Floor Statements

Mr. President, I don't think my State of Oklahoma is any different from any other State when you go home and you find out that people are looking at these monstrous expenditures never even dreamed of before in the history of this country. They talk about the auto bailout, $17 billion; the housing bailout--I think probably the worst one was the first one, the bank bailout that gave the authority to unelected bureaucrats to do what they are doing today. We have the economic bailout, the stimulus package. I am here today to say that as bad as all of this is, if you look at the one that is in the budget-- the climate bailout--it is far worse because at least these are one- shot deals, and that would be a permanent tax every year. Over the next few weeks, we will be talking about it.

I spent nearly 10 years on this issue in the capacity of the ranking member and the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. To tell the truth, for a long time I was a one-man truth squad, and now more and more people realize that the science that was supposed to be there really is not there. But that is not the important thing. As I said in the debate against the Boxer bill a year ago, let's go ahead and concede the science, even though it is not there, so that it doesn't take away from the economic arguments.

So, in my view, I think the President did a good thing, including an estimate in his budget as to how much this is going to cost. Now, his estimate was understated, I understand that, but it allows us to have an honest debate about the cost of a program of this magnitude to the American people, not to mention the enormous redistribution of wealth for pet projects and programs under the umbrella of clean energy. In fact, according to a new report by the Center for Public Integrity, the number of lobbyists seeking to influence Federal policy on climate change--that is what we are talking about here--has grown more than 300 percent in 5 years. This represents more than four lobbyists for every Member of Congress, with a slew of new interests from Main Street to Wall Street, clamoring for new taxpayer-funded subsidies.

I don't think anyone questions that in the Senate. Our Halls are inundated with people who want in on this deal. The administration's decision to include cap and trade, and the revenues it generates in the budget, forces my colleagues in the Senate to quit hiding from this issue. They are going to have to talk about it. They can no longer prevent a discussion of what a program of this magnitude is.

The public is finally beginning to pay attention. To put it simply, they are realizing cap and trade is a regressive energy tax that hits the Midwest and the South the hardest, and it hits the poor disproportionately. I don't think anyone now is questioning that because everyone has been talking about it.

While a number of lobbyists and the companies are lining up inside the beltway, Washington businesses and the consumers are coming to realize that cap and trade is designed to deliver

money and power to the Government, and there is nothing in it for the taxpayers or consumers or even for the climate.

Let me further explain at this time that with the recession and economic pain, the administration and the proponents of mandatory global warming controls now need to be honest with the American people. The purpose of these programs is to ration fossil energy by making it more expensive and less appealing to public consumption. It is so regressive in nature. All you have to do is calculate it in any State, including Colorado and Oklahoma. The poor people spend a larger percentage of their money on heating their homes and driving their vehicles--using energy.

If you need proof, the President's own OMB Director, Peter Orszag, is on record making the statement:

The rise in prices for energy and energy-intensive goods

and services would impose a larger burden, relative to

income, on low-income households than on high-income

households.

That is the OMB Director, who also said:

Under a cap and trade program, firms would not ultimately

bear most of the costs of the allowances, but instead would

pass them along to their customers in the form of higher

prices for products such as electricity and gasoline. The

higher prices caused by the cap would lower real inflation-

adjusted wages and real returns on capital, which would be

equivalent to raising marginal tax rates on those sources of

income.

No one questions this. Recently, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal--this month. It said:

Cap and trade, in other words, is a scheme to redistribute

income and wealth--but in a very curious way. It takes from

the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from

Miami, Ohio, and gives to Miami, FL; and takes from an

industrial America that is already struggling and gives to

rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street ``green tech'' investors

who know how to leverage the political class.

Warren Buffet said:

That tax is probably going to be pretty regressive. If you

put a cost of issuing--putting carbon into the atmosphere--in

the utility business, it's going to be borne by customers.

And it's a tax hike like anything else.

Ben Stein had an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he said:

Why add another element of uncertainty to energy

production, especially if the goal of suppressing carbon-

based fuel burning can be accomplished by another means?

Energy companies have enough problems as it is--including

reduced supplies, political risks, and wildly changing prices

of raw materials.

Jim Cramer of CNBC said this:

Obama's budget is pushing an aggressive cap and trade

program that could raise the price of energy for millions of

people.

Detroit would really suffer. The Detroit News said this:

President Barack Obama's proposed cap and trade system on

greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at

the nation's heartland--particularly Michigan. It is a

multibillion dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan

does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.

So we have this awareness that wasn't there until this appeared in the President's budget. I have to say this. Back in the very beginning of this discussion, I was somewhat of a believer that manmade gas, anthropogenic gases, CO2, caused global warming, until we found out what the cost is going to be, and until we looked at the science.

In terms of the costs and how it is going to impact the various States such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Michigan, these States will be impacted harder than most others.

All of these reports reflect the numbers released in the President's proposed budget which estimated that a cap-and-trade program would generate $646 billion in Federal revenues through 2019. Keep in mind, that is a nice way of saying increase taxes by $646 billion. However, we now know that figure is way low.

Nearly 10 years ago--and this was my first discovery--we came this close to ratifying the Kyoto Treaty, which would have mandated all these things they are talking about doing now. That was about 10 years ago. The Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates did an analysis and said: What could it cost if we were to sign Kyoto and live by its provisions? They found it would cost 2.4 million U.S. jobs and reduce GDP by 3.2 percent or about $300 billion a year in taxes.

Well, nearly 10 years later, we have come full circle. According to MIT, an analysis of similar legislation as the President's budget proposal suggests much higher revenues. We have gone through the Kyoto thing and then we had the Lieberman-McCain bill and then the Lieberman- Warner bill. Each time we do this, more people come in and do analyses, and they come to the same conclusion.

Then I looked at one of the more recent ones, the Sanders-Boxer bill, and that bill mandates even less aggressive emissions reduction targets, and that is 80 percent. Now they are talking about 83 percent. It would have cost approximately $366 billion a year. So you have a consistent range from $300 billion to $366 billion. That is what everyone says it is actually going to cost. It is around $350 billion if you round it off.

As bad as all this spending is--it is out of control--still, this is worse because this is something that is every year. To put it into perspective for my colleagues, I point to this chart that shows the largest tax increases in history--we remember these--in the last 50 years. I remember this one, the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. I remember talking about this on the Senate floor--the inheritance tax, the marginal tax rates, the income tax, and the capital gains tax. It was a $32 billion tax increase.

By contrast, look at what we have--a $300 billion increase or 10 times greater than the largest tax increase in the last 50 years. You are going to hear that some of these revenues will fund tax relief to be returned to the people.

For the purposes of this budget proposal, the administration plans to spend $15 billion a year to fund clean energy technologies and allocate $63 billion to $68 billion per year for the making work pay tax credit campaign promise to give back to people who don't pay taxes. We have learned firsthand that, of course, this stuff wasn't true. We learned that in the consideration of the Warner-Lieberman bill, when they made the statement that they were going to give back a lot of this revenue to poor people--it turned out the same thing will be true in the case of this budget--that for each $1 a person gets back, they are paying $8.40. That is how the math works out.

You can try to make people believe they are going to be on the receiving end of this, but when it is over, the cost is $6.7 trillion, and the refund--which wasn't guaranteed; it was legislative intent--was $802 billion. I think we will have plenty of time to talk about this and bring this to the American people.

In his budget, the President wants to recycle $525 billion through the making work pay tax credit that goes to many people who don't pay income taxes. The math is not good, as we noted. It doesn't work. My colleagues may argue that at least this money will be going to a good purpose, for the cause of fighting global warming, having America lead the way. I think many find it very difficult this would happen. I add that, at times, you have to be logical on these things.

Referring to this chart, these are the figures actually used in terms of how it would have an effect if we passed one of these programs. This was based on the Lieberman-Warner bill. If we had passed it in terms of the emissions of CO2 worldwide, you can see it doesn't have an effect. Let's assume that--which is not true but assume--there is global warming, which is not happening, as we are in a cooling period now; global warming is a result of CO2 coming into the atmosphere, and that we want to somehow reduce the emissions of

I thank the Chair. While we are paying these huge taxes, you have to keep in mind that China is not doing that, Mexico isn't doing it, and India isn't doing it. They are laughing at us. I wish there was time to finish. We document what China and Mexico are saying. They are going to be the beneficiary. If we were to limit CO2 in our country, our jobs would have to go elsewhere. There would not be adequate energy.

In conclusion, if you look at how fast this is in terms of what happened so far, for those of us--I am not saying anything disparaging about the President; I like the guy--all of these things that are in yellow are expenditures that are unprecedented in the history of this country. Far worse than that would be if we were to pass a cap-and- trade bailout. It would cost some $6.7 trillion, as opposed to the lower figures. It is something we cannot afford. It is all pain and no climate gain.

Let me briefly go back in history. It is my understanding that the other person who was going to use time is delayed, so we have more time. I mentioned a minute ago that when Republicans were in the majority, I was the chairman of the committee called Environment and Public Works. This committee has jurisdiction over most of the energy issues we deal with.

At that time--way back during the Kyoto consideration, about 10 years ago--most people didn't believe CO2 or anthropogenic gases were causing global warming. We were in a warming period at that time. I have an interesting speech where I take magazines, such as Time, where back in the middle 1970s they were talking about another ice age coming, and we were all going to die. I wish I had it with me now.

About 2 years ago, the same Time magazine had this polar bear standing on the last piece of ice floating around on an icecap, saying that we were all going to die; global warming is coming.

A couple things, I believe, are the motivation for this. One is publications. Probably their two largest issues were those two. They made people walking by the news stands and seeing that ``we are going to die'' think: I better see how much time we have left. It started with the U.N. IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that came out with this idea that somehow greenhouse gases are causing global warming.

When you think about it--and this was in concert with the NAS--they had reports they started giving out, summaries for policyholders. They were not based on science. They talked about how the science is all settled. It was after we realized from the Wharton School how much money this is going to cost taxpayers. After that, we were in a position where we could start analyzing it, and then the scientists started coming out of the woodwork. They were no longer intimidated.

One of the problems we had was that the scientists who were dependent upon various sources of income, either from the Government or from various organizations, such as the Heinz Foundation and Pew Foundation--so long as they said they went along with this scheme that CO2 is causing global warming, they were getting grants. This started changing, and they started telling the truth. We now have accumulated--later today or tomorrow, I will give a talk showing how the science now has grown, where over 700 scientists who were on the other side of this issue are now on the truth side of this issue.

So the science needs to be talked about even right now during the debate. It is probably more significant that we talk about the economics and what it is going to cost people.

I can remember when Claude Allegre, who is probably the most respected scientist in France, a Socialist, was a person who was very strongly on the Al Gore side of this issue and has recently come over and said, in reevaluating, in looking at this issue and in looking at what has happened to the climate, the science is not there.

David Bellamy, a similar scientist in Great Britain, was on the other side of this issue. He has now come over.

Nir Shaviv from Israel, a top scientist who was always on the other side of this issue until about 3 years ago--I don't have the quotes here--came out and said: We are wrong on this issue, the science is not there.

By the way, we have a lot of documentation, and I invite my colleagues to go to my Web site, inhofe.senate.gov. We document what has happened in terms of the science.

This has been a 10-year journey. I sometimes think of Winston Churchill, who said:

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it,

ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

It has taken 10 years for the truth to come out so the American people realize, with all of the scary stuff going on, with Hollywood and the elitists pouring money into campaigns--and I am talking about moveon.org, George Soros, Michael Moore, and all the millions of dollars that went into campaigns. They have influenced a lot of Members of the House and Senate. But the truth is coming out now.

As this issue moves forward, I invite all of us to look at all that has happened. It is hard for people to understand this sometimes until they get to my stage in life. I have 20 kids and grandkids. None of this stuff is going to affect me, but it is going to affect future generations. I look at that and think: How can we allow all this to take place and then pass a tax increase that will do absolutely nothing?

I repeat, those who are believers who have bought into this thing and have seen the science fiction movie ``An Inconvenient Truth''--even if we do that, what good would it do for us to do it unilaterally in the United States, take the jobs and put them in countries that have no additional requirements? It would have a net increase of CO2. That is being logical even for those who are believers that this is a problem.

Yesterday, I pointed out something I thought should be pointed out; that is, the first bailout was the $700 billion bailout. As much as I hate to say it, 74 Senators voted for that bailout. What is bad about that is this gave one person, an unelected bureaucrat, the power over $700 billion to do with as he wished. It is interesting because that was Hank Paulson, the Secretary of Treasury. Now we find the new Secretary of Treasury was in on that deal at the same time. So they put this together. A lot of this stuff was authorized by voting to give someone $700 billion to do with as he wished. Now we are paying for that, and the costs are very great.

I believe, when we look at what is going on right now, there are some scary things over and above what I have been talking about. I had occasion to make several trips to Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay. That is an asset we have had in this country since 1903. In fact, it is one of the few good deals around. We are still paying the same rent now that we paid back then. It is $4,000 a year, and we get this great big resource. It is a place to put the detainees and to go through the tribunals in a courtroom that is over there.

One of the scary things I am looking at now is a statement by President Obama that he wants to do away with the tribunals and he wants to close Gitmo or Guantanamo Bay. Here is the problem we have with that. Right now, we have 245 detainees--some call them terrorists--who are incarcerated there. Of the 245, 170 of them have no place to go. Their countries will not take them back. They cannot be repatriated anywhere. Of the 170, 110 are really like the Shaikh Mohammed-type individuals--really bad terrorists. If the President goes through with his statement that he is going to close Guantanamo Bay, there is no place else to put them, no place in the world.

This number is going to increase as we escalate in Afghanistan. It is going to be going up. Some might say: There are prisons in Afghanistan. Yes, there are two, but they will only take detainees who are Afghans. So if they are from Djibouti, Yemen, or Saudi Arabia, then they have to go someplace else. The only place we can put them right now is Guantanamo Bay.

The argument some make is there has been torture going on. That has been completely refuted. In fact, every publication, every television station, every newspaper that has gone and inspected the premises at Guantanamo Bay has come back with a report that it is better than anything in our prison system in the United States.

One of the suggestions was that we take these people and send them around to some 17 areas within the United States. One of those areas suggested is in my State of Oklahoma, which is Fort Sill. I went down to Fort Sill the other day to look at the place, trying to picture if we had a bunch of terrorist detainees there.

By the way, this will serve throughout the country as 17 magnets to bring in terrorist activity. Most people agree that would be the case.

If we were to distribute these people around, they would have to be coming into our court system since we could not use tribunals, and the rules of evidence are different in a court system.

It could be that some of these people would actually be turned loose.

It is very serious. It is something we need to keep. Every publication, every newspaper or television station that has gone to Guantanamo Bay has come back and said all these things just are not true, we need to keep Gitmo, and it has changed a lot of minds. I am hoping that is one area where we will be able to demonstrate clearly that it is a resource we must have and the world needs very much. We will be working to that cause.

Another issue that is not talked about very much in the budget is that almost everything is increased. We look at the size of the budget. We look at the deficits. The deficit for the year we are in right now could approach $2 trillion. It is just unimaginable. People criticized George W. Bush during his tenure, but if you take all the deficits for those 8 years, add them up, and divide by eight, it averaged $245 billion a year. Now we are talking about eight times that in 1 year. These amounts are horrible.

The other aspect of the budget I don't like is everything is going up, an increase in spending, except military. We have a serious problem right now that we are facing in the military; that is, during the decade of the nineties, we downgraded our military by about 40 percent. I might add that some countries that could be potential adversaries, such as China, increased tenfold during that time. We reduced. There was this euphoric attitude that the Cold War is over, we don't need a military anymore. So in the nineties, they brought down the military in terms of our force strength, in terms of our modernization program.

There were a few heroes back at that time who helped us out. One was a GEN John Jumper, before he became the Chief of the Air Force. He made a statement in 1998. He said: Now we are in a position where our best strike fighters, our best strike equipment, the F-15 and F-16, are not as good in many ways as what the Russians are making right now in the SU series. At that time, it was SU-30s, now SU-35s. We went ahead. That helped us get into the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter so we would again regain our superiority.

When I talk with people and tell them that when our kids go out in potential conflicts, they would be fighting people who have better equipment than we do, it is un-American, it is not believable. Right now, the best artillery piece we have is called a Paladin. It is World War II technology. You have to get out and swab the breech after every shot. Yet there are five countries, including South Africa, that make a better one than we have.

Because we lifted that awareness, we were able to step into an area of what we call Future Combat Systems, FCS, to modernize our ground equipment and other equipment they will use. There are 16 elements of the Future Combat Systems. The first is NLOS-C, non-line-of-site cannon. This would replace the Paladin, so we will have something that is state of the art. But we are not there and will not be there for several more years.

We went through the decade of the nineties downgrading our military, and then, of course, when 9/11 came, all of a sudden we were in a war. I have to be sympathetic with former President George W. Bush because he inherited a military that had been taken down, and then all of a sudden he is confronted with one or two wars or fronts he had to fight. So it has been very difficult.

It is interesting to me that many of the liberal Members of the Senate during the years we were trying to enhance our military spending are the ones who objected to that and then complained about the overworking of our Guard and Reserve. They actually are responsible for that. Yes, we are now trying to do something about it. But in this budget, we increase spending everywhere except the military. That is an area where we are going to have to be doing something.

I encourage us to look at the overall budget, not just the tax increases but also how it affects other programs, such as our military.

I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, a lot of my colleagues have come down and talked about the outrage at the excessive bonuses for AIG executives after, then, the $180 billion bailout. I think we should be mad at a lot of people, I guess, right now--certainly the executives who were the ones who ran what was once a great company into the ground. But that is not where the blame ends. It is not where the buck stops. I know I will upset some of my colleagues when I remind them and the American people that much of the blame should be directed right here in this Chamber to Members of this body, the Senate, and to the other side of the Capitol, because that is where it all started in October.

It was October 10 when 75 percent of the Senators voted to give an unprecedented amount of money to an unelected bureaucrat to do with as he wished. This happened to be $700 billion, the largest amount ever authorized, if you could use that word, in the history of the world. So 75 percent of the Senators in this Chamber said to both Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner--let's keep in mind he was in on this deal, too--when voting in favor of the massive bailout, to go ahead and take the $700 billion and do anything with it you want.

How can they support giving money to a bureaucrat to ``do anything you want''? There was nothing there. He gave a promise. He said it was to go buy damaged assets, but he didn't do that. Instead, that money went to banks and I don't know that there are any positive results in the way of credit as a result of that effort.

When it comes to AIG, outrage doesn't even come close. I have said from a long time, from the outset, in fact, that the Federal Government needs an exit strategy for its entanglement in the financial system. The revelation that AIG is trying to give hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses at the same time it is the recipient of the largest government bailout in history shows why. How can you give out bonuses when the taxpayer has to rescue you from sudden failure? What are these bonuses for exactly?

I understand bonuses should be a reward for a job well done. It is pretty clear when they are getting bailed out by the taxpayers it was not a job well done. What could possibly justify the bonuses? I normally would not support having the government try to micromanage pay packages in any industry, but these are not normal times. AIG has received almost $180 billion in U.S. taxpayers' bailouts. The U.S. Government owns 80 percent of the company. How the executives at AIG do not get the fact that these are not normal times is absolutely mind boggling.

I have been saying for a long time we need a change of course in our approach to the financial bailouts. President Obama's Treasury Secretary came out over a month ago, February 11, and he said he had a plan for changing course. We have been waiting since February 11 for that plan. Nobody has it. We do not have any idea if anybody has a plan out there, but certainly we have not heard anything from Tim Geithner.

I don't know how people at AIG, giving out or receiving a bonus right now, can look themselves in the mirror, but my colleagues and I in Congress can look you in the eye right now and say if we do not see action on this and action on it soon from the administration, you can be sure we will do all we can to right this wrong to get these bonuses back.

There are several people working on how, mechanically, that would work. But above all, we need the people to demand a change in course when it comes to a financial rescue approach.

I hesitate saying this but--and I hope this will never happen again-- at the time, October 10, when a decision was made to influence 75 percent of the Senators in this Chamber to give $700 billion to an unelected bureaucrat to do with as he wished and then we turned around and complained about what he did with it was not reasonable. I hope this never happens again.

With that, I believe there are some things in the works now that are going to change this situation. I hope we can be successful. It is unconscionable what has happened.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?

It happens that I have been down there inspecting, maybe more than any other Member. The first time was right after 9/11; the last time was a couple of weeks ago.

One of the interesting things is, if you talk to anyone who has been there and served there, you find this is above the standards of any of our Federal prisons. At the current time, the population down there is 245, of which 170 cannot be repatriated; their countries would not take them back.

Out of the 170, 110 are the real hardened ones. When the Senator from Utah talks about they would put them in 15 prisons, they identified my State of Oklahoma, Forest Hill. I went there to see the facility only to find it would not work. But the sergeant major in charge of that facility served a year at Guantanamo Bay and said that of all the prisons she has been in, or worked in, that is the one that has the most humane treatment and is best suited for this kind of detainee. I agree with the Senator and ask if he has given thought as to where these 15 prisons are as alternatives and would they not become magnets for terrorist activity in the United States?

I ask the Senator from Utah, if you stop and think, can you think of a better deal that America has had? We have had that facility since 1903, and the rent is still the same, $4,000 a year. Can you find a better deal than that anywhere in Government?

Mr. President, I inquire of the Chair, I was scheduled to speak after the Senator from Ohio. I understand he is not ready to speak yet and that it is permissible if I take some time now.

First of all, before I get into what I want to talk about, I have been listening to the Senator from Utah. I find it to be very interesting because his subject matter is also a mission of mine. I think a lot of people have not realized the problem we have with the bum raps given to Guantanamo Bay, and almost all of them are by people who have not been there. To my knowledge, almost without exception, those people who have gone down there--newspapers and publications making accusations of torture and human rights violations--once they go there and see it, you never hear from them again, and that includes Al- Jazeera and some of the Middle Eastern publications. I believe we have a problem with people who have somehow brought forth this idea that there have been abuses that haven't taken place. I think probably the most important part of the argument is that there is not another Guantanamo Bay; there is no place you can put these detainees.

As I said in my question to the Senator from Utah, what are we going to do with these some 245 detainees if they are not there? Also, with the escalation of activity in Afghanistan, what will we do with those detainees whom we will capture? The problem is, some people say they will be put in prisons in Afghanistan. There are two prisons there; however, they have said they will only take Afghans. If the terrorist who is caught is from Djibouti or Yemen or Saudi Arabia, there is no place else to put them other than Guantanamo Bay. It is a resource we need to have. We don't have a choice.

I believe our President was responding to a lot of activists who were upset because during his inaugural address he didn't say anything about this, so they are making demands that he stop any kind of legal activity that is going on in the way of trials or tribunals and then close it in 12 months. You cannot do that until you determine how you are going to take care of the detainees who are currently there and those who will be there.

I feel strongly we are going to have to look out after the interests of the United States. Nothing could be worse than to take 15 to 17 installations within the continental United States and put terrorists there, only to serve as magnets for terrorist activity.

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

Mr. President, some things have happened recently regarding one of my favorite subjects, and that is global warming. Way back in the beginning of this issue--to give you a background, since the occupant of the chair wasn't here at that time--the Republicans were the majority, and I was chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We were within inches of ratifying the Kyoto Treaty.

Similar to everybody else, I assumed that manmade gases were causing global warming. Everybody said they did. The Wharton School of Economics came out with the Wharton Econometric Survey. They said it would cost--if we were to sign the Kyoto Treaty and live by the emissions requirements--between $300 billion and $330 billion a year. That was the range. That would be the result. It is something I looked at.

We started looking at the science, only to find out there is a lot of intimidation in the scientific community and most of this was originally brought by the United Nations. I have been one of the critics of the U.N. and a lot of things they do and don't do. If you will recall, when this first started, it was the U.N. IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that came up with the idea that manmade gases--CO2, methane--were the cause of the global warming.

Now, since that has been proven not to be true, and we are now in a cooling spell, they are trying to change the term to ``climate change.'' We are not going to let them do that. It has always been ``global warming.'' We looked at the science. We had bills coming up on the floor that would have addressed this. One was in 2005. At that time, I was kind of alone on the floor for 5 days, 10 hours a day, to try to explain why we could not impose the largest tax increase in history on the American people. So in looking at the cost of this thing, we started hearing

from a lot of scientists who had been intimidated but were now wanting to come out of the closet and tell the truth about their real feelings.

The reason I wished to come here today is because there is a Gallup Poll that came out yesterday. I wish to share that with you and with this body. A record high of 41 percent of Americans now say global warming is exaggerated. This is the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting in more than a decade, according to the March 11, 2009 Gallup Poll survey. I use that poll because Gallup and the Pew organization have never been sympathetic to my view. Yet their poll was announced.

We should never underestimate the intelligence of the American people. Sadly, that is exactly what the promoters of manmade climate fears have consistently been doing. Keep in mind, the issue we are talking about is not whether there is global warming. We went through a period of global warming that ended 7 years ago. Now we clearly are in a cooling period. Prior to that, we have had several times--people forget, God is still up there. Throughout these written histories, we have had these cycles.

The interesting thing about this poll that came out yesterday is looking at the percentage of people who worry a great deal about the environment, this is a total change from what we have seen before. It is now--what is it, No. 9? The last thing is global warming. These are environmental concerns: pollution of drinking water, water pollution, toxic contamination of soil and water, and very last is global warming. There was another poll just about a month ago by Pew Research, I believe it was, and that one shows the same thing. I say this because of some of my colleagues who think the American people are believing this stuff--manmade gases making global warming.

This is January last month, and this is by the Pew Polling Group. This isn't just environmental issues; it says, ``Name your major concern.'' No. 1, economy; No. 2, jobs. Where is global warming? No. 20, at the bottom, the very last one. That is something that has changed.

Getting back to the poll, the previous Gallup Poll released on Earth Day 2008 showed the American public's concern about manmade global warming is unchanged from 1989. This is after all the media hype, all the media talking about how bad man is.

By the way, I am going to pause here for a minute because in 2005 we debated a bill on this floor that would have--since we did not ratify the Kyoto treaty--said unilaterally what should we do in the United States because some people would like to believe this is a great problem. They said: Let's pass our own global warming bill in the United States. Think about that. If you are one who believes CO2 and anthropogenetic gases are causing global warming, if you really believe that in your heart, what good would it do to do it only in the United States? If you do that, all these jobs are going to go to countries such as China, Mexico, India--places where they don't have emission controls--and you would have a net increase in CO2 after we paid the tax and the punishment for it.

After one of the most expensive climate change fear campaigns in our Nation's history, there is no change in global warming concerns by Americans in the past two decades. This skepticism persists despite the Nobel Peace Prize jointly shared by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations.

By the way, I have to say I cannot think of one assertion that was made in the science fiction movie Al Gore put together that has not been refuted scientifically. I am talking about sea-level rises and all the rest of the things. Sure, it scared a lot of kids. A lot of kids had nightmares. Nobody now believes there is any science behind that particular movie.

The skepticism persists despite a $300 million campaign to spread climate fears. Skepticism persists despite a daily drumbeat of scary scenarios promoted by the United Nations and the media of what could, might, or may happen 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now. In fact, global warming skepticism appears to have grown stronger as the shrillness of the climate fear campaign intensified.

The latest Gallup Poll released on March 11 further reveals the American public has a growing skepticism. A record-high 41 percent now say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest public opinion since the whole issue began. These dramatic polling results are not unexpected as prominent scientists around the world continue to speak out publicly for the first time to dissent from the Al Gore-United Nations and media-driven manmade intimidation on climate fears.

In addition, a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real-world data, and developments have further refuted the claims of manmade global warming fear activists.

Americans are finally catching on in large numbers that the U.N. IPCC is a political, not a scientific, organization. Interesting that when the U.N. IPCC comes out with their periodic reports, they never talk about the scientists. It is the politicians who are making the accusations or coming to the conclusions. So they have these briefs on the political analyses of these reports.

If new peer-reviewed studies are to be believed, today's high school kids watching Gore's movie will be nearing the senior citizen group AARP's membership age by the time warming allegedly resumes in 30 years. That is interesting because now they are talking about maybe it did not happen, maybe we were not in the middle of it in the middle nineties when they tried to get us to ratify the Kyoto treaty, but it is coming, maybe 30 years from now.

Dr. John Brignell, a skeptical UK emeritus engineering professor at the University of South Hampton, wrote in 2008:

The warmers--

He calls them--

are getting more and more like those traditional predictors

of the end of the world who, when the event fails to happen

on a due date, announce an error in their calculations and

[they come up with] a new date.

That is what they are doing now.

Furthermore, I always believed the more global warming information people have, the less concerned they will become. That is obvious. That poll 5 years ago would have had this way up there somewhere around No. 3. Now it is No. 20. It just barely made the list.

Confirming this unintended consequence is a study by the scientific journal Risk Analysis released in February of 2008 which found that Gore and the media's attempts to scare the public ``ironically may be having just the opposite effect.'' The study found that the more informed respondents ``show less concern for global warming.'' The study found that ``perhaps ironically, and certainly contrary to . . . the marketing of movies like the Ice Age and An Inconvient Truth, the effects of information on both concern for global warming and responsibility for it are exactly the opposite of what were expected. Directly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less responsible he or she feels for it; and indirectly, the more information a person has about global warming, the less concerned he or she is for it.''

Again, this is not me, Jim Inhofe, U.S. Senator, talking. This is Professor John Brignell. Certainly you cannot question his credentials.

Climate realism continues to be on the march.

I now report to you on the skeptical Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change in New York, which just finished 3 days ago. It is brand new. As the most outspoken critic of manmade global warming alarmism in the United States, I am pleased to see the world's largest ever gathering of global warming skeptics assembled in New York City just this week to confront the issue, ``Global warming: Was it ever really a crisis?'' That was the title of the convention. All of these scientists from all over the world were taking part in it.

A lot has changed over the last 6 years since I started speaking out against the likes of Al Gore, the United Nations, and the Hollywood elitists. Perhaps the most notable change is the number of scientists no longer willing to be silenced. How do you silence a scientist? You take away their grants, whether they be Government grants or they come from the Heinz Foundation or the Pew Foundation or others. If you don't agree with us, certainly you should be punished.

I remember not too long ago on the Weather Channel--Heidi Cullen has

this weekly show. It is to promote the idea that man is responsible for global warming. She says: Any meteorologist who does not agree with me should be decertified. All of a sudden, everyone started yelling and screaming. The vast majority of meteorologists will agree with the comments I am making today.

Certainly since Al Gore made his movie, hundreds of scientists have come out of the woodwork to refute the claims made by the alarmists.

The gathering of roughly 800 scientists, economists, legislators, policy activists, and media representatives at the Second International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute provides clear evidence to the growing movements against alarmism--the world is coming to an end.

I am happy that important voices are being heard in New York, including Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic. I was in the Czech Republic not too long ago. He couldn't have been nicer and more complimentary of me. He said: What they are trying to do is to punish us economically in our country and your country on science that is strictly not there.

In his remarks to the conference 3 days ago, Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, said:

Today's debate about global warming is essentially a debate

about freedom. The environmentalists would like to mastermind

each and every possible aspect of our lives.

Climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, one of the world's leading experts in dynamic meteorology, especially planetary waves, told the gathering in New York that momentum is with the skeptics, saying:

We will win this debate, for we are right and they are

wrong.

I have a chart. This was Richard Lindzen, who is the Alfred P. Sloan professor of atmospheric science at MIT. This was an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. He says:

A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to

assiduously ignore the fact that the Earth and its climate

are dynamics; they are always changing even without any

external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is

bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much

worse.

I think he was talking about the amount of money former Vice President Al Gore made on this issue, but I am not going to get into that now.

The point is, I am talking about credentials of scientists and them coming out with statements such as these, and they were not doing this just a few years ago.

So this event that took place in New York City in the last few days is very significant. Others in attendance were William Gray, Colorado State University. He is one of the experts there who testified before the Environment and Public Works Committee one time before making this same type of statement.

Stephen McIntyre, primary author of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of data, he is a devastating critic of the temperature record of the past 1,000 years, particularly the work of Michael Mann, the creator of the infamous ``hockey stick'' graph. That graph is thoroughly discredited. There is no scientist who will stand behind that graph. What he attempted to show after this, there was a marked increase in temperatures. That was the blade on the hockey stick. What he forgot to put down--and nobody will disagree with this fact--is that in the timeframe from about 1200 to 1400, we had what they call the medieval warm period. Then we went into the little ice age.

This medieval warm period is interesting. If anyone wants to take a trip up to Greenland and talk to them, go through their history books and look at what the prosperity was during this timeframe, that is when all the Vikings were up there. They were growing all this stuff. Then, of course, when the cycle reversed, it went into the little ice age. They all died or left. Actually, the economic activity was much better. That was also when they were growing grapes in the Scandinavian countries because it was warm enough to do that.

This chart is significant because what they have done is looked at this and said the world is coming to an end. And in a minute I am going to talk about what all the pundits were saying in the middle seventies when they said another ice age is coming. But this has been going on throughout recorded history.

Chemist Dr. Arthur Robinson, curator of a global warming petition signed by more than 32,000 American scientists, including more than 10,000 with doctorate degrees--and they all are rejecting the alarmist assertion that global warming has put the Earth in a crisis and caused primarily by mankind.

Dr. Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has also testified along the same line.

Retired award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, now with the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Here is a very small sampling of recent developments in the news.

The New York Times: ``Prominent geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook warns we are in `decades-long cooling spell.' '' And I think everyone would agree with that.

``NASA warming scientist `suffering from a bad case of megalomania'-- former supervisors says.'' This was only yesterday in the Business and Media Institute. This is an excerpt of the report:

John Theon, a retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist,

said . . . at The Heartland Institute's 2009--

What I have been talking about here--

. . . that the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space

Studies, James Hansen, should be fired. Hansen is widely

known for his outspokenness on the issue of manmade global

warming. I have publicly said I thought Jim Hansen should be

fired, ``Theon said.'' But my opinion doesn't count much,

particularly when he is empowered by people such as the

current President of the United States. I am not sure what

we can do to have him get off of the public payroll and

continue with the campaign or crusade. I think the man is

sincere, but he is suffering from a bad case of

megalomania.

Another article. ``NASA Warming Scientist Under Fire--From Former Supervisor--Jim Hansen should be fired.'' This is another one, although this time they make the observation that James Hansen, who is the most outspoken proponent that it is manmade gases, anthropogenic gases, and CO2 that is causing global warming, is the recipient of $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation. Obviously, that does have an impact on his position.

This one is: ``U.S. Government Meteorologist Claims `Gross Blatant Censorship' for Speaking Out Against Climate Alarmism.'' This was March 9, a few days ago, by Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's--that is NOAA-- Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory Hurricane Research Division. This is an excerpt of what this scientist said:

The debate, as you also know, is masked by media

censorship, bias and distortion. I am interviewed quite a bit

on many, many levels and thankfully most of our interviews

are benign. They're trying to get out to the public.

In his criticism, Goldenberg said:

I've seen gross, gross blatant censorship. If you're here

from the media I'd be glad to argue with you from firsthand

experience. I challenge anybody from a mainstream media

source to take or print a positive report on this conference.

They won't get it past the editor.

He is talking about, of course, the media bias, which we all know took place during this conference.

This is an excerpt from the Boston Globe's paper yesterday:

New figures being released today show the recession helped

drive down global warming emissions from the northeast power

plants last year to their lowest levels in at least 9 years.

The drop in emissions may be good for the environment, but

was not seen as reason for celebration. ``What does this say

about the state of the economy?'' said Robert Rio, senior

vice president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts. We

could get 100 percent below the cap if we shut every business

and moved them out of state.

The NASA moonwalker and geologist Harrison Schmitt said climate change alarmists intentionally mislead. This again is yesterday's Business & Media Institute quoting him:

Last month, Apollo 17 astronaut and moonwalker Harrison

Schmitt added his voice to the growing chorus of scientists

speaking out against the anthropogenic--man-made--global

warming theory. In strongly worded comments he said the

theory was a ``political tool.'' Now, in a speech at the

International Conference on Climate Change he outlined his

argument in great detail saying,

``the science of climate change and its causes is not

settled.'' . . . Several indisputable facts appear evident in

geological and climate science that makes me a true, quote,

denier, unquote, of human caused global warming. The

conclusion seems inescapable that nature produces the primary

influences on climate.

I think this chart shows that it has been going on throughout recorded history.

Another article: ``A Freezing Legacy For Our Children.'' This one is by James Marusek, nuclear physicist and engineer retired from the U.S. Department of the Navy. He said:

There is a lot of talk these days about the legacy we will

leave our children and our grandchildren. When I stare into

the immediate future, I see a frightening legacy caked in

darkness and famine. Instead of intelligently preparing, we

find ourselves whittling away this precious time chasing

fraudulent theories. Climate change is primarily driven by

nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his

father and all those that came before us.

Again, this guy is a nuclear physicist and engineer.

This is from a new study titled ``The Evidence Is That The Ocean Is Cooling, Not Warming.'' This was 2 days ago. And it contains an excerpt titled ``Cooling of the Global Ocean Since 2003,'' by Craig Loehle, Ph.D., National Council for Air and Stream Improvement. He said:

Ocean heat content data from 2003 to 2008--4\1/2\ years--

were evaluated for trend. The result is consistent with other

data showing a lack of warming over the past few years.

I think I am making a point here that no one is going to argue, and that is that now we are in a cooling period. It drives people nuts, those who try to make people think the world is coming to an end; that it is going to get too hot, and now they realize that is not the case.

This is another statement made by another scientist, and this was 3 days ago.

Alaska River Ice now 60 percent thicker than it was 5 years

ago. Flashback: The Nenana Ice Classic is a pretty good proxy

for climate change in the 20th Century.

In other words, it is increasing, not decreasing. Here is another scientist. This was reported 4 days ago in Investors Business Daily by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, who served as the founding director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service.

We conclude therefore that the drive to reduce

CO2 emissions is not concern about climate.

Ultimately, ideology may be what's fueling the CO2

wars.

So it goes on and on. Here is another: ``Left-wing Columnist Alexander Cockburn A Climate Skeptic--John Fund--March 11.'' And Alexander Cockburn, by the way, is normally on the other side. Here is that quote:

My most memorable exchange was with Alexander Cockburn, the

left-wing columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the Nation

magazine. Mr. Cockburn has undergone blistering attacks since

he first dissented from the global warming ``consensus'' in

2007. ``I've felt like the object of a witch hunt,'' he says.

``One former Sierra Club board member suggested I should be

criminally prosecuted.'' Mr. Cockburn was at the conference

collecting material for his forthcoming book ``A Short

History of Fear,'' in which he will explore the link between

fear mongering and climate catastrophe proponents. ``No one

on the left is comfortable talking about science,'' he told

me. ``They don't feel they can easily get their arms around

it, so they don't think about it much. As a result, they are

prone to any peddler of ideas that reinforce their

preexisting prejudices. One would be that there is a

population explosion that must be dealt with by slowing down

economies.'' I asked him how he felt hanging around with so

many people who have a more conservative viewpoint than he

does. ``It's been good fun and I've learned a lot,'' he told

me. ``I think what they are saying on this topic is looking

better and better.''

And here is one of the guys who was a chief proponent of the fear mongers. We have to keep in mind there is a lot of money involved in making people afraid. I am old enough to remember back in the middle 1970s, when we were going through at that time what was thought to be this devastating ice age; that we were all going to freeze to death. Here is Time magazine, and here they talk about another ice age is coming and they document their case. This is 1974, from Time magazine.

Now, let's look at Time magazine a few years later. Here is Time magazine a couple of years ago and they have totally reversed themselves. No longer is it an ice age that is coming and we are all going to die; the headline now is ``Be Worried, Be Very Worried,'' and they have this polar bear standing on the last scoop of ice in the Arctic.

By the way, there are 13 different populations of polar bears in Canada, and with the exception of the one on the western Hudson Bay area, they are all flourishing. They are doing very well. The population has quadrupled since the 1960s. So don't feel badly about the polar bear. They are doing fine.

My point here is that these publications, I can assure you--and I have not checked this out, but that last one, in 1974, from Time magazine, I am sure that sold a lot of editions because everyone wanted to read the story as to how another ice age was coming and we were all going to die. We have checked on this. This was their biggest seller in that particular year. I don't see the date, but a couple of years ago, because they capitalize on this type of disaster.

I suppose I will go ahead and conclude now. We had some new information, and apparently I didn't bring it down with me, but I would only say this. I am one of the chief critics of what has been happening economically in this country since last October. Last October, we voted on a $700 billion bailout for the banking industry. I was against that. I recognize that was both Republican and Democrat. It came out of a Republican White House and it was in concert with the Democrats. They all said: Let's scare everybody so we can have this $700 billion bailout. I voted against it, and some of my conservative friends voted for it.

This was the largest authorization of money in the history of the world, and it was all taking place at that time in October--October 10 is when we voted in the Senate, with 75 Senators voting for that. My problem with it was that it was put together by our then-Secretary of the Treasury, and we were giving him total authority over how to spend $700 billion--the largest amount of money ever talked about in one block in this country, or in the history of the world. So I opposed it.

Now we find out that as soon as he got the money, he didn't spend it. He said he was going to buy distressed assets. He didn't spend it on that. He put money into the banks, and we haven't noticed a change in the credit since then. Now, of course, we have a new President and we have the budget and the omnibus bill that was voted on a few days ago-- $410 billion--and all these people are talking about earmarks and all that. But let's keep in mind that only 1 percent of that $410 billion was in anything like earmarks. I wish people were as concerned about the 99 percent as they are the 1 percent, but that is a huge amount of money.

Now we have the President, with his budget coming forward, and this is going to produce huge deficits--in the trillions--and I have been critical of those. But as bad as all of that is, and talking about the huge amounts of money, what is worse is if we should be forced or pushed by the promoters of these global warming scares into passing a tax, what they call a cap-and-trade tax. In other words, this is a tax that would tax the American people. For all practical purposes, it would be a CO2 tax. They don't call it that. They disguise it by calling it a cap and trade. But nonetheless, the analysis of that is that it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 billion to $330 billion a year.

The reason I bring that up is that if we are pushed into passing some kind of a global warming or a cap-and-trade tax of $300 billion to $330 billion, they will masquerade it and act as if it isn't that much, but we know it is. We have sources--MIT and several other sources--and economic analysis that has taken place that says if that should happen, it will be something that occurs every year. At least these large amounts of money in the stimulus bills and in the bailout bills are one-shot deals, theoretically. But the other would be a tax increase on the American people.

I do have a dog in this fight. I do have a selfish concern. My wife and I have 20 kids and grandkids. My life is not going to change by anything that is passed in terms of a tax increase, but it does affect the next generations, and I think we are going to have to get to the point we are looking at not what is it today but down the road how are we going to pay for it.

To go back to the original $700 billion bailout, if you do the math, there are 140 million taxpaying families in the country. Divide that by $700 billion and that is $5,000 a family. We are talking huge amounts. And should we pass this global warming tax increase that would be comparable to over $300 billion, it would mean $3,000 a family. And that is every year.

I think we need to overcome the problem that we have in following the media off this plank and look at the science and let the science tell us what to do. If we do that, we will find with everything I have talked about over the last 35 minutes is in fact true.

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

Mr. President, I have cosponsored Senator Vitter's legislation, The REAL, Resources from Energy for America's Liberty, Stimulus Act of 2009. It is crucial that this Nation realize the need to develop our oil and natural gas resources from the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR, enact the kind of responsible streamlining of government to not hinder that development, and provide important regulatory relief.

I have consistently highlighted the amounts of U.S. reserves, and I think it is important to continue to point out the amount of reserves in the United States. The OCS holds 14 billion barrels

of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of gas, which is equivalent to 25 years worth of imports from Saudi Arabia. ANWR holds 10 billion barrels or 15 years worth of imports from Saudi Arabia. Today we would have 1 million additional barrels of oil a day coming from ANWR had President Clinton not vetoed legislation in 1995 to authorize that production. Production from ANWR is entirely responsible. Compared to the size of Alaska, ANWR's 19 million acres is about the same size of South Carolina, and of that area, we propose opening about 1.5 million acres to exploration which is roughly 6 percent of ANWR. Of those 1.5 million acres, only 2,000--an area the size of Washington's Dulles International Airport--would be devoted to drilling. This is only one example of new production which can occur in an environmentally exacting manner.

The legislation also includes important regulatory reforms which outside the energy production components of this bill would be referred to the Environment and Public Works Committee for consideration. Some of the EPW related provisions include streamlining environmental considerations in the leasing of the OCS and ANWR and streamlining reviews for new nuclear power plant licensing. The bill includes language meant to ensure that Federal projects and actions are not needlessly delayed, and therefore made more costly, by required environmental reviews. Too often the NEPA mandated environmental review process is used as the means to slow or stop projects, not based on substantive environmental grounds but, rather, simply because selected individuals oppose the projects. We need to reduce the ability of these not-in-my-backyard interests to continue to manipulate Federal law this way. Too many jobs and economic resources are at stake.

The bill importantly excludes greenhouse gases from the definition of pollutant and prohibits the EPA Administrator from granting waivers to enforce their own tail pipe emission standards. Granting these States a waiver will only result in a patchwork of State regulations and compliance will vary greatly depending on product demand in each State. The U.S. auto industry, already on life support, faces a $47 billion burden this year due to increased national fuel economy standards, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Finally, the bill keeps activists from using the Endangered Species Act from hindering crucial energy exploration and production. Activists' efforts to list species and restrict human activities based on climate change are backdoor attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Endangered Species Act. Directly linking species threats to climate change under ESA means that any increase in carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the country could be subject to legal challenges due to arguments that those activities are harming any species that is in decline. It allows endless litigation on major activities that are funded, carried out, or authorized by the Federal Government. The economic impacts of regulating greenhouse gases under ESA are enormous. For example, any permit for a powerplant, refinery, or road project in the United States could be subject to litigation if it contributes to total carbon emissions. ESA prompted lawsuits and bureaucratic delays could even extend to past fossil fuel- linked Federal projects if they could increase greenhouse gas emissions or reduce natural carbon dioxide uptake. The ESA is over 30 years old. Its only real success has been to provide full time employment for the radical activists and the trial bar. Most importantly, despite billions of Federal dollars spent, millions of acres of property rights restricted, and the years of red tape delays, barely 1 percent of listed species have actually recovered. If that is not justification to restructure an outdated, ineffective law, I don't know what is--there has to be a better way.

I have long said America is not running out of oil and gas or running out of places to look for oil and gas. America is running out of places where we are allowed to look for oil and gas. The American public has got to demand that the Democrats in Congress allow us to produce from our own resources without unnecessary and burdensome Government regulation.

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

Madam President, I have been watching the nominations from President Obama with quite a bit of concern. When I go back to my State of Oklahoma, people say: What would happen to us if we didn't pay our taxes? And I thought it couldn't get much worse than that.

I am here today to make sure everyone focuses attention on a couple of nominations that I think are outrageous.

First is my opposition to the nomination of David Ogden to be the U.S. Deputy Attorney General. Last year, Congress passed a significant piece of legislation, the Protect Our Children Act, to address a growing problem of child pornography and exploitation. Both sides of the aisle hailed it as a great success. Democrats and Republicans thought that was great; we are going to protect our kids against child pornography and exploitation. While I proudly supported that legislation, I am shocked President Obama has nominated a candidate to serve in the No. 2 position in the Department of Justice who has repeatedly represented the pornography industry and its interests.

As we are witnessing a significant increase in the exploitation of children on the Internet, we do not need a Deputy Attorney General who will be dedicated to protecting children with that kind of a background. David Ogden has represented the pornography industry for a long period of time.

In United States v. American Library Association, Ogden challenged the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000. I remember that well. We passed it here. He filed a brief with the Supreme Court opposing Internet filters that block pornography at public libraries. He challenged provisions of the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988 which seeks to prevent the exploitation of our Nation's most vulnerable population; that is, our children. He instead fought for the interests of the pornography industry.

As a grandfather of 12 grandchildren, I am confident that I stand with virtually all of the parents and grandparents around this country in opposing gross misinterpretations of our Constitution some use to justify the exploitation of women and children in the name of free speech. That is what was happening. That is David Ogden.

Some claim Ogden is simply serving his clients. Yet his extensive record in representing the pornography industry is pretty shocking, especially considering he has been nominated to serve in the Government agency that is responsible for prosecuting violations of Federal adult and children pornography laws.

Let's keep in mind, he is in the position of prosecuting the offenders of these laws, and yet he has spent his career representing the pornography industry.

Additionally, his failure to affirm the right to life gives me a great concern. I don't think that is uncharacteristic of most of the nominees of this President. No one is pro-life that I know of, that I have seen.

In the Hartigan case, Ogden coauthored a brief arguing that parental notification was an unconstitutional burden for a 14-year-old girl seeking to have an abortion. In the case of abortion, parents have the right to know.

Furthermore, as a private attorney, Ogden filed a brief in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey in opposition to informing women of the emotional and psychological risks of abortion. In the brief, he denied the potential mental health problems of abortion on women. This is what he wrote. The occupier of the chair is a woman. I think it is interesting when men are making their interpretation as to what feelings women have.

He wrote this. Again, this is the same person we are talking about, David Ogden. He said:

Abortion rarely causes or exacerbates psychological or

emotional problems . . . she is

more likely to experience feelings of relief and happiness,

and when child-birth and child-rearing or adoption may pose

concomitant . . . risks or adverse psychological effects . .

.

What he is saying is it is a relief. This is something he finds not offensive at all. He is actually promoting abortions.

We have to be honest. We need to talk about the mounting evidence of harmful physical and emotional effects that abortion has on women.

For these reasons, I oppose his nomination.

I also want to address my opposition to the nomination of Elena Kagan to serve as Solicitor General. Because of its great importance, quite often they talk about the Solicitor General as the tenth Supreme Court Justice and, therefore, it requires a most exemplary candidate. She served as the dean of Harvard Law School, which is no doubt an impressive credential. However, in that role, she demonstrated poor judgment on a very important issue to me.

While serving as the dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan banned the military from recruiting on campus. We have to stop and remember what happened in this case. In order to protect the rights of people to recruit--we are talking about the military now--on campuses to present their case--nothing mandatory, just having an option for the young students--Jerry Solomon--at that time I was serving in the House of Representatives with him--had an amendment that ensured that schools could not deny military recruiters access to college campuses. Claiming the Solomon amendment was immoral, she filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in Rumsfeld v. FAIR opposing the amendment. The Court unanimously ruled against her position and affirmed that the Solomon amendment was constitutional.

It is interesting, for a split division it might be different. This is unanimous on a diverse Court.

I also express my opposition to two other Department of Justice nominees--Dawn Johnsen and Thomas Pirelli. Dawn Johnson, who has been nominated to serve as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, has an extensive record of promoting a radical pro-abortion agenda. She has gone to great lengths to challenge pro-life provisions, including parental consent and notification laws. She has even inserted on behalf of the ACLU that ``Our position is that there is no `father' and no `child'--just a fetus.''

As a pro-life Senator who believes each child is the creation of a loving God, I believe life is sacred. I cannot in good conscience confirm anyone who has served as the legal director for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. The right to life is undeniable, indisputable, and unequivocal. It is a foundational right, a moral fiber fundamental to the strength and vitality of this great Nation.

For a similar reason I can't support the nomination of Thomas Perrelli to serve as Associate Attorney General. Keep in mind now, we are talking about the four top positions in the Justice Department. And like other nominees I have discussed today, Mr. Perrelli has failed to affirm and protect the dignity of all human life, as an advocate for euthanasia, and I think we know the background of that.

I would only repeat that these are not people with just an opinion, they are extremists. We are talking about someone in the No. 2 position of the Department of Justice who actually has been involved in representing the pornography industry, and this is something that is totally unacceptable.

I think as we look at these nominations, I suggest that those individuals who are supporting these look very carefully, because people are going to ask you the question: How do you justify putting someone who supports pornography, who has worked for it and been paid by that industry, in the No. 2 position in the Justice Department?

With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, one of the amendments we are going to have the opportunity to vote on this afternoon is the Thune amendment. I have some strong feelings about it. I wish to make a couple observations that I think are necessary dealing with the fairness doctrine.

As indicated by the vote on Senator DeMint's amendment to the DC Voting Rights Act, any attempt on the part of any Senator to reinstate the fairness doctrine clearly goes against the will of Congress and the American people. It is a dangerous policy to enact more Government policing of our airwaves.

With the onset of the Internet and other media technology, there are countless sources of information at our fingertips. I can remember, and you can remember, I say to the Chair, many years ago when we had nothing but three networks, and we didn't even have talk shows at that time. Then CNN came along. I guess it was the first cable network.

At the time, there was limited opportunity. As it is now, with all the information that is going around, that is no longer a problem.

Senator DeMint's amendment addressed this issue. It was similar to the intent of the Thune amendment that will be coming up this afternoon. The DeMint amendment was adopted by a margin of 87 to 11. One would believe, then, that the Thune amendment would pass by an equally substantial margin. However, it was obvious at the time the vote on the DeMint amendment was merely a political game on the part of some of my colleagues to mask their true intent to regulate broadcast media, and I suspect the vote on this amendment will be different. I encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to hold true to their earlier conviction and pass this measure by an equally substantial margin.

A lot of mail went out after that vote. People were talking about how they were going to protect first amendment rights, and we were not going to try to infringe on the airwaves with the fairness doctrine.

While reinstatement of the fairness doctrine still poses a threat to free speech on the airwaves, the debate over Government regulation of broadcast media has changed. Media ownership diversity and broadcast localism are the new liberal tools they intend to use to regulate the airwaves.

Two weeks ago, in a straight party-line vote, Democrats chose to adopt an amendment--it was amendment No. 591 sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois--which calls on the FCC to ``encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.''

That is very nebulous, very vague language, just enough to scare people who are in business but not enough to define what they are trying to do. There is no indication in the legislation as to what ``encourage and promote diversity'' and ``in the public interest'' means. These clauses can be interpreted by the FCC in any manner they choose.

The Durbin doctrine, as I refer to it, is legislation that is so incredibly vague and so potentially far reaching that there is no certainty what the end result will be. This is not good governance. This is not a good idea.

Another threat to our freedom of speech is a proposal called broadcast localism. We have two different issues. We have localism and then we have, of course, the diversity issue. Neither one is well defined. The FCC gave notice of proposed localism regulations in January of 2008. While the proposal was ultimately dropped, it is indicative of future attempts to regulate the airwaves and is something all Americans need to know about.

Among other things, the proposal would have required radio stations to adhere to programming advice from community advisory boards. It doesn't say what kind of advice. It doesn't say who these boards are. It could be ACORN. It could be just about anybody, I suppose. Then to report every 3 months on the content of their programming, they have to report what the content is when it has been a matter of public record anyway. They talk about how their program reflects the community interest. If you have one biased source of localism, they can dictate the content of broadcast material.

The localism rule, if it were promulgated, would mean that radio stations

would have to comply with blanket regulations and broadcast programming that may not be commercially viable and be forced to take into account the advice of community advisory boards over their regular listeners.

Right now it is market driven. That is what people do not understand. The reason we have content--I admit it is biased on the conservative side because most people are biased on the conservative side. In my State of Oklahoma, it does not matter if you are Democrat or Republican. They are people who are conservative. They want limited Government. They want limited taxation. I think Oklahoma is not the only State that is unique in that respect. Although the rule was ultimately abandoned, President Obama has expressed support for a new localism regulation, and it is expected to come up again under this administration.

Both localism and diversity--those are the keywords--in media ownership will force radio stations to comply with blanket regulations and to broadcast programming that is not commercially viable rather than taking into account the needs of their communities.

I was in Bartonsville, OK, last week. There is a guy up there named Kevin Potter who owns a station. That is his whole livelihood. He has been doing it for as many years as I can remember. It is a very competitive business he is in. He has to comply with something if it is specific, but this is so nebulous he doesn't know what he has to comply with. He is panicking that they would have the power under this new regulation to shut him down.

I think what is most concerning to me is the enforcement procedure for breaches of localism and diversity. Certainly, no one has been able to determine what that is or what the definition is.

Senator Durbin's amendment requires affirmative action on the part of the FCC stating ``the Commission shall take actions to encourage and promote diversity.'' It doesn't stipulate what actions or to what degree but instead leaves the enforcement mechanism up to the determination of the FCC, which is likely to be emboldened by the affirmative language of the amendment. I find it to be extremely dangerous and this, too, should be a concern of everyone.

We tried to do this on the Senate floor, I think it was 2 years ago, when there was an objection that most of the broadcast radio talk shows and television shows were biased on the conservative side. I admit they are. There is no question about that.

There was an attempt made--I think it was Senator Harkin at that time--to change the content of what our troops overseas would be listening to on the overseas radio.

Frankly, that probably would have passed. We arranged to have a survey done through the Army Times of all those overseas, and it was 97 percent wanting the market to determine--in other words, the conservative type of programming.

I hope when the Thune amendment comes up that we will support it. To do otherwise, to me, is a little bit disingenuous and would show that the 87 people who voted in favor of the DeMint amendment are not really concerned about it.

I have often been concerned. I hear all over my State of Oklahoma that it is a tough enough business to deal with, to have a station that makes money and survives. On the issue of localism, Kevin Potter told me: We pay attention to localism because we have to sell products. We interrupt these nationally syndicated programs with weather reports and with all the local things.

So localism is there, and it is there because the market demands it, not because Government says you have to do it. I just think, let's let the market take its effect. I will certainly support the Thune amendment and hope that our colleagues will do what they did with the DeMint amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, since 1996, we have had a provision in law that was put in and passed with a very strong majority and signed into law by President Clinton. It is a provision that states the United Nations is attempting to have a global funding, so we would not have anything to do with what they do with this funding. If they consider this, it would allow them to do something contrary to the--

Mr. President, it might be easier to read the two sentences in the law that were there before:

None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available

under any title of this Act may be made available to make any

assessed contribution or voluntary payment of the United

States to the United Nations if the United Nations implements

or imposes any taxation on any United States persons.

It has been there since 1996. It had broad support. Nobody knows why it was taken out, but in this law that language was taken out that has been there for 13 years. So I encourage us to support this amendment to put that language back.

Mr. President, I think I have 30 seconds left.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Reserving the right to object, I will not object, but I would like to make an inquiry, if I could, of the majority. I have been trying to get up a noncontroversial amendment for a long period of time. It is one that has actually been on this legislation since 1996, supported by Democrats and Republicans. I have to have an opportunity to get this thing up.

That is also in the eye of the majority of Democrats and Republicans in the last 17 years.

Madam President, to date, over 380 companies have received some $300 billion taxpayer dollars from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, supposedly to improve their financial stability. These include some of the largest corporations and financial institutions in America.

Yet in recent years, many of these same firms found enough money to contribute annually to some of the most radical organizations in the nation.

They have donated large sums to ACORN, Friends of the Earth, Planned Parenthood, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Conservation International Foundation, to name just a few. The vast majority of Americans do not support the agendas of these fringe groups, whose excesses have been well-documented over the years.

Companies that get bailed out cannot carry on as if it were business as usual. They should not grab for taxpayer dollars help with one hand and give money to these radical organizations with the other.

That is why I have introduced the Troubled Asset Relief Program Oversight Enhancement Act.

This legislation would let us see how these companies are spending their money. If they are not focused on increasing their solvency or liquidity, if they are not working on lending to small businesses and individuals, if they are not helping get this economy back on track, and are instead financing extremist organizations, then the American people need to know about it.

``Transparency'' is one of the new watchwords in Washington. Let's have some of that transparency for the sake of the American taxpayers, who deserve to see how these companies are behaving after receiving hard-earned tax dollars.

Madam President, I request the regular order.

Madam President, I was misled into thinking that we would be able to introduce some amendments tonight and then was told, when I got down, that they are confining those amendments to only three. Let me mention that I have an amendment I feel very strongly about that I want to take up first thing in the morning. I will explain what it is. It is amendment No. 613.

I can remember back in 1996, the United Nations Secretary General announced that the U.N. was interested in pursuing a global tax scheme. In response, Congress passed--and President Clinton signed into law--a policy rider on the Foreign Operations and State Department appropriations bills that would prevent the United Nations from using any U.S. funds to pursue a global tax scheme. The idea was that if we had a United Nations that wanted to have a global tax--they have been attempting to do this for many years because they don't want to be held accountable to anyone--then every time something comes up that is against the interests of the United States, we normally will pass a resolution saying that we are going to withhold a percentage of our dues to the United Nations until they change this policy. In 1996 and every year since, 13 years, we have had, as a part of that, language that says that the U.N. could not use any of the funds of the United States to pursue a global tax scheme of any type. The provision has appeared in every annual appropriations since 1996. This year marks the first time an annual appropriations bill will not contain this policy provision preventing U.S. tax dollars from funding U.N. global tax schemes.

According to page 64 of division H of the joint explanatory statement, this policy provision has been intentionally left out of the fiscal year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill. Preventing U.S. taxpayers funding U.N. global taxes in annual appropriations bills has been a bipartisan U.S. policy for over a decade. It is very difficult for me to understand, because I haven't seen any explanation as to who is opposed to this. It was put in by Democrats and Republicans on a bipartisan basis. Now we find that it was left out. The amendment very simply puts back the language that we have had historically in the law for the past 13 years.

Let me serve notice that I will make every effort to be first in line tomorrow morning to try to get this amendment in. I would invite any opposition that is out there, because I don't know of any opposition to it. Being fair, I think it is probably the fact that they wanted to shorten tonight to restrict it to three amendments.

I ask unanimous consent that my time be extended to whatever time I shall pursue. I will not be more than 15 minutes from this point.

Madam President, I was listening with some interest to the Senator from Alaska and what she is trying to do. I think, once again, we are faced with a backhanded attempt to regulate greenhouse gases without the transparency of public debate. Section 429 of the omnibus currently includes yet another congressional handout to some of the extremist groups and to the trial bar. This rider is clearly an attempt to legislate on a spending bill, the sort of bad habit that Democrats in Congress and the White House promised to give up during the last election.

As ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I strongly support the bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Murkowski and Begich to revise the omnibus section 429. This subject is particularly important to me since the EPW Committee holds jurisdiction over all issues impacted by the offending provision, including endangered species, the regulation of greenhouse gases, and the transportation infrastructure which we are going to be pursuing in the next few weeks.

Without the amendment, section 429 allows the agencies to make dramatic changes to the Endangered Species Act rules and regulations without having to comply with longstanding Federal laws that require public notice and public comment by the American people and knowledgeable scientists. These changes have the potential for far- reaching and unintended consequences in our economy.

Specifically, this activist-friendly rider would allow the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of Commerce to undo a regulation making commonsense adjustments to the ESA as well as withdraw a special rule and listing for the polar bear. By ignoring the protections of the Administrative Procedures Act, the rules in question could be withdrawn within 60 days of adoption of the omnibus bill and then reissued in whatever form the agencies preferred, without having to go through any notice or public comment period and without being subject to any judicial review as to whether their actions were responsible or justified.

This is exactly what the two Senators from Alaska are attempting to correct. Existing ESA rules clearly lay out the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service position that oil and gas development in the Arctic and Alaska Native subsistence activities are not the reason for the polar bear's recent listing status and are not affecting polar bear population. I might add that we have made quite a study of the 13 polar bear populations in Canada. All but one are increasing. The one that is not is the western Hudson Bay. That is due to some regulations in hunting that have adversely affected them. That is being corrected at this time. So if you stop and realize over the last 40 years, we have increased the population of polar bears in the world by fivefold, then there isn't a problem. However, let's assume that there is a problem, and we want to be sure that we are able not to have the intended consequences.

If enacted, implementation of section 429 would mean that any increase in carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the country could be subject to legal challenges due to assertions that those activities are harming a polar bear or that there has not been sufficient consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding activities that are funded, carried out, and authorized by the Federal Government.

In other words, you could have someone who is cooking on his Hasty Bake in his backyard in Tulsa, OK and have a lawsuit filed saying: You are emitting greenhouse gases; therefore, you are affecting the polar bear. Any permit for a powerplant, refinery, or road project that increases the volume of traffic anywhere in the United States could be subject to litigation, if it contributes to local carbon emissions. Lawsuits and ESA-prompted delays could extend to past fossil fuel- linked projects, if those projects could increase greenhouse gas emissions or reduce natural carbon dioxide intake.

If this provision is allowed to stand, it will likely endanger the delivery of the majority of the construction projects funded by the recent stimulus bill since these projects have not gone through a section 7 consultation regarding their impact to the polar bear. In other words, we passed the stimulus which I opposed. I had an amendment that would have actually provided a lot of jobs. That amendment they would not let me bring up. I believed that since it was an Inhofe-Boxer amendment, it would have passed. But it didn't.

So now we have a few jobs out there, a few things that are going to contribute to the employment problem of this country. If this provision is in there without the correction found in the bipartisan amendment by the two Senators from Alaska, then it is going to say the very thing we are trying to stimulate--in terms of jobs, construction, roads, bridges, and highways--cannot be done because of the section 7 consultation regarding the impacts on the polar bear. Ironically, President Obama today announced the release of $28 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to States and local transportation authorities to repair and build highways, roads, and bridges. This investment will lead to

150,000 jobs saved or created by the end of 2010. State highway departments have already identified more than 100 transportation projects throughout the country, totaling more than $750 million, where construction can start within the month. In other words, we have already undergone all of the environmental requirements. We have the environmental impact statements. We are ready right now. In my State of Oklahoma, we have $1.1 billion worth of work that could be started tomorrow.

Now, President Obama stated that the projects funded under the ARRA are deemed so important to America's economic recovery that they will bear a newly designed emblem. The emblem is a symbol of President Obama's commitment to the American people to invest their tax dollars wisely and to put Americans back to work. Rest assured that section 429 of the omnibus bill will not bear this emblem.

I applaud the President for highlighting infrastructure spending as a main driver of immediate job growth in the stimulus plan, but I am concerned by the conflicting priorities created by section 429. You cannot support large infrastructure spending as an economic stimulus while simultaneously endangering its translation into job growth with more redtape.

The Murkowski-Begich amendment correctly requires that if these ESA rules are withdrawn or revised, the action is subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act, with at least a 60- day comment period. This is a good government amendment. The fact that this amendment is even needed to restore the public participation protections is exactly the sort of nonsense that makes the American taxpayer so suspicious of Congress. From the public's perspective, the effect of this amendment would be to bring us back to the longstanding process where the agencies may withdraw and revise regulations by following the law established to do so.

We have heard from the Democratic managers of this bill that nothing new was added to this bill since last year. We have been told there is no controversial legislative language in this bill.

We have been misinformed. This rider was not a part of the negotiations or the appropriations bills last year, and I assure you, it is very controversial. I urge the leadership to allow the Senate to vote on the Murkowski-Begich amendment, and I ask for my colleagues' support for ensuring regulatory transparency.

I believe this is very important because, without this, there is so much uncertainty as to what the application would be in terms of the Endangered Species Act. So I encourage the adoption of that amendment.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, it is my understanding we are in a period of morning business. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for what time I shall consume.

Madam President, last week I joined 86 of my colleagues to pass Senate amendment No. 573, offered by Senator DeMint to the DC Voting Rights Act, which prohibited the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the fairness doctrine.

This has become an issue over the years where you can recall the action that took place back in the middle 1980s--I think 1986--that recognized the fact that we have so many opportunities for people to get at information that it is no longer necessary to have what they call the fairness doctrine.

Last week's vote was the first nail in the coffin of the fairness doctrine, but it was not the end of the attempt on the part of some people to regulate the airwaves. I have long been outspoken on this issue. It gives me great satisfaction that so many of my colleagues voted in favor of free speech over Government regulation last week. But the debate has changed. In a straight party-line vote, Democrats chose to adopt Senator Durbin's amendment No. 591, which calls on the FCC to ``encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.''

Essentially, it makes an end run around the fairness doctrine. Those on the other side of the aisle believed this would allow them to proclaim their opposition to a reinstatement of the fairness doctrine, which has always been a losing issue for them, while at the same time replacing it with an equally heinous piece of legislation that gives the FCC unfettered authority to interpret that language however they please.

So we have potentially taken away the threat of the fairness doctrine, which requires broadcasters to ``present controversial issues of public importance in an equitable and balanced manner,'' and replaced it with ``encouraging and promoting diversity in communication media ownership.'' At least with the fairness doctrine, broadcasters had an initial choice of how to interpret ``controversial issues of public importance'' before answering to the FCC, but this new authority gives all the power to a Government agency and none to the people of the broadcast industry.

One thing I know: When you take choice out of the market, and when you impose the Government's will on an industry, that market and that industry will suffer, and that is exactly what Senator Durbin's legislation attempts to accomplish. What was once the fairness doctrine has now become the Durbin doctrine.

What, I ask, does ``encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership'' really mean? I certainly cannot tell you what it means, and that is what concerns me because it is up to someone else's interpretation. The legislation offers no words of clarification or specificity. If I were an FCC commissioner, I would not know what to do with this language, and in any other line of work, I would send it directly back with a little note attached asking to please be more specific. But Federal agencies love this kind of language because it gives them greater leeway to interpret it however they like--which could be interpreted differently by different governmental agencies-- and impose their will upon the industry they regulate.

My Democratic colleagues who promoted this amendment like this type of language because it, first, means that they do not have to spend the time drafting quality legislation aimed at solving a specific problem, and, two, it means they can disavow their true intention of having greater Government regulation of the airwaves. Now, at the same time, they can say: Well, I voted for the DeMint amendment. So that offered cover for these individuals.

This legislation is so incredibly vague and so potentially far reaching that I cannot say with any certainty what the end result will be. This is not good governance, and it is not good legislative practice to cede such authority to any agency of our Government, especially when the right to speak freely over the airwaves will most certainly be impacted.

Another threat to our freedom of speech is a stealth proposal called ``localism,'' which could force local radio stations to regulate the content they broadcast. It is important to note that ``localism'' as FCC policy already exists, but new policies that have been proposed reach far beyond ensuring that broadcasters serve their local communities.

The FCC gave notice of proposed rulemaking. This was back on January 24, I believe it was, of 2008. While the regulations were ultimately dropped, they are indicative of future attempts to regulate the airwaves through localism and something about which all Americans need to know.

Among other things, the proposal would have required radio stations to, one, adhere to programming advice from community advisory boards; two, report every 3 months on the content

of their programming, the producers of their programming, and how their programming reflects community interests; and, three, meet burdensome license renewal requirements.

The localism rule, had it been promulgated, would have meant that radio stations would have to comply with blanket regulations and broadcast programming that may not be commercially viable, rather than taking into account the diverse needs of communities across the country.

One of my constituents, Dan Lawrie, who is vice president and manager of Cox Radio Tulsa, and president of the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, stated that:

regulations requiring additional and unnecessary

documentation of programming in order to show proof of

broadcasting that we already provide to our local communities

is entirely unnecessary. To burden our Tulsa radio group with

this type of ascertainment documentation would cause us to

lay off several staff members to offset the expense of

completing the increased paperwork.

As you can see, this is a real threat to broadcast media as a whole.

Let's look at this from a market standpoint. I have often said: People who think maybe the content is too progressive or not progressive enough or too conservative--I have heard some pretty heated accusations made at various popular talk radio hosts--forget about the fact that this is market oriented. The market is determining how this should be. I can remember it was not too long ago--last year--I believe Senator Harkin wanted to regulate the type of content that was going over the airwaves to our troops who were listening overseas, and we were able to stop that because they overwhelmingly wanted, in their eyes, conservative content to be broadcast. We won that one. But the effort is still out there.

Look at it from a market standpoint. Stations strive to endear themselves to the local community to be successful. It makes programming sense to cover local news and events because it increases the ratings. Why should Washington regulate what local stations are already doing? They are doing this now because people who listen to the radio may want to hear some talk show host, but you find right through intermingled within these comments, every 15 minutes or so, or every 10 minutes, they stop and tell what the local weather is, they tell of different activities, what is happening in the local community. They are doing this already. That is just good business sense, and that is why in the highly competitive environment we find our local radio stations, they have to do these things. They are already doing it.

The reason is this: These community advisory boards, or local content boards, coupled with the threat of license renewal requirements, are just one more way liberals can affect what is broadcast over the airwaves. They have created a regulatory avenue by which to accomplish their goal of silencing talk radio because they are incapable of competing in the broadcast radio market.

President Obama has expressed support for new localism regulations, and it is expected to come up again under his administration. All those who value their right to listen to the things that are important to them, and important to their community, must be aware of the great potential for infringement on free speech that localism will bring.

What is perhaps most concerning to me is the enforcement procedure for breaches of localism and diversity promotion. We simply do not know which pathway the FCC will choose when it comes time to enforce these nebulous regulations. License revocation is a real threat to the willingness of the broadcasters to appeal to their market rather than to conform to FCC regulations. Senator Durbin's amendment requires affirmative action on the part of the FCC, stating: ``The Commission shall take actions to encourage and promote diversity.'' It doesn't stipulate what actions or to what degree but instead leaves the enforcement mechanism up to the determination of the FCC. I find this to be extremely dangerous.

Any enforcement of Government regulation of the airwaves could have a serious detrimental effect, not only on talk radio but also on the willingness of Christian broadcasters to air political and perhaps even religious messages. It is well known that the only radio station ever taken off the airwaves was a Christian radio station, WGCB in Red Lion, PA. In that particular instance, the supposed offense was a personal attack against the author of a political publication. The ACLU and other liberal organizations could attempt to file lawsuits against anyone who presents a message that they deem to be counter to Federal localism and diversity regulation, and though I believe these lawsuits would ultimately fail on first amendment grounds, the chilling effect that the mere threat of a lawsuit will have on religious broadcasters could be substantial.

Free speech is fundamental to what it means to be an American, and we must protect it. Reimposing any form of a fairness doctrine threatens first amendment rights. Some on the left of the political spectrum are frustrated that more talk show hosts have conservative political leanings than liberal political leanings. In response, I say the content is market driven. When the market is on the other side, they will do that. The market has worked well throughout the history of this country, and people listen to it.

I think we are also forgetting about the fact that the broadcasting industry is very competitive. We have companies that own broadcast media. They are not making a lot of money. It is competitive. A lot of them go broke every year. What they are trying to do is come up with something they know people want and is sellable. They depend on people buying advertisement for them to exist. So this is what this is all about. I believe there are two attacks out there. I applaud Senator DeMint for the language he was able to get in, and I applaud all the Republicans and most of the Democrats for voting for it. But to turn around and pass something that undoes what he did with that amendment I think is something that needs to be looked at.

So I am concerned. I am concerned that so many of these stations out there that are right on the border of surviving in this very difficult economy we have are now looking at another threat, another bunch of regulations that are there, as well as the fear of the unknown, the nebulous language that says what a localism is, what power does the local community have. So that is a difficult thing.

I will only say to those individuals who think the problem of the fairness doctrine being reinvoked is not over: It is there, and our first amendment rights are threatened at this time.

I would anxiously pursue any effort we can that is going to preclude the fairness doctrine, and I think the first thing we should do would be to rename the fairness doctrine because it is certainly not fair and not fair to the people in the broadcast industry.