Floor Statements

Mr. President, there doesn't seem to be anybody else here, so I will make one comment about amendments coming up that are closely related to the subject we just discussed. It is Sanders amendment No. 4318. I knew this would happen--that the bill would be used to pass another agenda. Sure enough, that is what is happening.

The Sanders amendment is aimed at stopping oil production altogether. It does three things: It repeals expensing for tangible drilling costs, it repeals percentage depletion for marginal oil and gas wells, and it repeals the manufacturing deduction for oil and gas production.

I predicted the spill in the Gulf of Mexico would be used as an opportunity to shut down domestic oil and gas wells owned and operated by independent oil and gas producers throughout the country. That is what is happening with this amendment.

Repealing expensing of intangible drilling costs eliminates the ability to expense intangible drilling and development costs, called IDC, which would force at least a 25- to 30-percent reduction in drilling budgets, leading to lost jobs, lost production, and higher prices for consumers. We have not talked much about higher prices to the consumers.

With cap and trade--if they were successful in that--we would feel that in a matter of weeks. Despite the rhetoric, IDC expensing is firmly grounded in sound accounting practices and principles, and it has been in the Tax Code since 1913. IDC expensing is similar to expensing by other companies for technology, wages, and fuels which other industries expense for operations. So they are singling out the oil and gas industry, just willfully, to stop them and put them out of business.

Likewise, since 1926, small producers and millions of royalty owners have had the option to utilize percentage depletion to both simplify and account for the decline in the value of minerals produced from a property. It is complicated, but percentage depletion recognizes that oil and gas reservoirs are depleted by production, so it is the amount which small producers can expense to reinvest in production. Percentage depletion is particularly important for the production of America's over 600,000 low-volume marginal wells.

I am particularly interested in this because in my State of Oklahoma we have mostly marginal well production. Marginal wells produce less than 15 barrels a day. It is a smaller type of production. The average marginal well produces barely two barrels a day--we have been talking about millions of barrels in the gulf--yet, cumulatively, they account for nearly 28 percent of domestic production in the lower 48 States.

Since every on-shore natural gas and oil well eventually declines into marginal production, the economic lifespan and corresponding production of nearly all natural gas and oil wells would be reduced through the elimination of percentage depletion.

Finally, Congress has already frozen the manufacturers' tax deduction specifically for only oil and natural gas companies less than 2 years ago. All other domestic manufacturing can deduct income at a higher rate than oil and gas companies. Repealing the entire reduction for oil and gas companies is only targeting oil and gas production, and it shows what the motivation is.

We have to remember a couple of very important points when we seek to target certain industries for tax treatment. First, oil and gas companies employ Americans and fund our communities. Oil and gas companies employ over 9 million people in the United States. Approximately 3 million land and mineral owners from coast to coast are the beneficiaries of monthly checks from the royalties produced on their properties. Many of these individuals are small property owners-- very small--and some are just small family farms. In fact, just today the National Association of Royalty Owners ranked this as its No. 1 concern on its Web site. That was today.

They say the Sanders amendment is their No. 1 target. These are not rich people. They are small farm owners and landowners. States annually collect billions of dollars in oil and gas excise and severance taxes that furnish critical funding for roads, schools, and law enforcement. By punishing America's oil and gas industry, this amendment only puts unemployment and State and local funding in peril.

Secondly, punishing our oil and gas industry only makes us more dependent on foreign sources of energy. After President Jimmy Carter imposed a windfall profit tax on the oil and gas industry in 1980, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service later determined that its results were hugely counterproductive, saying:

The windfall profit tax reduced domestic oil production

between 3 and 6 percent, and increased oil imports from

between 8 and 16 percent. . . . This made the U.S. more

dependent upon imported oil.

America's natural gas and oil companies are already paying taxes at the highest rates. Figures from the Energy Information Agency indicate that America's major oil producers already pay, on average, more than a 40-percent income tax rate.

The EIA also reported in December of 2009 that, on average, 53 percent of the net incomes of oil and gas companies are paid in taxes compared to 32 percent from others in the manufacturing sector.

Now is not the time to group the entire oil and gas industry together for punishment. Punishing the entire industry in the sledge hammer approach this amendment uses only increases the cost of energy for all Americans, and it makes us more dependent upon foreign countries to run this machine called America, as I often say.

People say they don't want oil, gas, coal, or nuclear. Well, in the final analysis, how do you run the country without it? You can't. If we retard in any way the ability to produce oil and gas, it will make us more dependent upon foreign countries for us to drive this machine called America.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is my understanding I have 13 minutes. I would like to have the Acting President pro tempore tell me when I have 1 minute left.

That is kind of interesting because I have probably talked on this subject over the last 7 years for 200 or 300 hours, and I never had any trouble before getting time. It lets you know there is an awakening in the people who are looking at this particular vote that we are going to have today. Many of them believe in their hearts that anthropogenic gases cause global warming. I do not believe that. And there is everyone in between. The point is not that. It is, do we really want to have this bureaucracy?

Let me just comment. I was here when my good friend, Senator Boxer, was making her comments. That was very interesting because she spent three-fourths of her time talking about the oilspill. Let me say, there is no relationship between this and the oilspill. There is no reason to talk about them in the same speech.

When they talk about big oil--as she said, ``big oil has all this control''--well, big oil is BP. The last I checked, BP is very much involved with the majority, with the White House. In fact, I went and checked. I found out in my last Senate race, I was given $2,000 by BP. And I checked, in the last Senate race, which was the first Senate race by then-Senator Obama, he got three times as much money as I did. Now we find out that during the Kerry-Lieberman bill that has been talked about quite a bit, BP has been behind closed doors with them. Everybody knows this.

Now, it is not big oil behind this bill. Behind this bill you have the American Association of Housing Services for the Aging, Family Dairies USA, the Farm Bureau, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Brick Industry Association--all of these organizations, wholesome American organizations that are behind this issue because they do not want us to give up all the freedoms we would have to give up.

When Senator Lincoln was talking about the tailoring rule, I know there has been a problem with those who are pushing for the endangerment finding, trying to make everybody believe that somehow it was not going to happen to anyone except some of the big industries, the refiners, the big manufacturers. No, the tailoring rule they are talking about is something that unilaterally they thought they would be able to get by with without anyone even noticing it, when, in fact, the Clean Air Act very simply says the emission of 250 tons in a period of a year.

Now, 250 tons, that is every farm in my State of Oklahoma. That is every church. So it covers everyone. But let me go back in this brief period of time and try to put this in perspective. Eleven years ago we had the Kyoto Treaty. This is the big treaty then-Vice President Gore wanted the American people to have to ratify. They wanted to bring it to the Senate for ratification. They did sign that treaty, but it never came up for ratification.

Do you want to know why? It did not come up because at that time it was so objectionable that we had a resolution that passed on the floor of this Senate 95 to 0--not one dissenting vote--saying: We do not want to be part of any movement or bill or treaty that treats developing nations differently than developed nations. That is exactly what it did. That resolution also said we do not want to ratify any treaty or pass anything that is going to be an economic hardship for the United States of America. Obviously, this was the case.

So we set the stage 11 years ago. Now we are facing this same thing again. I have to say that when Republicans were a majority, I chaired the Environment and Public Works Committee, which had the jurisdiction over most of this stuff we are talking about today. I have to also say, back then I honestly, in my heart, believed the anthropogenic gases, the CO2, the methane, caused global warming because everyone said it did--catastrophic global warming. Now they do not call it that anymore since we are in the eighth year of a cooling period. They say ``climate change.'' That sounds a little bit more palatable.

But I can remember when I did believe that, until we started looking at the various bills that came up. We have voted in this Chamber five times on cap-and-trade bills, starting right about 2002 and up to the present day, and there is one pending today. During that period of time, we started looking at it and realizing what it would cost. The first analysis of what cap and trade would cost--and the same thing goes for the EPA under their regulations--would have been somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion.

When we calculate that, in my State of Oklahoma--I always do the math--if we take the number of families who file tax returns, that would have been $3,100--not once but every year. So with that type of thing, looking at it, I thought: Well, as chairman of this committee, maybe we ought to look and be sure the science is accurate, the science is there. So we started looking at it and finding out this whole thing started--let's keep in mind, it started with the United Nations, the IPCC. That is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They then were joined by all these Hollywood elites--moveon.org, George Soros, Michael Moore, and all these groups--until we realized they were pushing this, but the science was flawed.

I first made my statement on the Senate floor in 2002 that created some doubt in a lot of people's minds as to the accuracy of the science that the IPCC was putting together. There had been inquiries by many quality scientists who had said they rejected our input. We don't have any kind of an input in this issue, unless you agree with the United Nations and the IPCC, that categorically it is causing catastrophic global warming. Then they didn't let the scientists have their input.

So we started gathering all of this information. People were coming to me saying: This is a fraud. I gathered enough material that 7 years ago this month, I made a speech and I said the notion that anthropogenic gases, that CO2 causes catastrophic global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. Then the scientists started coming in with their stuff. I would suggest that a lot of people don't agree with what I just said, so they ought to look at my Web site.

Five years ago I made a speech and I talked about all the scientists who were coming forward. As it turned out, when climategate came, essentially it was the same thing I said 5 years ago. The scare tactics we hear from Senator Boxer that this is all about the gulf, the oilspill, and all of that stuff, this is what they have been using. If we take Al Gore's science fiction movie and the IPCC and look at all of the assertions they made in this movie and the IPCC has made, every one has been refuted.

I can't find one assertion that has now not been refuted: melt Himalayan glaciers by 2035, not true; endanger 40 percent of the Amazon rain forests, not true; melt mountain ice in the Alps, Andes, and Africa, not true; deplete water resources for 4.5 billion people by 2085, totally refuted; slash crop production by 50 percent in North Africa by 2020; 55 percent of the Netherlands lies below sea level.

I can remember when Vice President Gore--no, it was after he was Vice President--we had a hearing in our committee, and we had several of the parents of young kids coming to us and saying: You know, my young child, my elementary age child is forced to watch this movie once a month, and they have been having nightmares and all of this stuff. So a lot of damage was done at that time.

But when we get back to what we are faced with today, we are faced with something they tried to pass. This administration has tried ever since they came in to pass cap-and-trade. A cap-and-trade, logically, you would say: Well, if you want to cut down on greenhouse gases, why not put a tax on CO2?

The reason they don't do that is because then people would know what it is costing them. So there were all of these cap-and-trade bills that came up, and they were not able to pass them.

So this administration said, I am sure--I wasn't in the meeting; I am not invited to those meetings of the President--but they said: We can't get it passed in Congress. We can't get it passed in the House or the Senate, so let's go ahead and do it. We will just run over them with the administration. So they said: We are going to have an endangerment finding.

This is kind of interesting because right before going to Copenhagen--and for those of you who don't know this, once a year the U.N. throws a great big party and everybody goes to some exotic place and they try to sell the idea that we need to have this international treaty and, of course, it hasn't happened. Before Copenhagen--that was in December of this past year I can remember that we had--I suspected they would have an endangerment finding right while we were in Copenhagen to make it sound as though we were going to do something in the United States. In fact, I went over as a one-man truth squad and had a pretty good time.

Anyway, on the endangerment finding, Lisa Jackson, who is the Administrator of the EPA, an appointee of Obama, testified. I said to her: You know, Madam Administrator, this is live on TV. I suspect what is going to happen is that you are going to have an endangerment finding and try to take this over and do all of these punitive things to America under the Clean Air Act. If there is an endangerment finding, it has to be based on science. What science would you use if you are going to have an endangerment finding?

The answer was, It is going to be the IPCC, primarily, and that is the very science that climategate used when it came along, and it has been pretty much debunked. In fact, it was characterized in Great Britain as the greatest political scandal in the history of our country.

So, anyway, the endangerment finding was all based on that, and that is where we find ourselves today. So I would say this: I only talk about the science. I don't like to talk about the science because I know people don't understand it. But I did it because if you are one of those--and I say this to the Chair; I say this to anyone who might be listening at this time--if you believe that anthropogenic gas causes catastrophic global warming and climate change, then what would this do to remedy that? Well, the answer is nothing because the same Lisa Jackson who testified before our committee when I asked her this question--

Thank you, Madam President.

I said: If we were to pass this, any of these cap-and-trade bills, or if we were to do this through the Clean Air Act through the Environmental Protection Agency, how much would that reduce the worldwide CO2 emissions?

Her answer was, Well, it wouldn't reduce it because this would only apply to the United States.

What I am saying is, if you want to invoke all of this money spent, all of this cost on the American people, on every farmer in America, even if you believe the concept is there, it still wouldn't reduce the emissions. You could argue it could increase the emissions because our manufacturing base would have to go to places such as China, India, Mexico, places that didn't have the standards we have, and it would have the effect of increasing--actually increasing--CO2.

So I just hope those individuals will realize if they think the problem is real, this isn't going to solve it.

I yield back.

Madam President, I wish today to honor and remember all of those magnificent heroes, and their families, who fought and died on D-day during World War II. I ask that this poem penned by Albert Caswell, of the guide service, be printed in the Record in remembrance of their selfless sacrifice and service to our Nation, on the upcoming 66th anniversary of D-day on June 6, 1944.

Reserving the right to object.

Reserving the right to object, first let me say I agree with most of what the Senator from New Jersey is saying. He mentioned the profits of the top five oil companies--Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Chevron. They are the giants.

If we will recall, last week when I objected to the arbitrary figure, the cap of $10 billion, it was because it was arbitrary. I quoted a lot of people in the administration saying we do not want to have--it should not be an arbitrary cap. One of the complaints I had was, if you do have an arbitrary cap and that was at $10 billion, that would mean only the big five plus the national oil companies--Venezuela, China, certainly--would be in a position to do this work offshore.

It is my feeling if you take the $10 billion off and make it totally unlimited, that could very well shut out even the five and leave nothing but national oil companies in a position to be doing it.

I believe we should increase the cap. I know there is unanimity in that notion. We have to do it. The Secretary of Interior said this about the $10 billion cap:

[I]t is important that we be thoughtful relative to that,

what that cap will be, because you don't want only the BP's

of the world essentially to be the ones that are involved in

these efforts.

I agree with 90 percent of what the Senator says, and with the Secretary of Interior, what he has said about this--that we need to determine how high that cap should be. It should be much higher. We have plenty of time to do that. Let me emphasize there is no cap in terms of the cleanup damages. We are only talking about economic damages here. There is no cap on cleanup damages. I think there should be. At some point we have to arrive at a cap. A lot of people are working on it. The administration is working on it, the Department of Interior is working on it, and we are working on it. I think we need to increase that. For that reason we need to have the time to get that done, and I do object.

I object.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

For clarification, I know he expressed his sentiment that he wishes to stop all drilling offshore. But for the purpose of this amendment, it is confined to two areas, and it is only until such time as the investigations underway are completed; is that correct?

It is a 1-year moratorium. It is not tied to the investigation?

Let me make a couple comments about the comments of my friend from Maryland concerning the opportunities we might have to exploit our resources in the United States. I hear quite often people say that we only have 3 percent of the world's reserves. The only reason that figure is so low is because we can't go ahead and go after and define our recoverable reserves. CRS came out about 2 months ago with a report that we are No. 1 in the world in recoverable reserves of gas, oil, and coal. We have done a study, not a part of any formal study, but to determine where we would be if we, like every other country in the world, would exploit our own resources, where we would be in terms of our dependency on the Middle East for the ability to provide the energy we need. In a short period, just on this North American continent, Mexico, Canada, and ourselves, if we would lift all restrictions we currently have, we would be able to be independent of the Middle East.

A lot of people who are concerned about the national security ramifications of our dependency on the Middle East are concerned about the Middle East. They are not concerned about Canada or Mexico. They are not concerned about the North American continent.

For those people who don't want to drill offshore, certainly now is the time to stand up and say: Look what happened down here, a horrible disaster. But those people who have never wanted, at least in the 20 years I have been here, to drill offshore or even in some of the other areas that are now off limits are people who don't think fossil fuels have a place in our energy mix. Quite frankly, I am glad President Obama has changed his position and is now recognizing that fossil fuels, more clean coal technology and therefore more coal, more gas, more oil is something he would support. It is nice to talk about renewables. It is wonderful. We have more windmills in Oklahoma than any State right now. But until technology gets to the point where we can efficiently produce energy from renewables, we still have to run this machine called America. We can't do it without fossil fuels.

I am a little bit prejudiced. I come from Oklahoma. We are one of the largest producing States. Ours are mostly marginal wells, shallow wells. They are not the giant ones. That is the reason I have been on the floor several times objecting to the Menendez limits or caps they are talking about putting on something that would be unrealistic, that would shut down any opportunities for independents and confine all offshore drilling to the five majors plus the NOCs. That is the national oil companies, mostly talking about China.

I am concerned about that. I know right now we would be in a position to do something, and we could become energy sufficient in the North American continent within 5 years, if we would exploit our own energy resources.

Amendment No. 4218

That is not the reason I am here this afternoon. I just happened to come in. I wish to comment on amendment No. 4218 by Senator Collins. She was here a little while ago. I had an amendment that would do essentially the same thing. It was the Inhofe-Collins amendment. This is the Collins-Inhofe amendment. It takes a slightly different approach. I support both amendments, although I am withdrawing mine in her favor.

This is the problem we have. On April 22, the EPA came out with a rule that made the statement that in the event you disturb any 6 square feet of a building structure that is older than 1978, then you have to have a permit from the EPA to become certified to work on such a building. If you don't do it, there is a penalty provision of some $37,500 a day. Realistically, we know they would not fine somebody $37,500 a day. But unfortunately, a lot of the contractors who do that kind of work are individuals who don't know that is nothing but a bluff to keep people from doing things. We very much want to participate in this dialog.

I think there may be a procedural problem that someone is whispering about here; is that correct? OK, I am sorry. I forgot to ask to be considered as in morning business. I ask unanimous consent at this time.

This is a problem. I used to be in this business on some scale. The smaller contractors are the ones who do the renovation business. That means if they try to go out there and even replace one window, you can't replace the window without disturbing 6 square feet. Therefore, you would come under the provisions of this new rule, and you would be subjecting yourself to a fine of $37,500.

So my bill that would have resolved the problem was not quite as good as the Collins bill, but it would have merely said that until such time as there are adequate numbers of people who are certified to do this work, we would not enforce the law.

Well, the problem we are having right now is--and I have a list of the different States--in my State of Oklahoma, there is only one certified instructor. We have all these people wanting to take the course but they cannot get in, and they cannot do the work because of the heavy fine provisions.

So what Senator Collins has done in her amendment is say that the penalty provision--the $37,500 a day--would be waived until September 30. That would allow the EPA to get certified instructors into all the States so the people who want to become certified can become certified--in the meantime, not miss this summer's construction season. It is a very simple thing. I can assure you, this is a huge jobs bill because right now these people are not working. We are talking about thousands and thousands, in just my State of Oklahoma, of subcontractors who do this kind of work.

I strongly support the Collins-Inhofe amendment No. 4318. It is a jobs bill. It is a bill of fairness.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, for clarification, I knew people were walking around talking. I apologize to Senator Cardin. I have no objection to him offering his amendment. I would say, I was wanting to get clarification on the amendment so I would know how I wanted to vote. That is all.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first of all, I reserve the right to object, and I am going to object in a minute, but I agree with a lot of things that were said by the Senators from New Jersey.

I say to the Senator from New Jersey, I was also there 20 years ago at the Exxon Valdez, which was a transportation accident. We were very much concerned about the recovery. We need to increase the caps. I understand that. But I do agree with the President--he left that blank--because we don't know just how high that should be.

I disagree with the notion that you are either for or against big oil and all of that. Big oil would love to have these caps up there so they can shut out all the independents. We have independents in my State of Oklahoma, and right now 63 percent of the gulf's natural gas and 36 percent of its oil are produced by independents. What you are going to do if you raise the caps right now, precipitously, this high, you are going to help the five big oil companies, including BP, giving them exclusive rights, and help the nationalized big oil companies, such as those in China and Venezuela, and shut out the small and medium-sized independents. For that reason, I object.

Mr. President, let me just make one comment. I don't very often agree with President Obama. Right now, he is unsure what that level should be. I am unsure what that level should be. Maybe it should be the level we are talking about right now, and it may end up there, but we just don't know that.

We know that what the Senator from New Jersey and I experienced up at Exxon Valdez some 20 years ago was not adequate, so that is why we passed the legislation. It should be upgraded. Certainly, we need to raise these limits. Where it should be raised, I don't know. I don't know where the cap should be. We are going to have to find out as this thing moves along.

I would only say this: If you have it up too high, you are going to be singling out BP and the other four largest majors and the nationalized companies, such as China and Venezuela, and shutting out the independent producers. I don't want that to happen. Let's wait and see where that cap should be.

I would, yes.

No. My answer to the question is, as I said, we don't know where that cap should be. You are coming up with a cap that might end up being the appropriate cap for everyone. But my understanding now would be that the only ones who would be able to live up to that cap would be the five majors and the nationalized companies. If that is the case, yes, I would say we need to have that opened so that we are not just allowing the majors as opposed to the independents. But let's wait and see where the cap should be. Maybe it should be that high. We don't know yet, President Obama doesn't know yet, and I don't know yet. That is the reason I object.

You can ask, but I am going to have to leave here. Go ahead.

I would repeat, it is too early to come up with a figure, and I think the President agrees with that. Let's see what kind of cap should apply.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, if you have been watching the global warming debate lately, you will notice the supporters of cap and trade are getting kind of nervous. They realize the political environment for cap and trade couldn't be more favorable--they have a majority of liberals in the Senate, a majority of liberals in the House, and liberals in the White House. But they also realize time is running out. The November elections are looming, and there are a lot of people coming up for reelection who don't want to go back to the electorate and say: Look at me;

aren't you proud; I voted for the largest tax increase in American history.

As Senator Kerry put it, this is the last call to pass the bill, and that is exactly what Senator Kerry is trying to do. But he will not get 60 votes. He will not get the support of the Democrats in the heartland, and he will not convince the American public they need this tax increase. I say this with confidence because the bill Senator Kerry introduced last week with Senator Lieberman is the same old cap-and- trade scheme the Senate rejected in the McCain-Lieberman bill in 2003, the McCain-Lieberman bill in 2005, the Warner-Lieberman bill in 2008, and the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009. Let us keep in mind that cap and trade is cap and trade, and that is a very large tax increase.

Don't forget that the Senate support for cap and trade over that time has actually dropped. If you take it from 2003 to the present time, in 2003, they got 43 votes; in 2005, they got 38 votes; and in 2008, they got 48 votes. But you have to keep in mind that 10 of those were for a procedural vote and they said they wouldn't vote for it, so it went down to 38 votes at that time. So that is a far cry from the 60 that will be necessary.

The Kerry-Lieberman bill is not going to pass. However, those who still believe in the anthropogenic catastrophic warming--which I don't, but even if you did believe it--should keep in mind that this wouldn't solve the problem. What I am saying is this: There are a lot of people around--not nearly as many as 5 or 10 years ago--who believe that anthropogenic gases--CO2, methane, carbon dioxide--are causing catastrophic global warming.

They are still here. They still believe that. But even if you believed it, passing this bill would not help the situation because in this bill, all it applies to is the United States of America. We could go ahead and restrict all the CO2 we want to in the United States, it is not going to lower it at all.

I have a lot of respect for the new--not too new, now she has been here for a while--EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson. I appreciate her honesty. I asked her the question back when we had the Waxman-Markey bill before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I said to the Administrator: In the event we were to pass any of these cap-and-trade bills in the United States, would it have the effect of lowering the CO2 worldwide?

She said no, it wouldn't. In fact--we showed a chart. I should have it with me down here right now. She said it would not because this only applies to the United States.

I contend it would actually increase world emissions. The reason I say that is if we were to unilaterally do this, restrict our ability to build power in America, then our jobs would have to go to countries where the power is. Consequently, they would go to countries such as Mexico, China, and India, places where they do not have any meaningful restrictions on CO2. That would have the effect of increasing it, not decreasing it.

I have a lot of respect for Lisa Jackson. I kind of abused her time during this oilspill. I called her many times. I know she is right on top of things and is doing a very good job.

Here we go again. Look closely at the Kerry-Lieberman bill. I am sure you have seen it before. It is the Waxman-Markey bill. You remember that. It passed in the middle of the night in the House of Representatives. We all remember that, passing by 219 to 212. Every kind of deal in the world was made and nobody knew it except the vote finally took place and they eked it out. Democrats, 44 of them, voted no because they knew the cost of the bill. The Waxman-Markey bill, according to the National Black Chamber of Commerce, would lead to a net reduction of 3.6 million jobs, raise electricity rates by 48 percent, and disproportionately affect the West, Midwest, South, and Great Plains, which rely heavily on fossil fuels.

The word about Waxman-Markey spread across the country and the American people were listening. Citizens at townhall meetings expressed their outrage. They said no to a bill that would give big government control over how we use electricity and how we live every day of our lives. That is what the public would get with Kerry-Lieberman.

They also get a gas tax or linked fee. This is Washington jargon for a thing like gas tax: they don't call it a gas tax, they call it a linked fee for transportation fuels. From what I understand, this linked fee is being pushed by a select group of big oil companies. That is right, oil companies. I said some time ago the only way they can somehow pass any kind of cap and trade is to somehow divide and conquer. In other words, go to some of the oil companies, gas companies, coal companies, nuclear companies, and tell them we are going to pick winners and losers, but guess what. You are a winner. We will pick you and everything is going to be wonderful. The public needs to know a lot of big oil companies are involved. They are pushing a tax they know will be paid for by consumers, the same consumers suffering from an economy with 10 percent unemployment. I will make myself clear: I stand with the consumers, and by that I mean farmers, families, truckers, businesses large and small in rural Oklahoma, who drive long distances. They don't need this tax increase now or ever.

It is a sad thing that we have to use those tactics. Then it is even not all that smart, when you stop and think that has not worked before. They tried the same thing, to divide and conquer, before. In this case they brought in some of the refiners and said if you will join with us, this will be fine with you. You have to raise your rates, but then you can pass that on to the consumers. Then we pass a gas tax increase and those consumers will be hit twice, but you will be all right.

That is not the way it works. The other provision is crafted and select business groups. Do they think a bill on cap and trade is good for the economy, good for your members? I don't think so.

Don't forget what happened with Waxman-Markey; some utilities thought they had a deal. When the language was actually drafted, the deal made Waxman and Markey happy but not the utilities.

This is interesting, because they had the great unveiling that took place last week but didn't have the bill language. It had an outline of some things but not the exact bill language. That is exactly what they tried to do with Waxman-Markey. This time we will insist on seeing the actual language.

I remind my colleagues of a pattern here. We had the Waxman-Markey vote under the cover of night. We had the ``Cornhusker'' kickback, with the Senate health care bill. Now we have secret meetings with stakeholders and CEOs. There is a sense that what they are doing has little support with the American people. They are hiding and obscuring and evading.

I suppose I can't blame them. Remember the August recess of last year? That was the beginning of what we call the tea party movement. This was interesting because this all happened during the August recess when those of us in the House and Senate were back in our States. The people of the tea party movement were objecting to four things. There are four things they are complaining about.

No. 1 was the runaway cost of government, the increased deficits. Let's stop and think about it. In the first year of the Obama administration the deficits increased by $1.4 trillion. That is what happened the first year. That was after the tea parties, the August recess of 2009.

The second issue then was not to have a government-run health care system. We temporarily lost that. There will be some changes in the Senate and House after the November elections. A lot of that can be corrected. Nonetheless, those are the first two issues of the tea partiers who are out there today. These are people who have not identified with any party but they want to save America from this socialist trend we have right now.

The third issue was complaining about the closing of Guantanamo Bay or Gitmo. I look at this and I wonder, we have a President with an obsession to close Gitmo, a place where we have been able to put people who do not fit into a prison system since 1903. It is one of the best deals the government has. I think we only pay a lease of $4,000 a year. It is just like it was in 1903. Here is a place where you can put terrorists, the terrorists who are the

detainees. These people are not criminals in the sense of our criminal code. These are terrorists. They don't fit in our court system. There is not an American out there who has not heard about what they are doing with the constitutional rights and Miranda rights and all that. That does not apply in these cases. It should not apply in these cases. But this President has wanted to bring these terrorists--close GITMO, with no place else to put them--bring them back to the United States for either trial or incarceration.

At the beginning the President had identified some 17 institutions in America where you could put these terrorists. One happened to be in my State of Oklahoma. It was Fort Sill. Fort Sill has a great artillery installation there and they do have a small prison. I went down after he had made these suggestions of putting terrorists throughout the United States and I talked to--there is a Sergeant Major Carter down there in charge of that prison. She said go back and tell those people in Washington keep GITMO open. She happened to have had two tours of duty in Gitmo. She said that is state of the art. People are treated well; they don't torture anyone; it is the only safe place to keep terrorists; they have a courthouse they can use for tribunals that cannot be found anyplace else in the United States.

The third issue of these tea partiers was to reject the idea that we should close Gitmo and bring these terrorists to the United States.

That comes to the fourth one, the one of our discussion today, and that is the fact that they were protesting cap and trade. Cap and trade is a tax increase. A lot of people say if you want to reduce CO2 emissions, why don't you put a tax on CO2 emissions? Some of the strongest supporters of the global warming concept are the ones who say let's have a tax on CO2. Do you know why they don't? They don't have it because that way, people know what it costs, and they will reject it.

If you have cap and trade, that is a way you can pick winners and losers and convince everyone he or she is going to be a winner. So one of the things they were protesting during the August recess of 2009 was this thing that would result in being the largest tax increase in the history of the country.

I have often said the most egregious vote in this Senate's history, up to that time, up to October 1, 2008, was the $700 billion bailout. That led to the AIG bailout and the Chrysler bailout and the General Motors bailout. All of that took place and that was on October 1, 2008; $700 billion to have an unelected bureaucrat to do whatever he wanted without any constraints. As bad as that is, a cap-and-trade bill would end up--at least $700 billion, that is a one-shot deal. With the cap and trade it is every year.

I know it is difficult for people in America when you start talking about billions and trillions of dollars, so I always do my math in relation to the State of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, I take the number of families who file a tax return and do the math. For example, the $700 billion came out that would cost each taxpaying family in Oklahoma about $5,000 for that. A cap-and-trade tax--they have actually done some calculations, the Wharton School of Economics, MIT, CRA, and other groups. The range is always between $300 and $400 billion, but that is every year. That would cost my people in Oklahoma, according to the calculations of CRA, a little bit over $3,100 a year and you don't get anything for it.

The opposition has only grown stronger and more intense. Thus, the back-room dealing and secret deals to get 60 votes are not going to work.

I should note, if Kerry-Lieberman were successful in passing, which it will not be, but if it were, it would go to conference--that is the way things are worked here--with the Waxman-Markey bill. If this bill passed the House, that would go to conference, and if this goes to conference that means that Waxman-Markey lives.

We all remember what it did, the Waxman-Markey bill. The authors of that bill, as well as Senators Kerry and Lieberman, have argued that we need one standard, one framework to regulate greenhouse gases. However, the problem is in addition to imposing what would be the largest tax increase in history, these bills do not preempt other laws now being used to regulate greenhouse gases and drive up costs for industries. This would mean there would be multiple standards, multiple regulations, creating more confusion, more bureaucracy and, of course, more taxes.

But we still have a liberal press that is in denial, the same as some of the Senators who are promoting this. I picked up USA Today last Friday on my way back to Oklahoma and I think on page 3 at the top was this article talking about how the lizards are going to become extinct as a result of global warming. They don't say ``alleged global warming,'' they just say it is global warming. So a lot of people, even though they realize the truth of this, because the truth has come out with climate change and all that stuff, they keep reading this over and over so they assume it is true.

Today I should have been speaking in Chicago, at the Heartland Institute's climate conference, but because we had votes this afternoon I was not able to do it. I didn't want to miss these votes. I thank my former staffer Marc Morano, who will be speaking at the event, for his efforts at exposing global warming alarmism. At the Heartland Institute, it is my understanding, is the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change. It will be held in Chicago today, held as we speak. The theme of the ICCC-4 will be ``Reconsidering the Science and Economics.''

New scientific discoveries are casting doubt on how much of

the warming of the twentieth century was natural and how much

was manmade, and governments around the world are beginning

to confront the astronomical cost of reducing emissions.

Economists, meanwhile--

I am reading now from their statement--

are calculating that the cost of slowing or stopping global

warming exceeds the social benefits.

The purpose of the ICCC-4 is the same as it was for the

first three events, to build momentum and public awareness of

the global warming ``realism'' movement, a network of

scientists, economists, policymakers and concerned citizens

who believe sound science and economics, rather than

exaggeration and hype, ought to determine what actions, if

any, are taken to address the problem of climate change.

They do not all agree on the causes and the extent, but it is kind of interesting because one of the attendees there came out--I just read this. I have it in front of me now. It is a geologist who is a very prominent U.S. geologist--urging the world to forget about global warming because global cooling has already begun.

Dr. Don Easterbrook's warning came in the form of a new

scientific paper he presented to the fourth International

Conference on Climate Change in Chicago . . .

That is today. Dr. Easterbook is an emeritus professor at Western Washington University, who has authored 8 books and 150 journal publications. His full resume is here.

So today the event is taking place. On his Web site, climatedepot.com, we highlight some of the details.

Over the next several weeks, I will be speaking on the EPA's so- called tailoring rule because this all goes back to the Clean Air Act and the Clear Air Amendments. What it says is, they are going to change that, since that belongs to--that would cover almost every church, every small business, everything in America, to only cover the great big giants.

It is not going to work. Everyone is going to be in on this deal. That would not be constitutional. I think everyone knows it. Along with the tailoring rule, I will continue to point out that the endangerment finding is based on IPCC's flawed science.

By the way, the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is a part of the United Nations. They are the ones that started this whole thing back in 1988. The problem we have with that is they had an agenda when they started. I can recall, over the years, scientists coming to me and I would stand at this podium and I would make truthful statements about how the science is being fixed.

I have one, if anyone doubts my sincerity when I say this, it is on my Web site. You can look it up. Five years ago, I talked about how the top scientists in America were coming to me and saying: Look, they will not allow people who disagree with their hypothesis, who disagree with their opinions, to even be part of the IPCC.

Well, I was vindicated last December when the Climategate thing came out,

and all these people who had been sending stuff in, they uncovered some memos going back and forth on how they were going to try and make people believe that actually anthropogenic gases cause global warming. Anyway, that came at a very appropriate time. I think the people are aware of what is happening.

Let me make one last comment about this endangerment finding. We have tried--not ``we'' but those who are promoting the idea of the anthropogenic gases cause global warming, they have been trying to introduce the bills to have a cap-and-trade system for the United States. They have been doing this now about for about 9 years. It has not worked.

So President Obama has stated: All right, if the House and the Senate are not going to vote to do this, we will do it administratively. All we have to do is have an endangerment finding, which we could influence, and once the endangerment finding is there, then that would include, with the real pollutants, SOX, NOX, and mercury, CO2. If they do that, then they can start regulating CO2.

Well, it is not quite that easy. Lisa Jackson, I have already said some nice things about her, and I appreciated her honesty in response to this question. Right before Copenhagen, I suspected that the Obama administration was going to have an endangerment finding. When they did, I knew it had to be based on science, so I asked her: What science would this, by and large, be based on, if you have the endangerment finding.

She said the IPCC. Well, wait a minute. That is the same science that, through Climategate, has been totally rebuffed and no longer is legitimate, either in reality or in the eyes of the American people and people around the world.

So while I am concerned obviously that we should try to do something such as this through an endangerment finding, do administratively what he is unable to do through the House and Senate, that is not going to work. So I would only say, I know all the Tea Party people are still out there. Keep in mind, you lost your fight with the government-run health care, you lost your fight with the huge deficit, and so far we have not lost on the closing of Gitmo. I think we will be able to keep it open. But the one issue that is up for grabs right now is this endangerment finding.

Let's keep reminding all the people whom you meet with prior to the elections of November, and particularly during the upcoming August recess, that a cap-and-trade system would end up being the largest tax increase in the history of America and it would happen every year and it would not accomplish anything.

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

Mr. President, I support Senator Sanders' amendment No. 3738 regarding Federal Reserve transparency. As a cosponsor of S. 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, my support for these efforts is clear. American taxpayers have a right to know how, where, and when their money is spent or put at risk. For too long, they have put up with secrecy and arrogance. That has to stop, and that is why I would have voted for Senator Sanders' amendment had I been able to do so and why I voted for Senator Vitter's amendment when I arrived in Washington. My travel was detained due to severe weather and tornadoes affecting Oklahoma yesterday.

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

Mr. President, with all of the trauma that is going on right now with the oilspill and all of the other problems that are out there and, of course, the bill under consideration, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized as in morning business for 15 minutes.

On April 22, a new EPA lead-based paint rule went into effect that has caused all kinds of serious problems, not just in my State of Oklahoma but throughout the country. My office has received an incredible number of calls and e-mails from constituents, from homeowners, from contractors, to landlords, to plumbers, all trying to get information about a rule that, in most cases, they had never heard of until last week. I think everyone in this Chamber stands strongly behind the intent of the rule, which is to protect women who might be pregnant, children, and others from harmful effects of lead. With over 20 kids and grandkids, I understand that. I appreciate the importance of the rule and the potential it has to future decrease lead exposure. But, as even the Obama administration admits, implementation of the rule has been painfully slow and seriously flawed.

Specifically, the rule requires that renovations to homes built before 1978 that disturb more than 6 square feet of surface area have to be supervised by a certified renovator and conducted by a certified renovation firm. In order to be certified, contractors have to submit an application with a fee to the

EPA and complete a training course for instruction on lead-safe workplaces. Now, that sounds simple enough. There is one serious problem; that is, there aren't any instructors around to certify these people.

What is worse than that, those who violate the rule; that is, they go and they try to do something to their own home, if it was a home that was built prior to 1978, if they violate this, they can be fined up to $37,500 a day. Just imagine how hysterical people are, not just in Oklahoma but throughout the country.

There are not nearly enough contractors who have been certified, and that is because there are far too few people certified to teach the classes.

That is why today, with 23 cosponsors, I am introducing legislation, S. 3296, to remedy this implementation travesty. This bill provides additional time for contractors and others to get certified so they can become qualified to go ahead and do these things and not be subjected to fines. It actually extends the time for a period of 1 year or until the EPA can have enough people to certify people around the country so that this can be done.

The need for the bill is on display in Oklahoma, where, until yesterday, no one was teaching classes publicly. Keep in mind, no one is teaching these classes. Yet, if they try to do any renovation, they can be fined up to $37,500 a day.

I am pleased to hear that Metro Tech of Oklahoma City has finally received its certification from the EPA and will begin teaching classes on May 13. I should note that because the demand is so high, they anticipate having full classes until July.

Because access to courses is so limited, renovators and contractors cannot be trained and they cannot pass along the benefits of their lead-safe work practices to homeowners and help protect pregnant women and children from further lead exposure. Without enough certified renovators, we will simply not get the benefits this rule can provide.

Let me give you a couple of statistics to help illustrate the problem. As of April 22--that was implementation day--the EPA had only accredited 204 training providers. Those providers have conducted more than 6,900 courses. They trained an estimated 160,000 people in the construction and remodeling industries to use lead-safe work practices. This is far too few people to ensure everyone who works on a pre-1978 home, including roofers, plumbers, painters, general contractors, or just individual homeowners, can have access to training to get certification they have to have.

Let me share with you a few examples from Oklahoma.

Paul Kane, executive vice president and CEO of the Home Builders Association of Greater Tulsa, was in my office with a number of Oklahoma homebuilders the day before the rule was implemented. That would have been April 21. During our meeting, I was pleased that Cass Sunstein, head of the Obama administration's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, was available to hear from my constituents about their concerns with the rule.

As the Tulsa World reported:

Kane explained the difficulty local contractors are having

in getting certified, adding that only one trainer in the

entire State of Oklahoma has been certified, and that that

person has been certified only a few weeks. Moreover, he told

Sunstein, that person is not offering training to the public

but is limiting his classes to his own organization.

So we have one guy who can teach these classes in the State of Oklahoma. Yet there are literally thousands out there who are out of work until such time as they can go back and start working again.

I really appreciate the fact that Mr. Sunstein was listening to the concerns of my Oklahoma constituents. He told us he recognized that the implementation of the rule was causing economic hardship. He raised the possibility of providing a 60-day delay to help sort out of some of the implementation problems. In the end, however, this option was not workable, and we simply ran out of options to stop the rule from going into effect. Now, that was the day before the rule became finalized. But we certainly appreciate his attention, looking into it, and we are going to try to work with his staff.

My staff also spoke with a property owner who rents homes to low- income residents in Tulsa. He has been unable to get contractors out to his properties to replace carpet or even paint because they do not have EPA certification, which means they can get fined by the agency if they work without it. So it is no surprise that my constituent is concerned that his housing units could fall into disrepair and that people would lose their access to affordable housing--not not only losing access to affordable housing but exposing people to lead paint.

Additionally, we heard from a painter in Oklahoma City who has experienced delays in getting trained for the simple reason that his trainer has not yet been certified by the EPA. This issue reaches far beyond Oklahoma. There are a number of Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who have expressed concerns about the implementation of the rule. Several Members weighed in before the rule went into effect. Senators Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota and a bipartisan group of Members of the House of Representatives sent a letter outlining these concerns to the EPA.

During a recent EPW subcommittee hearing, Senator Amy Klobuchar urged the EPA to come up with a solution that will ensure contractors have the opportunity to come into compliance with this rule. We are talking about everybody, Members of the House, the Senate, Democrats, Republicans. They are all affected the same.

The issue has also been raised before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. In testimony before the committee on March 11, Bob Hanbury, speaking on behalf of the National Association of Home Builders, raised concerns about potential conflicts between Homestar and the lead rule. Members may recall that Homestar is one of President Obama's signature issues. It is a program that helps homeowners increase the energy efficiency of their homes. But Mr. Hanbury believes the lead rule won't allow the Star program to move forward.

As we can see, there were plenty of concerns raised about the lead rule implementation before it went into effect. Nevertheless, EPA repeatedly said, in the 2-year period leading up to the rule, that it could meet these implementation challenges. As the ranking member of the committee with jurisdiction over the EPA, I wrote to the EPA two times that I believed EPA appeared to be far from prepared. In both cases, EPA said they were ready. In a June 3, 2009 letter responding to my concerns, the EPA wrote:

I agree that both EPA and the regulated community have a

great deal of preparation in front of us as we approach next

April's deadline. I am confident, however, that the ten

months between now and April of 2010 will allow us to meet

these deadlines.

That was a year ago. Of course, it didn't happen.

In a letter dated December 1, 2009, EPA wrote me explaining:

We are confident there will be enough training providers to

meet the demand. EPA does not plan to revise the April 2010

effective date [for the] rule.

The EPA also stated in the letter:

Currently, the capacity for training is in excess of the

demand as several training courses have been canceled for

lack of attendance.

What they are saying is they have been providing all these people, but it is just flat not true. In light of this situation, what can lawmakers do to help provide guidance for constituents back home?

First and foremost, we have to get out the word. I have raised the issue both in my travel around Oklahoma and on Oklahoma radio. Last week I sent out a ``Dear Colleague'' letter to all Senators with information to help them navigate the confusion associated with the rule's implementation. Included are Web links to EPA's Web site which take constituents to important information about the lead rule as well as the rule itself. It also provides a link to the EPA and the Ad Council's new Web site, www. Leadfreekids.org, which is a consumer friendly Web page with information on protecting yourself from lead. I wish also to commend the coverage of the rule by the Tulsa World. The paper's reporting has informed the public and even resulted in more classes being taught throughout Oklahoma.

Further, along with Senator Coburn and some 23 of my fellow Senators,

Mr. President, as the co-chairman of the U.S. Senate Taiwan Caucus, I ask for unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the speech of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, delivered, via video conference, before the faculty and students at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.

Mr. President, the Honorable Dale E. Klein completed his last day as a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on March 30,

2010, and has returned to the faculty of the University of Texas, from which he had been on an extended leave of absence as the result of his appointment by former President George W. Bush to the Department of Defense and subsequently to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dr. Klein began his tenure at the NRC on July 1, 2006, having been appointed by the President as the agency's Chairman. He continued to serve in that role until May 13, 2009, when President Obama designated Gregory B. Jaczko as the NRC Chairman. Although Dr. Klein would have preferred to return to the University of Texas at that time, he elected to remain an NRC Commissioner from May 2009 to March 30, 2010, to ensure continuity of the Commission until the President could nominate, and the U.S. Senate could confirm, his successor and two additional new Commissioners to fill existing vacancies on the Commission.

Dr. Klein's tenure as the NRC Chairman coincided with the rapid acceleration in the nuclear industry's plans for the development of a new generation of U.S. nuclear power plants. By the time of his departure from the agency, the NRC had received 18 applications for 28 new nuclear power plants after nearly three decades in which no new nuclear plants had been constructed in the U.S. This dramatic resurgence of the nuclear power option created an urgent and very critical need for the NRC to hire an unprecedented number of new staff since many of the agency's most experienced technical staff were nearing retirement age and the agency had critical skill shortages in such areas as construction inspection. Dr. Klein provided oversight and direction to the recruiting effort, which at its peak would result in net annual increases of approximately 250 new staff. In the absence of this effort, the NRC would not have been able to complete its technical reviews of new applications on a time frame that would support the nuclear industry's plans or meet the Nation's growing need for new sources of clean, safe, and affordable energy.

At the same time, Dr. Klein recognized that the resurgence in interest in nuclear power was a global phenomenon that was occurring both in countries with established nuclear power programs and countries with no prior experience with nuclear power. He consistently emphasized the critical importance of establishing and maintaining a strong, independent national nuclear regulatory authority in all countries considering the nuclear power option in his numerous meetings with his international regulatory counterparts in foreign countries, in meetings of international organizations like the IAEA, and during his frequent trips to foreign countries. Noting that an accident anywhere is an accident everywhere, he also ensured that the NRC provided assistance in setting up national nuclear regulatory bodies when requested by the host country.

Dr. Klein understood that for the NRC to continue to be an outstanding regulatory agency that could serve as a model for foreign countries, it needed good people, a strong safety culture, and the right technology. He observed that when he arrived at the NRC in July 2006, the agency had an outstanding technical staff and a strong safety culture, but was far behind the times in its technology infrastructure. He spent considerable time and effort in upgrading NRC's technology infrastructure not only to ensure improved communication within the NRC and with its stakeholders, but also to enable the NRC to attract and retain the young people that would become the core agency staff in the future.

As the NRC accelerated its hiring of new staff after 2006, however, the existing NRC headquarters complex, the White Flint Complex in Rockville, MD, could no longer accommodate the headquarters staff, forcing the NRC to rent additional space in four other buildings in the Rockville area. This dispersal represented a return to conditions existing at the time of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, when the NRC was widely dispersed in 11 buildings in the Washington Metropolitan area. A study published after the accident cited the multiple, scattered locations of the agency's headquarters staff as a factor hampering the NRC's response to the 1979 accident. Consequently, Dr. Klein made it one of his highest priority goals as Chairman to reconsolidate NRC headquarters in a single location in the vicinity of the White Flint complex. Most of the preparatory work and obtaining local government, GSA, and Congressional approval for the construction of a third building at the White Flint complex occurred under the guidance and direction of Dr. Klein during his tenure as Chairman.

Dr. Klein has made very significant contributions to maintaining the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the world's first and most experienced nuclear regulatory body and has demonstrated over the last 7 years his commitment to public service and protection of the public health and safety. I am therefore pleased to ask my Senate colleagues to join me in recognizing this outstanding public servant and in wishing him and his family success in all his future endeavors.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3588 and make it pending.

I ask unanimous consent we dispense with the reading of the amendment.

Mr. President, President Obama repeatedly promised during the campaign that no one making under $250,000 per year would see their taxes increase. However, the Democrats claim to spend $2.6 trillion in new health care at a time when the country cannot afford the promises they have already made and we have a record 1-year budget deficit, $1.4 trillion.

We hear President Obama always talking about what he inherited from George W. Bush. What he inherited was nothing like what he did. He actually raised the deficit $1.4 trillion in 1 year. That is more than President Bush did in his last 5 years.

The HELP bill, which recently passed the House, represents an unprecedented

expansion of government control and increases taxes on Americans during a difficult economic time. But the Democrats did not stop with one expensive health care bill. Now the Senate is debating a fix-it bill which increases taxes an additional $50 billion on the American people.

Reading through the legislation, I am struck by a myriad of ways this raises taxes on American citizens, from job-creating small businesses to middle-income families--over a half trillion dollars of new taxes.

If you happen to need a medical device--that is what we are talking about right now--you get taxed under the bill. Section 9009 of the recently passed health care bill imposes a new tax on assistive devices, which includes items such as pacemakers, ventilators, and prosthetics, and incubators for premature babies. The fix-it bill--I call this the payoff bill because as you all know the Speaker of the House had to pay off all these individuals. We understand how that works. That is what this bill is all about right now. That is why it needs to be amended. This is what we are currently debating. It actually expands to include more medical devices such as tongue depressors, elastic bandages, most hand-held dental instruments, and examination gloves.

I am joining with my Republican colleagues to propose an amendment striking the tax on medical devices.

Additionally, I have filed amendment No. 3588--that is what we are talking about now--that will strike this expansion of taxes on assistive devices for two of the most vulnerable populations, children and individuals with disabilities.

I have previously spoken on the floor about this new tax and how it hurts Americans. Let me remind you of a couple of examples.

My son-in-law Brad Swan installs pacemakers and defibrillators. I know this is true because he lives right across the street from us. At 1 o'clock in the morning he was called to an emergency involving a young 8-year-old boy with no heartbeat whatsoever.

He was born with congenital heart disease, was able to have a pacemaker put in that morning, right after he was called, and now he has a full, healthy life ahead of him. My older sister Marilyn faced a similar situation and is alive and healthy today. Additionally, Dr. Stanley DeFehr, a cardiologist in Bartlesville, OK, explained to me that:

The cost of a pacemaker [we are talking about $5,000; it is

something that lasts 10 years] pales in comparison to the

cost of a stroke or multiple fractures.

Now with this tax, we are making these medical devices more expensive for families, which may prevent others from accessing the device they need in order to enhance or even save their lives.

I have never been through anything like this in the 20 years I have been here. We look at the tax increase in this bill of $569 billion; now it is going to be more than that.

Additionally, I was talking this morning in Chickasha, OK, on a radio show, and the person intervening me was talking about his 94-year-old mother and how she depends on Medicare. I explained that there is $523 billion in Medicare cuts in this bill.

So, you know, the White House was celebrating. You could hear the champagne corks popping all night long. Yes, they successfully increased taxes by $569 billion.

So I encourage people to vote for this amendment to at least relieve part of the problem that is out there. It is amendment No. 3588.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we just heard from Senator Roberts about the medical devices. I think he pointed out very clearly that there is kind of another hidden tax in this legislation of some $20 billion on medical devices. I think it is important to listen to what Senator Roberts said, that it was not--it is not the device companies that will be paying this; it will be the individuals who would be paying it.

Now, the difference between my amendment and Senator Roberts' amendment is that mine excludes those devices for children and those with disabilities. For example, some of our troops coming home have lost limbs, and they have prosthetic devices. This is for them. This is for the 8-year-old whose heart quit beating in the middle of the night and they put a pacemaker in and it saved his life. It is for incubators and this type of thing. It is the same thing. It is the same offset as Senator Roberts and Senator Schumer had, and I would ask that you seriously consider this amendment. This is for the children and those with disabilities.

Mr. President, the regular order is amendment No. 3475?

Mr. President, I call up a second-degree amendment No. 3459 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this is a fairly simple bill. I have spoken on the floor several times about this bill. As I made very clear before, and there is no sense debating it now, I have been opposed to some of the moratoria we have been talking about on earmarks because, No. 1, they don't save any more if you kill an earmark and, No. 2, it is something I have serious problems with in terms of our oath of office. We raise our hands, as the Senator from North Dakota knows, and swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. We don't say we are disenfranchising ourselves from article I, section 9 of the Constitution, which is very clearly the responsibility of the legislative branch to pass or to introduce authorization bills and appropriations bills.

This bill--I do have quite a few cosponsors on this--is a proposal that would freeze discretionary spending at the 2008 level. Here is the reason I am doing this. President Obama and some of the Democrats had proposed that they would freeze the nonsecurity discretionary spending at 2010 levels. The problem I have with that is, this is after it has already been increased by 20 percent, so it is kind of a big deal. You increase it by 20 percent and then you freeze it. What I am doing is taking the same interpretation or the same definition of the nonsecurity--this would exempt Defense, Homeland Security, State, Veterans' Administration, and national security functions of Energy, so it is the same language that is in the Obama proposal, but I am taking it back to 2008. This would have the effect over a period of time, over a 10-year budget cycle, of reducing the amount by about--just under $1 trillion, $900-some billion.

So I wish to have this considered. I would inquire of the Chair if I am now in the queue or what is the status of this at this time?

All right. I yield the floor.

Madam President, in 5 minutes we will be voting on an amendment I have. I have explained the amendment several times. I first introduced it as S. 3095, the Honest Expenditure and Limitation Program Act of 2010. Let me say what it is. We will be voting, if this goes down, on the McCain amendment and another amendment like we voted on before. There is an honest difference of opinion.

What I thought would be appropriate is, since we will be voting, very likely, on another earmark amendment and since I don't think anyone is going to question the fact that defeating an earmark doesn't save a nickel, if we have an alternative that really does mean something, this would be our chance to vote on it.

What I would like to do is briefly explain what the amendment is that we will be voting on in a few minutes.

Some time ago, President Obama came out with his program where he said, during the State of the Union: I plan to freeze nondefense discretionary spending at 2010 levels. A lot of people applauded, believing that to be some type of a gesture that was a conservative gesture that would reduce spending when, in fact, it didn't because he was talking about the 2010 levels--that is after 1 year--and it has been increased by 20 percent. What he was saying is we are going to raise the nondefense discretionary spending by 20 percent and then freeze it. Rather than raise it by 20 percent and freeze it, the fiscally responsible thing to do is to go ahead and freeze it at the previous level.

Quite often, we have heard President Obama say what he inherited from the previous administration. I always hasten to say that, yes, there were some

deficits during the Bush administration. But the deficit in the first year of the Obama administration--about $1.5 trillion--is more than the last 5 years collectively of President George W. Bush. It is important for people to understand that.

We have an unsustainable debt. You are looking at someone who has 20 kids and grandkids. It is the next generation that is going to face it. We can't continue to do this. Yes, it is a nice gesture. A lot of people think you can eliminate earmarks and eliminate funding. That has nothing to do with it. You don't save a nickel. But you do with this. If we pass this amendment, we would be able to effectively reduce the expenditures over a 10-year budget cycle of just under $1 trillion.

What we are trying to do is have a freeze on discretionary spending at 2008 levels for all nonsecurity appropriations, worded the same way President Obama's effort was worded. The only difference is that we use the 2008 spending level. We have a lot of cosponsors. I hope people will seriously consider this. If they really want to reduce spending, this is their chance to do so.

I understand we have a vote that is coming at 15 after the hour; is that correct?

All right. Well, Madam President, I will go ahead and take my minute.

This amendment is something that would reduce expenditures, do something about the deficit. I know there are a lot of my Democratic friends and Republican friends alike who would like a chance to do this. I know there is a feel-good vote coming up on earmarks, but that does not reduce anything in terms of the expenditures.

If you vote on an earmark, and you defeat the earmark, it does not cut the amount of money, but the underlying bill will go back to some bureaucracy. It can be the Department of the Interior. It can be the Environmental Protection Agency. It can be any number of departments. Then an unelected bureaucrat will be making that decision.

It was interesting the other day when, in a three-part series, Sean Hannity had on his program 102 earmarks. When he was all through--and I read all of these Monday on the floor--the interesting thing about it, what they all had in common was not one of those earmarks was a congressional earmark. They were all bureaucratic earmarks. That is where the problem is, not the congressional earmarks. So I am going to urge my friends to support a real effort, a sincere effort, and an effective effort to reduce government spending by voting for my amendment.

Madam President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and section 4(g)3 of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for the purposes of my amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, the reason I proposed the previous amendment is because it would do something about the runaway spending and the deficit we have. It would have had the effect of reducing just under $1 trillion in a 10-year period.

This doesn't work. I know everyone thinks they want to jump on the bandwagon on earmark reform, but there is not any earmark that if you kill it, it saves one nickel. To me, it is deceptive to the public. For those people on this side of the aisle, I would only say that if you want to give President Obama that much more money to deal with, this is your opportunity to do it, because if you kill an earmark, it goes back into the bureaucracy and that is where he will have the choice.

The other night when we had the 102 earmarks that the ``Sean Hannity Show'' talked about, not one was a congressional earmark. So I don't think the votes are going to change but, nonetheless, nothing will be saved by this.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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

I ask unanimous consent to be recognized to speak as in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, first of all, let me say that I do like all the guys I am opposing on this legislation. I have been particularly close to Jim DeMint for quite some time. It happens that Senator DeMint and I, almost every rating that comes along, are considered always in the top five most conservative Members of the Senate.

In fact, I tell the occupier of the chair who already knows this, that just last week I was declared by the National Journal to be the most conservative Member of the Senate. I say that because I am disagreeing with a lot of my friends who have come forth to try to do something about what they call earmarks.

Let me try to make a couple points that I think are significant. First of all, an earmark that is in a current underlying bill, if it is defeated, does not save one cent, not one.

People out there believe--and I have heard the talks on the floor where they say: Well, we have to do something about the next generation and all that. Look, I have 20 kids and grandkids. I am the guy who is concerned about the next generation.

So when you try to make people believe you are doing something that is saving money and doing something about the horrible spending that is going on, it is not sincere, because an earmark does not add money. What you do when you kill an earmark is redirect it or you might say you have an earmark, but you do not like what they put in, so you are going to reearmark it to something else.

I will give you a couple examples. These examples, I know the Chair is familiar with this because he serves on the Armed Services Committee. They are two earmarks that Senator McCain had; one was the earmark for the F-22, where the President had had an amount of money for the F-22, our fifth-generation fighter. I thought it was not enough. Several of us added more, about $1.75 billion to that program.

Senator McCain--and I respect the fact that he disagreed--disagreed on this issue. But he had an amendment to strike that earmark, which was a successful effort. So he struck it. However, that did not change the fact that the NDAA, that is the National Defense Authorization Act, was still at $679.8 billion, the same as it would have been had that earmark not been struck.

What happens to that money? That was the $1.75. Well, that goes back into the defense system, into the Pentagon, where President Obama and his people can make a determination as to how to spend that.

Using another example very similar to that, when we had the appropriations bill--that was authorization--when we had the appropriations bill, it was at $625.8 billion. We had an earmark that-- you can call it an earmark because we increased the amount of money within the bill, and we offset it to increase the number of C-17s. We felt, in our judgment, that is what should happen. That would have been $2.5 billion.

So Senator McCain tried to get that out of it, and he was unsuccessful. So I have given you two examples, one where you successfully defeat an earmark, one where you are not successful. But neither one changes the underlying bill.

So for that reason, it does not happen. Another one the Senator had was having to do with transportation. I respect him. I do not agree with him. But he had an amendment that would strike some things from the Transportation bill amounting to about $1.7 billion. He redirected that to NextGen. NextGen is a program I am very familiar with because it has to do with the next generation of avionics and all of it. I know the Chair is aware of this; that when Senator Glenn retired, that left me as the only active pilot in the Chamber or the only commercial pilot. So I stay on those issues.

I found out I disagreed with Senator McCain on that because CBO said we could do the NextGen without this additional money. So the point I am trying to make is, eliminating earmarks does not save any money.

Here is another thing that I think is significant. Sean Hannity had a three-night report that I enjoyed. What he did, he had a list of 102 earmarks. He went down these earmarks, and everyone enjoyed it. Last night he had the last 20. So he went: Earmark No. 20, 19, 18, 17, 16-- went all the way down to earmark No. 1. There is not time to cover all 102 of these. I did this on Monday on the floor, by the way.

But it was such things as the $3.4 million to the Florida Department of Transportation to build an ecopassage to allow turtles to cross under the highway so they would not get hit by a car. That was $3.4 million; $450,000 for 22 concrete toilets in the Mark Twain National Forest; another earmark, $325,000, to study the mating decisions of female cactus bugs. That was another one. This country needs that, of course; $300,000 to buy a helicopter equipped to detect radioactive rabbit

droppings; $400,000 to study whether adults with attention deficit disorder smoke more than other adults. This is one that really wound me up: $500,000 in a grant to a researcher named in the climategate scandal. Here is a guy who has been cooking the science, and we are going to give him half a million dollars. Then there is $500,000 to study the impact of global warming on wildflowers in Colorado.

I could go through all 102. But there is one thing they all have in common. I will bet you not many people know what that is. Not one of these 102 was a congressional earmark. These were all Presidential or bureaucratic earmarks. There is where the problem is. But they won't talk about it because the public has been duped into thinking congressional earmarks are a problem.

Let me tell you what happened over in the other House. I am criticizing my own Republicans now. The Republican caucus got together and they had a resolve. They said:

Resolved, that it is the policy of the Republican

Conference that no Member shall request a congressional

earmark, limited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit, as

such terms are used in clause 9, rule XXI of the Rules of the

House . . .

That finally defines what an earmark is. I was thankful for that. Even though their policy was bad, at least they talked about what an earmark is. Here is what it is. Clause 9, rule XXI applies to all legislation in the House of Representatives, whether it be authorization or appropriation. That is what we do for a living around here.

There is an old document nobody pays any attention to anymore. It is called the Constitution. If you look up article I, section 9 of the Constitution, it says that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of the appropriations made by law. That is us.

Besides, if you remember studying about this--I know the Chair and I have talked about his knowledge of the Constitution--it was James Madison who was the father of the Constitution. He was the one who came up with the three coequal branches of government--the judiciary, executive, and legislative. He is the one who coined the phrase ``power of the purse.'' That was James Madison. If you read the Federalist Papers, he made it clear what we were supposed to do. What we in the House and we in the Senate are supposed to do is pass laws that are necessary to have appropriations and authorization.

The Chair and I are both on the Senate Armed Services Committee. That is the authorization committee. We go through and study what we need to defend America--missile defense, for example. We need to have redundancy in all phases--the boost face, the midcourse face, the terminal phase. All these things are complicated, and we really can't expect the general public to be aware of it because they are too busy making money to pay for all this fun we are having up here. We have this authorization. That is what the Constitution says we are supposed to be doing.

Then appropriations. After we authorize something, study as to whether it should be a priority, then we have an appropriation to put it into law. That is, again, what we are supposed to be doing. The Constitution tells us we have to appropriate and authorize.

The oath of office--everyone here has taken the oath of office. In that oath, we say we solemnly swear we will support and bear true allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.

Wait a minute. They are going to uphold the Constitution, but they have just said by their own resolution that they are going to break the Constitution.

I look at this, and I think about how people, if they only knew this was going on, if they only knew that all these earmarks Sean Hannity talked about, all 102 were earmarks that came from unelected bureaucrats--people not responsible.

There was an interesting article in the Hill paper the other day. It was from February 4. They say lobbyists are now going to Federal agencies because of all these efforts because of earmarks and all that. So we have turned over and given to unelected bureaucrats what we are supposed to be doing under our sworn oath.

I know Senator McCain is going to have an amendment coming up tomorrow. I would like to suggest that people who talk about not doing earmarks have done earmarks. In the case of Senator McCain, there was an article titled ``McCain Breaks Own Pork Rule.'' This was from November 7, 2003.

Then we have Senator DeMint, who--again, I really value him. He is one of my closest friends. I remember when he was first running for office. I went to South Carolina, and they talked about how roads were so important down there, and he swore he would support them. So he did. He kept his word. These are earmarks. Senator DeMint: $10 million for the construction of I-73 at Myrtle Beach; $15 million to widen U.S. 278 to six lanes; $10 million, engineering, design, and construction of a port access road; $10 million in improvements to U.S. 17; $5 million, widening SC 9; $3 million to complete construction. These are earmarks that were done by Senator DeMint. I don't blame him. That is what we are supposed to be doing. I have done the same thing. You add up all these earmarks on just that bill, and it comes to $110 million. Those are Senator DeMint's earmarks on that one bill.

What I am saying is, these guys all earmark, but somehow the public thinks there is something wrong with earmarks. I say: Fine. Define earmarks. Be as honest as the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives says earmarks are authorizations and appropriations.

What we need to do is remember what our jobs are here. Again, the thing that frustrates me is that there are so many people writing editorials thinking earmarks are going to somehow cut spending. They don't cut any spending. Eliminating an earmark merely transfers it from our constitutional responsibility to the executive branch. I am hoping people will understand this.

I can remember 8 years ago. Everyone said at that time that global warming was caused by manmade gases, anthropogenic gases. I thought, it must be true; everybody says it is true, until the Wharton School of Economics came along and did a study during the Kyoto Treaty days. They said: What would it cost America if we were to sign and ratify that treaty and live by its emissions restrictions? The range they gave us was between $300 and $400 billion a year. We are talking about $300 to $400 billion a year.

I see my friend from Arkansas. I suggest to him, that $300 to $400 billion a year would cost every taxpayer he has who files a return in the State of Arkansas just under $3,000 a year. That is what it would cost. We didn't ratify that.

Along came, in 2003, the McCain-Lieberman bill--another cap-and-trade bill to do essentially the same thing Kyoto did--and then the McCain- Lieberman bill in 2005 and the Warner-Lieberman bill in 2008 and the Sanders-Boxer bill in 2009. All of these have one thing in common; that is, cap and trade. Right now, we have Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John Kerry trying to change the word, not use ``cap and trade,'' but essentially it would be cap and trade.

All of that would have cost between $300 and $400 billion a year. I bring that up because it is pertinent to this. I brought it up because 8 years ago nobody believed me when I said it is going to cost that much money and it will not accomplish anything.

Then, as the years went by, finally the Environmental Protection Agency director, appointed by President Obama, in response to a question I had--I asked: Let me ask you this. If we were to pass this bill--that was the Markey bill; they are all the same; cap and trade is cap and trade--how much would it reduce the emissions of CO2? Her answer was: It wouldn't reduce it.

Common sense tells us it wouldn't. If we do something unilaterally in America, it will not reduce the worldwide amount. As we lose our jobs here, they to go China and Mexico, places where they are generating more electricity. It will have the effect of increasing not reducing it.

It took America 7 years. I was a bad guy for 7 years because in advance I said that this is what it was going to cost. It was a phony issue. Finally, they agreed.

This has endured 3 years. I have been trying to explain to people for the last 3 years that you don't save any money

if you kill earmarks. We need to define what they are. The House has been honest. They have defined it as authorization and appropriation, which is what the Constitution says we are supposed to do. Everybody who says they are against earmarks has been introducing earmarks.

The bottom line is, we need to really address something meaningful.

What I have done is I have introduced a bill that will do what President Obama said he was going to do; that is, freeze the nondefense discretionary spending at the 2010 levels. The only problem with that is he increased it in his budget by 20 percent. You are talking about increasing the nondiscretionary or the discretionary nondefense spending after you have increased it by 20 percent. So I introduced a bill that says let's take it back.

This President is always talking about what he inherited from the Bush administration. In 2008, the amount of money that was called discretionary spending was 20 percent less than 2010. If it is good for 2010, let's bring it down to 2008. We have an opportunity that would save just under $1 trillion in the next 10-year budget cycle. That is the answer. That is what I think we ought to be doing instead of sitting around and deceiving the public into thinking that just because the media doesn't understand it, somehow earmarks are going to accomplish something worthwhile.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Will the Senator yield?

For a question?

Would you be willing to give me 2 minutes? That is all I need. I want to say and make sure everyone understands this. I have a totally different argument against this. I happen to be ranked as the most conservative Member of the Senate, and all you are trying to do with this thing--all you will end up doing, if you are successful, is giving all this to the executive branch.

Well----

Let me ask----

For a unanimous consent request.

I ask for a unanimous consent request, please.

Mr. President, could I ask unanimous consent to have 15 seconds----

Mr. ROCKEFELLER addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have a response.

Mr. President, first of all, I would like to make one statement on the DeMint amendment that was just defeated. I have to say this, as the person who was most recently characterized as the most conservative Member of the Senate: If there is anyone out there who thinks that was a conservative vote on earmarks, they are wrong. There has never been one case where an earmark has saved one penny that has been reduced.

I have to say this: Senator DeMint had $70 million worth of highway earmarks that were in the amendment that we are talking about right now.

Real quickly: The Feingold amendment does not reduce the deficit one penny. Because of environmental laws and other things, the CBO and the administration have said the average time for a highway project is 13 years. For example, in my State of Oklahoma, Highway 40--a huge project--was started in 1991. If this amendment had been in there, that project would have been terminated in 2001.

I urge my conservative friends, unless you just don't like highways and roads, to kill this amendment.