[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 61 (Friday, April 24, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S4710]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GUANTANAMO BAY

  Mr. INHOFE. Let me say this to my friend from Florida. 
Coincidentally, I was talking to my friend, Senator Vitter, who went 
over this with me. I have instructed my staff to add me to the 
Senator's bill as a cosponsor.
  As the Senator from Florida will remember, he and I have agreed on a 
lot of the problems we are having today with China; for one thing, the 
threat that is out there, both in terms of energy and military buildup. 
I have been very much concerned as I go through--and my friend from 
Florida and I are both very active in trying to get things done in 
Africa--as we go through Africa, individually or together, we notice 
one of the major things we see taking place there, particularly in the 
area of the Sea of Guinea and other places in Nigeria where they have 
huge oil reserves, is the Chinese are building all of these new and 
shiny bridges and all that, which is competing with us since we have 
the same problem they have in terms of a lack of energy.
  So I would enjoy joining him in some of these problems we see that we 
are having with China.
  I wanted some time this morning. I actually have four causes going on 
right now. I am not going to have time to address all four of these. 
But I will just briefly say what they are, then I will start with the 
one I think is the most critical right now. First of all, one of my 
causes is having to do with Guantanamo Bay.
  The fact that people are talking about closing it, President Obama 
has stated--actually in his inaugural address he did not, but then 
later on said, yes, we are going to close it in spite of the problems 
that would come to us if we did close it.
  I am anxious to have time on the floor to talk about the frequent 
visits I have made to GITMO. One of the few good deals the Government 
has today is Guantanamo Bay. It might be that the Presiding Officer is 
not aware of the fact. It is one of the good deals out there. We only 
pay $4,000 a year, the same thing we paid in 1903, for the use of this 
great facility.
  There has been no evidence of any kind of abuse of prisoners or 
detainees. They have a judicial center that is unlike anything in the 
United States. These are tribunals.
       We cannot put these terrorists, these detainees, into our 
     prison system. That is not going to work. If it does, I would 
     like to know which Member of the Senate wants to have those 
     detainees housed in their own State. I am sure the Presiding 
     Officer is not excited about having them in Illinois. I am 
     not excited about having them in Oklahoma.
  What would happen is, anyplace where they would be detained in the 
United States would be a magnet to terrorist activity. But I hope I 
will have a chance to talk about that.


                             Climate Change

  The next thing would be on some of the recent developments in what 
they used to call the global warming problem. Since we are in the fifth 
year of a cooling period, they are trying to change that to ``climate 
change.'' But this is something a lot of people in this body are 
pursuing.

  I would say this: There are not the votes for a major tax increase. A 
cap and trade on carbon would now constitute somewhere between $350 and 
$400 billion each year as a tax increase, and it is something that 
would not accomplish anything.
  In fact, if there are a few people still remaining out there who 
believe global warming is caused by carbon dioxide and we need to 
restrict it in some way, let's keep in mind, if we do something 
unilaterally in the United States of America, then what few 
manufacturing jobs we have left in this country are going to go to 
places where they can provide energy in places such as China and 
Mexico, where they have no restrictions on emissions on CO2.
  So I would only say I hope we have time to talk about that.


                                  TARP

  The last thing is TARP, the program that started here. I was critical 
of the Bush administration back in October when then the Secretary of 
the Treasury came along and talked about, well, we have to have $700 
billion to buy damaged assets. I looked at that thing and read it. 
There was nothing in there that compelled the Secretary of the Treasury 
or the President to use that $700 billion for anything. There is no 
accountability to Congress. It is unprecedented.
  So I was criticizing the Bush administration, only to find out it was 
Tim Geithner, who is now the Secretary of the Treasury, who was behind 
this whole thing. He started the Bear Stearns problem. So I no longer 
criticize the Bush administration and Hank Paulson.
  But, nonetheless, if you stop and think, it is so hard for me and for 
other people to envision what $1 trillion is or $100 billion is. The 
$700 billion, if you will do your math, you take the number of 
households who file tax returns and pay taxes and that is $5,000 per 
household. That is shocking when you tell people.
  A lot of people who voted for that in the first place, in fact, 75 of 
the Senators who voted for that monstrosity back in October now are 
regretting that they did. Their comments are, well, they lied to us. 
They said that was going to be used for damaged assets.
  They did lie to us. They flat lied. They never had any intention of 
using that money to buy damaged assets. Now, after they have bailed out 
several banks and put billions of dollars in banks, now they are 
saying, well, we need to buy damaged assets. Well, where were they when 
the problem was there?
  I do want to talk about that and will be talking about that in a lot 
of detail as time goes by.

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