?

I sometimes appreciate--in fact, I always appreciate the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson. She is an appointee of President Obama. I asked her this question on live TV in one of our committee hearings: If you guys are going to do this by regulation or if you are going to have cap and trade and punish the American people with all of the cost of this and everything else, if they are successful, if that happened, would this reduce the CO2 worldwide? Her answer: No, it wouldn't. Because this isn't where the problem is. The problem is in China and Mexico and India. One could carry that argument on out further and conclude that if we have that kind of a regulation in this country and drive our manufacturing base overseas, they would go to places such as China and India where there are no emissions restrictions, so it would have the effect of actually increased CO2.

Anyway, I appreciate very much Time magazine coming out and bringing up the igloo again. It is a thing of beauty, and it is very meaningful to me, and I think it told a story that a lot of people needed to hear, and they have heard it now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to recognize MG Fredrick (Ben) Hodges for his professional service and dedication to duty as the U.S. Army's Chief of Legislative Liaison over the last year. In this capacity, Major General Hodges was responsible for advising the Secretary of the Army, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and other senior Army leaders on all legislative and congressional matters. During this period of extraordinary change and challenges facing the Army, he masterfully led the Army's outreach to the Congress. Due to the exceptional manner in which he has performed, Major General Hodges has been selected to become the NATO Land Component Command Stand-Up Team Chief in Turkey.

Major General Hodges adeptly understood the importance of fostering a strong and durable relationship with Congress. He now completes his third assignment with the Army's Legislative Liaison, having served for over five years in support of the Congress. He worked tirelessly on behalf of the Army to earn both the trust and confidence of Members of Congress and their staffs. His candor and ready accessibility to Congress ensured comprehensive support for the Army. Major General Hodges handled some of the most complex and sensitive issues faced by the Army in the last decade.

Throughout his career, Major General Hodges has been the consummate soldier's soldier and is known for having an open mind and candor while addressing the issues affecting the Army today. He is a tremendous advocate for soldiers both within the Pentagon and here on Capitol Hill. His advice, counsel, and friendship have been very valuable to us in the Senate, and he will be sorely missed.

A native of Quincy, FL, Major General Hodges graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in May 1980 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry. Following successful completion of the basic course and Ranger School, he was assigned as a platoon leader and company executive officer in Germany. Upon return to the United States, Major General Hodges commanded infantry units at the company, battalion, and brigade levels in the 101st Airborne Division, AASLT. During his command of the ``Bastogne'' Brigade, Major General Hodges' leadership was instrumental in the successful invasion of Iraq during the early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Major General Hodges has also served in a variety of Army staff positions throughout his distinguished career. Ranging from tactics instructor at the Infantry School to senior battalion observer/ controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center, he has ensured that our soldiers are properly trained in their war-fighting functions. As a staff officer, Major General Hodges has served as the aide-de-camp to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, chief of staff for the XVIIIth Airborne Corps, and director of the Pakistan/Afghanistan Coordination Cell. Major General Hodges' operational assignments include deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan as the assistant chief of staff, CJ3, Multi National Corps-Iraq and as the deputy commander for Stability, Regional Command South, International Security and Assistance Force, Kandahar, Afghanistan. Throughout the various assignments and deployments, Major General Hodges always accomplished his mission and cared for his soldiers, and took great care of the Army families under his command.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to MG Ben Hodges, to his wife Holly, and to his children Ben and Madeline, for their dedication and service to the Nation. Words cannot characterize properly the extraordinary character of Major General Hodges's accomplishments.

The Nation thanks him and wishes him success and happiness in his next assignment.

Mr. President, before the Senator from West Virginia leaves, I would like to publicly thank him for all his support in something that just happened a few minutes ago; that is, passage of the Pilot's Bill of Rights.

Several--certainly Senator Begich--have been working hard, including Senator Pryor and Senator Manchin, as well as many on the Republican side. But it is a reality now.

This is kind of a strange day for me because I have been working on two bills for 1\1/2\ years, and both will become a reality on the same day: the highway bill that everyone knows about and then the Pilot's Bill of Rights that only pilots know about.

I have been a pilot for 55 years, and I get the calls and complaints that come in. But pilots are really the only ones in our society who are denied access to justice like every other citizen has, and this corrects it. So I just want to say to my friend that I very much appreciate his support in making this a reality.

I appreciate the comments of the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. President, I will make a couple comments and be more detailed later. I know a lot of people will want to talk about the bill that will most likely pass today in both the House and the Senate.

A lot of people are not aware of the fact that a general aviation pilot doesn't have the same access to remedies as everybody else does. What makes this a little bit more compelling to do something about is that if you are not a pilot, you may not appreciate the fact that a lot of them are single-issue people.

I had an experience where my license was in jeopardy for something that we found out I didn't do. I thought about all these complaints I have had over the years about abusive treatment by some of the enforcement people, and I never appreciated it until it happened to me.

I know more people in the FAA who do a great job. They are very conscientious. These are career people. The problem is that every once in a while you have someone in the field with enforcement powers who just can't handle that kind of power.

I was mayor of Tulsa for several years a number of years back. We had a great police force, but every now and then you had someone on the force who couldn't handle the power. They would abuse that power, and you would have to seek them out. And that is what this is all about-- you hear from these people when abuses take place.

So what we have done is we have corrected that. We have a system set up in this legislation that if someone is accused of or cited for doing something that was wrong or that might be a violation of one of the FARs, that person will now have access to the evidence that would be used against that person.

People might say: Well, wasn't that happening anyway? No, it wasn't. When this happened to me, I can remember very well--and I say to the Presiding Officer because we are very close and he knows I have been active in aviation for a long time--one year ago in October, I went to land at one of the southernmost airports in America, in South Texas, one at which I have landed more than 200 times. I know every square foot of it. It is a noncontrolled field.

When I came in--there is a thing called NOTEM, Notice to Airmen. You are supposed to and you should find out what the NOTEMs are on the runway you will be landing on so if there is work on the runway--any towers going up, construction going on--you will know that in advance. That is your obligation.

The problem is there has never been a central location where that can be found. In this case there was no NOTEM that had been published. There I go in, with the controller in the valley down there who has actually cleared me to land. Here I am, a United States Senator. It took me 4 months to get the voice recorder and I never did find out, early on, what the evidence was against me. It turned out fine, but nevertheless 4 months to get a voice recording that you were cleared to land, that is unreasonable.

I see my friend from Indiana is on the floor. I do not want to take any more time on this, but on the NOTEM situation we will have a central location for that.

The other problem we are having right now is medical certification. I

have case after case. In fact, at the AOPA, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association--we are talking about 400,000 pilots out there--they have as their No. 1 concern the lack of consistency and uniformity in medical certification. A person could be a pilot and have a condition, could be a light heart attack or something, temporarily lose his license, then go back and have it reinstated. However, if he lives in another town, has a different doctor, that may not happen. So we have people out there who have lost their licenses. We are going to have a panel set up that is going to include the general aviation, include the medical community, and try to get uniformity. So those are three of the reforms we have in this legislation.

I yield the floor. I will be talking about that later and also talking about the upcoming highway bill. I want to remind people, my good conservative friends, people who are trying to say this is not a conservative bill--it is. The worst thing we can do is continue to operate our roadbuilding and our construction in this country on extensions. When you do an extension you lose about 30 percent of the money. Obviously, the conservative position is to do this.

We have reforms, incredible reforms, enhancement reforms. We will be talking about that during the course of the day.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I just have a couple of comments to make for clarification purposes.

First of all, I don't think anyone is going to question my conservative credentials over the years I have been here. I have been really offended by a lot of the things that have happened structurally in this institution, over in the House, but so far as this bill is concerned, let me clarify a couple of things.

It sounds good to stand up here and say we have only had a matter of minutes to look at something that is 500 pages. We have had this bill for a long time--for several days. We have had it and gone over everything. On the bill we sent from the Senate to the House, it is essentially the same thing.

I didn't agree when they added the two provisions on student loan and flood insurance. I didn't agree with that. Everyone knows those issues, but I don't think they should have been on here. Nonetheless, we didn't have any control in this body over that. But as far as the provisions of the bill are concerned, these provisions we have seen. And everyone who has spoken against it has been there when we have talked about the great reforms, and I have commented several times that I thought one of the problems was we did too good a job because we had too many reforms. But when it got over to the House, where they are inclined to have more reforms there, they had to start from a base where we had done a good job. Streamlining and enhancements and all those things are in it.

The only thing I can say, from a conservative perspective, is we have seen this bill. We have lived with this bill, not just hours but for days, and actually for weeks, the basic provisions of the bill. But what we have to realize is there is an alternative to what we are doing here today, and that alternative--and the only alternative--is to go back to extensions.

If we go back to extensions, a couple of things happen. No. 1, we don't have any of the reforms we have in the bill; No. 2, we throw away about 30 percent of the money----

Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Yes, of course.

It is true, I say through the Chair. It passed this institution with 74 votes, as I recall.

I answer in the affirmative.

I respond, yes, that is correct. That is accurate.

I think that is very important too because we have been talking about this bill for a long period of time. We actually started trying to get a highway reauthorization bill way back in 2009, when the old bill from 2005 expired.

But the problem is--and I want to get back to where I was--there is an alternative to this bill. If we defeat this bill, we go back to extensions. If we go back to extensions, first of all, we are losing about 30 percent of the money off the top. Everybody knows that. Secondly, we don't get these reforms. If people are concerned out there--conservatives--that they want to defeat this and go back to extensions, they are not going to have reform with the enhancements. Right now the law requires 10 percent, depending on how we want to put it, in total funding or 2 percent of surface transportation. That has to be spent on transportation enhancements.

My good friend, the chairman of the committee, Senator Boxer, and I disagree on enhancements. She likes them; I don't. I want money to be spent on concrete, on roads and bridges. This is what I think we should be doing. But that is a disagreement we had and so we had a compromise where she can have--and anyone can have--what they want. It is an oversimplification, but it means, yes, this money is going to be put into something. It can be enhancements. In my State of Oklahoma, it is not going to be in enhancements, it is going to be paying for some of the unfunded mandates. It will be paying for things we have to do in terms of the environment and things that are required. So we have solved that problem. If we don't pass this bill, we go right back and it will have to go to enhancements.

On streamlining, all the streamlining is in this in terms of environmental streamlining. Talk to any of the road contractors out there and they will tell you about the waste of money and the number of miles of roads they can't do

because of some of these requirements--these environmental requirements. We have streamlined those requirements. If we don't pass this bill, we will go back to extensions and the same thing applies--we are going to lose all those opportunities. So not only will it cost more, we will not get the streamlining.

I am very proud of a group that has always supported me, the American Conservative Union. Is there anyone around here who doesn't think the American Conservative Union isn't conservative? I made this a part of a speech yesterday, an editorial by Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union. It is an op-ed piece he wrote. But let me read now two short paragraphs from this op-ed piece from the American Conservative Union:

Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution specifically

lists interstate road-building as one of the delineated

powers and responsibilities vested in the federal Government.

In Federalist Paper #42, James Madison makes an early case

for the federal government's role in maintaining a healthy

infrastructure, by stating ``Nothing which tends to

facilitate the intercourse between states, can be deemed

unworthy of the public care.''

And the article goes on to say--and, remember, this is the American Conservative Union.

Perhaps most importantly, those of us who believe in

constitutional conservatism understand that unlike all the

things the Federal Government wastes our money on,

transportation spending is at the core of what constitutes

legitimate spending.

That is from the American Conservative Union. I wanted people to understand that voting for this is the conservative approach. We get more for the money being spent, it has all the streamlining in it, and it is our constitutional responsibility. This is what we are supposed to do. There are only two ways of doing it: one way is to pass this bill and the other is to operate under extensions, and I think it is very important for people to understand that.

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

Mr. President, I second the chairwoman's commitment to working with the Senators from Wyoming to fix this problem in the technical corrections bill. It is important that we find a way to address the issue as soon as possible, and I will work with them to make Wyoming and the other impacted States whole.

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

Mr. President, first of all, my friend from South Carolina articulated very well what happened today with the Supreme Court. I think it is going to be a wake-up call for a lot of people in America. I think it will, as he suggested, have a profound effect on the elections in November when people realize the Court has ruled that people who don't have coverage are going to be penalized by $695 per individual, and families who do have coverage will have to pay an additional about $2,100, and the employers of America are going to be dealing with the government exchange. People are going to be concerned about it. I think they are going to want to send people to Congress in both the House and the Senate and in the White House who are going to change this system.

So I stand on the Senate floor and say that is what I am predicting and we will see what happens.

Highway Reauthorization

I want to make one comment because we are going to vote shortly on a significant bill. It is the highway reauthorization bill. It makes me very proud because we have been trying for a year and a half to do this. When we passed the last highway reauthorization bill, it was in 2005. At that time I was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was, as I recall and going from memory, a $286.4 billion bill. It was for 5 years. Of course, that expired in 2009.

The problem we have had since 2009 is that we have been operating on what they call extensions. Most people are not aware that when we operate on extensions, we are operating with the same amount of money we are spending out of the highway trust fund, but we are only getting two-thirds of what we would get if it were a reauthorization.

First of all, they can only do it in a short period of time. There is no planning, and they have all said we lose about 30 to 33 percent of the amount of spending power or money that should be spent on highways, bridges, and maintenance.

It is kind of funny because I have been ranked as the most conservative Member of this body at different times, and I am always in the top three. Yet I have always said I may be the most conservative, but I am a big spender in two areas: One is national defense and the other is transportation, and that is what this is all about.

I have had occasion to talk to a lot of the new members of the conference committee over in the House and explained to them the conservative position and the conservative vote on this is to vote for the highway reauthorization bill that is going to be coming up to us. Hopefully, it will be here tonight. It is going back and forth between the House and Senate. I believe most of the conferees have already signed off on this bill, so it is coming up. It has been a long time in the making. I am very excited about it.

Let me also say that while I take the position that the conservative vote is to vote for the highway reauthorization bill, I am not alone in this feeling.

Mr. President, I would like to submit for the Record a statement by the chairman of the American Conservative Union. It is an op-ed by Al Cardenas, who is the chairman of the American Conservative Union. He presents a strong case as to why this is the conservative position that should be taken.

I ask unanimous consent that the statement and op-ed piece by the chairman of the American Conservative Union be printed in the Record.

I am looking forward to having this. Certainly, my State of Oklahoma is not the only State that has bridges and road problems.

Another good thing we are waiting on--and I feel very confident we are going to be able to pass this out of the Senate--is the pilots' bill of rights, which we are in the process of, hopefully, getting done. When that time comes, I would like to be recognized to talk about some of the great extensions of justice to people who have been denied that justice heretofore just because they happen to be pilots.

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

This is very simple. This is the information age. In my rural State of Oklahoma, sometimes they have to drive 30 miles to a post office. This will make it a lot easier as an accommodation and nothing is lost.

Madam President, in our first round, we are going to yield to

the Senator from Alaska Ms. Murkowski for 10 minutes and then to Senator Manchin for 5 minutes. In the second round, we are going to be having Senators Barrasso, Boozman, Risch, Blunt, Kyl, and Toomey.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for her very kind remarks. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn.

It is our understanding we have approximately 42 minutes apiece and that we will go back and forth.

I like that.

Madam President, I yield to the Senator from South Dakota for 7 minutes.

Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso, for 9 minutes.

Will the Senator yield?

Madam President, I heard the Senator from California talk about 78 percent of the people in this country want to reduce mercury. I am part of that 78 percent. The problem is this bill does not address that. By their own numbers, the EPA said the cost is around $10 billion. Of that, less than $6 million would be addressing mercury. The rest of that is in particulate matter, something already recognized under the Clean Air Act.

I yield to the junior Senator from West Virginia for 6 minutes.

Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to Senator Risch.

Madam President, I wish to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Blunt.

The question was asked by the Senator from California: Whom do we trust most, elected Senators or unelected bureaucrats?

I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.

I understand our time has expired. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kyl have 2 minutes.

Madam President, I understand there is 1 minute remaining, so let me just clarify a couple things.

First of all, several have made comments about the Clean Air Act. I was supportive of the Clean Air Act. It has done a great job, and I think that should be clarified.

We have had three medical doctors testify as to the health implications on this.

I would only say this: If we are truly concerned about what is happening, keep in mind what the Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski, said. The maximum achievable control technology is not there. So if we vote against this amendment and they allow this rule to continue, we are effectively killing coal in America that has accounted for almost 50 percent of our industry.

I thank the Chair.

Reserving the right to object.

It is my understanding that we would have our three speakers after that, but not necessarily restricted to 5 minutes. It will not be much more than that. But since our speakers will be speaking in these three sessions, I would like a little latitude, maybe 6 or 7 minutes on those three.

For my three who come after Senator Carper, 6 minutes apiece.

Yes.

Yes, that would be fine.

Mr. President, I would ask that the Senator from Nebraska Mr. Johanns be recognized for 7 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator.

I now ask that the Senator from Georgia be recognized for 5 minutes.

I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I ask now that the Senator from Wyoming be recognized for 6 minutes.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that we have used this element of our time. The Senator from New Hampshire will be recognized for 10 minutes, after which time we will be recognized for 18 minutes.

Mr. President, the next speaker will be Senator Hoeven for 6 minutes.

I thank the Senator, and I now recognize the Senator from Alabama for 6 minutes.

How much time do we have remaining, including the 40 seconds we didn't use?

First, let me comment on something I am glad the Senator from Alabama brought up because it is very significant. The frailty in the CRA, for a lot of our fellow Members who are not familiar with the history of that, is that the President can veto it. I am a little hopeful in this case, if we are successful, because I wonder if the President wants to veto, a few months before the election, a bill that is going to cost the American people over 200,000 jobs this year, along with all of the other costs they admit.

The EPA itself says it will cost $10 billion, but it is going to be considerably more than that in nearly everyone else's view. So I hold that out as a hope, that even though he would love to veto it, if we are successful, I don't think he will do it because he wants to get reelected more than he wants to veto this.

I would also comment that I think it is worth bringing up that the other side had an opportunity to do something about real pollution--and we are talking about NOX, SOX, and mercury, not CO2. Remember the Clear Skies Act that was such a successful operation? That was back during the Bush administration. That would have mandated the 75-percent reduction the Senator from Alabama talked about in SOX, NOX, and mercury. Those are real pollutants. But it was held hostage because it didn't include CO2. At that time that was the crown jewel of their efforts.

So all I can say in this remaining time we have is that everything has been said, although it hasn't been said by everybody, and I am not going to repeat that and be redundant. But I think the points were made by all the Senators who spoke, looking at the economy of this and how devastating this would be in terms of jobs in America. But if you look at Utility MACT, it is not about public health, it is about killing coal. And everybody knows that. Everybody knows that. People from coal States are trying to act as if that is not the case, but it is the case. I think we are all very much aware of that.

According to EPA's own analysis, Utility MACT will cost $10 billion, though others have it up higher than that. However, if $10 billion a year to implement it is correct, then it will only yield $6 million in projected benefits--health benefits. This is the EPA talking, not me. And that is at 1600-to-1 ratio. That is not a very good ratio to depend on.

I wish to address the myth that top EPA officials are perpetrating, and that is the idea coal is not being killed by the EPA regulations but by the cheaper price of natural gas. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said recently it is simply a coincidence that EPA's rules are coming out at the same time natural gas prices are low, so utilities are naturally moving toward natural gas. So her message was, don't blame the EPA. The truth is the EPA itself has admitted the agency deliberately and consciously made a decision to kill coal.

EPA Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding was caught on tape saying:

Lisa Jackson has put forth a very powerful message to the

country. Just two days ago, the decision on greenhouse gas

performance standard and saying basically gas plants are the

performance standard which means if you want to build a coal

plant you got a big problem.

He also went on to say the decision by the EPA to kill coal was ``painful every step of the way'' because you have got to remember if you go to West Virginia, you go to Pennsylvania--and he could have included other States in there too, such as Ohio, Illinois and Missouri--but he said ``and all those places, you have coal communities who depend on coal.'' And they are going to put those people out. This is a very serious attack that is taking place right now, I think, when we saw the attack on fossil fuels, as presented by Region 6 Administrator Armendariz, when he said the truth is EPA's ``general philosophy'' is to ``crucify'' and ``make examples'' of oil companies and gas companies.

I only bring that up because many people think this is just about coal. No, it is very clear about fossil fuels. This has been a relentless war of this President on fossil fuels; that is, coal, gas, and oil, ever since he has been in office. It was the president of the Sierra Club who said a short while ago, yes, Utility MACT is about killing coal. Fine, we can kill coal, but that doesn't mean we want to change and start using natural gas because it is also a fossil fuel.

It may be that over in the House it took Nancy Pelosi 6 months to recognize natural gas is a fossil fuel, but it is. So this is just the beginning. This is the one where they are admittedly trying to kill coal because it is an easier target. In their belief, there are fewer States that are the big producers of coal, so go after them first.

I know my time has expired. I only want to say in closing that we will have another opportunity tomorrow. There are many other people wanting to be heard who don't want to kill coal and have this dramatic negative effect on our economy, our jobs, and our ability to produce the necessary energy to run this machine called America.

If we are dependent upon just under 50 percent for our entire generation ability on coal, imagine, if they are successful, what is going to happen to the price of the remaining available fuel? And of course they would be subject next. So I would urge our people to forget for a short period of time this President's obligation to certain small groups and oppose the Utility MACT.

We went through the same thing with greenhouse gases and we fought that battle before, I say to my good friend Senator Boxer from California. At that time, there were many legislative efforts to kill greenhouse gases, and yet every time there was a vote, the people who were answerable to the American people were the ones who voted it down. Now there might be, at most, 25 left in the Senate in favor of greenhouse gas emissions.

I urge Members to pass my CRA and let the President decide what he is going to do about vetoing this issue.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 15 minutes.

Madam President, as we know, the Senate will take a vote this week on the CRA that I have offered concerning Utility MACT. Utility MACT is a requirement. MACT, of course--M A C T--means maximum achievable controlled technology. One of the problems with the overregulation we have with a lot of these emissions is that there is no technology to accommodate this. In the case of Utility MACT, I think everyone understands now that this is an effort to kill coal. I know there are a lot of reasons people have, but recently some things have happened, and I thought I would mention them as we look toward this bill. It looks as though it is going to be on Wednesday. It looks as if there will be some speaking time on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we will actually have the vote.

As we all know, a CRA is an effort for elected officials to reflect upon overregulation and to stop a regulation. After all, we are the ones who are accountable to the people and not the Environmental Protection Agency.

The breaking news is that President Obama just issued a statement this afternoon that he will veto my resolution if it passes. Just before that announcement from the White House this afternoon, Representatives Ed Markey and Henry Waxman came out fighting with a new report detailing what Representative Waxman has called the most anti- environmental House of Representatives in history. I wish to remind my Democratic friends that 19 House Democrats supported the companion legislation in the House--the same thing we will be voting on here. Democrats and many of the labor unions have sent letters in support of my resolution, so it is not just Republicans whose constituents are feeling the pain of the EPA's regulations.

To my Democratic friends in the House, I beg to differ--it is not that this Congress is anti-environmental; it is that the EPA is the most radical EPA in history, aggressive to the point that even the left-leaning Washington Post has called out the Agency for ``earning a reputation for abuse.'' Of course, this is the same EPA whose top officials have told us they are out to crucify the American energy producers.

We all remember the sixth area of the EPA, when Mr. Armendariz came out and made this statement to some of his supporters: We need to do the same thing the Romans did. We remember back in the old days when they were going around the Mediterranean and they would go into the towns in Turkey and they would crucify the first five people they would see. That gets them under their control.

He said: That is what we have to do.

He said: That is going to be our operation.

Well, we went through that, and of course he is no longer there.

Over the course of President Obama's Presidency, whatever they could not

achieve through legislation they have tried to achieve through aggressive, onerous EPA regulations. They tried first of all to do it through legislation. Remember the cap-and-trade legislation--they tried for 10 years to get that done. Finally, each year they brought it up, more and more people in this body, the U.S. Senate, were opposed to a cap-and-trade system to do away with greenhouse gases and to put regulations on them. Well, every time a vote comes up, there is a larger majority opposed to it because the people of this country are concerned about the economy and the fact that this would be very costly. It was President Obama who said that with the cap-and-trade regulations, it would be very expensive.

Now, when they couldn't pass the Clean Water Restoration Act, the same thing happened. Remember, that was introduced by Senator Feingold from Wisconsin and by Representative Oberstar in the House. And not only did they defeat overwhelmingly the Clean Water Restoration Act, but the two individuals who were the sponsors in the House and the Senate were both defeated in the next election.

So just how radical is President Obama on environmental issues? By imposing these backdoor global warming cap-and-trade regulations through the EPA, President Obama is fulfilling his campaign promise that energy prices would necessarily skyrocket--his words. By vetoing the Keystone Pipeline, he gave the far left what one of his supporters called the biggest global warming victory in years. By finalizing the most expensive EPA rule in history, he is making good on his campaign promise that if anybody wants to build a coal-fired powerplant, they can; it is just that it will bankrupt them. And he succeeded in throwing hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars out the window on companies such as Solyndra, which he said would lead us to a brighter and more prosperous future.

But President Obama is not running on this record of accomplishments. Why? Because Americans are worse off, not better off, for it. They are out of work, and they are struggling to make ends meet under the pain of regulations that cause their energy prices to skyrocket. So he is running as far away from that radical record as possible.

So what are we trying to do in the Senate by stopping Utility MACT? We are trying to prevent the President from achieving another aspect of his radical global warming agenda and hopefully restore some sanity and balance to this out-of-control regulatory regime.

I think everyone in this body can agree that we all share a commitment to improving air quality, that it should be done in a way that doesn't harm jobs and the economy and cause electricity prices to skyrocket on every American or do away with one of the most reliable, abundant, affordable energy resources--coal. We have to keep in mind that right now, in order to run this machine called America, 50 percent of it is actually being done on coal.

I wish to address the public health debate which has long been the excuse for those in this administration who simply want to kill coal. It was certainly the excuse President Obama used today to defend his decision to veto my resolution. Let's be clear about one thing from the outset: If the effort behind Utility MACT were really about public health, then my Democratic colleagues would have joined our efforts way back in 2005 and passed the Clear Skies bill--a bill that would have put a plan in place to achieve a 70-percent reduction in mercury emissions--but they didn't. We all remember why. We wanted to include in this bill SoX, NoX, and mercury--the real pollutants--a mandatory 70-percent reduction, and they said we can't do it because we don't also have CO2 anthropogenic gases that are covered by this bill. So it was held hostage, and consequently we weren't able to get it passed.

I can remember President Obama said:

I voted against the Clear Skies bill. In fact, I was the

deciding vote despite the fact that I'm a coal State and that

half of my State thought I'd thoroughly betrayed them because

I thought clean air was critical and global warming was

critical.

At an Environment and Public Works hearing in April of this year, Senator Barrasso asked Brenda Archambo from the National Wildlife Federation if the American people would have been better off if the Senate had passed the Clear Skies bill back in 2005, and her answer was ``absolutely.'' Of course, the National Wildlife Federation was not happy that we were calling attention to Ms. Archambo's admission, so over the weekend they accused my staff of twisting her words. My staff did nothing of the sort. Not only did Ms. Archambo say that mercury reductions in 2005 would absolutely have made Americans better off, she reiterated that same point later when Senator Barrasso asked her again, ``It would have been better if they had done it in 2005?'' Ms. Archambo replied, ``Sure.'' The entire exchange from the hearing has been posted on our EPW Web site for anyone who wants to see exactly what was said.

I do not think it gets any clearer than that. Commonsense reductions earlier would have made us better off. That was 2005 when we would have had these reductions, mandatory reductions, in a very short period of time; and that time is more than 50 percent expired at this time.

In a National Wildlife Federation blog accusing me of twisting Ms. Archambo's words, the author says:

An odd part of Sen. Inhofe's attack: He's essentially

saying a 70% reduction in mercury emissions would've been

just dandy, but the 91% reduction proposed by the EPA would

destroy the economy. Is that really such a huge difference?

Or is he just playing politics with public health?

That is a good question: What is the difference between Clear Skies and Utility MACT? It is very simple. Clear Skies would have reduced emissions dramatically--by 70 percent--now we are talking about reducing emissions on SOX, NOX, and mercury--but it would have done it without threatening to kill coal and the millions of jobs that coal sustains.

On the other hand, Utility MACT is specifically designed to kill coal. It makes no effort whatsoever to balance environmental protection and economic growth.

Now who is playing politics with public health? If public health were the priority, why did President Obama and his fellow Democrats vote against a 70-percent reduction way back in 2005?

What is this effort about? It is about one thing: killing coal. And killing coal is the centerpiece of their radical global warming agenda. Remember then-Senator Obama said that he voted against the health benefits in Clear Skies because he thought ``global warming was critical.'' In other words, global warming was more important than any of the considerations regarding health. And these are real pollutants: SOX, NOX, and mercury.

Importantly, the Senate will take this vote on my resolution just as the world leaders are gathering in Rio de Janeiro. Right now they are down there gathering at the Rio + 20 Sustainable Development Conference.

Let's remember what happened 20 years ago. In 1992, that was the conference in Rio where they all got together, and they were going to be doing all these things on anthropogenic gases and all of that. President Obama, who is now busy pretending to be a fossil fuel President to garner votes, will not be attending. But he is sending his ``green team'' to negotiate on his behalf.

What is this conference about? As Fox News reported back in April:

The main goal of the much-touted, Rio + 20 United Nations

Conference on Sustainable Development . . . is to make

dramatic and enormously expensive changes in the way that the

world does nearly everything--or, as one of the documents

puts it, ``a fundamental shift in the way we think and act.''

Utility MACT is a huge part of this effort to change the way we live and to spread the wealth around, and that is what they are talking about down there. We have started invoking a new tax system.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proposes how sustainable development challenges ``can and must be addressed.'' He included--now I am quoting him--more than $2.1 trillion a year in wealth transfers from rich countries to poorer countries, in the name of fostering ``green infrastructure,'' ``climate adaptation,'' and other ``green economy'' measures.

He is advocating for new carbon taxes--that is on us--for industrialized

countries that could cost about $250 billion a year or 0.6 percent of gross domestic product by 2020. Other environmental taxes are mentioned but not specified.

Also included are further unspecified price hikes that extend beyond fossil fuels to anything derived from agriculture, fisheries, forestry, or other kinds of land and water use, all of which would be radically reorganized. These cost changes would ``contribute to a more level playing field between the established, `brown' technologies and newer, greener ones.''

He has advocated for major global social spending programs, including a ``social protection floor'' and ``social safety nets'' for the world's most vulnerable social groups for reasons of ``equity.''

It is all talking about more higher taxes on the developed world to go to the benefit of the underdeveloped world. This is the same thing they were talking about 20 years ago.

I think it is very timely that this is happening today. It is happening at the very moment we will be voting on Wednesday as to whether to kill coal. By the way, this is the only vote that will be taken this year or probably ever to ultimately kill coal. Once this is passed, then, of course, the contracts are all broken and we have to figure out: What are we going to do in this country? If you kill coal, how do we run this machine called America? The answer to that question is, you cannot do it.

So it is very important, and I do not think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that the real purpose of the vote that will take place on Wednesday is to kill coal in America. And America cannot provide the necessary energy to run its machine and be competitive without coal. So it is a critical vote, and it is one that I think people are aware of that is going to be taking place.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, in a moment I am going to propound a unanimous consent request. Before I do, I would like to say what it is on so people will understand the time and effort that has gone into getting legislation passed. I am referring now to S. 3268.

When John Glenn retired from this body, that left me as kind of the last acting commercial pilot. Consequently, I ended up getting a lot more of the complaints and problems within the FAA and the way accusations are made and enforcement actions are taken. I have gone to bat for a lot of these people when I believed there was really a fairness problem.

It was not until I had an experience, a personal experience, that I realized the depth of the problem. It is very hard for people in this room to understand. If you have been, as I have been, a private pilot, commercial pilot, and flight instructor for 55 years, what it would mean to have that license taken away from you if that were merely at the whim of some enforcement officer in the field. I think all of us know--when I was mayor of Tulsa, now and then we had a few police officers who could not handle the authority. It happens all the time. Certainly we hear about it with enforcement actions brought about by the FAA.

What happened to me, and I will share this with you--I think it is very important--I have probably more hours than most airline pilots have and I was still active in aviation. I was flying down to the southern part of Texas, the furthest south part of Texas, way down by Brownsville, to Cameron County Airport. Papa India Lima is the identifier for it. In this effort, with several passengers with me, I was going by the controllers. This is what you do not have to do but I always do for safety purposes. I went through the Corpus Christi approach control. He handed me off to the Valley approach control. I was going into a field that was uncontrolled, so the only control is the Valley approach control. They are watching on a screen, and they have all the information they need to direct you and authorize you to do things. They are looking for traffic and you are squawking, so they know exactly where you are, how high you are, and all the things that are happening. Again, you don't have to do that. On this day in October, a year ago October, I did not have to do it, but I did it anyway.

As I approached--the wind is always out of the south down there. The runway is 1 3--that coordinates with 130 degrees. When I was on about-- I would have to go back and listen again to the voice recorder--about a 2- or 3-mile final to runway 1 3, the controller said: Twin Cessna 115 echo alpha, you are cleared to land runway 1 3.

When you do this, you dirty up your plane so you can land. This happens to be a pretty sophisticated twin-engine plane; you have to let the flaps down and gears down and all that stuff. You get to the point, if you have a full plane, beyond which you cannot go around. When I came in to make a landing, I did not see X on the runway because it was not very prominent, but nevertheless there was one there. But there were some workers on the far east side of the runway. This was a 8,000- or 9,000-foot runway. I only needed 2,000 or 3,000 feet. So I went over the workers and I landed. Immediately they got upset that I landed.

A lot of people, because I am a Member of the U.S. Senate, started calling the New York Times and the Washington Post. They had a wonderful time with this. I started looking at it and talking to the people who do the enforcement action. I have to say they were good, and they were responding to a lot of hysterical people, frankly, who did not like me. So they came with an enforcement action against me which merely was to go around the pattern with a CFI, a flight instructor. So I did this. I am also a flight instructor. I had given him his license, as a matter of fact. I went through this procedure, and everything was fine.

However, the problem was this: I was denied access to the information they were going to use against me. When I told them that I was cleared to land by the controller, it took me, a U.S. Senator, 4 months to get the voice recording to prove I was right.

Second, there is a thing called Notices to Airmen. NOTAMS are supposed to be published every time there is work on a runway. Pilots are supposed to have access to NOTAMS. You look through your resources, as I always do, to see if there are NOTAMS on the runways where I land. When I go back on

weekends, normally I will fly--gosh, I will be at five or six different towns, but I look up the NOTAMS on all the towns. I had done that. There were no NOTAMS on Cameron County Airport. We checked afterward. We could never find any. No one says there were NOTAMS now. So, No. 1, I was clear to land, and No. 2, there were no NOTAMS that were published.

What they could have done--they could have very well done is taken my license away. It doesn't mean much to people who are listening to me right now because you are not pilots, but it means a lot to the 400,000 members of the AOPA who are watching us right now and to the 175,000 general aviation pilots with the EAA, Experimental Aircraft Association, who are watching us right now. They know that they, at the whim of one bureaucrat, could lose their licenses.

Anyway, I came back and drafted legislation. I have to say this was way back a year ago now--July 6 of 2011. I introduced a bill with 25 cosponsors that would do three things:

No. 1, it would let the accused have access to all relevant evidence within 30 days prior to a decision to proceed with an enforcement action.

No. 2, it would allow the accused to have access to the Federal courts. As it is right now, the National Transportation Safety Board-- it goes to them, and they rubberstamp whatever the FAA does. In fiscal year 2010, there were 61 appeals, and of those only 5 were reversed. Of the 24 petitions in 2010 seeking review for emergency determinations, only 1 was granted and 23 were denied. It is a rubberstamp. Everybody knows it. Ask any pilot you can find, and they will tell you that is what it is.

This way, they would have access to the Federal courts. It is not going to happen because I can assure you, that inspector in the field, the enforcement officer in the field is not going to put his reputation on the line knowing that someone is going to be looking at it with a sense of fairness. The district court doesn't have to know anything about piloting an airplane, it is just a fairness issue.

In my case, they would have looked at this and said: Wait, you are cleared to land by the FAA, and there are no NOTAMS published. What did you do wrong?

I did nothing wrong.

They would make sure flight station communications are available to all airmen. They are supposed to be. But if it took me 4 months--and I am a U.S. Senator--to get a voice recording to show I was cleared to land at this airport, what about somebody who is not a Senator? What about somebody who would be intimidated to the point he would lose his license?

The second thing this does is it forces the NOTAMS--Notices to Airmen--to be put in a place where they are visible, a central location.

The third thing. If you talk to the aircraft owners and the pilots association, of all the problems that they get called to their attention, 28 percent of all the requests for assistance received by them relate to the medical certification process. In other words, someone might lose his medical and then find he has corrected any kind of physical problem and wants to get it back, and he gets it back. However, if he happens to live in a different town and there are hundreds of doctors around to do this, there is no uniformity to it.

So it sets up a process or helps facilitate setting up a process by having general aviation, having the FAA, having the NTSB, having anyone who is relevant and interested in this to look at and coordinate the medical certification process.

That is essentially it. I am prepared to go into a lot of detail. I know I now have 66 cosponsors in this body. I could have had a lot more; we quit after we got two-thirds. I think everyone knows that is normally what you do. I do know we may have one objection to this unanimous consent request, but I am going to make it now.

As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 422, S. 3268, that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Let me respond. This in no way has anything to do with safety because we are talking--the first arbitrator is the FAA. That is not what this is about at all. When we have had a chance to talk, as we have to almost all the Senators in this body, we have talked about safety. We bounced that off many people. We had a hearing at Oshkosh about safety. I had the air traffic controllers support me on this. They are the ones concerned with safety.

I would say I don't agree with the argument, but I respect the Senator from West Virginia.

Madam President, I think it would be redundant for me to go back and repeat what I said before. The Senator from Texas talked about the X on the runway. I made it very clear by the time you can see the X on the runway when you are cleared to land and you have a sophisticated plane that is full of passengers, there is a point beyond which you can't go in terms of your plane is dirtied up making a go- around. Obviously it wasn't necessary because I had 7,000 empty feet to come around, but that is not important because that is not the issue.

I recognize and respect Senator Hutchison in the fact that she was on the NTSB, and I know that obviously is meaningful to her, as it is to Senator Rockefeller.

What we are dealing with here is we have a committee--and I have a lot of respect for the committee for which Senator Rockefeller is the chairman and Senator Hutchison is the ranking member, and this committee is the committee of jurisdiction.

Now, what did I do? I introduced this bill a year ago. I talked about it. We had 25 cosponsors at that time. We had endorsements from all over the country. We had the National Air Traffic Controllers Association come in. We sent out ``Dear Colleagues'' to talk to people. Again, we sent a letter to the Commerce Committee that Senator Hutchison was on at that time requesting a hearing. We had 32 cosponsors signing that letter, requesting a hearing, some of which were on the Commerce Committee. Nothing happened.

On September 20, as the months go by, we made more requests. We talked about this, and every time they said we are going to be doing this. You finally get to the point where you have to go ahead and get it done. And that is why we have a rule XIV. I am not a Parliamentarian, and I don't know exactly how things work.

I remember I had experience with this when I worked in the House of Representatives, that when something is bogged up in a committee we had what is called the discharge petition reform of 1994. It was considered by the Wall Street Journal, or perhaps Business Daily, as the single greatest reform in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives. It addressed this same thing. It is a way of bottling up bills in committees so they could never have hearings and never be able to get on the floor for a vote. That discharge petition reform became a reality, and now the light is shining and everything is great.

But when you have been trying to get a hearing before a committee for a year and you have 66 cosponsors, you have to resort to whatever is out there available to you for a remedy. That remedy happens to be rule XIV. Rule XIV will allow me to do this, and with the two people holding the bill up, Senator Rockefeller and Senator Hutchison, I will have no choice but to file cloture and to go ahead and get a vote on this bill, recognizing it takes a supermajority when you file cloture. So I would do that.

I didn't think I would get into this or need to enter it into the Record. I have an article which I will find here and will submit for the Record. I think it is very important. It goes into detailed documentary cases where they have been unable to get fairness through this system.

How many cases would ultimately go to the district court? I think very few. The idea that there is going to be an opportunity for a pilot to take what he is accused of to the district court to see it in a sense of fairness has nothing to do with how many pilots are sitting on that district court. It is a sense of fairness, and that is what they deal with. The people in the district court system don't have expertise in all of these areas, but they can look at fairness. And I can tell you in my case, if they had looked at that and said, wait a minute, the FAA has cleared him to land and there are no NOTAMs published, he didn't do anything wrong. It finally gets to the point--and I have been very patient. I have waited a whole year for this and finally I have come to the point where I have flat given up, so I decided that we are going to have to do it this way since it is clearly the will of the Senate to pass this legislation.

So, with that, I have some things I want to have printed in the Record. First of all, I have the sequence of events, the request that we made of the Commerce Committee to hear this legislation.

I have an article that was in Pilot magazine by John Yodice, who is considered to be the single foremost legal authority in this area.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have both items printed in the Record.

He talks about the decision of the current NTSB calls into question its fairness and impartiality in pilot appeals. And he talks about all the notices that have gone out and the problems they have had with this.

Of the 100,000 pilots who are interested in this today--actually, well over that--but just those who are involved in this process right now, they have had documented cases where the fairness is not there. This would offer fairness, and that is all we are asking, just to be treated as fairly as every other citizen in the United States.

I yield the floor.

First of all, I am not aware that I was offered a hearing. But let me make sure I have in the Record, and I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter dated September 15, 2011, which was 9 months ago, signed by 32 Members of this Senate, including the occupier of the chair right now, the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. President, I don't think anyone is going to say we haven't done everything we could to go through the committee process to get a hearing. I just flat gave up. That is why we have this rule.

I will be looking forward to taking the next steps. I know there are a lot of people out there who want to have this type of justice afforded the pilots of the United States of America, the same as every other citizen enjoys.

With that, I appreciate the patience of my colleagues, because I know we have other business, and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, a while ago we were talking about the unanimous consent request that was objected to by Senator Hutchison to bring up my pilots' bill of rights by

unanimous consent, actually Senate rule XIV.

During that time, it was the intention of Senator Mark Begich from Alaska to be on the Senate floor with me. He was tied up with constituents. I did not want to talk about him unless he was down here. But I have visited with him. Right now we have--I do not know how many--thousands and thousands of pilots who are watching this at this moment. I want them to know that Mark Begich has been the cosponsor of my legislation. We would not be able to be here and doing what we are doing, as far along with 66 cosponsors, if we had not had his cooperation. I wish to thank him and the junior senator from West Virginia Mr. Manchin, who has been on my side on this legislation all of the way through.

I just want to make sure the pilots of America know who does want them to have equal justice under the law and who, perhaps, does not.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I think I have time reserved now for up to 30 minutes. I wish to first of all say that the subject we have been listening to is life threatening. It is critical. That is not why I am down here today because we have something else that is very important.

I have come to the floor today with some breaking news. The momentum to stop President Obama's war on coal is now so great that some of my colleagues--Senators Alexander and Pryor--are going to introduce a countermeasure to my resolution. My resolution would put a stop to the second most expensive EPA regulation in history--a rule known as Utility MACT, with which the occupier of the chair is very familiar. The countermeasure is a cover bill, pure and simple.

While my resolution requires the EPA to go back to the drawing board

to craft a rule in which utilities can actually comply, the measure that Senators Alexander and Pryor are offering would keep Utility MACT in place but delay the rule for 6 years. This alternative is a clear admission that the Obama EPA's policy is wrong, but it does not fix the problem. It simply puts off the day of execution for a matter of 6 years.

What is really going on here? Since my S.J. Res. 37 is a privileged motion, it must be voted on by Monday, June 18, unless we extend it, which I would be willing to do, until after the farm bill takes place. That might be a better idea. It requires 50 votes to pass. The Alexander-Pryor cover bill will likely be introduced tomorrow. It is a bill that will likely never be voted on and would require 60 votes to pass. Therefore, the Senators who want to kill coal by opposing S.J. Res. 37 will put their names on the Alexander-Pryor bill as cosponsors to make it look as if they are saving coal, when in reality that bill, the Alexander-Pryor bill, kills coal in 6 years.

We have seen this before. I remember when we considered the Upton- Inhofe Energy Tax Prevention Act when it came to the floor last year. It was a measure that would have prevented the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. I would like to expand on that, but there is not time to do that.

My colleagues offered a number of counteramendments so they could have a cover vote. They wanted to appear as if they were reining in the out-of-control EPA--and I think everybody knows what is going on right now with all those regulations--for their constituents back home, all the while letting President Obama go through with his job-killing regulations. Some chose to vote for the only real solution to the problem--the Energy Tax Prevention Act--and some chose the cover vote. But all in all, 64 Senators went on record that day as wanting to rein in the EPA. But some of them did not have the courage to stand by it.

Of course, it is highly unlikely the Utility MACT alternative by Senators Alexander and Pryor will ever get a vote, but that is not the point. The point is just to have something out there that Senators in a tough spot can claim to support.

As I have said many times now, the vote on S.J. Res. 37 will be the one and only opportunity to stop President Obama's war on coal. This is the only vote. There is no other vote out there. If we do not do this, and that rule goes through--Utility MACT--coal is dead. This is the only chance we have.

Fortunately, we have a thing called the CRA. It is a process whereby a Senator can introduce a resolution to stop an unelected bureaucrat from having some kind of an onerous regulation. That is exactly what I have done with this. But this is the only chance for my colleagues to show constituents who they do stand with. Which of my colleagues will vote for the only real solution, which is my resolution, and which of my colleagues will vote for a cover vote?

What has changed over the past few weeks to the extent of my colleagues suddenly feeling it necessary for a cover vote?

A lot has changed because the American people are speaking up, and they are not happy about the Obama EPA. When I go back to Oklahoma, that is all I hear. It does not matter if you are in the ag business, if you are in the military business, if you are in the manufacturing business, they are all talking about the onerous regulations that are taking place in the EPA. I am pleased to say we have picked up the support of groups representing business and labor. Even more encouraging is a growing number of elected officials are working across the aisle to save coal. The Senate has taken notice, and the first Senate Democrats are beginning to come on board.

I want to commend Senator Joe Manchin, who happens to be occupying the chair at this time, and Senator Ben Nelson. They were the first two Senate Democrats to come out publicly in support of our resolution. I must say, I am very glad to see that they have made the right choice to stand with their constituents.

Senator Manchin's announcement came just after the Democratic Governor of West Virginia, Governor Tomblin, sent a letter asking him, as well as Senator Rockefeller, to vote for my resolution because, he said, EPA's rules have--and I am quoting now the Democratic Governor of West Virginia; and the occupier of the chair will know this--EPA's rules have ``coalesced to create an unprecedented attack on West Virginia's coal industry.'' Still quoting, he said: ``This attack will have disastrous consequences on West Virginia's economy, our citizens and our way of life,'' and that EPA ``continues on this ill-conceived path to end the development of our nation's most reliable cost- effective source of energy--coal.''

I am very proud of a lot of the officials in West Virginia for what they have come out with. Governor Tomblin is not the only Democrat to be concerned. West Virginia Lieutenant Governor Jeffrey Kessler sent a separate letter to the West Virginia Senators and others asking them to pass S.J. Res. 37 in order to save what he called West Virginia's ``most valuable state natural resource and industry.'' He reminded the Senators that:

On May 25, 2012, the State of West Virginia challenged the

MATS rule--

that is the kill coal rule--

and cited four reasons the defective rule should be rejected.

That is not all. A group of bipartisan State legislators from West Virginia also wrote the Senators and others urging them to support S.J. Res. 37 out of concern for the devastating impact on West Virginia. As they wrote:

Several West Virginia power plants have announced their

closure and the loss of employment that comes with it.

Additionally, it is projected that with the implementation of

this rule, consumer electric rates will skyrocket.

We all know that is true. Even the President has stated that.

I wish to note that we have support from nearly 80 percent of the private sector--those businesses that President Obama claims are ``doing just fine.'' Apparently, they do not think they are doing all that fine. American businesses are suffering because of aggressive overregulation by the Obama administration.

Let me take a minute to read the names of just some of the groups that are supporting our efforts to pass S.J. Res. 37: The National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Farm Bureau, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, the American Chemistry Council, the Association of American Railroads, the American Forest and Paper Association, the American Iron and Steel Institute, the Fertilizer Institute, the Western Business Roundtable, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

That is just part of it.

Then the unions. The unions are coming too--I have talked about the businesses and read all of their groups--they have come to stop the overregulation that is killing jobs. Cecil Roberts, I had the occasion to meet him once. He is the president of the United Mine Workers, one of the largest labor unions in the country. He recently sent a letter to several Senators saying the union's support for my resolution is ``based upon our assessment of the threat that the EPA MATS rule''-- that is the coal-killing rule--``poses to United Mine Workers Association members' jobs, the economies of coal field communities, and the future direction of our national energy policy.''

Remember, Cecil Roberts is the one who traveled across the country in 2008 campaigning for President Obama. But after 4 years of his regulatory barrage designed to kill the mining jobs his union is trying to protect, Mr. Roberts has said his group may choose not to endorse President Obama or just sit the election out. As he explained:

We've been placed in a horrendous position here. How do you

take coal miners' money and say let's use it politically to

support someone whose EPA has pretty much said, ``You're

done''?

With even Democrats and unions supporting my effort to save millions of jobs that depend on coal, EPA has to be feeling the pressure.

Gina McCarthy, the Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office for Air and Radiation, came out with a statement last week vehemently denying that Utility MACT and EPA's other rules are an effort to end coal. She said:

This is not a rule that is in any way designed to move coal

out of the energy system.

Everybody knows better than that.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson echoed this sentiment saying that it is simply a coincidence that these rules are coming out at the ``same time'' that natural gas prices are low so utilities are naturally moving toward natural gas. Her message was: Do not blame the EPA.

Last week on the Senate floor, I described why their public health and natural gas arguments do not hold up, so I will not go into that today. But what I wish to focus on today is that these claims backing up their efforts to kill coal are just a part of the far-left environmental playbook.

There is a pretty big difference between what EPA is saying publicly and what they are saying when they talk with their friends, when they feel as though they can let their guard down and admit what is really going on down at the EPA. That is exactly what happened in a video recently uncovered of Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz. While President Obama was posing in front of an oil pipeline in my State of Oklahoma pretending to support oil and gas, Administrator Armendariz told us the truth, that EPA's ``general philosophy'' is to ``crucify'' and make examples of oil and gas companies.

You may remember last week when I spoke on the Senate floor, I talked about a newly discovered video of EPA Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding who is caught on tape telling the truth to a group of his environmental friends at Yale University. At a gathering there, he said that EPA's rules are specifically designed to kill coal and that the process isn't going to be pretty.

He openly admitted:

If you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem.

He goes on to say that the decision to kill coal was ``painful every step of the way'' because it will devastate communities in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and any area that depends on coal for jobs and livelihoods. That is kind of worth repeating. He said it is going to be painful. At least he recognized that. And we all know exactly what he is talking about.

I read his whole quotes on the floor of the Senate. They are a little too long to read now. But he talks about how painful it is going to be for all these families who are losing their jobs because we are killing coal.

I talked a lot about President Obama's war on coal last week, but what I did not have time to address was the Obama administration's allies in this war. It would come as no surprise that Administrator Spalding and, indeed, many at EPA are working hand in hand with the far-left environmental groups to move these regulations to kill coal.

Last July, Administrator Spalding spoke at a Boston rally for Big Green groups--that is capitalized: ``Big Green''--supporting EPA'S Utility MACT rule. That is the rule that would kill coal. In a YouTube video of this rally, Administrator Spalding gushes over the environmental community, thanking them profusely for ``weighing in on our behalf.'' So here we have EPA admitting that Big Green is working for them.

His whole speech was directly out of the environmental playbook. This is something that really exists: the environmental playbook. It was all about the so-called health benefits of killing coal. And he said:

Don't let anybody tell you these rules cost our economy

money.

This is out of their playbook.

Administrator Spalding is not alone in his alliance with Big Green. Also appearing with these far-left environmental groups was Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman. According to Paul Chesser, an associate fellow for the National League and Policy Center, Hedman told supporters at the rally:

We really appreciate your enthusiastic support for this

rule. It's quite literally a breath of fresh air compared

with what's going on in the nation's capital these days.

Of course, the former EPA region 6 Administrator Armendariz showed us again last week just how close EPA's relationship is with the far left groups. Armendariz had agreed to testify before Congress. It was actually over in the House, but at the last minute he canceled. As it turns out, Armendariz was in Washington that day. But while he apparently could not find time to testify before Congress, he did have time to stop by the Sierra Club for what has been described by the group as a private meeting. I suspect that Armendariz was there for a job interview. His ``crucify them'' resume makes him the perfect candidate.

Of course, EPA and their Big Green allies cannot tell the public the truth that they are crucifying oil and gas companies or that their efforts to kill coal will be ``painful every step of the way'' so they are deceiving the public with talking points from their playbook. When I say ``playbook,'' I mean a literal document telling activists exactly how to get the emotional effects they want.

We recently got a copy of this, and I have to say its contents are quite revealing. It comes from usclimatenetwork.com, a coalition of several major environmental groups, and it is a guideline for environmental activists when they attend hearings with the EPA to support the agency's greenhouse gas regulations.

A quick search revealed it was apparently written by a key player in the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, which is an aggressive effort to shut down all coal plants across America. After offering some tips on the word limit and how to deliver the message, the document urges activists to make it personal. It asks: Are you an expectant or new mother? Grandparent? If so, it suggests you bring your baby to the hearing. As it states, some examples of great visuals are ``holding your baby with you at the podium or pushing them in strollers, baby car seats,'' and so forth. ``Older children are also welcome.'' It encourages the visual aids of ``Asthma inhalers, medicine bottles, healthcare bills'' and all these other things that are good visuals.

The American Lung Association certainly took a page of this playbook. We have all seen the commercials of the red buggy in front of the Capitol. Of course, the Sierra Club put their principles to practice by inundating the American people with images of small children with inhalers.

The posters for the Beyond Coal campaign also featured abdomens of pregnant women with an arrow pointing to the unborn baby. The words on the arrow are, ``This little bundle of joy is now a reservoir for mercury.'' Another one says, ``She's going to be so full of joy, love, smiles, and mercury.''

Of course, the supreme irony is that the campaign that claims to be protecting this unborn child is the same one that is aggressively prochoice. It is coming from a movement that believes there are too many people in the world and actively advocates for population control and abortion.

Just after a hearing in May of this year, the Sierra Club posted pictures of their efforts. Sure enough, there is one of Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, holding her 2-year- old daughter Hazel. But for all their efforts, it is clear the campaign is about one thing only; that is, killing coal.

At a hearing, Mary Anne Hitt with the Sierra Club said, ``We are here today to thank the Obama administration and to show our ironclad support for limiting dangerous carbon pollution being dumped into the air.'' She apparently sees the Obama administration as the closest ally in the Sierra Club's effort, and she has said about the Beyond Coal campaign:

Coal is a fuel of the past. What we're seeing now is the

beginning of a growing trend to leave it there.

Of course, it is not just coal they want to kill; they want to kill coal, oil, and gas. A lot of people do not realize that. It was not long ago that Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said:

As we push to retire coal plants, we're going to work to

make sure we are not simultaneously switching to natural gas

infrastructure. And we're going to be preventing new gas

plants from being built wherever we can.

So it is not just coal. It is oil. It is gas. We have to ask the question--at least I get the question asked when I go back to my State of Oklahoma because there are normal people there. They say: If we do not have coal, oil, and gas, how do you run this machine called America? The answer is we cannot.

As this vote on my Utility MACT resolution approaches, look for many of

my liberal friends to take their arguments directly out of the far left environmental playbook. Get ready to see lots of pictures of babies and children using inhalers. But these are the same Members who voted against my Clear Skies bill, that would have given us a 70-percent reduction in real pollutants, I am talking about SOx, NOX, and mercury. We had that bill up, and that was one that would have actually had that reduction--a greater reduction than any President has advocated. When President Obama spoke--at that time he was in the Senate--he said: I voted against the Clear Skies bill. In fact, I was the deciding vote, despite the fact that I am from a coal State and half my State thought I had thoroughly betrayed them because I thought clean air was critical and global warming was critical.

At an April 17 hearing this year, Senator Barrasso and Brenda Archambo, of the Sturgeon for Tomorrow, who testified before the EPW Committee, ``Would Michigan lakes, sturgeon, sportsmen, families have been better off had those reductions already gone into effect when they had the opportunity to pass [Clear Skies]?''

Her answer was yes. We are talking about, by this time, 6 years from now, we would have been enjoying those reductions. There are crucial differences between Clear Skies and Utility MACT. Clear Skies would have reduced the emissions without harming jobs and our economy because it was based on a commonsense, market-based approach. It was designed to retain coal in American electricity generation while reducing emissions each year.

On the other hand, Utility MACT is specifically designed to kill coal as well as all the good-paying jobs that come with it. EPA itself admits the rule will cost $10 billion to implement, but $10 billion will yield $6 million in benefits. Wait a minute. That does not make sense. That is a cost-benefit ratio between $10 billion and $6 million of 1,600 to 1.

If their campaign is so focused on public health, why did Democrats oppose our commonsense clean air regulations? Very simple. Because we did not include CO2 regulation in the Clear Skies legislation. President Obama's quote only verifies that. He is on record admitting he voted against these health benefits because regulating greenhouse gases, which have no effect whatsoever on public health, was more important. In other words, the real agenda is to kill coal.

Just before President Obama made the decision to halt the EPA's plan to tighten ozone regulations, the White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley asked: ``What are the health impacts of unemployment?'' That is one of the most important questions before this Senate in preparation for the vote on my resolution to stop Utility MACT. What are the health impacts on the children whose parents will lose their jobs due to President Obama's war on coal? What are the health impacts on children and low- income families whose parents will have less money to spend on their well-being when they have to put more and more of their paychecks into the skyrocketing electricity costs?

EPA Administrator Spalding gave us a clue about the impacts of unemployment. It would be, as he said, ``Painful. Painful every step of the way.'' Do my colleagues in the Senate truly want that? I deeply regret that I have to be critical of two of my best friends in the Senate, Senators Alexander and Pryor, particularly Senator Pryor. Three of my kids went to school with him at the University of Arkansas. He is considered part of our family. He is my brother. But if someone has been to West Virginia and to Ohio and to Illinois, to Michigan, to Missouri, and the rest of the coal States, as I have, and personally visited with the proud fourth- and fifth-generation coal families, as I have and certainly the occupier of the chair has, they know they will lose their livelihood if Alexander-Pryor saves the EPA's effort to kill coal. I cannot stand by and idly allow that to happen.

Let me conclude by speaking to my friends in this body who have yet to make up their minds as to whether they will support my resolution. I know everyone in the Senate wants to ensure we continue to make the tremendous environmental progress we have made over the past few years. We truly have.

The Clean Air Act many years ago cleaned up the air. We have had successes. Unfortunately, this administration's regulations are failing to strike that balance between growing our economy and improving our environment. Rather, this agenda is about killing our ability to run this machine called America.

Again, I wish to welcome the support of Senators Manchin and Ben Nelson, who listened to their constituents. It is the rest of the Senators from the coal States that I am concerned about. What about Senators Levin and Stabenow, who come from a State that uses coal for 60 percent of its electricity?

What about Senator Conrad from a State with 85 percent of the electricity coming from coal? In Ohio, where Senator Brown is from, 19,000 jobs depend on coal. Then there is Virginia, home of Senators Warner and Webb, which has 31,660 jobs, a 16 to 19 percent increase in the electric rates.

Arkansas, the war on coal there, that is 44.9 percent of electricity generation in the State of Arkansas; Tennessee, 52 percent of electricity generation, 6,000 jobs; Missouri, 81 percent of electricity generation--81 percent in the State of Missouri. That is 4,600 jobs at stake; Montana, 58 percent; Louisiana, that is 35 percent of electricity generation. These are all States that depend on coal for their electricity generation; lastly, Pennsylvania, 48.2 percent of electricity generation, 49,000 jobs would be lost in Pennsylvania if utility MACT is passed. That is significant. I would not be surprised if all these Senators from coal States that I just mentioned will vote for the bill of Senators Alexander and Pryor that says: Let's kill coal, but let's put it off for 6 years.

I repeat. It does not do any good to delay the death sentence on coal 6 years. Contracts will already be violated and the mines will be closed. So I say to my colleagues that their constituents will see right though those of who choose a cover vote. The American people are pretty smart. They know there is only one real solution to stop, not just delay, EPA's war on coal.

I hope they will join Senators Manchin and Nelson and me and several others and stand with the constituents, instead of President Obama and his EPA, which will make it painful every step of the way for them all. We need to pass S.J. Res. 37 and put an end to President Obama's war on coal. This is the last chance we have to do this. There is no other vote coming along.

If a Senator does not want to kill coal, they have to support S.J. Res. 37. It is our last chance to do it. Again, we do not know when this is going to come up. It is locked in a time limit, unless we, by unanimous consent, increase that time. I have no objection to putting it off until after the farm bill because that is a very important piece of legislation. So we will wait and see what takes place.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized out of turn, and I will cease when Senator Blumenthal shows up.

Madam President, I come from the farm State of Oklahoma. The biggest threat to the future of farmers is burdensome and costly regulations.

I have three amendments. The amendments I am proposing will provide significant regulatory relief for farmers struggling in a tough economy.

There is virtually no history of oilspills from agricultural operations, and farms simply do not pose the risk of the spills other sectors do. Starting next year, farmers who have oil and gas tanks-- that is all of them. They all have oil and gas tanks on their farms. They are located in different areas, but if they have a certain aggregate amount, they will be required to hire a certified professional engineer to design a spill prevention control and countermeasure plan just like major oil refineries. They may also be required to purchase new capital equipment to comply with the rule, including dual containment tanks on farm trucks and fuel storage units that will necessarily raise the cost.

My amendment would exempt farmers from these regulations for above- ground oil storage tanks that have an aggregate storage capacity of less than 12,000 gallons.

I know a small wheat farmer in northwest Oklahoma by the name of Keith Kisling. He is one of the only farmers who took the time to actually comply with the SPCC regulation. Those are spill regulations. Most people didn't even try to comply.

First, he had to fill out over 80 pages of paperwork he did not understand. He hired an online service to help him comply, which cost him money and didn't make his job much easier. He must keep a copy of this plan on his property at all times in case he is inspected. If he had older tanks, the rules would require him to purchase new double- walled tanks that are incredibly expensive. In addition, he now has to build a berm around his tanks to hold 18,000 gallons of fuel in case it does leak. This will be very expensive and time consuming. He also must install a liner underneath the tanks and at the bottom of the berm to contain any leaks. He reports that the rules are extremely confusing and the regulations just don't make any sense, given the fact that farmers would not let leaks go unnoticed because diesel fuel is too expensive.

In addition to providing this exemption, it will also allow farmers who are regulated to self-certify instead of going to the expense of hiring engineers to do that for them. I am hoping my colleagues will look at this as a regulation that is not needed and accept my amendment.

I have a second amendment having to do with storm water. One of the biggest threats is the overburdensome and costly regulation. But one of the best ways to stop these rules is to ensure that when an agency states they will collect the best available information before imposing a new regulation, that they do that.

This amendment will ensure that the EPA keeps its word and fully evaluates a current storm water regulatory situation--what practices work and what don't work, what the costs are and what the benefits are--before barreling ahead with new uncertain regulations.

In EPA's current storm water regulations, they committed to complete an evaluation of the current rule. This amendment simply stops the EPA from issuing any new regulations until they comply with the rules. In other words, they have said they would do this. This stops them from invoking a regulation and completing it until they have completed what they have already agreed to.

Rest assured this is nothing new to the EPA. In fact, in the EPA guidance that accompanies the current regulations, they recommended the same thing: that until the evaluation of the current program is completed, no new requirements be imposed, especially for small communities.

So all my amendment does is force the EPA to do what they have already agreed they would do, and that should be a fairly easy one to pass.

Madam President, I see the Senator from Connecticut has arrived, and so I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, let me first of all express my appreciation to the majority. I understand I am to be given some 40 minutes after the vote at the conclusion of the remarks by Senator Brown of Ohio. I have a subject that is very significant, and it is one I cannot do while being interrupted. So I appreciate starting this period off after the recess being able to express my concern over what I refer to as President Obama's war on fossil fuels and specifically today on coal. I look forward to that sometime around the 6 o'clock hour.

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