Floor Statements

Mr. President, on behalf of myself and my cochair of the Army Caucus, the junior Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Daniel Akaka, I congratulate Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston for his extraordinary dedication to duty and service to the United States as the 13th Sergeant Major of the Army. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston is retiring after 36 distinguished years of service.

Sergeant Major Preston is a native of Mount Savage, MD. He entered the Army as a cavalry scout in June 1975, and has served in every enlisted leadership position, including cavalry scout, platoon sergeant, and tank commander. He served as Command Sergeant Major of the 1st Armored Division, V Corps in Germany and the Combined Joint Task Force 7 in Baghdad, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was an instrumental leader during the invasion of Iraq.

In 1975, Sergeant Major Preston was a member of the 1st Cavalry Division, as they were transforming from an Air Cavalry Division to a Heavy Division. He spent his first years in the military as a scout, excelling on every vehicle from motorcycles to dune buggies, surpassing his peers and distinguishing himself as a superior leader. Two years later, Sergeant Major Preston was promoted to sergeant and moved to the 33rd Armor Regiment, 3rd Armor Division in Germany. His commanders again recognized his superior leadership skills and selected him first as a senior gunner and then as the commander of the battalion commanders tank. Throughout his command, his tank was consistently named top tank in the battalion.

Sergeant Major Preston took the knowledge and expertise he gained in

Germany to Fort Knox where he became a master gunner instructor. He excelled once again and was hand-picked for an exchange tour with the British Army as a tank instructor in Dorset, England. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston has served in every senior enlisted position in the Army, from platoon sergeant to command sergeant major. He held command sergeant major positions at 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division; then at 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, at 1st Armored Division, and finally at V Corps in Germany. Before becoming Sergeant Major of the Army, he was the command sergeant major for Combined Joint Task Force 7 serving in Baghdad, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. His leadership and operational expertise were instrumental in planning and executing the attack on the forces of Saddam Hussein.

One of the most enduring contributions Sergeant Major Preston has made to our Nation was implementing the largest transformation of the Army's noncommissioned officer education system since the system was first developed. As the backbone of the Army, noncommissioned officers have specific education requirements throughout their career. The Advance and Senior Level Courses now are more in line with what our leaders need in Afghanistan and Iraq. With the roll out of Structured Self-Development, an online module system that will ensure our noncommissioned officers receive the best training, noncommissioned officers are better educated, which pays huge dividends on the battlefield. Also, with new distributed learning, the Army's first-line leaders are able to spend more time at home with their families while taking classes online.

Over the last 7 years, Sergeant Major of the Army Preston served as the Sergeant Major of the Army, the highest enlisted position attainable in the Army. He assumed this position during the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom and proved himself a tremendous wartime leader, demonstrating unselfish devotion to our Nation and the soldiers. He worked tirelessly to restore balance to a force stretched and stressed by the demands of the longest war our Nation has ever known. His personal observations and advice helped guide Army leadership during the implementation of the most comprehensive transformation of the Army since World War II. The end result was building of the most versatile Army in the history of our Nation. Its modular units and improved capabilities enabled the Army to execute its strategy of full-spectrum operations. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston was instrumental in ensuring that this plan adhered to principles of commonsense and care for soldiers and their families. He worked with Army leadership to increase support to families by implementing the Army Family Covenant and the Army Community Covenant. These programs increased support for Army families by expanding and improving services while raising awareness about the unique challenges military families face. Sergeant Major of the Army Preston testified numerous times before Congress on behalf of the 1.1 million soldiers and millions of family members under his care. His clear and passionate testimony resulted in increased compensation, improved housing, improved health services and an overall better quality of life.

The impact of Sergeant Major of the Army Preston's efforts will be felt and seen in our Army for decades to come. His untiring devotion to duty, his love for the Army and its soldiers and families, and his professionalism has left a legacy of trained and educated soldiers. When history looks back at the Army's 13th Sergeant Major of the Army, it will be clear that his personal leadership contributed to the building of the most professional Non-Commissioned Officer Corps the world has ever known. We wish him and his wife Karen continued success and happiness in all of their future endeavors.

Mr. President, I was hoping to have a little bit more time, so I will cover this a little faster than I normally would. It is so critical.

I just got back from the Middle East, and I know the problems that are over there. A lot of people are saying the gas prices that are going up are a result, partially, of what is happening over there, but the real problem is a political problem.

First of all, let me talk about the commitment this administration has to cap and trade. Some people who have been around for a while can remember that way back at the Kyoto treaty I kind of led the opposition to ratifying that treaty. Later on--for the next 10 years--they tried to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Since I chaired the committee of jurisdiction at that time, we thought this was not going to work, even by the admission of the EPA. If we were to pass something such as this in the United States, it wouldn't have any effect on reducing greenhouse gases.

I still say this. Something is happening this morning in the House. They are looking at this issue, and we have introduced legislation that has said the EPA doesn't have the jurisdiction to regulate greenhouse gases. I will get to that in a minute.

My message is simply that higher gas prices are simply a product of this administration's goal. The minority leader, a minute ago, said something. He quoted Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy. He said: ``Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.''

In the United Kingdom, gas is $7.87 per gallon; in Italy, it is $7.54; in France, it is $7.50; in Germany, it is $7.41.

That is what this administration wants to do with gas prices. They have a motive for doing that. I cannot stop talking about the cap-and- trade agenda until we realize how it does affect things. You might remember that back during the campaign, President Obama stated in 2008--when he was running for office--and he has stated it several times: ``Under cap and trade, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.''

He had it right. The whole point of that is, it would skyrocket if we were to pass it. That also has an effect on all forms of energy. The House Energy and Power Subcommittee is voting this morning on the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which I introduced in the Senate, and it was introduced by Congressman Upton in the House. The bottom line of the Energy Prevention Act is to make it so EPA doesn't have the jurisdiction to do what they could not do legislatively. Starting with the Kyoto treaty and all the way up to the following 10 years, they tried to pass--in 2003 and 2005 and 2008 and 2009--a similar type of cap and trade.

What is the cost of cap and trade? The cost would be--and this goes back to the Kyoto treaty and when we had the estimates from the Wharton School and MIT--between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. In Oklahoma, that translates to $3,000 a year for each family who files a tax return. What do we get for it? By the admission of the Obama EPA and Lisa Jackson, in response to a question I asked live on TV--I asked: What effect would this have on worldwide emissions of CO2? The answer was it would not because that only affects the United States. In reality, it could actually increase it, as our jobs go overseas, to places such as China and Mexico and other places where there are fewer emission controls. So it could have the opposite effect.

Nonetheless, I say this because there are people wandering around out there who say we should do something about emissions. Yet I wish to make sure they are listening. Even if we did this, it would not have any effect. They hope, if we restrict enough supply, the price will increase and we can simply shift to what they call green energy.

I think it is important people understand that the Republican position on this is, yes, we want green energy, renewables, but we also want coal and natural gas and nuclear and oil. These are the products that can run America today. This is what we are doing. Back in Oklahoma, there are logical people. They ask: What would it be if they don't want oil, gas or coal? How do we run this machine called America? The answer is, we can't.

Let me state this--I don't have the time. It is not just the administration or Secretary Chu but others in the administration, such as Alan Krueger, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, who said: ``The administration believes that it is no longer sufficient to address our Nation's energy needs by finding more fossil fuels.''

They are antifossil fuels. They admit the tax subsidies are currently provided in the oil and gas industry, and they lead to inefficiency by encouraging overinvestment in domestic resources in this industry.

This is critical. This is an administration official, Alan Krueger: ``The small change in domestic producer costs [which I call a tax increase] could cause some production to shift from domestic to foreign suppliers.''

There it is, folks. That means we would have to depend on the Middle East--import more of our energy from the Middle East. By the way, I think it is important to note the Congressional Research Service--and I think we all respect their work--came out with a report, and they stated--and nobody has been able to refute this yet--that the United States of America now has

the largest supply of recoverable reserves in gas, oil, and coal. We keep hearing people say it is only 3 percent of the amount--we are using 25 percent of the energy and are producing just 3 percent.

That is flatly not true. I think people understand that because they use that as proven reserves. You can't prove reserves until you drill. We have the political problem that the Democrats don't want us to drill. In that case, we have to fall back on the other way of looking at it; that is, recoverable reserves. I say this: We are in a position right now to have the recoverable reserves. This chart shows these are the recoverable reserves we have right now. This is America's true oil potential. This is what we could produce. These are the proven reserves they talk about. The bottom line is, we have--and this is incontrovertible--the world's largest supply of oil, gas, and coal.

This chart shows the amount of oil, gas, and coal we have is greater than that of China, Iran, and Canada--all three put together. This is what we have here. So people say: Wait a minute. That is a problem. Then why are we importing from foreign countries? It is because we have a political problem. We have a majority in this Senate and they had a majority in the House and the President trying to continue this policy of not allowing us to develop our own resources.

We are the only country in the world that doesn't develop our own resources. I do know there are a lot of problems out there. Certainly, we have problems in the Middle East. But when I talk to my wife at home, the problem is what she is paying for gas. It is not going to get any better. How many people went to school and didn't learn about supply and demand? We have all the supply we need in America--when we add what we get from Mexico and Canada--to be independent from the Middle East. They don't let us develop it. Eighty-three percent of our Federal lands right now are off limits. It is a political problem.

I can remember when we had the oilspill down in the gulf, some of the far left environmentalists were rejoicing that it happened. They could parlay that into not allowing us to drill for our own natural resources.

Finally, last week, the EPA issued its first permit for deepwater drilling in the gulf, due to a lot of political pressure being put on and the realization that the American people are not dumb. We can develop our own resources and resolve this problem we have. If we look at what we have right now in reserves, in terms of recoverable reserves in oil and in gas, we have enough oil right now to run this country-- this is in recoverable reserves--for 90 years. Again, we have enough gas in recoverable reserves to run this country for 90 years. That is not including shale. We all know about the great shale deposits in the Western part of the United States. That is gigantic compared to what we have available to us. We also hear about methane hydrates. The reason I don't include shale and methane hydrates is because they are not recoverable today. It is not something we use today. If we lifted all restrictions, that would not give us, tomorrow, the shale reserves that are out there, nor the methane hydrates. What we would be able to do is start further developing those.

Even without them, we can run this country called America for 90 years on our own oil and gas. Then we go to coal and the significance of the oil reserves. Right now, we have 28 percent of the world's coal and, in fact, the CRS states America's recoverable coal reserves to be 262 billion short tons. For perspective, the United States only uses $1.2 billion of short tons of coal each year. So what we have is oil, gas, and coal.

The only problem is, we have an administration that, by its own admission, wants to kill oil, gas, coal, and fossil fuels. We can't do this without a change in the administration or a change in policy. I think, as you can see, when the gas prices go up--and all of America should listen--all they have to do is remember what this administration's position is, and that, as Steven Chu said--as the Secretary of Energy told the Wall Street Journal in 2008: ``Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.''

This is President Obama's position. If we take this position, we are going to have gas prices going up. You can talk around it all you want, but supply and demand is very simple. We have the potential supply to run this country for the next almost 100 years on just what we have developed.

I know the Senator from Kansas is anxious to make his statement. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Senator Leahy is somewhere around here. But since he is not on the floor, I will go ahead and present this amendment.

This is a Leahy-Inhofe amendment. It is on two almost unrelated things, but the Leahy portion of the amendment extends the public safety officer program benefits from 6 to 10 families whose loved ones died in voluntary services. It is fully offset for 10 years.

The important part of this amendment is mine, and that is--if I could have your attention over here, and I am speaking to the Republicans now, we have been trying to do this for a number of years, and Senator Leahy and I have agreed to this. Those of us who have been pilots--and I have been for 55 years--I have been involved in a lot of humanitarian missions. What this does is offer liability protection to those of us who volunteer ourselves, our money, and our aircraft to do missions no one else will do. They are humanitarian missions. The longest one I did was all the way down to Dominica, North of Caracas, Venezuela, through two hurricanes, and we saved a lot of lives down there. This would offer liability protection to those individuals who make those sacrifices.

There are 8,000 of us, by the way, around the country, I am sure from every State represented here. So I would encourage my colleagues to support the amendment.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 360 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Madam President, the supplemental carriers provide a valuable and unique service to our economy as well as our military's ability to move troops and materiel around the world in a safe and timely manner. Current flight and duty rules for carriers recognize differences in operations and provide the necessary flexibility for supplemental carriers, given the challenging worldwide environments they operate in such as Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, and other Middle East destinations.

Supplemental carriers have a long track record of safe operations. In more than 15 years, the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, has not cited fatigue as a primary cause in any nonscheduled/supplemental airline accident while flying under supplemental rules, 14 CFR Part 121, subpart S. There have been no fatalities attributed to any accident where fatigue was even remotely considered a contributing factor.

In the months preceding FAA's notice of proposed rulemaking, the agency's lack of interest in the operations of nonscheduled carriers led many to believe their unique operating procedures and status as small business entities would be addressed in a separate rulemaking. FAA issued its notice of proposed rulemaking, NPRM, to the public on September 14, 2010, and it was clear supplemental carriers were, indeed, covered by the NPRM, but the impacts of this proposal on supplemental carriers were not taken into consideration. This oversight is unprecedented. The FAA collected data from scheduled carriers to analyze their operations but acknowledged in the Regulatory Impact Analysis that it collected no data from NACA's nonscheduled airlines. FAA has a legal obligation to examine the impacts of this proposed rule on all segments of industry, which they failed to do. In the coming weeks and months I hope you will join me in encouraging the FAA to consider supplemental carriers flying under subpart S separately in the rulemaking proceeding.

I thank the Senator for his gracious commitment to insure that these carriers are treated fairly and in accordance with well established precedent.

Mr. President, we are trying to resolve one of the great problems I am sure my colleagues are sensitive to; that is, the infrastructure of this country. Today we have two witnesses next to each other, the head of the AFL-CIO and the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to show that liberals, conservatives, labor, and industry all feel this should be at least the second highest priority in America.

When I heard the President's budget yesterday and I looked at it, I shook my head in disbelief: $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes--all these things. I remembered back when I was complaining in 1996 at this very podium during the Clinton administration. That was his budget. It was $1.5 trillion. Do my colleagues know that the deficit in this President's budget is greater than the entire budget of 1996--to run this whole thing called America. It was a shocker to me. It reminded me about how people talk about entitlements and how we are going to have to do something with that.

Something we can do right now is something I tried to do last year and the House Members are trying to do right now. When the President gave his message, he talked about how he was going to freeze nondefense discretionary spending and everyone applauded, thinking that was a great austerity program. In reality, he is talking about after he has increased it from 2008 levels to 2010 levels and then freezing in those increases. That is what I find unreasonable.

So I am reintroducing S. 360--I have a whole lot of cosponsors--to wind back the discretionary spending to 2008 levels and then freeze it at 2008 levels.

I will just tell you, briefly, what the bill does. It reduces the nonsecurity spending to 2008 levels and will hold it there for 5 years through 2016. After that, spending will be allowed to increase with the CPI of inflation between 2017 and 2021. The amount of money saved by this in that period of time would be over $1 trillion.

If I can put up the chart. This chart shows what is going to happen if we don't do that. The red is what is projected in the President's budget; the blue is what is projected if we are successful in doing this. I am very proud the House of Representatives Republicans in their budget have included my bill I introduced last year and that I am reintroducing today as S. 360 as part of their budget. I think it is responsible. We will be looking forward to getting cosponsors.

Mr. President, we are trying to resolve one of the great problems I am sure my colleagues are sensitive to; that is, the infrastructure of this country. Today we have two witnesses next to each other, the head of the AFL-CIO and the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to show that liberals, conservatives, labor, and industry all feel this should be at least the second highest priority in America.

When I heard the President's budget yesterday and I looked at it, I shook my head in disbelief: $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes--all these things. I remembered back when I was complaining in 1996 at this very podium during the Clinton administration. That was his budget. It was $1.5 trillion. Do my colleagues know that the deficit in this President's budget is greater than the entire budget of 1996--to run this whole thing called America. It was a shocker to me. It reminded me about how people talk about entitlements and how we are going to have to do something with that.

Something we can do right now is something I tried to do last year and the House Members are trying to do right now. When the President gave his message, he talked about how he was going to freeze nondefense discretionary spending and everyone applauded, thinking that was a great austerity program. In reality, he is talking about after he has increased it from 2008 levels to 2010 levels and then freezing in those increases. That is what I find unreasonable.

So I am reintroducing S. 360--I have a whole lot of cosponsors--to wind back the discretionary spending to 2008 levels and then freeze it at 2008 levels.

I will just tell you, briefly, what the bill does. It reduces the nonsecurity spending to 2008 levels and will hold it there for 5 years through 2016. After that, spending will be allowed to increase with the CPI of inflation between 2017 and 2021. The amount of money saved by this in that period of time would be over $1 trillion.

If I can put up the chart. This chart shows what is going to happen if we don't do that. The red is what is projected in the President's budget; the blue is what is projected if we are successful in doing this. I am very proud the House of Representatives Republicans in their budget have included my bill I introduced last year and that I am reintroducing today as S. 360 as part of their budget. I think it is responsible. We will be looking forward to getting cosponsors.

Objection.

Mr. President, I have the same request. I call for regular order with respect to my amendment No. 7, and I send a modification to the desk.

Mr. President, Senator Leahy and I have two amendments. He has Leahy amendment No. 50 and my amendment is No. 6. I say to my friend from Iowa, I will just be a few minutes, as he was kind enough to allow us to do this first.

This has to do with the liability of those individuals who are making their own sacrifice to help people in distress. It is something that those of us who are pilots have done--helping individuals in being relieved of some of the individual liability that might be incurred. The Leahy amendment goes a little further than mine, but I am satisfied with his. So what I wish to do is request unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment No. 6 that gives liability protection to volunteer pilots and organizations, as well as request to be added as a cosponsor to the Leahy amendment No. 50. We have been in negotiations for a number of weeks. In fact, we were even last year. I think we

have reached an agreement we both find acceptable.

Mr. President, I will respond by saying that on numerous occasions in my 55 years of flying airplanes, I have done a lot of Good Samaritan things. It never really occurred to me, but one time I went all the way down to Dominica, near Caracas, Venezuela--I was telling the Senator from Iowa about it--leading 10 planes. Eight of us made it down and back. That is something we did not have to do, but no one else would do it.

I believe we can encourage a lot more people to do these Good Samaritan duties if we give them a little bit of relief from liability.

I ask unanimous consent that after the Senator from Iowa makes his remarks, I be recognized for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Before my friend from Iowa leaves the floor, when he talked about NextGen, I can remember--and he can remember--years ago, when we first flew, there was nothing but low frequency out there, and we used to shoot those low-frequency approaches. Then they came along with VORs, and I thought this has to be the end of it. Then they came along with RNAV. They could pick up a VR and move it over here. What more could they ever do than that? Then LORAN came along and then GPS. So I quit saying they can't get better because now there is hardly a runway in the world you can't shoot an instrument approach on using GPS. I flew an airplane around the world, all across Siberia--bad weather all the way--and I shot my approaches with GPS. You could train a chimpanzee to do it with a GPS.

I agree with my friend from Iowa. We are anxious for NextGen and these opportunities we have that are coming up to enhance the safety and abilities of general aviation along with commercial aviation.

I thank my friend.

Mr. President, a few minutes ago I talked about two amendments I had in the FAA bill. One was what I would call the Good Samaritan amendment. We have talked about this for years. Senator Leahy and I have come to an agreement. I would like to have it go further and offer liability protection beyond just the pilots who might be offering their services, as my friend from Iowa and I have done many times at our own expense because no one else would do it.

I would say to the occupier of the chair, it wasn't that many years ago there was a horrible hurricane that wiped out an island called Dominica, north of Caracas, Venezuela. I remember putting together 10 airplanes, general aviation airplanes, and we took doctors and nurses and generators and goods down there and food and water because nobody else would do it. This type of thing is going on all the time, and I think they should be afforded some protection from the liability laws. But I do realistically know with this compromise, we can get it passed and this would offer individuals protection.

The other amendment I have is quite different. It has to do with something called subpart S of FAR in the regulations, part 121. The Department of Defense--in the movement of many of the troops and individuals--relies on supplemental carriers. We are talking about nonscheduled carriers or charter airlines, and these are people or airlines that are nonscheduled. They come under a separate part, subpart B, and they are given some exemption from the crew rest rigid parts that affect the scheduled airlines. It is easy for a scheduled airline to have these very rigorous crew rest times because they are, as it says, scheduled. But when you get into nonscheduled, you are getting into areas where it is much more difficult.

So I wish to say two things about it. First of all, the supplemental air carriers have had a safety record that is even better than scheduled. There has never been one time in 15 years that the NTSB has cited something wrong, something that has happened with the part B or nonscheduled carriers as a result of fatigue. It hasn't happened. I often say we get too anxious to pass laws around here. I have always had the philosophy if it ``ain't'' broken, don't fix it. This is not broken, and it has worked very well. So I think their record speaks for itself.

The thing a lot of people are not aware of is if you are a nonscheduled airline, you are able to have longer rest periods, even though you may go over the 15 hours of actual flight time. So it works out, in the long range, they can do things they couldn't do otherwise.

Here is the thing not many people realize about nonscheduled airlines. The Department of Defense depends on them for 95 percent of all military passengers and 40 percent of military cargo. That is going into Iraq, Afghanistan, all throughout the danger points, and Southwest Asia, and it is expected that these new regulations will negatively impact the mission capability and increase the cost to both the carriers and to DOD.

Supplemental flights in support of the Department of Defense are carried out under control of the Air Mobility Command, which is at Fort Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. A central feature of the supplemental carrier's ability to complete these critical missions every day is the flexibility built into subpart S of the FAA regulations.

I am not offering something that is going to change how they treat subpart S. I am only going to say they currently have a rule they are considering, and this rule would do away with the distinction between subpart Q, R, and subpart S, which is nonscheduled airlines. So if we are depending upon these nonscheduled airlines to fly our troops, our cargo into these war-torn areas, then there is no other way of doing it.

You can say: Well, the Air Force can use their C-17s. Right now the Air Force's C-17s are in an OPTEMPO, where they can't take on any more missions. So you have critical things that are happening--such as flying blood into areas of combat. Let me give a couple examples. There is a regular run that goes from NATO--that is Belgium--from Belgium to Bagram, then back to Amsterdam. They are taking things such as tents, cargo, gasoline, food, and other supplies. That would be 19.6 hours. That means they can't do it. To do it, they would have to have crew rest time, and that would have to take place in Bagram. There are rules against it. You can't leave a commercial airline in Bagram. It cannot be done. So you have to figure out some way to get that cargo in and out of Bagram.

There is another regular run from Germany to Kandahar and then to Hong Kong. Well, that is 17.5 hours, so you can't do that because you can't leave your aircraft in a war zone. There is another run from Shannon to Kyrgystan and return, and that is something that is 16 hours and 15 minutes. That can't be done.

I think the one that is most critical is twice a week one carrier currently operates and takes lifesaving blood runs from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey to Ramstein in Germany and then to Qatar. From Qatar, they have to go all the way into Afghanistan and back, and that round trip extends beyond the 15 hours that would be allowed with a scheduled airline. So under subpart S, they can do it. We are talking about twice a week, regular runs, taking blood into areas in Afghanistan where it is critical we get it in.

So I am just saying the FAA, in promulgating the rules they are looking at right now, should take into consideration that there is a separate type of a mission that has to be performed for our young men and women in harm's way, and we can't do it unless we treat the subpart S of the rule FAR 121 from the scheduled airlines. So I am hoping we will have a chance.

My concern is this: There are a lot of people who, for some labor reasons, don't want to have anyone to have the ability to go beyond the 15 hours, even though they get more rest time. I am the only one talking about the fact we have the lives of our young men and women in harm's way at stake depending on this subpart S treatment. So this thing is very critical. I believe we should do something to make sure, if they are going to look at the rules, they at least look at the rules in a different light than just looking at them altogether, but look at subpart S and hear the testimony and see if that doesn't work, the special consideration.

The Budget

Mr. President, I don't see anyone else in the Chamber waiting to talk, so I wish to make one additional comment. I was in shock when I got off the plane and read what the President came out with in his budget. I think it is unbelievable--$8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes, $13 trillion in new debt, the current year deficit increased by $1.6 trillion--not $1.4 or $1.5, as they talked before--and it is incredible this could be happening right now.

I wonder if he didn't get the message of last November 2; that is, people know we cannot keep extending the spending, the fact we had an increase in the first 2 years--and this came straight from the White House, from the administration--in our spending greater than all spending in the history of this country from George Washington to George W. Bush can't happen. People are talking about the deficits that took place during George W. Bush, with an average deficit of $247 billion, and that was right after trying to rebuild a military and after 9/11, when we found ourselves, for all practical purposes, in two wars. So instead of a deficit of $247 billion, the deficit in this administration has been $3 trillion in 2 years. That is inconceivable.

I thought he would come out with something, after listening to the State of the Union Message, that would start moderating and start trying to save some money, but it hasn't happened. There is spending money on everything except the military, which is the big loser. I don't know why it is that liberals never want to spend money on the military--an $80 billion cut over a 5-year period in the Department of Defense. This is right after we went through the 1990s, where we had a

drawdown of our Defense by about 40 percent, and of course we find ourselves now, after 9/11, in two wars.

So I think we need to make sure the American people realize the State of the Union Message sounded real good when he said we are going to start putting a freeze on. You know what that freeze is? The freeze is to take the nondefense discretionary spending and freeze it for 5 years. But wait a minute, that is after he increased it over 20 percent. So he increased it so we can't afford it and then he freezes it there so we can't bring it back down.

So anyway, I hope people are looking carefully and seeing what is happening. They will. If you look at what they are doing just to the oil and gas industry--and I know a lot of people in the liberal communities who want to put them out of business, and they are going to successfully do it if they pass this particular budget--I am talking about percentage depletion, the IDC--the section 199 manufacturer's deduction. By the way, the only industry under this budget that is affected negatively by that is oil and gas. All other manufacturers in industry are all right. So I hope people have a chance to look at this carefully.

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

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

First of all, let me say that the manager has been very kind to me in offering to allow me to come up at some point. I do not care so much when it is, but I do have two amendments I have already discussed on the floor. I would like to get them in the queue so at some time we will be able to do that. So I would wait until such time as the majority feels it would be appropriate, and then I would be asking them if I can do that.

Mr. President, reclaiming my time. First of all, I thank you very much. The one set of amendments I have, I would hope to get into the managers' amendment or somehow have them come up and even be voice voted. But they are issues I have talked about in the past quite often. I think we all understand--or most of us do--that when our good friend Senator Glenn retired, that left me as the last active commercial pilot, on a regular basis, in the Senate. So I have these two amendments I am very interested in. I will yield the floor. When such time comes--what the Senator from West Virginia said is true. Right now, because of the Prayer Breakfast that is taking place, I happen to be hosting the African dinner tonight, so I have groups coming by every 30 minutes throughout the day.

At some time today, I wish to be able to get two amendments, Nos. 6 and 7, in the queue.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

One of the things that is interesting about northwest Arkansas is that you were just talking about Don Tyson. You could just as well have been talking about Sam Walton, Hunt, and many others.

I do not know what it is about northwest Arkansas, that these great entrepreneurs who changed the world seem to all come from that area, as the Senator from Arkansas knows. I am very familiar with that area, since my daughter Molly is a professor at the University of Arkansas.

I have been over there many times. I was just listening to you describe the life of Don Tyson and how consistent that is with many of the other entrepreneurs. I salute all those guys up there and you for bringing that to the floor.

Madam President, let me say that most everything the Senator from Illinois has talked about I agree with. We have been talking about this bill for a long time.

I join Senator Rockefeller in encouraging anyone, Democrats particularly, to bring any amendment down they want. Procedurally, I don't think I can get my two amendments in the queue until that happens.

For the moment, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized as in morning business.

Madam President, the Senator from Illinois was talking about our friend, our beloved Ronald Reagan. I thought I would make a couple of comments that might surprise a few people.

I was not from Oklahoma originally. I was actually born in Iowa. When I was a very small child, Ronald Reagan was the sports announcer for WHO radio.

My father was a claims adjuster. They officed in the same room--not the same building but the same room. They played the pinball machine together. I can remember at that time they never said Ronald Reagan; they said Dutch Reagan. That was his name. That was his name as a sports announcer too. He would actually come by and we referred to him as Uncle Dutch. That was in Des Moines. That was back during the Depression and shortly after.

When my family moved to Oklahoma, we didn't have a lot of money. So we never went to movies. At that time they didn't have TV. The only time we would ever see a movie is if Dutch Reagan had a movie. I went down once to Atoka, OK, which was probably roundtrip driving about 4 hours. We went down to see a Dutch Reagan movie.

Later on, I became the mayor of Tulsa. During that time Reagan was in his first term. He had me do all of his domestic work. I was debating Democratic mayors from all over the country on the policies that Ronald Reagan had initiated and tried to perpetuate, and they were all very successful, I might add. Now, in retrospect, a lot of people on the other side of the fence realize they were.

Saying this was a personal relationship, I look beyond what everyone knows about Ronald Reagan, what his persona was, and I can say he was such a warm and personable person. It never occurred to me--I thought of him as one of the family until the time he started running for political office.

It is kind of interesting because his first election, of course, was running for office out in California. At that time, we still did not have a lot of money, but my father--I think that was the first race he got involved with financially, and Ronald Reagan never forgot it. I can remember when I came to Congress he was in his second term, and he would always comment: There is young Congressman Inhofe. His daddy was one of my first financial contributors.

So anyway, I will just say this: When you lose somebody like him, you do not just lose a leader that in retrospect looks good to everyone, but you lose someone who is very warm and loving. Here is a guy who, in the Oval Office, would never ever walk in without a coat and tie on. This is the way he distinguished the office, and this is the way the office distinguished him.

So we dearly miss him on this, his 100th birthday anniversary.

Madam President, let me make one comment about the two amendments I have on the bill. I think it is important we address both of them, but one of them is, in particular, very significant. We have a subpart S version of the FARs that affects scheduled and nonscheduled airlines. A scheduled airline can live with the flight crew rest and duty time because they can adjust their schedules to do that. The unscheduled cannot. So the subpart S in the FARs today allows a subpart S to work longer hours, but they also have longer rest hours in between. They average out actually with longer rest hours per active hours than under the law that affects the scheduled airlines.

Let me give you a couple examples why it is important. Ninety-five percent of our troop movement over in theater, where the Presiding Officer and I just came back from, after having spent New Year's Eve with our troops over in Kabul and Afghanistan--during that time, there were several times when they had to bring blood in.

If a nonscheduled airline has to bring the blood in, they cannot do it because that is too far. They would have to leave the plane there and have crew rest in Kabul and come back. Well, they cannot do that because we have rules against it.

Ninety-five percent of the troop activity, movement, comes from nonscheduled airlines. Forty percent of the material comes in and out. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about getting blood over to our troops in the AOR.

So it has worked well. There has not been, in 15 years, one case where an accident on a nonscheduled airline has taken place due to the fatigue of anyone. So it is a problem that does not exist, and I have always had this hangup about fixing things that are not broken. So, consequently, I am hoping we will be able to keep that.

What is happening today is there is a comment period and a rule that would do away with that subpart S, and I would like to have this amendment in here. It would keep that from happening. So I think it is very important, and I think it means a lot to our troops over there. The only alternative--if you take the blood example--is, you would have to find, from maybe Qatar or some other place, a military plane, a C- 130 or a C-17, to take them in. As you know, right now the OPTEMPO of our lift capacity is to the point we cannot take on anything more. So I think this is a life-and-death type of thing.

The other amendment I feel strongly about--I mentioned a minute ago when Senator Glenn retired, that left me as the last active commercial pilot in the Senate and I still am and have been flying for 50 years. Many times in the past I have, at my own expense and in my own aircraft, done things where we are helping out people because there is no one else to do it, either taking people for medical treatment or taking, in one case, a limb that had been amputated back to be reattached, this type of thing.

So for people to do it--the pilots and the equipment, such as my equipment--it costs us money to do it. But we feel, in order to encourage them to do it, they should be exempt from liability should something happen so they do not have frivolous lawsuits. If you do, then it discourages people from being generous. So this is kind of a Good Samaritan type of amendment.

These are amendments Nos. 7 and 6. I am hoping to get them in the queue. I cannot do that at this time. I want to cooperate with Senator Rockefeller, but as soon as we can, I want to get these in.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment for consideration of Inhofe amendment No. 6.

Mr. President, all I want to do is get two amendments in the queue in 30 seconds.

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

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment for the consideration of Inhofe amendment No. 7.

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, there has been some confusion, moving around the time. While I was supposed to be here earlier, let me ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak in morning business for such time as I will consume.

I say to my friend from Arkansas who just spoke, I know a little bit about the program you have. In fact, the Senator is fully aware my daughter Molly is a marketing professor at the University of Arkansas, who has talked about this very concept. I do not know why all the successes have gravitated to northwest Arkansas, but it seems that they have. Maybe this has something to do with it. I look forward to following through with the Senator on this program.

I wish to mention a couple things I have been wanting to talk about, but I am here actually to describe two amendments I have to the FAA bill.

First, I would like to say publicly how proud I am of the new attorney general, Scott Pruitt, that we have in the State of Oklahoma. He is taking the leadership in suing to determine the constitutionality of the government-run health care. We are doing that currently in the State of Oklahoma. I am looking for some great results from that.

As I look at this, sometimes you have to ask the very basic questions. If you are talking about a government-run system, something that doesn't work in Sweden or Denmark or the UK or Canada, why would it work here, when we have all these members of Parliament coming over saying: Why are you insisting on going to something that is a dismal failure at the same time we are moving toward a much more successful health delivery system, the model for the whole world, and that is what we have in the United States.

I have to say also, when I look and listen to people talking about the debt and the deficit and the problems we have, I think it is ludicrous that we can go back and try to act like Bush had these great deficits. If you take the deficits during the 8 Bush years, add them all up and divide by 8, it came out to $247 billion each year. Now we have a President who has in just 2 years accumulated almost $3 trillion--six times the deficit that was there under the Bush administration. When people keep saying something over and over that is not true, they assume people will eventually believe it. In this case, I believe the American people are so concerned about the spending, the unprecedented spending, the unsustainable spending of this administration, this President and his majority in both Houses, they are up on this issue.

Before I get to my two amendments, I wish to mention one other aspect I was going to have as an amendment to the FAA bill. Unfortunately, there was not time to put it together, so I will be doing some sometime this summer, but I wish to serve notice. I have the distinction, I guess you would say, since the retirement of Senator John Glenn, I am now, I believe, the last remaining active commercial pilot in the Senate. When I look at the FAA bill, I have a lot of interest in it.

I had an incident that occurred to me on October 20 of this year when I was flying my twin-engine airplane into a field in south Texas. It was called Cameron County Airport, a noncontrolled field. I experienced something that is going to make me go back and revisit to see if perhaps what happened to me, if it happens to someone else, people in the FAA would be just as generous as they were with me.

Before I tell you what happened, I have to say the FAA could not have been better. They could not have been more cooperative. I sat down and talked with them about the incident. I will tell you what happened. I was flying some passengers in one of my planes, a twin-engine airplane, into Cameron County Airport. This happened to be a nice day. It was a VFR--visual flight rules is what that means--so I didn't have to have control with the controllers on the way down. However, as a precautionary measure, what I always do, I talk to them anyway. So when you go down straight south from Tulsa, OK, to Cameron County Airport, you fly right over Corpus Christi. That is about 120 miles north of the Cameron County Airport.

Because they have a lot of training down there--they have the Navy guys, the training that takes place--it is always safer, when you are flying around down there with a lot of kids who may only have 30 or 40 hours, to get on control so they are watching you. When you get on a control, in this case it is an approach control, they give you a squawk so you know--they know who you are, where you are, how fast you are going, how you relate to the other traffic in the area. So I got on Corpus Christi approach and I said: This is Twin Cessna 115 echo alpha. I will be coming south on VFR, descending through 15,500 to go to the Cameron County Airport.

Halfway down they handed me off--this is the terminology that is used--to the FAA controller down there in the valley. This is way down South. A lot of the people back East here do not understand that Texas, when you get down to the southern tip, that is farther south than Miami, FL. It is way down there.

We went down and they handed me off to what they call valley approach. Valley approach took me all the way down to Cameron County Airport, turned me loose--and I am trying to get the recording so I know exactly when it was--to land at the Cameron County Airport. This is the FAA.

The problem is, when I went ahead and landed--by the time I got everything in landing configuration, it was too late to go around. We are going below the blue line, as the saying is, so I had to land when there were workers on the runway.

I say to my friend from Iowa, the way they normally preclude something from happening, as he well knows, is they have you on their radar. They know you are there. But they publish NOTAMs, that is Notice to Airmen. Before you fly into any place, you check the NOTAMs to see if there is construction on the runway, if there is any kind of problem. Of course, we checked and there were no NOTAMs that day for Cameron County Airport, but there were people working on the runway.

I wish to offer legislation, and I will include in the legislation a requirement that NOTAMs are published where they can be found by the pilot. In this case, the NOTAM that came out that there is someone working on the airport did not come out until November 2 and this was October 20, so I had no control over it. I am not blaming anyone. I am saying they need to be in a conspicuous place where that will happen.

The second problem I see that affects general aviation is everything we do when we talk to a controller is recorded, and the public should have access to these recordings. I know it is a difficult thing. I have requested this, now, since way back in October and have not yet received it. I am going to try to set up a system where that is available to everyone.

Then, last, because even though no action was taken--I didn't violate anything and everything turned out fine; I did study procedures and all that--but the bottom line is, all during that process, someone, a bureaucrat, could have taken away my license. Here I have more hours than most American airline pilots. I fly, on average, probably 4 hours a week still to this day. That would be taking away a major part of my life and that is how serious it is.

Many years ago, about 10 years ago, the greatest pilot in America, named Bob Hoover--he is a tremendous pilot, up in years, actually considerably older than I am--and they actually took away his license. This is called an emergency revocation. I authored a law to require a type of an appeal, appellate process. We passed it. I think a similar thing should be afforded to all members.

Again, I wish to say the FAA could not have been more cooperative and more thorough, but I think we need to change the rules. We will probably have to do it legislatively. I plan to do that during the summer.

My two amendments. The first is one I think most people, when they understand it, will appreciate; that is, they are attempting, it is my understanding--right now there is a rule that is pending. It is not part of this legislation directly but in a way it is because, with my amendment, we would be able to preclude this from happening. The air carriers are scheduled airlines and unscheduled. The unscheduleds--they are called charter airlines and other types of airlines--they are under a different FAR, the Federal Aviation Regulation, part 21, but it is a subpart S. Subpart S says, if you are an unscheduled airline, you are not restricted to the same crew restrictions they have for a scheduled airline. There is a reason for this.

The reason is this. A scheduled airline, they are out there every day, and they adjust their schedules for crew rest time. A charter does not have that opportunity. So they may go maybe three or four times what the crew's rest would be and then have to take a longer flight. This does affect the military. Right now, if you are flying blood into Afghanistan, it is flown in by charter airlines. These airlines will take it down to Qatar and then go in probably on a C-17.

To go from Ramstein down to Qatar and back is longer than they can take without crew rest or, if they take it into Afghanistan, that charter flight would have to do crew rest actually in Afghanistan-- maybe in Kabul. Obviously, they cannot leave a civilian plane there under some of those conditions. So the only choice, then, is we would have to use some of our lift capacity of the C-17s to do that.

The problem we are having right now, our C-17s are so overworked, our crews are overworked, so I believe that exemption should continue to be in place and we will be trying to pass this amendment. I am going to try to get in the queue. This is actually our amendment No. 7.

The other amendment I have I am very sensitive to because I have participated in these programs. There are a lot of voluntary organizations, volunteer pilots--I have done it at my own expense, helping heart patients get around different places, flying in to help people out. A lot of pilots are very generous with their equipment and time and money and they do this. What I want to do is get them a release from some of the liability to which they would otherwise be exposed. In other words, these people are doing this at their own expense, on their own time, but they are also exposing themselves to major lawsuits.

These are the two amendments. That happens to be amendment No. 6. I will be trying to get that in the queue after tonight's vote, so perhaps we will be voting on it sometime between now and Tuesday.

With that, I appreciate the patience of my friend from Iowa and I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I heard this morning the tributes that were made by Senator John McCain and Senator John Kyl about the role that was played by the very heroic judge who lost his life in the tragedy that took place in Tucson.

Shortly after the tragedy, the offices of Senators McCain and Kyl reached out to my committee--the committee on which I am ranking member and Senator Boxer is chairman. They talked about how they would go about honoring Judge John Roll by naming the new courthouse that will be constructed in Yuma, AZ, after him.

Many of us have come to know the work of Judge Roll after his tragic, heroic death in the recent shooting where he died protecting Ron Barber, Congresswoman Giffords' district director, and sacrificing himself. My office knew about him before, about Judge Roll's work on behalf of the judicial system in Arizona.

Judge Roll contacted my committee staff last year, after a GAO report criticizing the way Arizona was utilizing their courthouse space. This is a letter from Judge Roll to us:

On behalf of the district of Arizona, I strongly disagree

with many of the conclusions in the report, particularly as

they relate to Arizona and its attempts to cope with an ever-

burgeoning criminal caseload largely arising from border

enforcement.

He hoped his response to the report would be helpful to us. It was. We have learned that the problems they have in Arizona on the border are something they have never experienced before. It has put their judicial system into real problems, and consequently this judge was taking a leadership role in reaching out to us to let us know that GAO report was not accurate.

We have had a chance to talk with both Senator McCain and Senator Kyl. I sat down with Senator Boxer, who is the chairman of our committee, and talked about what we might be able to do in a very expeditious way. I believe the decision to name the Yuma, AZ, courthouse after Judge Roll is a fitting tribute to a man who served his State with distinction.

The courthouse is a new courthouse, government construction, to help alleviate some of the overcrowding going on in Arizona right now, primarily because of the problems that exist on the border.

I do not know of any time in the years I have been here that a bill has been introduced and then discharged the same day. We all feel strongly enough that this needs to be handled in this way. It is the very least we can do.

Judge Roll was highly regarded by his colleagues and clearly took his judgeship seriously, doing more than simply deciding cases and going home. He was an active advocate for the judicial system in Arizona. I believe we would have had this courthouse named after him upon his retirement had his life not been tragically taken.

Today Senators McCain and Kyl introduced S. 188, and I am happy to announce that Senator Boxer and I have discharged S. 188 to the floor on this same day. Anything else I do not think would have been appropriate.

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