Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation today with my colleague, Senator Ron Wyden, to introduce the Improving Access to Clinical Trials Act, I-ACT, a bill to allow patients with rare diseases to participate in clinical drug studies without losing their eligibility for public assistance like Supplemental Security Income, SSI, and Medicaid. This bill provides potentially lifesaving treatments through clinical trials for those suffering with rare diseases, like cystic fibrosis, CF, a life-threatening genetic disease that affects about 30,000 people nationwide. This hits especially close to home for me because I have a staff member, Sage Streck, with CF, and she has participated in some of these trials that further drug research as they seek better treatments for rare diseases. About half of these patients are on Medicare or Medicaid and are eligible for SSI benefits.

Cystic fibrosis used to be primarily a childhood disease because people simply didn't live long enough to reach adulthood. But now, thanks to the many treatments discovered through clinical trials, the average life expectancy is 37 years old. Additionally, these advances in science allow CF patients to live more normal lives and not spend all their lives in hospitals or

using respiratory machines. The more CF patients can participate in clinical trials, the faster scientists can discover new treatments and eventually a cure.

Sage has personally seen in her lifetime five drugs that started in clinical trials and are now available to CF patients. Each medication has increased her quality of life and decreased the amount of time she has spent in the hospital or on IV antibiotics. There are more than 30 promising drugs in the research pipeline right now that the CF Foundation is calling miracle drugs so it is imperative that patients have access to clinical trials so these drugs can get on the market.

Under current law, the small compensation provided to trial participants, which averages around $500, is included as additional income that could cause a person to lose their public assistance benefits, like Supplemental Security Income, SSI, and Medicaid. These benefits are crucial for patients living with rare diseases. For instance, nearly 50 percent of the CF population uses SSI or Medicaid. As a result, patients choose not to enroll in clinical trials that could dramatically improve their lives out of the fear that they may lose the benefits on which they rely.

This bill allows patients with a rare disease to disregard up to $2,000 of compensation received for participation in a clinical trial in their SSI and Medicaid income calculations. Though it will have a negligible impact on the Federal budget, it will make a dramatic difference in the lives of those who will gain access to potentially life-saving treatments by enrolling in clinical trials as well as all those in the future whose lives will be improved by the medical advances that arise from this research.

Please join me in supporting this legislation that will provide patients with rare disease access to potentially lifesaving clinical trials without losing their public assistance health benefits.

Madam President, on behalf of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation, I would like to congratulate Richard P. Rush on his retirement from the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce.

Dick will be leaving the State chamber next spring after serving as its president and chief executive officer for 24 years. Dick has made a positive contribution to the State of Oklahoma and has been characterized as ``the State's leading pro-business advocate.''

Dick's success is evident in both his internal administration of the State chamber and his work leading key probusiness campaigns which have made a positive impact on Oklahoma creating jobs and increasing business development.

Due to Dick's work, the State chamber now operates debt free. During his tenure, Dick has built the State chamber to over 2,000 members. He has been named Executive of the Year by the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce Executives and is already a member of the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame.

Through leading key campaigns advocating new business opportunities and job creation such as Right-to-Work and tort reform, Dick has been credited with saving the business community in Oklahoma over $2 billion. In fact, the State chamber recently earned the Nation's highest honor from the American Tort Reform Association and the U.S. Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform. Just this year, the State chamber was awarded the ``The State Legislative Achievement Award'' by the U.S. Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform and the first annual ``Gold Medal for the Best State Civil Justice Legislation'' by the American Tort Reform Association. Dick has also led international outreach serving as Executive in Charge of sister chamber work between the Oklahoma State Chamber and both the Gansu, China Provincial Chamber and the Liaoning, China Provincial Chamber. Dick was a presenter at the VI Hemispheric Sister Cities Forum in Iquique, Chile, and he is the recipient of the ``The George Nigh Global Trade Award.'' Dick's involvement in Oklahoma business development has been extensive.

Dick's success is due in part to his long history in chamber management. Before coming to Oklahoma, Dick worked in chambers throughout the country from California to Texas before coming to Oklahoma in 1986. His experience also extends internationally as Dick worked as a project adviser for the U.S. Chamber's Center for International Private Enterprise serving as a consultant to the National Chamber of Commerce of Zimbabwe, Africa.

Oklahomans can appreciate Dick's service to the Oklahoma State Chamber and the entire State of Oklahoma, and we wish him the very best in his retirement and all future endeavors.

Mr. President, I have been here this afternoon and hope to get a little more time than we are getting. Right now we are into the final debate on the vote that will take place at 5:30. The Senator from Nevada, Senator Ensign, has agreed to let me have 10 minutes, so I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business.

I thank the Chair.

Well, first of all, I had a few stories I was going to tell about my very good friend who is deceased now, Senator Kennedy, and if there is time before my time expires I will get into that. I have a feeling more will take place on that tomorrow or later on tonight.

Let me mention one thing because I think it is so fresh on our minds now, having come back from the August recess. I did my town meetings in smaller communities in Oklahoma. I was in Stigler, Coweta, Chickasha, Grove, Woodward, Guymon, McAlester, and Lawton. I did this because so many times smaller communities are left out, and I wanted to know what kind of response they had. I made the comment when I was in Grove, OK, that the very institutions that have historically set America aside from the rest of the world are the ones that seem to be under attack by this administration. I am talking about free enterprise, talking about the fact of little government, big people, and all these things.

Since the junior Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, is one of the two medical doctors in the Senate, I decided to talk about the other issues. My fear is this: There was concern about socialized medicine. Everyone is concerned about what this President wants to do with the health issues in America, but we are forgetting there are other very serious issues. So I covered these, as opposed to the health problems, because these are things we are going to be dealing with in the Senate in the next few days or weeks, and they are very significant.

One of them is the cap-and-trade issue that we have talked about at some length, and I will get into that in a minute; the other is the closing of Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, or Gitmo as it is known to most people, and the other is what has happened to our military. So let me, real briefly, get into these areas. These are three areas where I will be providing leadership. These are the areas of specialty I have and I am very much concerned about.

First of all, I positioned myself in Afghanistan in February, when Secretary of Defense Gates came out with his announcement as to the portion of the President's budget dealing with defense because I knew I was going to be opposed to it, and I thought that would give me a national forum, and it did. I was concerned about such things as the F- 22. Right now, the only fifth-generation fighter we have is the F-22. Initially, we were going to have 750 of them. We now have 187, and the President, in his budget, stopped it right there. He didn't say terminate, but I will use the word ``terminate,'' because when you suspend something for an undetermined period of time, I think it is terminated.

At the same time that happened, we know that China is now working on their J-12s and Russia on their PAK-FAs. These are fifth-generation fighters they are going to be using to export to countries that could be potential enemies of ours. I have looked at the C-17 program-- stopping that program--the future combat system. We haven't had in America a transition in ground capability in quite some time--about 60 years. So we have been working on the future combat system. That system has been terminated.

I think the one that probably has the greatest danger on the lives of Americans could probably be the system we had negotiated with the Parliaments of Poland and the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic was asked if they would agree to have a radar system to see any kind of incoming missile which might have been coming from Iran, and they agreed to do that. Then Poland agreed to have an interception capability that would knock down such a missile coming from Iran. I don't think there is anyone in America who doesn't realize that Iran is going to have their nuclear capability and delivery systems just as soon as they can. For the sake of Western Europe and the Eastern United States, I think it is critical we put ourselves in a position to have that capability. Well, he stopped that. So we will be talking about that for quite some time.

Gitmo. I think most people realize now that Guantanamo Bay is an asset we have had since 1903. It has all kinds of capabilities. It is the only place in the world you can put terrorist detainees where you can have a facility built for them--some seven degrees of security. We have a system there where we use military tribunals. I will never understand why President Obama is obsessed with bringing these detainees into the United States either for trial or for incarceration. For a trial, it would be the worst plan in the world because, by definition, a terrorist trains people to become terrorists. We don't need to have terrorists in our prison system teaching other people how to become terrorists.

Some of the places the President talked about sending them included my State, at Fort Sill. We will talk about that maybe some other time. But I do think, when we see just a matter of days ago, the release of Mohammed Jawad from Gitmo, nobody knows--or at least I don't know, and I should know, being the second-ranking member on the Armed Services Committee--why he would be released. We also know Mullah Zakir, who was killing American marines in the Helmand Province for quite some period of time, was released and is now back. He went into Gitmo in 2006, they released him in 2008, and he is back. Now we have received evidence that is conclusive that he is fighting on the side of the Taliban. So you can't turn these guys loose.

The third area I was concentrating on is one I will go back to 8 years ago. Redemption is kind of good for the soul, I think, because 8 years ago I was looking at the science on the notion that manmade gases--anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane--caused global warming. It was something everybody believed. Until I looked into the science, frankly, I believed it too. Now we see the science is not there. I made the statement 8 years ago that perhaps those liberals-- mostly from Hollywood and that type of mentality--who want us to believe in the notion that manmade gases cause global warming is the most significant hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. I think now there are a lot fewer people today who are upset with the statement I made 8 years ago than there were then. This is something that is critical.

I wish to conclude with that, but first of all I wish to mention that there is a document that is too long to put in the Record. It is some 65 pages. I will have it on my Web site. This is a brave paper done by Robert P. Smith. He has a Ph.D., he is a petroleum engineer, and he talks about the energy crisis and what we can do in the United States to resolve that energy crisis--such commonsense things as continuing to conserve, to continue to support the free market, to oppose the cap- and-trade

taxes--which I will talk about in a second--to oppose the alternative energy subsidies because we have to continue to develop and to supply energy for America while we are developing the technologies, so we need to continue coal-powered generation. We need to fast-track oil and gas exploration and use natural gas wisely. It includes nuclear plants.

I would suggest to anyone who is interested in getting into the best piece I have seen on this subject to go to my Web site-- inhofe.senate.gov--and we have a lot of that information on this. But he does have only 3 pages out of the 65 pages detailing the idea that global warming is caused by manmade gases, and I think it is done in a way that is very understandable by people who are not necessarily scientists or don't have a background in it. So I strongly recommend this document--called ``Energy: Present and Future,'' by Robert P. Smith--to the reading list of the American people or anyone who is concerned about that issue.

Lastly, prior to the Republicans losing the majority in the Senate, I was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. That chairman is now Senator Barbara Boxer. She took over the committee from my leadership.

I was given an additional 5 minutes from our side, Mr. President.

I thank the Chair. I will conclude with this.

During the time that all the hearings--over 30 hearings--that Senator Boxer has had on the subject of global warming were taking place--and it was not just the Republicans but a total turnaround--the Democrats started to look into this and realized the Democrats, as a party--who always supported cap-and-trade systems, such as the 2003 bill and the 2005 bill and the 2008 bill--are now looking at it and they are cutting to the chase. I will give a few quotes here. These are all quotes from Democrats.

President Obama said: Electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket. Democratic Representative John Dingell from Michigan said: Cap and trade is a tax and a great big one. Democratic Representative Pete DeFazio said: A cap and trade system is prone to market manipulation and speculation without any guarantee of meaningful GHG emission reductions.

The best is from my good friend from North Dakota, Senator Byron Dorgan, when he said about cap and trade: The Wall Street crowd can't wait to sink their teeth into a new trillion-dollar trading market in which hedge funds and investment banks would trade and speculate on carbon credits and securities. I totally agree with my good friend, Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan.

Democratic Senator Cantwell from Washington: A cap and trade program might allow Wall Street to distort a carbon market for its own profits.

We learned, of course, from Lisa Jackson, who is the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, when I asked her this question in a public hearing. I said: If we should pass the Markey bill in the Senate and it gets signed into law, will this reduce carbon emissions in the world?

She said: No.

Logically, obviously, she is right. If we drive our jobs overseas to places such as China and India, where they have no intention of having any kind of emission requirements, then that would have the effect of increasing, not decreasing, the amount of emissions in the air.

Senator Kerry said: There is no way the United States of America acting alone can solve this problem. So we have to have China; we have to have India.

I say we are not going to have China and India.

Senator McCaskill said: If we go too far with this cap and trade, then all we are going to do is chase more jobs to China and India, where they have been putting up coal-fired plants every 10 minutes.

Not quite true. I would say to my good friend, Senator McCaskill, it is about two coal-fired generation plants that are built every week in China. We haven't done one in 12 years here. So we know what their intentions are.

So we have had all these hearings, and we have recognized that things have changed now. You look at the groups now, and you have the agricultural community, the American Farm Bureau, and a vast majority of the agricultural groups who oppose it. The GAO says it will send our jobs to China and India. The very eloquent chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce did a great job of testifying before our committee and said it would destroy over 2 million jobs. The EPA and the EIA--that is the Energy Information Agency--said it would not reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The EPA said it will do nothing to reduce global temperatures. So when all is said and done, the American people will reject it. We are sure a lot further now.

I have to say this: This was a breath of fresh air, to listen to the American people standing up at these townhall meetings all around the country. In my 12 or 14 meetings I had in my State of Oklahoma, people know the right thing is going to happen. We are here to make that happen.

With that, I thank the Senator from Nevada for allowing me to have 15 minutes of his time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as a neighboring agriculture State, it is a pleasure to work with the Senator from Kansas, in fact both Senators from Kansas, on numerous issues that provide for important research, relief, and aid to our States. I ask that language be included in the conference report indicating the urgent need for additional scientific personnel at the Southern Plains Range Research Station in Woodward, OK, near our joint borders, through the Agricultural Research Service in order to establish a Center for Warm-Season Grasses Research at the station in fiscal year 2010.

The Southern Plains Range Research Station is a research unit of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service. It has a mission to conduct research that addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with managing America's rangelands through innovative production practices and improved plant germplasm. The current research program at the station includes a team of three scientists: a ruminant nutritionist for range-livestock production research, a research agronomist for germplasm evaluation, and a geneticist for breeding improved plants. The goal of establishing and developing a Center for Warm Season Grasses Research would be improved plant materials management alternatives for rangelands and pastures in the southern plains. This center would provide a focused effort in native and introduced warm-season grass research to address issues with biofuels and feedstock production which is a critical issue to farmers and ranchers throughout the country. Additional personnel are needed to accomplish this mission. The addition of these two essential scientists will assist the Southern Plains Range Research Station in working towards its goal of establishing itself as the Center for Warm-Season Grasses Research in the south central United States.

Mr. President, let me confess that I feel totally inadequate standing here tonight and talking about the subject of the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor. I am not a lawyer. I am amidst these brilliant lawyers. I listened to Senator Hatch and Senator Sessions. They have the kind of background where they can really get into this and look constitutionally and legally and evaluate, and I am not in that position.

I would like to speak on this nomination for the following reasons. I want to reaffirm my opposition to her confirmation.

I was the first Member of the Senate on the day she was nominated who announced I would not be supporting her. I recognize, as Senator Hatch said, that she will be confirmed. We know that.

I remember what Senator Schumer, the senior Senator from New York, said shortly after she was first nominated. He made the statement that Republicans are going to have to vote for her because they don't want to vote against a woman, vote against a Hispanic. He was right. But I would suggest that after the hearing, that statement is not nearly as true as it was before the hearings because of some of the extreme positions she has taken.

I have to say that from a nonlawyer perspective, I look at it perhaps differently than my colleagues who are learned scholars in the legal profession. A lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court requires not only a respect for the rule of law but also for the separation of powers and an acknowledgment that the Court is not a place where policy is made. The Court is about the application of the law and not where judges get to make the world a place they want it to be. I saw that all throughout the hearings I watched with a great deal of interest.

In May of 2005, Judge Sotomayor asserted that the ``court of appeals is where policy is made.'' She also wrote in a 1996 law review article that ``change--sometimes radical change--can and does occur in a legal system that serves a society whose social policy itself changes.''

The Constitution is absolutely clear: Policy is made in the Halls of Congress, right here--that is what we do for a living--not in the courtroom. Legislators write the laws. Judges interpret them. We understand that. Even those of us who are nonlawyers remembered that all the way through school. Sotomayor is correct that societies change, but the policies that are made to reflect these changes are done through Members of Congress who are elected to represent the will of the people.

Obviously, we are talking about a lifetime appointment. There is no accountability after this point. When judges go beyond interpreting the laws and the Constitution and legislate from the bench, they overstep their jurisdiction and their constitutional duty. Allowing judges who are not directly elected by the people and who serve lifelong terms to rewrite laws from the bench is dangerous to the vitality of a representative democracy. Simply put, judicial activism places too much power in the hands of those who are not directly accountable to the people. That is what we are talking about, a lifetime appointment.

Judge Sotomayor has overcome significant adversity to achieve great success, and I agree with Senator Hatch in his comments that we admire her for her accomplishments under adverse conditions. However, while her experiences as a Latina woman have shaped who she is as a person, they should not be used, as she affirms, to affect her judicial impartiality and significantly influence how she interprets the law and the Constitution.

In 2001, Judge Sotomayor gave a speech at the University of California, Berkeley in which she stated:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of

her experiences would more often than not reach a better

conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

She has on several occasions conveyed the same idea. Between 1994 and 2003, she delivered speeches using similar language at Seton Hall University, the Woman's Bar Association of the State of New York, Yale University, the City University of New York School of Law. It is not a slip of the tongue once; this is a statement that has been reaffirmed and reaffirmed. Quite frankly, that was the reason for

my opposition back in 1998 when she was nominated to be on the circuit court of appeals. The statements she made show a very biased opinion that someone who is not a lawyer sees and thinks should disqualify someone for the appointment.

She further stated in 1994, in a presentation in Puerto Rico, that:

Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that ``a

wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion''

in deciding cases . . . [however] I am also not sure that I

agree with that statement . . . I would hope that a wise

woman with the richness of her experience would, more often

than not, reach a better conclusion.

That is pretty emphatic. There is no other way you can interpret that. She thinks that a woman with her experience can make a better conclusion than a White male. I consider that racist. Sotomayor not only suggests the possibility of judicial impartiality but also that gender and ethnicity should influence a judge's decision.

Furthermore, President Obama said that in choosing the next Supreme Court nominee, he would use an empathy standard. While judges may and should be empathetic people, they must be impartial judges first. If empathy was a guiding standard, with whom should a judge empathize? Should more empathy be shown to one race, one gender, one religion, one lifestyle? True justice does not see race, gender, or creed. We are all equal in the eyes of the law, and the law must be applied equally. That is why she wears a blindfold. It is supposed to be blind justice.

Rather than looking to factors beyond the law, judges must solely examine the facts of the case and the law itself. Their ability to equally apply justice under the law is the standard by which we should select judges. So we have two different standards right now with which I disagree. One is that judges should make policy and, secondly, that gender and ethnicity should influence decisions.

Another belief on which Judge Sotomayor and I fundamentally disagree is that American judges should consider foreign law when deciding cases. This probably concerns me more than any of the rest of them--the fact that we have this obsession in these Halls, in this Senate, that nothing is good unless it somehow comes from the United Nations or is coming from some multinational origin.

In 2007, in the forward to a book--and I read this myself--titled, ``The International Judge,'' Sotomayor wrote:

[T]he question of how much we have to learn from foreign

law and the international community when interpreting our

Constitution is not the only one worth posing.

This past spring, Judge Sotomayor gave an alarming speech at the ACLU which addressed this topic. She said:

[T]o suggest to anyone that you can outlaw the use of

foreign or international law is a sentiment that is based on

a fundamental misunderstanding, what you would be asking

American judges to do is to close their minds to good ideas.

. . .

No, Judge Sotomayor, it is sovereignty that we are talking about. Statements like these make it clear that President Obama has nominated a judge to our highest Court who believes our courts should rely on foreign decisions when interpreting our Constitution. And I have to say, whatever happened to sovereignty? This obsession with multinationalism has to come to an end. I believe America will reject this type of thought. Americans do not want the rest of the world interpreting our laws, and neither do I.

Finally, Mr. President, Judge Sotomayor's record on the second amendment is constitutionally outrageous. Maybe it is because I come from Oklahoma, but that is the thing I hear about more than anything else down there, and my own kids, I might add.

I do not believe Judge Sotomayor can be trusted to uphold the individual freedom to keep and bear arms if future second amendment cases come before her. I have received no assurances from her past decisions or public testimony that she will be willing to fairly consider the question of whether the second amendment is a fundamental right and thus restricts State action as it relates to the second amendment. It is incomprehensible to me that our Founding Fathers could have intended the right to keep and bear arms as nonbinding upon the States and instead leave the right to be hollowed out by State and local laws and regulations. History and common sense do not support this.

I have to tell you, this has been more of a concern in my State of Oklahoma than anything else. I cannot confirm a nominee who believes the second amendment is something other than a fundamental right and instead treats it as a second class amendment to the Constitution. I do not know what a second class amendment to the Constitution is. This is not in line with my beliefs and not in line with the beliefs of the majority of Americans--certainly from my State of Oklahoma.

Today, I am persuaded the confirmation hearings served only to highlight many of my concerns. The numerous inconsistencies of her testimony with her record have persuaded not only me but the American people that Judge Sotomayor is not qualified to serve as a Justice on the highest Court, the U.S. Supreme Court. I say that because a recent Zogby Poll--and as several other polls have also consistently confirmed--following the confirmation hearings revealed that only 49 percent of Americans support Judge Sotomayor's confirmation, with an equal number opposing it. This is significant because she played the race card all the way through this thing and was talking about the Hispanic effect. But the same poll showed that among Hispanic voters, only 47 percent say they are in favor of her confirmation.

In other words, there are fewer people in the Hispanic community who are favoring her confirmation than in the non-Hispanic. These numbers are evidence of the fact that Judge Sotomayor has not gained the approval of the American people during her confirmation hearings, and she certainly has not gained mine.

I was the first Member of the Senate to publicly announce my opposition to Judge Sotomayor after her nomination to the Supreme Court on May 26. On that date, I stated I could not confirm her. In addition to all the above, there is another reason. While I do not often agree with Vice President Biden, I do agree with his statement that once you oppose a Federal court nominee, you cannot support that nominee for a higher court because the bar is higher. I think that is very significant to point out here because there are several who are still serving today, as I am, who opposed her to the circuit court in 1998. I think Vice President Biden is correct. As the standard goes up, once you get to the U.S. Supreme Court, that is the end. So that should be the very highest standard. So it is unconceivable that anyone who would have opposed her in 1998 could turn around and support her now.

I have to say there are a lot of reasons I have pointed out. One is judges making policy. I object to that; I find that offensive. Gender and ethnicity should be a consideration; that is wrong. The international thing, that we have to go to the international community to see that we are doing the right thing in interpreting our Constitution; that is a sovereignty issue. The second amendment, that is a concern.

So even though Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed, it will be without my vote. I would have to say for the sake of my 20 kids and grandkids that I will oppose Judge Sotomayor's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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

Madam President, as the ranking member of the committee, first of all, while I love the chairman dearly, she is dead wrong on all the information she just gave you. Let me go over that briefly.

First of all, on the Clinton administration. Let's keep in mind that even then-Vice President Al Gore admitted they had a recession coming at that time and that reduced the amount of money that was coming in to run the government. We all know that is basic economics. We also know during the 8 Clinton years he downgraded the military by 40 percent-- not 10 percent or 15 percent. I will never forget the euphoric attitude: The Cold War is over now; we don't need a defense any longer. We cut down our end strength and our modernization program and all of a sudden 9/11 came and we were in the middle of fighting a war with a military that was downgraded by the President. Obviously, it took a lot of money to bring us out.

I would say on behalf of President Bush that was a tough situation, but he grabbed hold of it. Yes, we had to spend more money at the time, but he had to rebuild what was torn down during the Clinton years.

One word about the Vitter and Ensign amendments. They are both good amendments, and all they are doing is what I thought the chairman of our committee joined me in wanting to do back when we were considering the stimulus bill, the $789 billion bill. Only 3.5 percent of that went to roads and highways and bridges. That would really have stimulated the economy. I had an amendment cosponsored by the chairman, Chairman Boxer. We were unable to get it passed. That would have turned this into a real stimulus bill. Frankly, we would not be here today if we had been successful doing that.

Look, 67 percent of that $789 billion is unobligated today. What better use could there be than using that for construction, for getting into something where we can actually stimulate the economy? This has to be done. Our roads, our highways, our bridges are in deplorable condition. Our chairman and I agree on that. We want a robust reauthorization bill. But in the meantime, to be able to take some of the money that is in the stimulus bill that doesn't stimulate anything--we are not talking about taking away from military construction. I am the second ranking member on the Armed Services Committee. I wouldn't tolerate that. That is already in there. But the unobligated funds amount to about 67 percent or about over $400 billion of the stimulus bill.

I am going to strongly support--in fact, I recommended to both Senators Vitter and Ensign--that this is a good place to find the money we have to find in order to rebuild our system.

I have to say something about the Bond amendment because I will have to leave the floor in just a minute. I am fully supportive of the amendment. The rescission is bad for every State and bad for the highway program. This amendment corrects an accounting provision in SAFETEA that removes $8.7 billion of what was supposed to be unneeded contract authority.

I think the rescission was not intended to have the real funding impacts on the States, but the provision in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 changed how the rescission was to be implemented. Now States stand to lose about $400 million of real money.

Madam President, $40 million of that $400 million comes from Oklahoma. Right now the Oklahoma secretary of transportation, Gary Ridley--and I believe he is the best secretary of transportation anywhere in the Nation--recently told me my State will be forced to cancel $40 million in projects that were supposed to begin this year. For this reason, this amendment cannot be put off. We have to pass it now; otherwise, States will have to cut planned projects in anticipation of this rescission.

Some are arguing this amendment would somehow endanger the passage of the trust fund rescue. I flatly reject this argument. The other body is still in session. Right now they are over there, and we should not bow to its whims. This is not just a Senate problem to fix. The House has a responsibility to address it too.

As I stated earlier, the House is still in session and they can take a few extra hours before their adjourning to pass a highway fix bill with the Bond rescission language in it. It is ludicrous to talk about infrastructure spending being an ingredient in creating jobs on one hand and on the other hand allowing $8.7 billion in contract authority to disappear.

I urge my colleagues to support all three of these amendments.

I yield the floor.

If the Senator will yield, it is a real problem we have here. I remember, up until about 5 years ago, our trust fund took care of our needs. The problem we had was not just the fact that as it goes up, the proceeds go down, but that we got involved in things that had nothing to do with transportation. It used to be bridges, transportation, and highways. It was adequate at that time, but the hitchhikers would say there is a big surplus, so let's tap into that, and now we have all these things having nothing to do with transportation.

The answer is 3.5 percent, and an additional 3.5 percent in military construction, totaling about 7 percent.

Sixty-seven percent has not been obligated, so 33 percent is obligated.

If the Senator will yield, that is another reason the Vitter amendment and Ensign amendment are good. You are talking about money that is out there, not recoverable. Let's try to direct it where we can get something from it. I had an amendment during the stimulus bill to try to triple

the amount of money that would go into actual construction, and they would not take it up.

Will the Senator yield?

First of all, we made an effort--and the Senator referenced the Vitter amendment. We have 67 percent of the $789 billion that is not obligated. That means it is not there. The Senator is right; in their minds it may be obligated, but it is not obligated. We tried to have an amendment to triple the amount of money that would have gone to roads and highways and bridges back during the consideration, and we couldn't get that in. The Senator was a cosponsor of my amendment. Now we are trying to do the same thing we were unable to do then.

This is supposed to be a stimulus bill. The total amount of stimulus in this bill, in my opinion, is about 7\1/2\ percent. This is an opportunity to do something with real jobs and not have any problem in increasing our debt or deficit.

So I appreciate the fact that my colleague is coming down, and several Senators will be coming down, and drawing this to the attention of the American people as well as to our friends on the other side. There is our opportunity to save lives, to do infrastructure--one of the major reasons we are here in this Chamber today.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that Senator Sessions

is going to get one more amendment in, and then we will start the voting; is that correct?

We are ready to vote as soon as the Senator brings it up.

Amendment No. 2223

That sounds good.

Madam President, this is a very significant vote. I am very upset that we have a lot of things in here I didn't want--the unemployment insurance loans, the Federal Housing Administration loan limit increase. That should not be there. The amendments failed. I wish they had passed. I voted for them.

The thing that bothers me more than anything else is the House put us in this position. They said: Here is the bill; you do it; we are leaving town. That is exactly what happened.

So this is the final vote. We have to have 60 votes. For all practical purposes, this is the final vote. I urge my Republican friends to support waiver of the point of order.

Madam President, I have worked with the chairmen of the Environment and Public Works, Banking, Commerce and Finance Committees over the last month to put a bill together to address two urgent issues facing the Nation's highway program. First, the highway trust fund is going to run out of money sometime in the next few weeks and will require an infusion of $5 to $7 billion to get us through the rest of fiscal year 2009. Second, SAFETEA the 2005 highway bill, is set to expire in 9 weeks. With no realistic chance of Congress passing a fully funded reauthorization before the program expires, it is essential to provide funding certainty with a longer term extension. States cannot afford to move forward with transportation development activities without confidence in long-term and consistent future Federal reimbursements.

Unfortunately, the House chose not to address both issues, but rather just provide the money necessary to ensure that the highway trust fund does not go broke over the August recess. Their decision has put the Senate in a situation of taking or leaving their bill. I do not like it and frankly think the responsible thing would have been to take up the Senate bill, which would have provided for an 18-month extension of the existing program. The House has been short sighted in forcing the Senate to only address the trust fund fix; with so many other important issues facing Congress, the Senate now must return in 30 days to do this all over again before the program expires at the end of September. I also did not like the added provisions of the loans to unemployment insurance fund or the increase in the Federal Housing Administration cap on loans they can authorize under the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Program. Finally, I thought all the amendments offered by my Republican colleagues were improvements to the bill, but unfortunately, none of them were adopted. Nonetheless, I supported final passage and most importantly voted to waive the point of order that was raised because we cannot afford to allow the highway trust fund to become insolvent. While the bill we adopted today only addresses the immediate trust fund shortfall I look forward to taking care of the extension of the program when we return in September along with the fix of the $8.7 billion rescission as proposed by Senator Bond's amendment. Given the fiscal pressures on states and the current economic downturn, I agree with the administration that this uncertainty would be devastating to States and would translate into job losses, and so we need to provide certainty until we are able to pass a comprehensive bill.

I am hopeful that as soon as we return from August recess that we will immediately consider the extension legislation introduced earlier this week by all the relevant committees.

Mr. President, first, let me say I agree with the points of my friend from Arizona. They are significant. He saved the best until last, because we hear people say the Republican Party doesn't have any answers, when we do have answers. There are real reforms we have tried, and they have worked. The health savings accounts--we tried that on a pilot project basis, and it was tremendously successful.

Health coverage and health services are the only things in this country on which individual decisions can be made that would encourage us to save what we are spending. There is no other product or service out there that doesn't have some kind of a competition.

I think it is only natural, if you have an insurance policy that covers all these things and you find out you have a problem, rather than worry about what it is going to cost or what treatment to get, you go out and get it all because it doesn't cost you anything. That is one of the problems you have. Health savings accounts have been successful. In fact, we have none of this stuff.

In the discussion they have had on socializing medicine, they have not talked about medical liability or malpractice. The Senator from Arizona did a very good job talking about this issue. Just imagine, a doctor has to pay $200,000 upfront before he can do anything for an entire year. Who pays that? It is not the doctor; it is everybody else whom he is treating. That is where you get into the real need for reform.

We have a system that has worked very well.

By the way, I inquire of the Chair, are we in morning business?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for such time as I shall consume.

Mr. President, I have three subjects I think we need to talk about during the August recess. I want to touch on each one.

The Senator from Arizona has already touched on the health care issue that is out there. I don't think Arizona and Virginia are all that different from my State of Oklahoma. That is all people talk about when I go back. They want to know: Am I really going to have a government bureaucrat standing between me and my health provider? So those are huge issues. I never thought we would be dealing with that in this country, but we are.

What I want to pursue is, I get very upset when I hear people on the other side of the aisle say we have to do something to stop our dependency on the Middle East for our ability to run this machine called America. Here are a couple. Many people don't want to drill, don't want oil, gas, nuclear, or coal--they don't want all these things. If you don't want them, how do you keep the machine going? The answer is that you cannot. The day will come when maybe wind energy or solar energy or renewables will take care of our needs, but that is down the road. That will be 30, 40, 50 years from now. In the meantime, we have to produce the energy to run this machine called America.

One of the things is a little bit technical, but I think that since it is looming out there, it needs to be talked about. Of course, I am sensitive to this issue, being from Oklahoma, which is an oil State; we produce oil. I have looked at one of our systems that is used to get the most oil and gas out of oil.

At this point, I will yield to the Republican leader, and then I will continue my remarks.

Mr. President, first, I thank the minority leader for his comments. I said before he came in that there is no issue more meaningful to our people in Oklahoma than health care. I think there is an awareness. If you look at the polling data that was given by the Senator from Arizona, people are now aware this is not the way we should go.

We do have good ideas on this side of the aisle in terms of the health savings account, medical malpractice, and small businesses getting together to resolve this problem.

Mr. President, a surprise to a lot of people as to what we can do in the oil and gas business when we are concerned right now about the problem we have--our dependence on foreign countries for the ability to run this machine called America--is that we actually could resolve that problem. We could produce enough oil and gas and all the other resources I mentioned earlier so we would not have to be dependent on the Middle East for anything.

Increasing attention has been given to hydraulic fracturing, a key production method which aided in U.S. production of oil and gas from more than 1 million wells and continues to aid in the production from over 35,000 wells a year.

Hydraulic fracturing is a system that forces water into the ground to release oil and gas coming up. In fact, there are two things that open our potential. One is horizontal drilling and the other is hydraulic fracturing. It is a 60-year old technique. It has been responsible for 7 billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The National Petroleum Council reports that 60 to 80 percent of all wells in the next 10 years--most of these are gas wells--will require hydraulic fracturing to remain productive and profitable.

The first use of hydraulic fracturing was near Duncan, OK, in my State, way back in 1949. Since that time, companies such as Oklahoma's Devon and Chesapeake have perfected the practice. Very simply, it is the temporary injection of mostly water with sand, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other additives to fracture and prop open a ground formation to improve the flow of oil and gas through the rock pores and increase oil and gas production. Mr. President, 95 percent of the fluid is water; 99 percent is water and sand. We are talking about putting in the water and sand that would already be there. Hydraulic fracturing is used for both oil and gas production, but I would like to focus mostly on natural gas.

I have kind of good news and bad news. First, let me tell you the good news.

The Potential Gas Committee at the Colorado School of Mines reported in June that the United States has--it is kind of hard to talk about figures such as this--1,836 trillion cubic feet, or 1.8 quadrillion cubic feet, of technically recoverable natural gas. This is the highest reserve total ever reported by this organization in the last 44 years.

When the U.S. Department of Energy proven reserves are added to the total, the future natural gas supply of the United States is over 2,000 trillion cubic feet. At today's rate of use, that is enough natural gas to meet demand for the next 100 years. Only 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can heat 15 million homes for a year or fuel 12 million natural-gas-powered vehicles for a year.

T. Boone Pickens is often quoted in this Chamber. He characterizes the reserves this way: 2 quadrillion cubic feet of gas is equivalent to Saudi Arabia's total petroleum reserves.

I guess what we are saying is people are complaining we are importing from the Middle East oil and gas, and then they find we have it all right here. We don't have to do it. If the argument is, we don't want to use oil and gas which we think pollutes--which it does not--if that is their argument, then why are we willing to import it from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East? We can produce it right here in the United States.

Much of the increase noted in the news report comes from estimates of shale gas found in formations throughout the United States. In fact, shale gas accounts for one-third of America's total gas reserves. Again, we are talking about natural gas, which is very low in fossil fuels, burns very cleanly, very inexpensively, and certainly, as we can see by this chart, is very abundant.

The U.S. Department of Energy reports that by 2011, most new reserves growth will come from nonconventional shale gas reservoirs. The American Petroleum Institute forecasts that unconventional gas production, such as that from coalbed methane, or CBM, and shale will increase from 42 percent of total U.S. gas production to 64 percent in 2020. However, shale resources are largely only economically and technologically available due to hydraulic fracturing, that technique of forcing the gas out of the ground.

The good news does not only involve oil and gas reserves, it also means good news for jobs. For example, the 10,000 wells producing in 14 counties in north Texas, Barnett shale--Barnett shale is the type of shale that is characteristic in the northern part of Texas--in 14 counties, they are responsible for 110,000 jobs and $4.5 billion in royalty payments. That is the people who own the land. That is a property rights issue. They account for 8 percent of the personal income, 9 percent of employment, and over $10 billion in increased economic activity in north Texas.

The Haynesville shale in Louisiana has created 33,000 jobs, $2.4 billion in business sales, $3.9 billion in salaries, and $3.2 billion in royalty payments. This is the economy we are talking about. We are talking about two separate issues: one is making us independent, the other is doing something for the economy.

People look at these things and say: Why in the world will the Democrats in this Chamber not allow us to drill offshore, won't allow us to get into shale production in the Western United States, and yet they complain about the fact we are importing our oil and gas from the Middle East?

The IPAA reports that the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and New York contains 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which is enough to satisfy the U.S. demand for more than 35 years--in two States, Pennsylvania and New York, enough to satisfy our needs for the next 35 years.

A 2008 report on the Marcellus shale attributes production in the Marcellus to two key methods. One is hydraulic fracturing, again, the system used to make sure we are able to retrieve, to produce this shale. Oil and gas development employs more than 26,000 and continued development in the Marcellus shale is forecasted to create over 100,000 jobs. These jobs pay more than $20,000 above the average annual salary in Pennsylvania. We have New York and Pennsylvania, two States--they do have economic problems. This is a way to produce 100,000 jobs, and those jobs average $20,000 a year more than the average job in Pennsylvania and New York.

The Walton School of Business at the University of Arkansas recently completed an economic forecast of the Fayetteville shale. It estimates a business and capital investment in the area of $22 billion, the creation of 11,000 jobs, and new State revenues of more $2 billion by 2012.

We are talking about just in the State of Arkansas. In my State of

Oklahoma, we have the Woodford shale, which is pictured here and extends through southwest Oklahoma.

In Oklahoma, exploration of natural gas accounts for 80 percent of the State's energy production and over 50,000 people are directly employed by the oil and gas industry. One in seven jobs in Oklahoma is directly or indirectly supported by the crude oil and natural gas industry because we rank fourth in the Nation for natural gas production and fifth in crude oil.

Oklahoma received $1.3 billion in taxes directly from oil and gas production in 2009. In fact, oil and gas account for 25 percent of all taxes paid in my State of Oklahoma.

These reserves mean domestic energy production and jobs, but now I have bad news. Another reason hydraulic fracturing has received increasing attention is because some Members of Congress want to subject it to new Federal regulation, specifically the Safe Drinking Water Act, by claiming the practice endangers drinking water sources. This Congress, House Members from Colorado and New York and Senate Members from Pennsylvania and New York have introduced legislation imposing new Federal regulation. Some of these Members claim that allowing the practice is a loophole in the Federal law and that it is free of regulation.

Last Congress, at a House hearing, the current chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee complained about hydraulic fracturing:

Oil and gas companies can pump hundreds of thousands of

gallons of fluid--containing any number of toxic chemicals--

into sources of drinking water with little or no

accountability.

This is completely false. Nothing could be further from the truth. As former chairman and the current ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I have a history of working on environmental and energy issues. I can tell you new Federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing would be a disaster.

The Safe Drinking Water Act was enacted in 1974. It was enacted to establish drinking water standards and to control permanent disposal of waste by underground injection. By 1974, hydraulic fracturing had been in commercial operation for 25 years. This law was not designed nor intended to regulate the practice, and the legislative history demonstrates that. The 1974 conference report states that none of the act's underground injection provisions are to ``needlessly interfere with oil and gas production.'' That was in the law in 1974.

The 1980 amendments were probably the most significant until 2005 for clarifying the act's application to oil and gas operations. The 1980 amendments created a new section 1425 to allow States to regulate underground injection from two types of oil and gas operations known as injection wells and disposal wells. However, given the chance to additionally address hydraulic fracturing, Congress declined. In the 2005 Energy bill, Congress specifically clarified the act is not intended to apply to hydraulic fracturing.

Everything all the way up from 1950, all the way up to the present time was saying the act was not intended to apply to hydraulic fracturing. There are a myriad of Federal statutes, such as the Federal workplace rules, the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, among others, which regulate the storage and disposal, transporting, handling, and reporting of chemical use. Federal law requires disclosure of any release to the environment. Those statutes overlay State laws which also include extensive rules permitting oil and gas drilling and production. No state has been required to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act with the exception of Alabama.

The Eleventh Circuit Court in Alabama issued an opinion in 1997 ignoring legislative history, oil and gas industry practices, and the clear text of the law, finding that Alabama should subject hydraulic fracturing in coalbed methane production to the Safe Drinking Water Act. However, hydraulic fracturing has not been subject to the Safe Drinking Water Act and is not correctly governed by the act.

I am not alone in this opinion. President Obama's energy czar agrees with me. In 1995, as EPA Administrator--during the Clinton administration--Carol Browner wrote in response to litigation that Federal regulation is not necessary for hydraulic fracturing. She correctly made the point that the practice was closely regulated by the States and ``EPA is not legally required to regulate hydraulic fracturing.'' Most importantly, she further wrote that there was no evidence that hydraulic fracturing at issue resulted in any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water. Now, this is Carol Browner. That is the current energy czar serving in the White House.

Following the 1997 litigation in Alabama, I introduced legislation in 1999 with Senator Sessions and again in 2005 clarifying that hydraulic fracturing is not correctly regulated by this act. In March of 2002, the Senate spoke on this issue voting 78 to 21 on Senator Bingaman's amendment, which I cosponsored, to study ``the known and potential effects on underground drinking sources of hydraulic fracturing.'' That amendment ultimately did not become law, but in June of 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave us the answer. It issued its lengthy report, which EPA began in late 2000 to determine if underground drinking water sources have been or are endangered from the use of hydraulic fracturing from coalbed methane production. The EPA study of coalbed methane wells is particularly important because the CBM wells are shallower, meaning they would be closer to the underground drinking water sources than other conventional or unconventional oil and gas well production.

In other words, the other production is down much deeper than that which uses the technique of hydraulic fracturing. These are deep wells. In fact, most ``fracked'' wells--that is what they are called--are hundreds of thousands of feet deep and well below drinking water sources. In this 2004 report, EPA conducted a review of all 11 major coal basins across the country and of 200 peer-reviewed publications. It reviewed 105 comments in the Federal Register. It requested information from 500 local and county agencies in States where CBM production occurs. It interviewed 50 local and State government agencies, industry representatives, and 40 citizens groups which alleged drinking water contamination from hydraulic fracturing. After completing its 4-year study--a 4-year study--the EPA concluded:

The injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into CBM wells

poses little or no threat to underground sources of drinking

water and does not justify additional study at this time.

EPA had planned to study contamination in a two-phase study. Following these findings, the EPA did not even initiate the second phase of the study. In fact, it was so strong that they didn't even do the next study.

This is a very strong statement. In fact, in hydraulic fracturing's 60-year history there has not been a single documented case of any kind of contamination. Mr. President, that is 60 years. As early as 1998, the Ground Water Protection Council conducted the first survey of the 25 States in which hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas production occurs for any complaints of underground contamination. The survey reported no instance of contamination from the practice. In 2002, the IOGCC, representing 37 States, conducted its own survey making the same findings. On June 12, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission addressed the issue of hydraulic fracturing again in correspondence with these 37 States. The Corporation Commission wrote that it has been regulating oil and gas drilling and production for 90 years, which has included tens of thousands of hydraulic fracturing operations over the past 60 years. The commission wrote:

You asked whether there has been a verified instance of

harm to groundwater in our state from the practice of

hydraulic fracturing. The answer is no.

States have been regulating oil and gas exploration and production for years. The Department of Energy and Ground Water Protection Council released a report in May titled ``State Oil and Natural Gas Regulations Designed to Protect Water Resources,'' where it described State regulations which require multiple barriers, casings, and

cement reinforcement to protect against groundwater contamination. Fracturing involves removing thousands of gallons of waters from the well which includes the fracturing fluids. Once these fluids are returned to the surface, regulations require they are treated, stored, and isolated from groundwater zones. All these processes together work to significantly reduce the risk to groundwater.

This DOE and Ground Water Protection Council report ultimately concluded that Federal regulations on fracturing would be ``costly, duplicative of State regulations, and ultimately ineffective because such regulations would be far removed from field operations.'' Equally interesting, the report also concluded--and keep in mind this is the report of the Department of Energy and the Ground Water Protection Council--the ``only alternative to fracturing in reservoirs with low permeability such as shale would be to simply have to drill more wells.'' In other words, if we are not able to get these wells to produce a lot of shale, we would have to drill a lot of wells in their place.

These findings mirror the EPA's 2004 report of hydraulic fracturing in CBM production. EPA noted that fracturing involves the removal of thousands of gallons of ground water. This removal includes the fracturing fluids and the possibility that fracturing chemicals affect ground water. EPA also concluded that the low permeability of rock where hydraulic fracturing is used acts as a barrier to any remnant of fracturing chemicals moving out of the rock formations, as has been proven.

None of these findings are new. In the 1980 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, Congress acknowledged that ``32 States that regulate underground injection related to production of oil and gas believe they have programs already in place to meet the requirements of this Act. States should be able to continue these programs unencumbered with additional Federal requirements.''

We need to recognize that in considering additional Federal regulation we are experimenting with disaster. In January, the DOE released a report by Advanced Resources International, which evaluated the economic and energy supply effects on oil and gas exploration and production under a series of new regulatory scenarios. One scenario evaluated the effects from new Federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing. According to the report, the largest cost for new unconventional gas wells would be from any new Federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing. The report concluded these costs would amount to an additional $100,000 for each well in the first year alone.

Among other factors, this report concludes that increasing Federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing would reduce unconventional gas production by 50 percent over the next 25 years. Even more recently, the American Petroleum Institute released a report in June which only evaluated the effect of increased Federal regulations and the effect of eliminating the practice of hydraulic fracturing altogether. The report determined that through duplicative Federal regulations, the number of new oil and natural gas wells drilled would drop by 20 percent in the next 5 years.

Should hydraulic fracturing be eliminated, new oil and gas wells would drop by 79 percent resulting in 45 percent less domestic natural gas production and 17 percent less domestic oil production.

It would be a disaster to impose new Federal regulations. They are talking about doing that now. They talked about it a few years ago. Every report has discouraged that from happening. Again, I am not alone in this opinion. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter recognizes the value of the practice. In the Denver Business Journal, the Governor characterized the bills pending in Congress imposing new Federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing as ``a new and potentially intrusive regulatory program.'' That was Governor Bill Ritter. A Colorado newspaper recently reported a number of Colorado counties have adopted resolutions against the pending Federal bills. States are passing their own resolutions opposing new Federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing.

For example, in March the North Dakota Legislature passed a concurrent resolution--I say to the Senator from North Dakota--to not subject hydraulic fracturing to needless and new Federal regulation. North Dakota is home to the Bakken shale, where oil wells are reported to be producing thousands of barrels a day.

America has tremendous natural gas reserves. The exploration and production of these reserves using hydraulic fracturing has been regulated by the States and conducted safely for 60 years. The oil and gas industry contributes billions in State and Federal revenues each year and billions in salaries and royalty payments. The oil and gas industry employs 6 million people in the United States. When the United States is approaching 10 percent unemployment, and when we want energy security and independence from foreign energy, why would we want to go out of our way to restrict an environmentally and economically sound means to extract our own resources--a means that has demonstrated effectiveness and safety for 60 years?

The oil potential in ANWR would produce 10 billion barrels or 15 years' worth of imports from Saudi Arabia. The RAND Corporation has reported that the new potential production in just Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming would be around 1 trillion barrels of oil. That is three times Saudi Arabia's oil reserves and more oil than we are currently importing from the entire Middle East. But the Democrats will not let us produce. We are currently the only country in the world that doesn't develop its own resources. In fact, the President's budget imposes $31 billion in new taxes on oil and gas development. We must not impose any new----

I will finish this last sentence, if it is all right.

We must not impose new burdens. This is a procedure that is necessary for us to put ourselves in a situation where we can become energy independent, and I encourage all my colleagues to look very carefully at the one thing that is going to give us that independence, and that is this procedure called hydraulic fracturing.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I want to spend a little time on a bill that has to do with one of the three major interests we are going to have during the recess. One of the issues is one I feel very strongly about; that is, what is happening right now at Guantanamo Bay. Some refer to it as Gitmo. I have some very strong feelings about that.

I do not know why our President has this obsession that he is going to turn loose or bring these detainees, these terrorist detainees, back to the United States. If you do that, either to try them or to bring them back here, they become magnets for terrorist activity.

We have detained about 800 al-Qaida and Taliban combatants at Gitmo. We have to understand that a terrorist combatant is someone different than you would normally--we are not talking about criminals here. We are not talking about even people who represent countries. We are talking about terrorist combatants. To date, over 540 have been transferred or released, leaving approximately 230 at Gitmo.

Here is the problem we have. If I were making this talk, as I was, about a month ago, I would say we had about 280 detainees at Gitmo. The problem is, you cannot get rid of them by asking some country to take them because the countries will not do it. You do not want to bring them back to the United States because, as I said, that becomes a magnet.

So our President has been, one by one, trying to bring these back, putting them in our system for trial here in the United States. It is important to understand the rules of evidence are different. If you are in a military tribunal, you can dispose of these people. But you cannot do it--for example, hearsay evidence is not admissible in the courts in the United States. So it would not fit in our Federal system.

President Obama has ordered the Guantanamo facility be closed. He has recently given an extension to that.

In 2007, the Senate voted 94 to 3 on a nonbinding resolution to block detainees from being transferred to the United States. It said: Detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay should not be released into the American society nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods.

Well, that is very specific. In fact, I had the amendment to do that on the Defense authorization bill only last week. Quite frankly, it was blocked by the Democratic majority.

On May 20, 2009, the Senate voted 90 to 6--that was my and Senator Inouye's language; it was a bipartisan amendment--to prohibit funding for the transfer of Gitmo detainees to the United States. We are hitting them two different ways. One is, we are saying you cannot bring them over here. Second, you cannot try them over here. And now, thirdly, we are not going to pay for any relocation of these people.

Unfortunately, the supplemental appropriations conference deleted that provision. That was a provision that passed 90 to 6, authored by me, Inhofe, and Senator Inouye, the senior Senator from Hawaii. But they took it out. So that means it is not there right now for trials. But the law does block funding for permanently transferred detainees from Gitmo to the United States for the 2009 budget year, which ends on September 30.

The House Appropriations Committee will vote this week on language contained in a manager's amendment proposed by Representative Jerry Lewis of California prohibiting the administration from spending any money to move prisoners to U.S. soil. Last Thursday, the Senate Democrats again blocked an attempt to consider an amendment that would have permanently prevented the detainees from being transferred from Gitmo. That was my amendment. It was part of the Defense authorization bill. When President Barack Obama took office, there was one free bed at the supermax prison in Colorado, with a typically long waiting list to move high-security prisoners into supermax.

To understand what this is, the supermax prison is one with the very highest level of security, a place where they might argue that you could put a terrorist there and that terrorist, regardless of how serious he was, is one who would be secure. The problem they are overlooking is, if they are located in the United States, they become a magnet for terrorism.

I know President Obama, at one time, was proposing some 17 sites in America where we could put these Gitmo detainees. One of those happened to be in Fort Sill, in my State of Oklahoma. I went down to Fort Sill to look at our prison facility down there. There is a master sergeant-- no, I am sorry, Sergeant Major Carter was her name. She was in charge of the prison. That prison was set up as a normal military prison but certainly not suitable for detainees, not suitable for terrorists. It happens that Sergeant Major Carter--you can call her and ask her about this. She had two tours at Gitmo, and she said: Why in the world are you guys in Washington and this President trying to close Gitmo? It is an asset we need. It is a place where they can be secure. It is a place where they have treated them humanely over the years. Well, anyway, so when you look at what we have here, there are no places that are appropriate.

Assistant Attorney General David Kris testified at the same hearing of the House Armed Services Committee that both civilian and federal jails and military prisons are being considered for potential future incarceration for prisoners facing criminal prosecution, military tribunals or long-term detention without trial, more than 50 have been cleared for release, and an administration task force is sorting through the remaining 229 prisoners to determine their fate. What we are saying is we have already picked the low-hanging fruit. We have already taken care of the problem of those individuals who either a country won't take back or you can find someplace to put them. But the remainder are the real tough guys, the bad guys whom we don't want in our society. Government lawyers in both the Obama and the Bush administrations have said that an unspecified number of detainees should continue to be held without trial, stating that some of the evidence against them will be classified or thin, and the government fears these most dangerous detainees could be released should they be given their day in court; that is, their day in court in the United States.

If you look at the facility they have down there, it is made for this type of detainee. It is one that will allow the security of evidence so it doesn't threaten other people, and it is something that cannot take place in this country.

Johnson also said the Obama administration has not yet determined where it will hold newly captured al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners for extended detention after the Guantanamo Bay prison closes, if it should close. Of course, my effort is to keep it open. So far the only Guantanamo Bay detainee brought to face trial in a U.S. criminal court is Ahmed Ghailani. He is the Tanzanian whom we sent to New York and faces charges in conjunction with the two bombings. We remember the two bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Federal prosecutors said last Friday they no longer plan to hold Mohammed Jawad, who threw a grenade at a U.S. convoy in 2002, as a wartime prisoner, a signal that the Obama administration intends to bring him to the United States before a criminal court.

Last week, Democratic Members in the House and the Senate said Michigan prisons set to close because of the State budget crunch could take the high-profile prisoners from Gitmo, creating jobs lost in the auto industry.

Let's stop and think that one through. These are elected representatives from the State of Michigan, the two Senators and Representative Stupak, who are suggesting that we could put those prisoners, these high-level, high-security terrorist detainees in prisons in Michigan and that would cause them to have to go through there and provide jobs to update the prisons. Let's stop and think that one through. Why not just go ahead and do something with the individuals who are there, leaving them where they are right now, and get into a public works program where at least they could be spending that money on roads and highways.

Let me do this. I have almost given up--in fact, I did give up-- trying to put the language in the Senate Armed Services Committee's Defense authorization bill to preclude the President from putting these individuals into the United States. There is only one vehicle left. That is my Senate bill 370, S. 370. It is a one-page bill. I have 22 cosponsors. It merely says we cannot pay to transfer any of these detainees to the United States, and we are not going to be able to try them here. So it is the final answer to this matter.

Madam President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent that S. 370 be brought up for immediate consideration.

Madam President, I would only respond to my very good friend from North Dakota--in fact, we were recently talking about how in agreement we were on some of these things, the potential we have to explore in the United States. I have talked to the leadership to try to bring this up and have not been able to do it. I guess you get to the point where you are frustrated and you know that two-thirds of the American people want to set something in place to keep these terrorists from coming into the United States. All I ask is to get my bill up. I will be trying to do that in the future.

I wish to ask the manager of the current bill on the floor, the minority manager, if he desires to have the floor for the purpose of the consideration of the bill.

I thank the Senator from North Dakota and I assure him that if someone comes down with an amendment, I will cease and yield to them.

Cap and Trade

In the meantime, there is another subject I wish to speak about. I have been doing this now for 10 years every week.

It is safe to say that at 3:09 a.m., on June 26, most of America was asleep. While they slept, Democratic leaders in the House were creating a nightmare. In the early morning hours, Speaker Pelosi and her deputies were pushing the largest tax increase in American history.

In the dead of night, with no one watching, they engaged in full- scale arm twisting, back-room dealing, and outright pork-barreling to garner support for a massive bill few, if any, had actually read or understood. You have to keep in mind there are about 400 pages of this bill that weren't printed until 3 o'clock in the morning of the morning the bill was voted on.

When America awoke, they found Democrats talking about green jobs and the new clean green energy economy. They spoke of free markets and innovation and energy independence. All of it sounded so appealing. Yet none of it was true. That is because Waxman-Markey is full of regulations, mandates, bureaucracy, and big government programs. Waxman-Markey is, to quote John Dingell, ``a tax, and a great big one'' on small businesses, families, and consumers.

I don't blame the Democrats for selling cap and trade as something it is not. This is a political imperative for them because the American people now know what cap and trade is and they don't like it.

According to independent political analyst Charlie Cook:

Many Democrats getting back to Washington from Independence

Day recess reported getting an earful from their constituents

over the `energy tax hike' . . .

Further, Cook noted--and I am quoting Charlie Cook right now:

The perception is that this is a huge tax increase at a

time when people can ill afford one. Hence, Democrats,

whether they supported the bill or not, are getting battered,

increasing their blood pressure.

Let me say this. This is an issue we are going to be talking about. I have been on the Environment and Public Works Committee since I came to the Senate in 1994. I was the chairman of that committee back when the Kyoto treaty was considered. At that time, as everyone else, I assumed manmade gases, anthropogenic gases, CO2, methane, were causing global warming. Now people are careful to say climate change and not global warming since we are in about the ninth year of a cooling period. But at that time I assumed it was true. That is all everybody talked about. Until the Wharton School did a study and the question was posed: If the United States were to pass and ratify the Kyoto treaty and live by its emissions requirements, how much would it cost? The range was between $300 billion and $330 billion a year. It was at that point that I decided it would be a good time to look at the science behind that and see if, in fact, the science was there.

We are talking about 10 years ago. After looking at it and studying it, we found scientist after scientist who was coming out of the closet and saying this thing was started by the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the reports they give are not reports from scientists; they are reports that are from policymakers. Consequently, on my Web site, the Web site inhofe.senate.gov, I have listed over 700 scientists who were on the other side of this issue and now are on the side saying: Wait a minute. This is something that is not real, and it certainly is not worth the largest tax increase in history.

I remember when Vice President Al Gore was in office, the Clinton- Gore administration, and at that time they decided they wanted to come out with a report, in order to sell the idea of ratifying the Kyoto treaty, that they would come up with a report to say how much good could be done, how much the temperature could be lowered over a 50-year period of time if all developed countries, all developed nations ratified and lived by the emissions requirements, how much would it reduce the temperature. The results--and the man's name was Tom Quigley. Tom Quigley was the foremost scientist at that time. He said it would reduce the temperature over a 50-year period by .07 of 1 degree Celsius in 50 years. That is not even measurable.

I wish to inquire if the Senator from Florida wishes to speak as in morning business or on this bill?

Morning business. Well, I am going to be awhile.

Anyway, what I would suggest doing is going back and looking at what has happened since the Kyoto treaty was considered. In 2005, we had the McCain-Lieberman bill. The McCain-Lieberman bill was very similar to the Kyoto treaty. It was cap and trade. It was very similar to the Warner-Lieberman bill and very similar to what we are looking at today, the cap-and-trade bill, which is the Waxman-Markey bill. They are essentially the same thing; that is, cap and trade, a very sophisticated way to try to regulate greenhouse gases or primarily

A couple minutes.

Madam President, I look at this issue and think about not just the hours and days and months but years we have talked about this. A lot of people have changed their mind and have gone back and forth on it. I think at the time Senator Warner was here, he actually took a couple of positions.

I look at it simply. I have been concerned about the funding and about some of what we need to have. We all had different ideas on the additional F-22s. I look at this and I see that the only current U.S. military aircraft with a new engine source is the F-16. All the rest have single engine sources. It has worked well, and there is no military requirement for the alternate engine.

I have come to the conclusion it would cost over $5 billion to fund the alternate engine and, over the next year, it will cost the program--I have seen estimates from 50 to 80 aircraft, according to the program manager.

Congress has directed three studies on the alternative engine, and we have gone over studies in our Armed Services Committee. Two out of the three studies of the alternate engine stated there would never be any cost savings associated with the competition.

There has never been actual data--only anecdotal--that proves there was ever any cost savings brought about by what someone called the ``great engine war'' on the F-16s.

It seems to me it is a savings without the alternate engine, which will allow us to have more capability, more aircraft.

I strongly support the Lieberman-McCain amendment.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the current pending amendment for the consideration of Inhofe amendment No. 1559.

Madam President, I know almost everything that can be said has been said. Having served on the Armed Services Committee for quite some time and having watched this, what is kind of worrisome to me is that when we started out the F-22 program, the fifth generation fighter program, at that time they were talking about 750. Then the numbers started coming down and approached, I guess, 243. The Air Force officials have repeatedly stated that no fewer than that would be sufficient with a moderate level of risk.

My concern has been the same concern I have when we are talking about ground capability, when we see countries such as China and Russia passing us up in areas. I will not bring up the NLOS cannon right now. But there are many places where our prospective enemies have better equipment than we do. We do know China has their J-12s; and Russia, I believe they are calling theirs the T-50s. We do know those are fifth- generation fighters. It is very disturbing to me that we would consider stopping at this point when this is not going to be adequate to get us out of the medium-risk category.

So I certainly support the effort to maintain those seven. Quite frankly, when Senator Chambliss offered the amendment to expand it by seven, I was thinking we should really be shooting for more, and I think he agreed with that. However, apparently with the exports out there and with the additional seven that were put in, in the committee, that would be enough to keep the line open. So I strongly support the effort to keep those numbers where they are.

I yield the floor.