Floor Statements

Madam President, will the Senator from Ohio yield for a unanimous consent request?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Ohio I be recognized as in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Madam President, first of all, let me thank the Senator from Ohio for allowing me to interrupt him for my unanimous consent request.

This month, the Senate will have the opportunity to put a stop to the second most expensive EPA regulation in history, the rule known as Utility MACT. It is kind of confusing. Let me share with everyone what it means: MACT--and we better learn it now because we are going to hear it more and more--it is M-A-C-T. That means Maximum Achievable Controlled Technology. In other words, the EPA comes along and makes a regulation where there is no technology that will accommodate the rule. So that is what it is all about. That is what the Obama EPA calls it so the people will not know what it is and how much it costs. It is the first step--we are talking about Utility MACT--it is the first step to kill coal in the United States.

Right now, we in this country depend upon coal for 50 percent of our electricity. One can just imagine what will happen to our energy costs as well as millions of lost jobs. I have introduced a joint resolution to kill it. By voting for my resolution, S.J. Res. 37, Members of the Senate can prevent the Obama EPA from causing so much economic pain for American families. It requires only a majority vote in the Senate and the House. It would have to be signed by the President.

People say: Why would the President sign a bill that would stop his EPA from overregulating? I would suggest that right before the election, he does not want to go on record as causing that many job losses and that much damage to our economy.

Utility MACT is the centerpiece of President Obama's effort to kill coal. Utility MACT is specifically designed to close down existing coal plants, while the Obama EPA's greenhouse gas regulations are specifically designed to prevent any new coal plants from being built. So we are going to shut down the coal plants that are there now and prevent new coal plants from being built.

Keep in mind, 50 percent of our energy comes from coal. The goal behind these policies is not surprising. But what is surprising is that while President Obama goes around pretending to be for an all-of-the- above approach on energy--let's make sure we understand what that is. An all-of-the-above approach was the Republicans' idea. It was: We are for all of the above. We are for nuclear energy. We are for fossil fuels, coal, gas, oil, renewables, solar, everything else.

That is what ``all of the above'' means. The President has been saying

he is for an all-of-the-above approach on energy, while members of his green team administration cannot help but tell the truth about what is going on in the EPA. The Presiding Officer remembers several weeks ago when I came to the Senate floor to bring attention to a video of EPA region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz admitting that the EPA's general philosophy is to crucify and make examples of oil and gas companies.

We remember that, do we not? He said--and it was on a video, his voice with himself speaking to a group of people, including giving advice to those who were subordinates to him. He said: You have to do what the Romans did years ago when they would go around the Mediterranean. They would go into different areas in Turkey, and they would crucify the first five people they would see and leave them to die, dangling on a cross, in order to get them to submit to him.

Today, I would like to highlight another video. It is a video of the EPA region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding, admitting that the Obama EPA consciously and deliberately made the choice to wage war on coal. I am going to quote exactly what he said so everyone can have the full effect of it. He said:

But know right now, we are, we are struggling. We are

struggling because we are trying to do our jobs. 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. That was a huge decision. You can't

imagine how tough that was. Because you got to remember that

if you go to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all those

places, you have coal communities who depend on coal. And to

say that we just think those communities should just go away,

we can't do that. But she had to do what the law and the

policy suggested. And it's painful. It's painful every step

of the way.

Again, I am quoting the region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding in a statement he made. That is an exact quote. Let me repeat the key parts of Administrator Spalding's quote for emphasis. He said, ``If you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem.'' Even more stunning, he is admitting that the Obama EPA's decision to kill coal was painful every step of the way because West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all the coal States depend on coal development for their jobs, their livelihoods.

I had occasion to be in West Virginia and in Ohio and see and speak face to face with people who are third-, fourth-generation workers in the coal mines. Those people are scared to death that coal will be killed. Here it is in front of us right now. They are going to kill coal anyway.

Trust me, Administrator Spalding and President Obama, it is far more painful for those who will lose their jobs and have to pay skyrocketing electricity prices than it will be for you.

Spalding's statement that ``if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem'' reminds us a lot of President Obama's own statement about coal in 2008, when he was not so afraid to explain his real intention. Remember, he said--and this is a quote by the President in 2008. ``If you want to build a coal-fired power plant you can, it's just that it will bankrupt you.''

That was 2008. Sure enough, he is bringing that to reality. He is making every effort. Of course, this war on coal comes from the same administration that put the ``crucify them'' Administrator Armendariz in charge of the biggest oil-and-gas-producing region in the country. In fact, crucifixion philosophy is so obvious now that even the somewhat left-leaning Washington Post said that the Obama EPA is ``earning a reputation for abuse.''

But I think Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal put it best when she said that Armendariz was ``a perfect general for Mr. Obama's war against natural gas and on the front lines of President Obama's battle to end fossil fuels and affordable energy.''

As this most recent video of region 1 Administrator Spalding confirms, there are plenty of green generals such as Armendariz going into battle for the Obama EPA. We have several more videos of EPA officials making similar statements. I am not going to talk about them tonight. I will talk about those at a later date because today I would like to focus my remarks specifically on President Obama's war on coal and what Members of this body will choose to do about it.

The fundamental question before the Senate will be whether my colleagues will have the courage to stand up to President Obama and put the brakes on his abusive, out-of-control EPA that has openly admitted: If you want to build a coal plant, you have a big problem or if they are going to stand with President Obama and his administration's ``crucify'' agenda.

One of the most interesting and telling aspects of President Obama's disingenuous attempt to rebrand himself as a supporter of fossil fuels is that he never mentions coal. He does not even pretend. In fact, up until very recently, President Obama's campaign Web site had a section devoted to the President's goals for every energy resource except coal.

Only after facing intense criticism and disappointing primary results in coal States, which just happened recently--I think we are all aware of that--the Obama campaign attempted quietly to add a clean coal section to its site.

Apparently, President Obama's definition of clean coal is no coal. In his 2013 budget request, the President cut funding for coal research and development at the National Energy Technology Lab by nearly 30 percent. This is at the same time EPA has proposed greenhouse gas standards for coal-fired powerplants that require carbon capture and sequestration. We refer to that as CCS. It is a technology that is not ready to operate on a commercial scale.

On one hand, we have Obama issuing standards in which utilities cannot comply without using CCS; on the other hand, we have them handicapped in that very technology. In other words, what he is saying is that we have emissions standards for coal technology where there is no technology. There are standards required for emissions where there is no technology that will accommodate that request.

We are going to see it in other areas too. This is coal. I am concentrating just on coal tonight. After cap and trade was thoroughly rejected by the American people and defeated in a Democratically controlled Congress, President Obama promised that he would not give up in his efforts to stop coal development. He also said:

Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat. It was

a means, not an end. I'm going to be looking for other means

to address this problem.

He has found other ways to skin the cat--by imposing regulations that have exactly the same effect of killing coal. I do not have time to go into every action EPA has taken, but I would like to highlight a few of the key coal-killing regulations. Front and center, of course, is Utility MACT. Utility MACT is a rule which sets strict standards that cannot be met, which means that along with EPA's other air rules, up to 20 percent of America's coal-fired capacity will be shuttered and around 1.6 million jobs will be lost.

That is initially. Carry that on through, considering that coal supplies 50 percent of our energy in this country, it is going to far exceed that, starting off with 50 percent of America's coal-fired capacity will be shut down. Utility MACT's pricetag is second only to the Obama EPA's greenhouse gas regulations, which are designed to prevent any new coal plants from being built in this country.

Similar to the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, these regulations will cost $300 to $400 billion a year and destroy over 2 million jobs. It may even cost more if the courts throw out the EPA's tailoring rule. It kind of gets into the weeds. It is a little bit complicated.

What they are attempting to do is the regulations that they were unable to do through legislation. We had several bills over a 12-year period to try to impose cap and trade. That cap and trade cost would be $300 billion to $400 billion. The tailoring rule is one where if EPA does it through regulation, doing the same thing, imposing cap and trade on the American people, it will not cost $300 billion to $400 billion a year, but it will be far more because it will have to reach the standards of the Clean Air Act. That would be regulating those emitters with 250,000 tons of emissions a year. Every school, church, restaurant, and coffee shop

would now have to be regulated and would be put out of business by the

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

Mr. President, if there is no business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, while the Republican alternative was definitely better than the Democrat-endorsed proposal, at the end of the day, neither option presented a long term answer to the impending rise in student loan interest rates.

In 2007, Congress passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which I opposed. This legislation used a stepped reduction of interest rates for subsidized Stafford loans, from 6.8 percent to the current 3.4 percent. Also as a part of this law, these rates are scheduled to reset to the original 6.8 percent on July 1. So for five years, we have known this day was coming. A one-year extension of the current interest rate is merely a six billion dollar temporary fix. It would simply postpone finding an actual solution to the problem of college affordability. Congress has gotten too comfortable with band aid fixes: payments to physicians, the Highway bill, and flood insurance being recent examples. It is because of increased government intervention that we continually find ourselves in this predicament. With every government takeover, whether it is education, health care, or the EPA, the result is less competition, less consumer choice, and less innovation.

Mr. President, I understand the importance and value of a good education. My wife was a teacher, and my two daughters became teachers as well, one even at a university. I also commend the efforts of all students who strive to achieve a higher education and improve their lives, especially those struggling through financial burdens. However, we owe it to these students to address the problem, not just put a band aid on it.

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

Madam President, I ask that I be recognized for up to 15 minutes as if in morning business.

Madam President, today I want to expose a far-left environmental agenda that is being imposed upon the Department of Defense by President Obama and a lot of his allies, and it comes at the same time that the Obama administration is focusing on dramatically reduced cuts in the military.

As ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and as a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, stopping the radical global warming agenda, as well as President Obama's devastating cuts to our military, have been my top priorities, and that is all I have been talking about for the last couple of months. I have had a growing concern about how President Obama's global warming agenda is harming our military, but the remarks recently made by Secretary Panetta have led me to come and make a few statements.

First, let me say this about Secretary Panetta: I served with him for 5 years in the House, and a number of years ago he and I became very close friends. In fact, I rejoiced when he was nominated and we confirmed him as Secretary of Defense. So I was extremely disappointed to see that he was wasting his valuable time perpetrating the President's global warming fantasies and his war on affordable energy, which occurred, no less, at a gathering of radical environmentalists. That is where the statement was made. Secretary Panetta said:

In the 21st century, reality is that there are

environmental threats that constitute threats to our national

security.

He also vowed that the Pentagon would take a leading role in shifting the way the United States uses its energy. Every talking point Secretary Panetta used in his speech, from rising sea levels to severe droughts to the so-called plight of the polar bear, all of these--I will not go into them one at a time--these all came out of Al Gore's science fiction movie, and they have all been totally rebuked.

In reality, it is President Obama's war on affordable energy that is having a dramatic impact on our national security, a war that is further depleting an already stretched military budget and putting our troops at risk.

Secretary Panetta made another revealing statement in justifying the President's green agenda. This was about two editions ago in the Hill magazine:

As oil prices continue to skyrocket, the department `now

[faces] a shortfall exceeding $3 billion of higher-than-

expected fuel costs this year,' according to Panetta. In

order to dig its way out of that financial hole, DOD has no

choice but to look to alternative fuel technologies. Pentagon

officials plan to invest more than $1 billion into developing

those technologies in fiscal year 2013.

I might add, that is $1 billion that would otherwise be spent on defending America. That is right, energy prices have skyrocketed, we understand that--precisely because of the politics of this administration. Remember, they have openly admitted this.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said:

[S]omehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of

gasoline to the levels in Europe.

We all know why he made that statement. That was way back in 2008.

It was Obama's statement that said under his cap and trade--which is what they have been talking about--``electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.''

Now, because domestic energy prices have skyrocketed under his administration, just as they wanted them to do, Secretary Panetta wants the military to go green. Instead of spending scarce resources greening the military, the commonsense solution is simple--to begin developing our own vast supply of energy resources.

Secretary Panetta's comments came just 2 weeks before the Senate Armed Services Committee is to begin the markup of this coming year's Defense authorization bill. So I will be taking this opportunity to work with my colleagues on the committee to put the spotlight on President Obama's forcing his costly green agenda on the Department of Defense while he is taking down the budget for the defense. I look forward to introducing a number of amendments that will put a stop to this nonsense and help ensure that Secretary Panetta has the tools he needs. I can assure you--because I know him well--this is a script this came off of.

As part of that effort, I am also releasing a document put together by the Congressional Research Service that puts a pricetag on how much the Federal Government provides global warming policies, and I will be discussing this.

With President Obama running for reelection and pretending to be for an ``all of the above'' energy approach, Secretary Panetta's comments are surprising. But they are still also illuminating. President Panetta's commitment of $1 billion for alternative fuels makes clear that despite the President's recent change in rhetoric for his reelection campaign, he remains fully determined to implement his all- out attack on traditional American energy development, and the military is one place where he can force that experiment. We are talking about a green experiment using our military.

To show just how egregious this whole thing is, let me spend just a second documenting how badly President Obama wants to take down the military for the benefit of his green agenda. Over the past 4 years, DOD has been forced to drastically cut its personnel, the number of brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift capabilities. It is eliminating or postponing programs such as the C 27, the Global Hawk Block 30, the C 130 avionics modernization package, which we desperately need, and the advancement of the F 35. These are programs we have had on the drawing board, and it is very important we carry these through to fruition.

Even more concerning, these cuts could go even deeper. Because the subcommittee failed to report legislation last fall--and we all remember this--that would have reduced the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, the Pentagon's budget could be cut by an additional $495 billion between 2013 and 2021. That is very interesting because during that period of time we are talking about two things--not just degrading the military, but over the next 10 years taking $\1/2\ trillion out. If sequestration should come in that would be another $\1/2\ trillion, and everyone realizes that would be devastating to the military.

Secretary Panetta has rightly warned us that such drastic cuts would be a threat to national security. He said:

Unfortunately, while large cuts are being imposed, the

threats to national security would not be reduced. As a

result, we would have to formulate a new security strategy

that accepted substantial risk of not meeting our defense

needs. A sequestration budget is not one I could recommend.

That is a quote by Secretary Panetta.

General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, weighed in also and said:

The impact of the sequestration is not only in its

magnitude. It's in what it does . . . we lose control. And as

we lose control, we will become out of balance, and we will

not have the military this nation needs.

When they talk about accepting risk, we are talking about lives. That is what that means; risk equals lives. What are you willing to do for this green agenda?

The remarks by the top DOD officials make Panetta's recent global warming speech at odds with solving our military's budget problems. Even as Secretary Panetta expresses concern about the impact of these cuts on national security, he is openly supporting President Obama's forcing DOD to expend large amounts of scarce resources on expensive alternative fuels. This doesn't make any sense, and that is why I believe Secretary Panetta's global warming remarks were written by someone in the White House to appease the radical left and not Secretary Panetta. I am absolutely convinced of that. After seeing how severe these cuts to DOD would be, how could anyone justify this so- called greening of the military?

Consider, for example, the Navy's plan to sail its Green Fleet, a strike group powered by alternative fuels, by 2016. The success of this Green Fleet is predicated upon biofuel--much of it algae based-- becoming practical and affordable. So they are assuming that is going to happen, which I don't think it is going to happen.

In 2009 the Department of the Navy paid $424 a gallon for 20,000 gallons of biodiesel made from algae, which would set a record for all- time cost of fuel. That is per gallon--and that is when it was on the market for $4 a gallon--and it is $424 a gallon.

In December 2011 the Navy purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for $12 million, which works out to be about $26 a gallon. This purchase is part of a larger deal in which the Navy has pledged taxpayer funds of $170 million as their share of a $510 million effort to construct or retrofit biofuel refineries in order to create a commercially viable market. This biofuel will be mixed with conventional fuels by a 50 50 ratio to yield a blend that will cost roughly $15 a gallon--roughly four times what we should have to be spending.

Keep in mind this is at the same time we are rejecting systems that were in our plans, and have been for a long period. And as if the services are not already stressed by serious budget cuts, the Secretary of the Navy also directed the Navy and Marine Corps to produce or consume one gigawatt of new renewable energy to power naval installations across the country.

Everyone agrees energy efficiency in the military is a worthy goal. In fact, I have been a strong supporter of the DOD's alternative energy solutions that are affordable and make sense, including the initiatives on nonalgae biofuels and natural gas. In fact, in my State of Oklahoma we are working, through the major universities and the Noble Foundation and others to take that leadership role. But forcing our military to take money away from core programs in order to invest in unproven technologies as part of a failed cap-and-trade agenda is not only wrong, it is reckless.

I am not alone in saying this. My good friend, Senator McCain agrees with me on this point. Just last month Senator McCain criticized earmarks for alternative energy research in the Defense appropriations bill which cost the taxpayers $120 million. Senator McCain said:

We're talking about cutting the Army by 100,000 people, the

Marines by 80,000 people, and yet we now have our armed

services in the business of advanced alternative energy

research? The role of the armed forces in the United States

is not to engage in energy research. The job of energy

research should be in the Energy Department, not taking it

out of Defense Department funds.

That is where it belongs, and I agree with Senator McCain's statement.

The CRS report is significant. Largely due to my concern about green spending in the military, I recently asked the CRS to figure out how much money--how much of taxpayers' dollars--is actually being used to advance the green agenda. The amount came out that since 2008, $68.4 billion has been used to advance a green agenda.

Just to name a few options, if we didn't do that, we could add $12.1 billion to maintain DOD procurement at fiscal levels of 2012 and allow our military to continue to modernize its fleet of ships, its aircraft, and its ground vehicles. We could avoid a delay in the Ohio-Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Replacement Program, and it goes on and on, which I will have as a part of the Record.

Instead of funding these priorities, the Department of Defense has been forced to spend valuable resources on research relating to climate change and renewable energy.

In the stimulus package, each branch of the Armed Services and the Pentagon itself was given $75 million, for a total of $300 million, to research, develop, test, and evaluate projects that advance energy- efficiency programs. In total, since 2008, DOD has spent at least $4 billion on climate change and energy-efficient activities. The same $4 billion could have been used to purchase 30 brandnew F 35 Joint Strike Fighters, 28 new F 22 Raptors, or completely pay for the C 130 Aviation Modernization Program that we have been working on for a long period of time.

Now, just for a minute I will turn to the argument that President Obama and the far left have been using to justify this mission to go green. They always say we need a transition away from fossil fuels. One thing we do know--and it is a fact, and I don't think there is anyone out there who is disagreeing or arguing with this--we have more recoverable reserves in oil, gas, and coal than any other country in the world. When you stop and think what we have been talking about on this war that this administration has had on fossil fuels, it has been that on domestic energy.

One thing, if people understand, there is not a person in this body or anyone else I have found in America who did not learn back in elementary school days about supply and demand. We have all this vast supply but the government will not let us develop our own supply. It is ludicrous. We are the only country in the world where that is a problem.

In addition to the fact that we cannot use our resources, develop our own resources, we keep hearing over and over what people are saying: If we were to even open our public lands to development, to drilling and to producing, it would take 10 years before that would reach the pump.

I know my time is real short here so I am having to shortcut this, but I am talking to one of the top guys producing today, Harold Hamm. He is from Oklahoma. He actually is up in North Dakota right now and he is doing incredible things, developing shale and developing gas and oil to run this country.

I asked him a question. I said: I am going to use your name in quoting. How long would it take, if you were set up in New Mexico and all of sudden they would lift the ban, in order for that to reach the pump? Do you know what his answer was? He said: Seventy days. It would take 2 months to get the first barrel of oil up and then 10 days to go through the refining process and reach the pumps.

It is supply and demand. We have that. We should not be using our military to advance the green agenda by this President.

I yield the floor.

If the Senator would yield for a unanimous consent?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from New Hampshire, I be recognized for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, first of all, I will be introducing a bill in a minute called S. 3053, but as a predicate to that, let me talk again about my ongoing investigation of the overreach of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Certainly the Washington Post is right-on with their editorial. On May 3, the Washington Post editorial board penned an editorial entitled ``The EPA is earning a reputation for abuse.'' In this editorial, they discussed how former region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz's ``philosophy of enforcement'' has severely hurt the EPA.

To refresh your memory, it was a couple of weeks ago at this very podium that I read the quotes I am about to quote again today. While the Washington Post doesn't agree with me all the time, I was pleased to read that they saw that the ``crucify'' policy Mr. Armendariz purported in his visit to Dish, TX, clearly showed that he ``preferred to extract harsh punishments on an arbitrary number of firms to scare others into cooperating.'' Further, the Washington Post editorial board saw this attitude as both unjust and threatening to investors in energy projects.

While Armendariz has resigned--he is gone now--his statements have undermined the legitimacy of the EPA's regulatory authorities. We know that the policy of extracting harsh punishment on arbitrary individuals in order to scare others into cooperation was not just an inflated rhetoric. Mr. Armendariz followed through on his philosophy when he had the EPA region 6 pursue a trumped-up emergency action against the natural gas company Range Resources in Texas. The EPA is not using its powers fairly and is showing its enforcement is arbitrary, unreliable, capricious, and unduly severe.

But the Post's editorial board didn't see Armendariz as an isolated incident. They also called out EPA's actions in another recent high- profile misuse of power that has hurt the Agency's credibility.

The EPA insisted that an Idaho couple, the Sacketts, stop construction on a home because that violated the Clean Water Act. On March 21 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously--this was not a split decision; it was unanimous, 9 to 0--that the EPA had exceeded its authority in pursuing the Sacketts and has ensured that they and other people who find themselves in similar situations can overcome the EPA's assertion of whether or not their property contains jurisdictional wetlands, without submitting to the permit process. A mere 2 days later, the EPA was again called out for overreaching its authority on water issues. Then on March 23 the U.S. district court ruled that the EPA overreached in revoking a permit to Arch Coal after the Army Corps of Engineers had already granted it. In quite a blow to the Agency, the judge said EPA's claim--and I am now quoting what the judge said in his order--``that section 404(c) grants it plenary authority to unilaterally modify or revoke a permit that has been duly issued by the Corps'' is a ``stunning power for an agency to aggregate to itself when there is absolutely no mention of it in the statute.'' That is what the court said.

Yet, in the midst of scathing rebukes from the press and the courts, the EPA is still acting as if everything is the same as it was before these cases happened, and they are actively pursuing more regulatory power by attempting to vastly increase the scope of the Clean Water Act's reach. In fact, when discussing the results of the Sackett case at an American Law Institute-American Bar Association event on May 3 of this year, Mark Pollins, Director of EPA's Water Enforcement Division, said, ``Internally it is the same old, same old.''

I plan to send a letter to Administrator Jackson addressing Mr. Pollins' comments and trying to find out how an EPA official, in the face of a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision, could say that the Agency is not going to do anything different. And if the EPA is able to finalize its new Clean Air Act jurisdictional guidance, it will have given itself a whole new set of excuses for pushing the boundaries of the Clean Water Act as far as possible. This continued overreach is why we now have bicameral, bipartisan legislation introduced to stop this current guidance overreach.

Let's take a moment and go back in time to where this all started. We might remember a couple years ago Senator Feingold from Wisconsin and Congressman Oberstar over in the House introduced the Clean Water Restoration Act. The Clean Water Restoration Act removed the word ``navigable.'' This act gave the Federal Government, through the EPA, the jurisdiction over the navigable water. That is what the law was. But they wanted to take out the word ``navigable'' and, therefore, the EPA would have jurisdiction over all land in the United States. It is very simple. It was so unfair that not only did we defeat the Clean Water Restoration Act but the people defeated Senator Feingold in Wisconsin and Congressman Oberstar, after they had been in Congress for a long time. Obviously, this is something that is not popular. It is an overreach and everyone understands it.

Normally, when the Obama administration can't achieve what they want to achieve through legislation, they do it through regulations. We see this in cap and trade right now. We saw the President try to get legislation on cap and trade which amounted to a $300 billion to $400 billion tax increase on the American people and it wouldn't have done any good or helped anyone. Yet it would have been the largest tax increase in history. I go back and compare it with what they were attempting to do with the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. That is where they raised the marginal rates, the capital gains tax, the death tax--this massive tax increase--a $32 billion tax increase. This will be 10 times greater than that. Now they are trying to do what they couldn't do with legislation through regulation. But that is because in order to undertake a Clean Water Act rulemaking, EPA would have to follow a transparent process and engage in a public comment period as required by the Administrative Procedures Act.

For that reason, they didn't pursue that through regulations. Given how unpopular their proposal has been, going through with the rulemaking would make it much more difficult to obtain the expanded Federal control they are clearly trying to pursue. By changing agency practice in this formal and nonregulatory way, they virtually ensure that they will be able to formalize this agenda easily through future rulemaking. So what they couldn't achieve through legislation or, in this case, through the proper rulemaking process, they are trying to do through guidance.

What is even more frustrating than the EPA's continued overreach is that this new guidance would provide no improvement to water and would likely hinder real progress on cleaning water. The guidance's broad reach and legalistic language would inevitably shift the balance of regulatory authority further away from States, which are better equipped to protect waters within their borders. Giving the Federal Government control over nearly all water features will not lead to cleaner water. It will, however, lead to tremendous uncertainty, tremendous confusion, and economic pain for farmers,

energy developers, small businesses, and State governments by saddling them with more layers of expensive, onerous, and unnecessary Federal regulations. It is yet another Obama administration policy that will be all pain for virtually no environmental gain.

Congress has been explicitly clear with EPA that this new guidance is unacceptable. Last July I wrote a letter, along with Senator Roberts, the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and 39 of our colleagues to Administrator Jackson, where we raised our concerns that this document went far beyond mere guidance. EPA and the Corps of Engineers greatly expanded what can be considered jurisdictional waters through a slew of new and expanded definitions and through the changes to the applications and jurisdictional tests.

Administrator Jackson has said this guidance will increase the Clean Water Act's scope. In the economic analysis that accompanied the guidance, it stated that as few as 2 percent and as many as 17 percent of the nonjurisdictional determinations under current guidance would be considered jurisdictional using the expanded test under the new guidance. However, this analysis was only for the Army Corps making dredge-and-fill permit decisions when compared to current practice. The guidance will apply to the entire Clean Water Act, including the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits, the Oil Pollution Act and Spill Prevention Control, and Countermeasure plans, water quality standards, and even State water quality certifications. Because most States have delegated authority under the Clean Water Act, this change in guidance will also result in a change in the responsibilities of States in executing their responsibilities under the Clean Water Act and a change in how individual citizens are governed by law.

So what we are talking about is what they have been unable to do with legislation they were going to be doing with regulation. But in this case, what they couldn't do with regulation because it would be too transparent they are trying to do through guidance.

The finalized guidance document is currently at OMB for formal interagency review before it is finalized. We don't know what changes have been made, but based on a draft that was leaked to the press, it doesn't appear that the document is substantially different from the proposed guidance document they put out for public comment last May. This is the last step before this expansive document starts being used throughout the country, and that is why I hope all my colleagues in the Senate on both sides of the aisle will join me in trying to stop it.

Working with Senator Barrasso, Senator Heller, Senator Sessions, and others, we introduced S. 2245. We call it the Preserve the Waters of the United States Act. It is a bill that stops the EPA from finalizing the guidance and from using the guidance to make decisions about the scope of the Clean Water Act or to turn it into a rule. The House has also acted with chairmen and ranking members of the Transportation and Infrastructure and Agriculture Committees introducing the bipartisan H.R. 4965. I applaud Mr. Mica and Mr. Rahall in this bipartisan effort, as well as Mr. Lucas and Mr. Peterson and Mr. Gibbs for their actions. These bills do not change or roll back any current protections in the Clean Water Act; they simply stop the EPA and the Corps of Engineers from moving forward and making these unprecedented regulatory changes through a guidance document.

The EPA needs to withdraw this guidance document immediately. If it wishes to make changes to the Clean Water Act, it should go through a complete and proper rulemaking process under the Administrative Procedures Act. That is why it is there, so people in America will know the cost of what these regulations mean to them and what they do and do not do. Why do it under the veil of guidance when they should be doing it out in the open? That is what we want. That is all we are asking for.

I mentioned I am introducing a bill today.

(The remarks of Senator Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 3053 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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

Mr. President, in an attempt to refresh our memory on what happened with the overreach of the EPA, we might remember that it was from this podium, I guess, 2 weeks ago--it was on a Friday that we found out and we had access to a tape that we released to the public. It has been on the TV and everyone has seen it now. It is a tape of the region 6 administrator of the EPA, Mr. Armendariz. At that time, when talking to the regulators who were under his jurisdiction and along with the public at a public meeting that was taking place in Texas, he said:

But as I said, oil and gas is an enforcement priority. . .

. I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff

about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was

probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the

meeting but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was

kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages

in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town

somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they

would crucify them.

And let them die on a cross. Everyone would look at that. Then he said:

And then you know that town was really easy to manage for

the next few years. . . . So, that's our general philosophy.

This is the EPA we are talking about, and this is 1 of 10 of the regulators. This happens to be the region 6 administrator. This regional administrator recently resigned when not only his statement received attention but also following public awareness about the manner in which he initiated the enforcement actions in region 6.

We know about--and I have already mentioned in my previous remarks-- the company down in Texas. This company was cited by Armendariz. They are accused of groundwater contamination. They are accused of perhaps misusing hydraulic fracturing. All these were just accusations. But then they sent a letter to them and said we are going to fine you $33,000 a day--$33,000 a day. If we read those letters carefully, we will find out that decision isn't already made, it is not going to start, but to the person who is reading the letter, who receives the letter, they will think, I can stay in business for 30 more days and that is it.

One has to ask the question: How many companies are out there that have received a letter such as this from the EPA and assumed they are going to have to start paying this fine, so they folded up their tent and they quit? This is what they want. They want to put people out of business.

I told the story from this podium about a company in my State of Oklahoma. This was back probably 10 years ago. I received a letter--we had a lumber company in Oklahoma and the president of the lumber company said: I don't know what to do. The EPA has just put us out of business.

I said: What did you do wrong?

He said: I don't think I did anything wrong. He said: I have been selling our used crankcase oil to the same licensed operation for the last 10 years and some of that--this contractor was licensed by the State of Oklahoma and the Federal Government in the County of Tulsa. He said: We have been selling it to the same group, this organization, for 10 years. He said: Some of that has been traced to a site where they have said this came from our used crankcase oil, and they said for that reason you have violated the law and we are going to fine you $5,000 a day.

Now, $5,000 a day, this is to a relatively middle-sized lumber company, Mill Creek Lumber, it is called--and they are still in business today--and that would have put them out of business. I said: Send the letter to me and let me read it. I read it and I told him they are just threatening you and trying to run you out of business.

We have to wonder as to how many companies out there are closed now or out of business because of actions such as this. How many of these companies received a letter such as the operation did down in Texas saying we are going to impose $33,000 a day and, finally, they just fold up their tent and quit? We don't know that. There is no way of knowing. We have invited people from this podium to call and we have received calls from people who have been out of business. This is an intentional effort we are dealing with and have been dealing with for quite some time.

So we introduced today, just a few minutes ago, S. 3053. I have a whole bunch of cosponsors--it looks like about 20 cosponsors--on the bill. What we do is a very simple thing. I have found in my experience in both the House and the Senate that the shorter and simpler we make something, the easier it is to understand. This is a little, small, two-page bill, and all it does is say that anyone who is going to be appointed--or nominated, I should say--as a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency would have to be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. We have a list in our laws as to what has to have Senate confirmation. The Administrator of the EPA has to--and she went through that process and that person is Lisa Jackson--but not these 10 regional directors. So we are saying they should be subjected to the same advice and consent of this Senate, and we wouldn't have these kinds of problems. I suspect the Administrator of the EPA did not know what was going on in region 6 with Mr. Armendariz. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't. In fact, she was very critical of him once we stood here and exposed what was going on.

This will solve the problem. I am going to invite people to join in. We have already introduced it. It is S. 3053. It is one that would force the administrators to be subjected to confirmation by this Senate. Keep in mind that these administrators, these regional administrators, have the power of life and death over many companies in America.

I believe this will solve that problem, and I look forward to passing this bill and having it become law.

Mr. President, in an attempt to refresh our memory on what happened with the overreach of the EPA, we might remember that it was from this podium, I guess, 2 weeks ago--it was on a Friday that we found out and we had access to a tape that we released to the public. It has been on the TV and everyone has seen it now. It is a tape of the region 6 administrator of the EPA, Mr. Armendariz. At that time, when talking to the regulators who were under his jurisdiction and along with the public at a public meeting that was taking place in Texas, he said:

But as I said, oil and gas is an enforcement priority. . .

. I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff

about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was

probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the

meeting but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was

kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages

in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town

somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they

would crucify them.

And let them die on a cross. Everyone would look at that. Then he said:

And then you know that town was really easy to manage for

the next few years. . . . So, that's our general philosophy.

This is the EPA we are talking about, and this is 1 of 10 of the regulators. This happens to be the region 6 administrator. This regional administrator recently resigned when not only his statement received attention but also following public awareness about the manner in which he initiated the enforcement actions in region 6.

We know about--and I have already mentioned in my previous remarks-- the company down in Texas. This company was cited by Armendariz. They are accused of groundwater contamination. They are accused of perhaps misusing hydraulic fracturing. All these were just accusations. But then they sent a letter to them and said we are going to fine you $33,000 a day--$33,000 a day. If we read those letters carefully, we will find out that decision isn't already made, it is not going to start, but to the person who is reading the letter, who receives the letter, they will think, I can stay in business for 30 more days and that is it.

One has to ask the question: How many companies are out there that have received a letter such as this from the EPA and assumed they are going to have to start paying this fine, so they folded up their tent and they quit? This is what they want. They want to put people out of business.

I told the story from this podium about a company in my State of Oklahoma. This was back probably 10 years ago. I received a letter--we had a lumber company in Oklahoma and the president of the lumber company said: I don't know what to do. The EPA has just put us out of business.

I said: What did you do wrong?

He said: I don't think I did anything wrong. He said: I have been selling our used crankcase oil to the same licensed operation for the last 10 years and some of that--this contractor was licensed by the State of Oklahoma and the Federal Government in the County of Tulsa. He said: We have been selling it to the same group, this organization, for 10 years. He said: Some of that has been traced to a site where they have said this came from our used crankcase oil, and they said for that reason you have violated the law and we are going to fine you $5,000 a day.

Now, $5,000 a day, this is to a relatively middle-sized lumber company, Mill Creek Lumber, it is called--and they are still in business today--and that would have put them out of business. I said: Send the letter to me and let me read it. I read it and I told him they are just threatening you and trying to run you out of business.

We have to wonder as to how many companies out there are closed now or out of business because of actions such as this. How many of these companies received a letter such as the operation did down in Texas saying we are going to impose $33,000 a day and, finally, they just fold up their tent and quit? We don't know that. There is no way of knowing. We have invited people from this podium to call and we have received calls from people who have been out of business. This is an intentional effort we are dealing with and have been dealing with for quite some time.

So we introduced today, just a few minutes ago, S. 3053. I have a whole bunch of cosponsors--it looks like about 20 cosponsors--on the bill. What we do is a very simple thing. I have found in my experience in both the House and the Senate that the shorter and simpler we make something, the easier it is to understand. This is a little, small, two-page bill, and all it does is say that anyone who is going to be appointed--or nominated, I should say--as a regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency would have to be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. We have a list in our laws as to what has to have Senate confirmation. The Administrator of the EPA has to--and she went through that process and that person is Lisa Jackson--but not these 10 regional directors. So we are saying they should be subjected to the same advice and consent of this Senate, and we wouldn't have these kinds of problems. I suspect the Administrator of the EPA did not know what was going on in region 6 with Mr. Armendariz. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't. In fact, she was very critical of him once we stood here and exposed what was going on.

This will solve the problem. I am going to invite people to join in. We have already introduced it. It is S. 3053. It is one that would force the administrators to be subjected to confirmation by this Senate. Keep in mind that these administrators, these regional administrators, have the power of life and death over many companies in America.

I believe this will solve that problem, and I look forward to passing this bill and having it become law.

Madam President, today I wish to submit for the Record my remarks and a speech by Taiwan's top diplomat in Washington, Jason C. Yuan, of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, who announced on April 25, 2012, the donation by his government of 1,150 metric tons of rice to Kenya through Feed the Children, a well-known and respected charity based in my home State of Oklahoma.

The food emergency in the Horn of Africa is a stark humanitarian crisis and Kenya simply has not received enough rain to feed its people. Record-high food prices, internal conflicts, and insecurity in the region have exacerbated the situation. With malnutrition and disease on the rise, dane Kenyan families are required to travel long distances in search of food. It is evident that outside help must be provided.

The people of Taiwan are providing that help. Its generous gift will have an immediate impact on relieving the hardships brought on by this first drought of the 21st century.

Ronald Reagan once said that ``a hungry child knows no politics,'' meaning that the American people are always willing to open up their hearts and the blessings of their bounty to the less fortunate around the world. The people of Taiwan are doing the same thing today through this generous donation.

Some may say that this gracious donation of rice is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the overall need in Africa. Yet one must remember that every mighty wave starts with a tiny ripple.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record remarks from Ambassador Jason C. Yuan.

Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

I do not want to change the Senator's line of thought. It was beautiful and I want to hear every word. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that after the conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Tennessee, that there will be 10 minutes given to the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso, and that I have the remainder of the Republican time.

First of all, Madam President, let me say we are very fortunate to have the Senator from Wyoming, with his background, come and give us his second opinion. The ratings are very high on his second opinion, and I am very glad of that.

I am also very pleased we had the Senator from Tennessee talking about the big issue of today. There is no one--having been the Secretary of Education in a previous administration--who is more qualified to talk about student loans than the Senator from Tennessee. So I am very appreciative.

Ironically, we have talked about two subjects, and I am here to talk about one totally unrelated that I think is equally critical--and I have to be critical--of this administration. I am going to state something that hasn't been stated before. I am going to release something that hasn't been released before, and I think it is very significant that people really listen.

You know, this President has had a war on fossil fuels--and when we talk about fossil fuels, we are talking about oil, gas, and coal--ever since before he was in office. He is very clever because what he has attempted to do is to kill oil, gas, and coal when we had the huge supply of it here and yet do it in a way that the American people won't be aware over it. How many people in America, I ask the Chair, know what hydraulic fracturing is? I daresay more people know about it today than knew about it a short while ago.

So today I wish to address for the first time ever the questionable actions recently taken by the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency to stop domestic energy production, particularly doing so by using hydraulic fracturing.

Today I wish to draw attention to a little-known video from 2010 which shows a top EPA official, region 6 Administrator Al Armendairiz, using the vivid metaphor of crucifixion to explain EPA's enforcement tactics over oil and gas producers.

This is a long quote, and I am going to ask everyone to bear with me because it is all a quote by Armendairiz. He is, as I said, the Administrator of region 6, and he is instructing at this time people who are working for them in what their behavior should be. So this is an actual quote I am going to use. It is a long quote. Bear with me.

I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff

about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was

probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the

meeting but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was

kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages

in the Mediterranean. They would go into a little Turkish

town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and

they would crucify them. And then you know that town was

really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make

examples out of people who are in this case not compliant

with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law,

and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out

of them, and there is a great deterrent effect there. And,

companies that are smart see that, they don't want to play

that game, and they decide at that point that it's time to

clean up. And, that won't happen unless you have somebody out

there making examples of people. So you go out, you look at

the industry, you find the people violating the law, you go

aggressively after them. And we do have some pretty effective

enforcement tools. Compliance can get very high, very, very

quickly. That's what these companies respond to, is both

their public image but also financial pressure. So you put

some financial pressure on a company, you get other people in

that industry to clean up very quickly. So, that's our

general philosophy.

Again, that is a quote from the EPA Administrator of region 6. He actually said: You know, it is kind of like the Romans, when they used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They would go into a little Turkish town and find the first five guys they saw and crucify them. That is how you get their attention.

I remember a few years ago a lumber company in my State of Oklahoma called me up and said: I am not sure what to do. The EPA is putting us out of business.

I said: What do you mean, putting you out of business?

This was a lumber company in Tulsa, OK--Mill Creek Lumber. The man who was calling me was the president.

He said: We have been disposing of our used crankcase oil in the same legal, licensed depository for 10 years now, and they have traced some of this oil to a Superfund site, and they say they are now going to fine me $5,000 a day for that violation. Now, that is what the letter said.

I said: Send the letter to me. That is a typical threat by the EPA to try to make you voluntarily go out of business.

So he sent it to me, and sure enough that is what it said. Any concerned reader would look at that and say: They are going to put us out of business. He said they could stay in business maybe another 30 days and that would be the end.

Well, that was a threat. That is what they do to intimidate people. It is not

quite to the level of a crucifixion, but nonetheless times have changed and things have gotten worse over the past few years. So, yes, they have the enforcement tools, and they are able to scare people, intimidate people. And these are the very people who are working and hiring people and doing what is necessary to run this machine we call America.

So according to Administrator Armendairiz, EPA's general philosophy is to crucify and make examples of domestic energy producers so that other companies will fall in line with EPA's regulatory whims. His comments give us a rare glimpse into the Obama administration's true agenda. No matter how much President Obama may pretend to be a friend of oil, gas, and coal, his green team constantly betrays the truth that the Obama administration is fully engaged in an all-out war on hydraulic fracturing, thinking people won't know that if you kill hydraulic fracturing, you kill oil and gas production in America.

Not long after Armendairiz made his stunning admission, the EPA, apparently, began to zero in on the first crucifixion victims. The Agency targeted U.S. natural gas producers in Pennsylvania, in Texas, and in Wyoming, and in all three of these cases, before these investigations were complete, EPA made headline-grabbing statements either insinuating or proclaiming that hydraulic fracturing was the cause of water contamination. But in each of these three cases, the EPA's comments were contrived, and despite their best efforts they have been unable to find any science to back up their accusations.

Of course, this administration has a propensity for making embarrassing announcements on days when they hope no one will notice. During the past 2-week recess, while Congress was out of town, the EPA released several late-Friday-night statements reversing their earlier assertions in these cases. Still, the problem is people are walking around believing these things are true.

The Agency hopes they can admit they were wrong quietly, but we are not going to let that happen. We are not going to let them get away with it. The American people deserve to know exactly why the EPA is pushing ahead with such intensity to capture alarmist headlines, and then, when no one is looking and when their investigation shows they were wrong, quietly backing away from it.

The EPA, in Texas, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania, not only reversed their assertions but did so with a stunning lack of transparency, strategically attempting to make these announcements as quietly as possible, at times they know Congress won't be looking. Let me quickly highlight a few of these examples. In Parker County, TX, the Agency's major announcement--the withdrawal of their administrative order--was announced at a time they knew Congress was adjourning for Easter recess. In Dimock, PA, the EPA made two announcements, and the same thing happened there. In Pavillion, WY, the EPA announced their reversal as Congress was wrapping up that week.

So the same thing was happening. The EPA's general philosophy is to crucify domestic energy producers. Let's look at the three of their crucifixions.

Parker County, TX. I think this could be the most outrageous of all the examples we will be talking about today. I will not have time to hit them all, but I will go back and make the complete statement I was going to make. Unfortunately, there isn't time to finish it now.

But what happened in Parker County, TX, took place in region 6, where my State of Oklahoma is located. Despite Texas State regulators actively investigating the issue, EPA region 6 issued a December 7, 2010, Emergency Administration Order, which determined--I use the word ``determined'' because that is the word they used--determined that State and local authorities had not taken sufficient action and ordered a company called Range Resources to provide clean drinking water to affected residents and begin taking steps to resolve the problem.

Along with this order, the EPA went on a publicity barrage in an attempt to publicize its premature and unjustified conclusions. The day of the order, EPA issued a press release in which it mentioned hydraulic fracturing--not once, not twice but four times--in trying to tie that to problems with groundwater contamination.

The Agency claimed they also had ``determined''--again, they used that word--that natural gas drilling near the homes by Range Resources in Parker County, TX, had caused the contamination of at least two residential drinking water wells.

Regional administrator Al Armendariz was quoted in a press story posted online, prior to him even notifying the State of Texas, that EPA was making their order--and the e-mails have been obtained from the day the order was released--showing him gleefully sharing information with rabid antifracking advocates--and this is a quote by this EPA regional administrator: ``We're about to make a lot of news . . . time to Tivo channel 8.'' He was rejoicing.

In subsequent interviews, Armendariz made comments specifically intending to incite fear and sway public opinion against hydraulic fracturing, citing multiple times a danger of fire or explosion. When State regulators were made aware of EPA's action, they made it clear they felt the Agency was proceeding prematurely, to which Armendariz forwarded their reply calling it ``stunning.''

What was ``stunning,'' to quote Armendariz, were revelations about the way in which the EPA acted in this particular case, which led me to send a letter, at that time, to the EPA inspector general requesting him to preserve all records of communication in connection with the emergency order issued by the EPA region 6 administrator.

Subsequent to the EPA's December 7, 2010, administrative order, on January 18, 2011, EPA followed through on Regional Administrator Armendariz's promise to ``make examples of people'' and filed a complaint in Federal district court, requesting penalties against Range Resources of $16,500 a day for each violation they alleged took place-- for each violation. I don't know how many violations there are. I think there are three or four.

Again, this goes back to the same thing that happened in my State of Oklahoma with the EPA trying to put a lumber company out of business by EPA, except this is a larger company so there are larger fines.

So $16,500 a day in order to align with Armendariz's pursuit of fines which ``can get very high very, very quickly.''

If these actions alone didn't create an appearance of impropriety and call into serious question the ability of Regional Administrator Armendariz to conduct unbiased investigations and fairly enforce the law, just 7 months prior to the region's actions in Parker County, Regional Administrator Armendariz laid the groundwork of how he planned to reign over his region.

In a townhall meeting in Dish, TX, he ``gave an analogy'' of his ``philosophy of enforcement.'' Again, we have already talked about that analogy.

This is a quote I highlighted at the beginning of my speech:

It was kind of like the Romans used to conquer little

villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little

Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they

saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town

was really easy to manage.

Let me go back and be clear about this. This is President Obama's appointed regional administrator for the States of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma comparing his philosophy of enforcement over the oil and gas industries to Roman crucifixions, where they would ``just grab the first five guys they saw'' in order to set the policy and to scare everybody else and crucify them.

Fast forward to late Friday afternoon, March 30 of this year, just a few hours after Congress left town for the Easter recess. The Wall Street Journal reported that:

EPA told a federal judge it withdrew an administrative

order that alleged Range Resources had polluted water wells

in a rural Texas county west of Fort Worth. Under an

agreement filed by U.S. district court in Dallas, the EPA

will also drop the lawsuit it filed in January 2011 against

Range, and Range will end its appeal of the administrative

order.

Listen to this. A few weeks prior to EPA's withdrawal, a judge also concluded that one of the residents involved in the investigation worked

with environmental activists to create a ``deceptive video'' that was ``calculated to alarm the public into believing the water was burning''--water that was the result of the hydraulic fracturing--when it appears the resident attached a hose to the water well's gas vent, not the water, and of course lit it on fire.

I was on a TV show the other night by someone whom I will not mention their name--she happens to be one of my three favorite liberals--and she mentioned: ``This water is so bad it is burning.'' That judge showed what it was and of course made them cease from doing that.

Remember, this is only one of the three recent high-profile instances of backtracking on behalf of the Agency, after they have already scared everybody into thinking it is a serious problem.

Next we go into Wyoming--Pavillion, WY. Last December, EPA publicized and released nonpeer-reviewed draft findings which pointed to hydraulic fracturing as the cause of groundwater contamination. Again, the culprit is always hydraulic fracturing because we all know we can't get any large oil and gas out of tight formations without hydraulic fracturing.

Here again, the EPA stepped in over the actions of the State and made a press announcement designed to capture headlines where definitive evidence linking the act of hydraulic fracturing to water contamination simply didn't exist.

The announcement came in December, despite as late as November of 2011 EPA regional administrator James Martin saying the results of the last round of testing in Pavillion were not significantly different from the first two rounds of testing which showed no link between the hydraulic fracturing and contamination. That is three rounds of testing which showed no contamination from hydraulic fracturing. Yet only a few weeks later EPA announced the opposite.

In another reversal by the EPA in the past few weeks, the EPA stepped back and quietly agreed to take more water samples and postpone a peer review of the findings, something the State of Wyoming had been requesting for quite some time.

Again, the damage was done. They didn't do anything wrong. There was no water groundwater contamination at all. This is hydraulic fracturing.

As I have mentioned so many times before, I know a little bit about this because the first hydraulic fracturing took place in my State of Oklahoma in 1949. There has never been a documented case of groundwater contamination as a result of it. Yet this administration is doing everything they can to destroy hydraulic fracturing.

Dimock, PA, is the third site of the EPA's recent backtracking of its publicized attempts to link hydraulic fracturing to groundwater contamination. In this instance, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection had taken substantial action to and including working out an agreement with an oil and gas company ensuring residents clean drinking water.

In line with the State's Department of Environmental Protection, on December 2, 2011, the EPA declared that water in Dimock was safe to drink. Just over a month later, EPA reversed that position.

So they go back and forth. What do people remember? They remember this process of hydraulic fracturing is the culprit and is creating serious environmental problems.

What is maybe more egregious was--to quote Pennsylvania DEP secretary Michael Krancer--EPA's ``rudimentary'' understanding of the facts and history of the region's water: Independent geologists and water consultants such as Brian Oram have been puzzled by the Agency's rationale for their involvement in Dimock because the substances of greatest concern by EPA are naturally occurring and commonly found in this area of Pennsylvania. Yet EPA has chosen this area to attack because of the presence of hydraulic fracturing.

In other words, this has been going on for years, long before hydraulic fracturing.

By the way, I have to say they used to attack oil and gas, but it was always out West in the Western States. The chair knows something about that. This is different now because we have these huge reserves that are in places such as New York and Pennsylvania. All that time there has not been hydraulic fracturing, but as soon as hydraulic fracturing came in, they said this is the result of hydraulic fracturing when it has been there all the time.

Of course, this is part of the strategy to try to convince Americans we don't have the vast supply of natural resources we clearly have.

I was redeemed by this. I have seen saying all along that of all the untruths this President has been saying, the one he says more than any other is that we only have 2 percent of the reserves of gas and oil and we use 25 percent. It is not true. I don't want to use the ``L'' word. I don't want to get everybody mad, but it is just not true.

The U.S. Geological Survey revealed just a few days ago that President Obama's favorite talking point, that we only have 2 percent of the world's proven oil, is less than honest. The 2 percent the President quotes is proven reserves, but he ignores our recoverable reserves. This is coming from the USGS. Our recoverable reserves are some of the largest in the world.

According to information gleaned from the USGS report, America has 26 percent of the world's recoverable conventional oil reserves. That doesn't begin to include our enormous oil shale, tight oil and heavy oil deposits. That is just a fraction of it. But that is 26 percent of the world's recoverable oil.

Our problem is our politicians will not allow us--and particularly the Obama administration--to drill on public lands and to be able to capture that.

We also hold almost 30 percent of the world's technically recoverable conventional natural gas.

In other words, to put it in a way that I think is more understandable: Just from our own resources and at our own consumption level, we could run this country for 90 years on natural gas at our current level of consumption and for 60 years on oil. That is what we have. That is the answer to the problem. It is called supply and demand. There is not a person listening now who would not remember back in the elementary school days that the supply and demand is real.

But we all know he remains fully committed to his cap-and-trade, global warming, green energy agenda--a plan that is to severely restrict domestic development of natural gas, oil, and coal, to drive up the price of fossil fuels so their favorite forms of green energy can compete. It is, quite simply, a war on affordable energy--and, at that time, they weren't afraid to admit it.

Now they are backtracking a little bit--such as using hydraulic fracturing and not saying they are opposed to oil and gas.

Do you remember Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, President Obama's man? He told the Wall Street Journal that ``[s]omehow we have to figure out a way to boost the price of gasoline to levels in Europe.''

We all know the infamous quote from President Obama. He said that, under his cap-and-trade plan, ``electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.''

The President himself has been on record supporting an increase in gas prices. Although, according to him, he would ``have preferred a gradual adjustment'' increasing the average family's pain at the pump. But this isn't a plan that gets you reelected. So the gas prices have skyrocketed, and with the utter failure of Solyndra, President Obama's dream of green energy economy is in shambles. We can be sure we won't be talking about this plan to raise energy costs until after the election.

I would have to say the President's own Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman last month made a statement, and I appreciate it, because he said we have a very strong belief that the laws of supply and demand are real.

They have been saying that the laws of supply and demand are not real. Gary Becker--I quoted this the other day. He is a Nobel Prize- winning economist, professor at the University of Chicago. He has said ``supply and demand are the cause of the vast majority of large fluctuations in oil prices, and it is hard to believe that speculation has played a major role in causing a large swing in oil prices.''

The President tried to say it is not supply and demand. We do not need to

develop our own resources to bring down the price of gas at the pumps. It is speculation. Here is a Nobel Prize winner saying that just flat is not true.

The President's budget proposal this year alone--I want to get back to how he has made this attempt to tax oil and gas out of business. The President's budget proposal this year alone amounts to a $38.6 billion tax increase on oil and gas companies, which would hit my own State of Oklahoma where 70,000 people are employed in oil and gas development especially hard. His proposal specifically would either modify or outright cancel section 199--that is the manufacturers' tax deduction that is something all other manufacturers would be able to enjoy--for the intangible drilling costs, IDCs: percentage depreciation, tertiary injections. All of these were in his budget--not just this year, not just last year, but every year since his budget 4 years ago--to try to tax the oil and gas companies out of business.

His actions have not slowed his rhetoric. In fact, President Obama has become so desperate to run from his antifossil fuel record that he ran all the way to Cushing, OK. That is my State. We have a major intersection of the pipeline down there. This President, in his attack on fossil fuels, stopped the XL Pipeline that goes from Canada down through my State of Oklahoma. He came all the way to Oklahoma to say: I am in support of the pipeline that goes south out of Oklahoma into Texas.

Wait a minute, that is because he cannot stop it. He could only stop the other one because it crossed the line from Canada to the United States. So he came all the way to Oklahoma to say he was not going to stop something that he could not stop anyway.

President Obama is trying to take credit for the increase in oil and gas. I have to get this out because I think so many people do not understand this. The increase that is taking place in production is all on private lands. It is not increasing on public lands. It is decreasing on public lands, but on private lands he has no control. In the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, since 2007, quoting now from the CRS:

About 96 percent of the [oil production] increase took

place on non-federal lands.

According to the Obama Energy Information Administration, total fossil fuel sales of production from Federal lands are down since 2008--they are down, not up--and during a time of a natural gas boom throughout the country. In other words we have gone through the biggest boom on private land, but he will not allow us to do it on public land, and that is where these tremendous reserves are. Gas sales from production on Federal lands are down 17 percent since 2008.

Finally, according to PFC Energy, which is a global consulting firm specializing in the oil and gas industry, 93 percent of shale oil and gas wells in the United States are located on private and State lands, hardly the Federal Government triumph that the President falsely attempts to take credit for when you put all the pieces together.

President Obama's election strategy is clear: Say great things about oil and gas, say great things about coal and the virtues of domestic energy production, but under the surface try hard to manufacture something wrong with hydraulic fracturing. Remember, not 1 cubic foot of natural gas can be retrieved in tight shale formations without using hydraulic fracturing.

As I said before, that was started in my State of Oklahoma. We are going to make sure we are the truth squad that tells the truth about how we can bring down the price of gas at the pump. It gets right back to supply and demand.

I am going to come back at a later date and give the long version of what I have just given in the last 45 minutes, but I see my friend from Tennessee is here. So I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the reauthorization of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, NAWCA. This bill has overwhelming bipartisan support, and I am pleased to have Senators Boxer, Vitter, Landrieu, Cochran, Johnson, and Klobuchar as original cosponsors.

In fact, this is a conservation program that has long enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle. Back in 2006, I worked with my colleagues to pass the last reauthorization of this program by unanimous consent and was pleased that President Bush signed the bill into law.

This bill also has the support of many conservation and hunting groups including: Archery Trade Association, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Boone and Crockett Club, Bowhunting Preservation Alliance, Catch-A-Dream Foundation, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, Conservation Force, Dallas Safari Club, Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, Izaak Walton League of America, Mule Deer Foundation, National Assembly of

Sportsmen's Caucuses, National Rifle Association, National Trappers Association, National Wild Turkey Foundation, North American Bear Foundation, North American Grouse Partnership, Orion-The Hunters' Institute, Pheasants Forever, Pope and Young Club, Public Lands Foundation, Quail Forever, Quality Deer Management Association, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ruffed Grouse Society, Safari Club International, Texas Wildlife Association, The Conservation Fund, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Whitetails Unlimited, Wildlife Forever, and Wildlife Management Institute

NAWCA was first enacted in 1989 and incentivizes non-federal contributions to maintain and restore wetland habitat throughout North America. Since its inception, each Federal dollar has been matched, on average, by $3.20 in state and private funds. Not only do these funds help to support waterfowl populations that were once nearing all time lows, these voluntary projects also support nearly 7,500 new jobs annually.

The success of this program lies in the fact that these projects are not top down regulations coming from the Federal Government. These projects involve multiple partners from private organizations and the Federal Government who work together voluntarily to protect and restore millions of acres of wetlands.

In my home State of Oklahoma, NAWCA currently has 12 projects either completed or underway. These projects have conserved 26,869 acres of wildlife habitat and leveraged $11.3 million in partner contributions. These projects benefit outdoor recreation, hunting and fishing, as well as boosting local economies.

NAWCA is a great example of how environmental conservation should be achieved. This program should put to rest the notion that voluntary efforts aren't successful. I would argue that these voluntary programs have been more successful and more cost effective than other mandatory Federal regulations.

I look forward to this reauthorization moving quickly through the Senate. Thank you.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the reauthorization of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, NAWCA. This bill has overwhelming bipartisan support, and I am pleased to have Senators Boxer, Vitter, Landrieu, Cochran, Johnson, and Klobuchar as original cosponsors.

In fact, this is a conservation program that has long enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle. Back in 2006, I worked with my colleagues to pass the last reauthorization of this program by unanimous consent and was pleased that President Bush signed the bill into law.

This bill also has the support of many conservation and hunting groups including: Archery Trade Association, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Boone and Crockett Club, Bowhunting Preservation Alliance, Catch-A-Dream Foundation, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, Conservation Force, Dallas Safari Club, Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, Izaak Walton League of America, Mule Deer Foundation, National Assembly of

Sportsmen's Caucuses, National Rifle Association, National Trappers Association, National Wild Turkey Foundation, North American Bear Foundation, North American Grouse Partnership, Orion-The Hunters' Institute, Pheasants Forever, Pope and Young Club, Public Lands Foundation, Quail Forever, Quality Deer Management Association, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ruffed Grouse Society, Safari Club International, Texas Wildlife Association, The Conservation Fund, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Whitetails Unlimited, Wildlife Forever, and Wildlife Management Institute

NAWCA was first enacted in 1989 and incentivizes non-federal contributions to maintain and restore wetland habitat throughout North America. Since its inception, each Federal dollar has been matched, on average, by $3.20 in state and private funds. Not only do these funds help to support waterfowl populations that were once nearing all time lows, these voluntary projects also support nearly 7,500 new jobs annually.

The success of this program lies in the fact that these projects are not top down regulations coming from the Federal Government. These projects involve multiple partners from private organizations and the Federal Government who work together voluntarily to protect and restore millions of acres of wetlands.

In my home State of Oklahoma, NAWCA currently has 12 projects either completed or underway. These projects have conserved 26,869 acres of wildlife habitat and leveraged $11.3 million in partner contributions. These projects benefit outdoor recreation, hunting and fishing, as well as boosting local economies.

NAWCA is a great example of how environmental conservation should be achieved. This program should put to rest the notion that voluntary efforts aren't successful. I would argue that these voluntary programs have been more successful and more cost effective than other mandatory Federal regulations.

I look forward to this reauthorization moving quickly through the Senate. Thank you.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for up to 25 minutes.

I thank the Chair.

Madam President, I voted against the motion to proceed to the Menendez bill on Monday because, quite frankly, it is just a bill to continue raising gas prices. I talked for quite some time yesterday on the Senate floor about this; that by raising taxes on the oil and gas industry it sounds good to a lot of people because people do not like the oil and gas industry. They have been vilified, so everybody thinks we ought to get the oil and gas industry.

What they do not understand is--I think they understand it, but they will not admit it--that is the way to increase prices at the pump. Somebody has to pay for all that stuff. So even Senator Menendez and several Democrats have said this bill is not going to lower gas prices. It would raise gas prices. I do not think anyone who looks at it logically could come to any other conclusion.

As I discussed Monday on the Senate floor, the Democrats' plan goes against everything we know about basic economics--higher taxes limits supply. Whenever we limit supply, the price goes up. I do not think there is a person out there right now who does not remember, back in their elementary school days, the basic concept of supply and demand. We have this huge supply out there. But if we cut the supply, then the demand is going to be greater, and the prices are going to go up.

The bottom line is, President Obama and his allies do not have an answer to high gas prices. That is because high gas prices--higher prices for all the energy we use--are exactly what they want. This administration remains committed to a cap-and-trade, green agenda. It is a plan that severely restricts domestic development and drives up the price of gas and electricity.

Let me put it another way. Their policies are designed to make recoverable traditional energy more expensive so their desired green energy can compete. There is no question that is what the Obama administration has wanted.

You all remember--and we have quoted so many times on this Senate floor--that Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy, told the Wall Street Journal: ``Somehow we have to figure out''--speaking on behalf of President Obama and the Obama administration; not so much the Democrats in the House and the Senate, but this is the Obama administration--he said: ``Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.'' Well, the levels in Europe were ranging, at that time, when he made the statement, around $8. Well, we are getting up there. He is getting his way. This is something that is happening now.

We all know the infamous quote from President Obama in 2008 when he said under his cap-and-trade plan--this is a quote now--``electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.'' Notice the word ``necessarily.'' It is going to happen. The President had it right. The point of the cap-and-trade regulations is to make us pay more on our utility bills.

A lot of times people do not draw the connection. Energy is energy. If we raise the price of energy on utilities, on utility bills, or gas prices at the pump, it all relates to the rest. If we somehow put coal out of business so we have to use more natural gas and more gas, then that raises the price because that makes more demand for that particular product. I think most people understand that. That is very basic.

If we are serious about lowering prices at the pump, then we need to open the vast oil and gas reserves we have at home to develop. After all, CRS recently reported--this is kind of interesting because it was a CRS report; so far, I have not heard anyone counter this report--we have more recoverable

reserves of oil, gas, and coal than any country in the world--more than Saudi Arabia, more than China, more than Canada, all of them combined.

In fact, with more than 160 billion barrels of recoverable oil, we have enough to maintain America's current rate of production and replace all of our imports from the Persian Gulf for 50 years. That is just domestically what we could do. It is out there.

A lot of them try to say: Oh, no, we only have 2 percent of the reserves. I have said this so many times, and yet the other side just keeps repeating it over and over: We only have 2 percent of the reserves, and we are using some 25 percent when, in fact, they are talking about proven reserves. Proven reserves are reserves where we have drilled and proved there is oil there. Recoverable are the areas where we have not drilled yet because we have not had an opportunity.

So if we have a policy, as this administration has, not to allow us to drill for oil, then we cannot prove anything. So the 2 percent means absolutely nothing. It is totally false. The thing is they know it. The key is ``recoverable.'' We have more recoverable reserves in fossil fuels; that is, oil, gas, and coal, than any other country in the world.

But today we have awful government regulations that prevent us from accessing it, and we are the only Nation that does this. I defy anyone to tell me the name of another country that does not develop its own resources. They all do it, and we have this President saying, well, we encourage them down in Brazil and Venezuela to drill but not here.

Well, anyway, we have these reserves that we need to start doing something with. That is why I have submitted three amendments that will address President Obama's war on affordable energy. I am going to talk about them.

First of all, amendment No. 1974 is the American Jobs and Domestic Energy Production Act. In order to increase the development of our wealth of resources, I have submitted a substitute amendment to this bill that will open literally billions of barrels of oil and gas for commercial development. It is something that will actually bring down the prices, directly bring down the price of oil, of gasoline at the pump.

First, the bill opens significant portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for development. Right now, the entire east coast and west coast and much of the Gulf of Mexico are completely off-limits. For the most part, the only offshore development allowed is in the western portion of the gulf and in certain areas offshore of Alaska. But we have to keep in mind, to do this, we have to get the permits, and that is where they have dragged their feet.

My amendment would require the rest of the OCS to be leased over time. According to a recent study, these areas have at least 63 billion barrels of recoverable oil and up to 186 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Once brought fully online, this will create tens of thousands of new jobs and ultimately may bring in an additional $1.4 trillion in additional tax revenue for the government.

My amendment would also require the administration to move forward with three lease sales that were conducted by the Bush administration but were subsequently pulled by the Obama administration after taking office.

Additionally, my amendment allows ANWR on the Northern Slope of Alaska to be developed. Experts believe this area contains 16.4 billion barrels of oil and 18.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

I have been up there. People talk about ANWR and all this, and it is a beautiful area. They have systems now where we cannot even tell where they are developing it. I have seen polls ranging from 70 to 85 percent--and I can actually identify these polls--of the people in Alaska, they want to do it. Why are we, in our infinite wisdom in Washington, DC, telling them in Alaska they cannot go after their own oil and gas?

I think it is ludicrous. Anyway, this amendment will correct that situation.

My amendment removes also the statutory moratorium on the development of this resource, and it requires the Secretary of the Interior to begin an oil and gas leasing program in that area.

Today, oil shale--particularly that in Western States--represents some of our greatest energy potential. Just a few years ago we didn't know this. We didn't have any idea of the size of this.

Some experts believe the Western States hold as much as 1.8 trillion barrels of oil shale, of which 800 billion barrels is presently recoverable. This is simply an astonishing amount of oil, and it would do a lot to help lower the price at the pump. That is what we are talking about. Everything we have talked about on the floor in opposition to the Menendez bill is something that will lower prices of gasoline at the pump.

My bill forces the administration to release 10 research and development leases that were approved by the Bush administration but then canceled by the Obama administration.

Thereafter, the Obama administration would be forced to conduct additional oil shale leases on Federal lands. We have 93 percent of the Federal lands that are off-limits. That needs to be corrected.

Lastly, my bill reserves the right of regulating hydraulic fracturing to the States. I know a little bit about this because the first hydraulic fracturing that took place in this country was in my State of Oklahoma in 1949. Since 1949, there has not been one documented case of groundwater contamination. It has worked beautifully, I think most people agree, now that it is better regulated by the States. The States differ in the depth of their resources, what they have to do to achieve it. It has worked. The old saying is ``if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' We have to look behind the motive of the Federal Government. This administration, if they can stop hydraulic fracturing, can stop the production of oil and gas. I believe that is their motivation. It is a State process that is successfully regulated by the States, and in 60 years there has not been one documented case of groundwater contamination.

Because States have done such a good job regulating fracking, I think they ought to continue having that exclusive right. My bill does this. It takes away the temptation of the power grab by the Federal Government to regulate this thing that doesn't need to be regulated at the Federal level, particularly when their motivation is to do away with hydraulic fracturing. If we do that and we talk about when they are trying to go after these types of formations, they cannot extract 1 foot of natural gas without using hydraulic fracturing.

That is what the bill does. It would be a big win for energy production because we all know the administration's regulations would likely prevent anybody from ever using hydraulic fracturing again. I can remember when the President was giving his speech to the Nation at the joint session. All of a sudden, people caught on that he has had this war on fossil fuels. He started saying complimentary things about good, clean natural gas. I agree. But what we didn't hear him say-- because he said it so fast toward the end of his remarks--is we have to do something about hydraulic fracturing. If we kill hydraulic fracturing, we cannot get the natural gas we are talking about.

All told, by tapping into our domestic supply of oil and gas, we could increase our economic output by trillions of dollars over the next several decades. It could increase government tax revenues by $2 trillion, and it would create hundreds and thousands of new well-paying jobs.

We have the energy resources we need, and if we develop them, it will significantly improve our economy and, there again, lower the price at the pump.

By raising taxes, as the Menendez bill would, it would only make the problem worse. I urge adoption of that amendment.

The next amendment I introduced is the Gas Regulations Act of 2012. To hold the Obama administration accountable for their role in gas prices, I am also introducing the Gas Regulations Act of 2012 as an amendment. We actually have this, and we are going to try to introduce it as a bill. This amendment would require an interagency committee to conduct a cumulative analysis on certain EPA rules and actions that impact the price of gasoline and diesel fuels.

My amendment is the companion amendment to a bill introduced last

week by House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield. This amendment will help us to obtain a better understanding of the costs of all these levels of regulation. I have often talked about the regulation and what the cost is. It is kind of masquerading. I will read the cost of these regulations that this administration is accountable for and that directly relate to the increased price of gas at the pump. Tier 3 motor vehicle emissions and fuel standards--that would levy a $12 billion gas tax on refiners. Who will pay for it? You will and my wife will at the pump. New source performance standards for petroleum refiners could result in billions of additional environmental and compliance costs. Again, that will be passed on to the consumer. The RFS2 standards too would force Americans to consume 21 billion gallons of expensive biofuels, such as the one the Navy procured for $26 a gallon last year, instead of paying $3.50 a gallon.

Ozone standards would result in a $676.8 billion loss in GDP. Again, these standards increase directly the price of gas at the pump. There is greenhouse gas PSD and title V permitting actions--again, another regulation. This regulation slows down the permitting process and would prevent upgrading refining capacity from coming online quickly. Again, this causes an increase in the gas price. People know pretty much the supply-and-demand argument, but they don't know what the regulations do. Anyway, this amendment No. 1963 is designed to do that.

The next one I introduced is amendment No. 1967. This is kind of called the Inhofe-Upton Energy Tax Prevention Act. Fred Upton, a Congressman, actually passed this. I have introduced this now for 3 years. We have been trying to do this.

Just yesterday, we found out President Obama fully intends to make good on his campaign promise that under his plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity prices would ``necessarily skyrocket.'' That is what we are talking about with this amendment, cap and trade. People remember that. A lot of Republicans were concerned about this issue after Kyoto, and they said let's do something about this; this idea that somehow we are going to have to reduce and regulate greenhouse gases in order to do this. They are introducing cap-and-trade bills. It goes back to the Kyoto convention in 1993, when the famous meeting was held, and Al Gore went down to try to put it together in Rio de Janeiro 20 years ago. He was going to put this together to come up with an international convention called Kyoto, and they tried to, of course, get us to pass it. We saw it would cost the American people between $300 billion and $400 billion a year, and it would treat developing countries differently, so we didn't do it.

The interesting thing about the Kyoto treaty is that the President-- then President Clinton--never submitted it for ratification in this body. After that didn't work out, they went ahead and did a second effort to do it through cap-and-trade legislation. We beat all the cap- and-trade regulations. The main reason is because it became evident the science was cooked--all put together by the United Nations. It started back in 1992. They developed something called the IPCC, which is the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, which was designed in order to, I believe, cook the science and make people believe we are going to have to do something and that CO2 and anthropogenic gases were causing global warming.

We know what happened since that time, and with climategate, which showed they cooked the science. Consequently, we introduced this legislation. This legislation merely does one thing. It will take away the jurisdiction of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. My concern is this: We were able to stop all these bills from passing that would have imposed a tax increase on the American people.

To give an idea how much that $300 billion or $400 billion would mean, in Oklahoma, I keep track of the number of families who file tax returns, and I do the math. If we do the math with what it would cost for cap and trade and do the legislation they were talking about passing, which we defeated on the Senate floor, it would cost each taxpayer in Oklahoma over $3,000 a year. What would they get for that? This is interesting. Even those people out there who think I am way off base and wrong, in terms of CO2 and anthropogenic gases-- keep in mind we asked the question to President Obama's Administrator of the EPA: ``If we were to pass cap and trade, would this reduce CO2 emissions worldwide?'' She said: ``No, logically, it would not.''

This isn't where the problem is. The problem is in China and in India. Those are the places where they would have to be regulated. But they don't regulate it to the degree we would here. We can carry that one step further. If we pass cap and trade, it would have the effect of increasing anthropogenic gases worldwide, because as our manufacturing base leaves the United States and seeks energy in those areas where there are less controls, that would have the effect of not reducing but increasing emissions.

What we would attempt to do is to take away that jurisdiction. Here is the reason we want to do that. It is bad enough--when I talked about $300 billion to $400 billion it would cost to do cap and trade through legislation, if we do it through regulation, it will be a lot more for this reason: Most of the bills that were introduced, starting back in 2003, ending up with the Waxman-Markey bill, which was a couple years ago, these were bills that would regulate emitters that emitted over 100,000 tons a year. However, if we do it through regulation, it has to be under the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Air Act specifically says not those that emit 100,000 tons a year but those who emit 250 tons or more. That would be every church, every school, and every hospital in America. We cannot even approximate that cost. That is what doing cap and trade by regulation would do.

Simply put, my third and last amendment would be to do here what they have already done in the House of Representatives, which is to take away the jurisdiction from the EPA. It directly relates to the price of gas at the pump. Take these three amendments, and if the Menendez bill should get through, with these amendments we can totally stop the increase of gas at the pump because that is what we will be faced with if we adopt the Obama-Menendez amendment.

With that, I yield the floor.