[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 74 (Monday, May 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3797-S3800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business for such time as I may consume.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, if you have been watching the global 
warming debate lately, you will notice the supporters of cap and trade 
are getting kind of nervous. They realize the political environment for 
cap and trade couldn't be more favorable--they have a majority of 
liberals in the Senate, a majority of liberals in the House, and 
liberals in the White House. But they also realize time is running out. 
The November elections are looming, and there are a lot of people 
coming up for reelection who don't want to go back to the electorate 
and say: Look at me;

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aren't you proud; I voted for the largest tax increase in American 
history.
  As Senator Kerry put it, this is the last call to pass the bill, and 
that is exactly what Senator Kerry is trying to do. But he will not get 
60 votes. He will not get the support of the Democrats in the 
heartland, and he will not convince the American public they need this 
tax increase. I say this with confidence because the bill Senator Kerry 
introduced last week with Senator Lieberman is the same old cap-and-
trade scheme the Senate rejected in the McCain-Lieberman bill in 2003, 
the McCain-Lieberman bill in 2005, the Warner-Lieberman bill in 2008, 
and the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009. Let us keep in mind that cap and 
trade is cap and trade, and that is a very large tax increase.
  Don't forget that the Senate support for cap and trade over that time 
has actually dropped. If you take it from 2003 to the present time, in 
2003, they got 43 votes; in 2005, they got 38 votes; and in 2008, they 
got 48 votes. But you have to keep in mind that 10 of those were for a 
procedural vote and they said they wouldn't vote for it, so it went 
down to 38 votes at that time. So that is a far cry from the 60 that 
will be necessary.
  The Kerry-Lieberman bill is not going to pass. However, those who 
still believe in the anthropogenic catastrophic warming--which I don't, 
but even if you did believe it--should keep in mind that this wouldn't 
solve the problem. What I am saying is this: There are a lot of people 
around--not nearly as many as 5 or 10 years ago--who believe that 
anthropogenic gases--CO2, methane, carbon dioxide--are 
causing catastrophic global warming.
  They are still here. They still believe that. But even if you 
believed it, passing this bill would not help the situation because in 
this bill, all it applies to is the United States of America. We could 
go ahead and restrict all the CO2 we want to in the United 
States, it is not going to lower it at all.
  I have a lot of respect for the new--not too new, now she has been 
here for a while--EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson. I appreciate her 
honesty. I asked her the question back when we had the Waxman-Markey 
bill before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 
I said to the Administrator: In the event we were to pass any of these 
cap-and-trade bills in the United States, would it have the effect of 
lowering the CO2 worldwide?
  She said no, it wouldn't. In fact--we showed a chart. I should have 
it with me down here right now. She said it would not because this only 
applies to the United States.
  I contend it would actually increase world emissions. The reason I 
say that is if we were to unilaterally do this, restrict our ability to 
build power in America, then our jobs would have to go to countries 
where the power is. Consequently, they would go to countries such as 
Mexico, China, and India, places where they do not have any meaningful 
restrictions on CO2. That would have the effect of 
increasing it, not decreasing it.
  I have a lot of respect for Lisa Jackson. I kind of abused her time 
during this oilspill. I called her many times. I know she is right on 
top of things and is doing a very good job.
  Here we go again. Look closely at the Kerry-Lieberman bill. I am sure 
you have seen it before. It is the Waxman-Markey bill. You remember 
that. It passed in the middle of the night in the House of 
Representatives. We all remember that, passing by 219 to 212. Every 
kind of deal in the world was made and nobody knew it except the vote 
finally took place and they eked it out. Democrats, 44 of them, voted 
no because they knew the cost of the bill. The Waxman-Markey bill, 
according to the National Black Chamber of Commerce, would lead to a 
net reduction of 3.6 million jobs, raise electricity rates by 48 
percent, and disproportionately affect the West, Midwest, South, and 
Great Plains, which rely heavily on fossil fuels.
  The word about Waxman-Markey spread across the country and the 
American people were listening. Citizens at townhall meetings expressed 
their outrage. They said no to a bill that would give big government 
control over how we use electricity and how we live every day of our 
lives. That is what the public would get with Kerry-Lieberman.
  They also get a gas tax or linked fee. This is Washington jargon for 
a thing like gas tax: they don't call it a gas tax, they call it a 
linked fee for transportation fuels. From what I understand, this 
linked fee is being pushed by a select group of big oil companies. That 
is right, oil companies. I said some time ago the only way they can 
somehow pass any kind of cap and trade is to somehow divide and 
conquer. In other words, go to some of the oil companies, gas 
companies, coal companies, nuclear companies, and tell them we are 
going to pick winners and losers, but guess what. You are a winner. We 
will pick you and everything is going to be wonderful. The public needs 
to know a lot of big oil companies are involved. They are pushing a tax 
they know will be paid for by consumers, the same consumers suffering 
from an economy with 10 percent unemployment. I will make myself clear: 
I stand with the consumers, and by that I mean farmers, families, 
truckers, businesses large and small in rural Oklahoma, who drive long 
distances. They don't need this tax increase now or ever.
  It is a sad thing that we have to use those tactics. Then it is even 
not all that smart, when you stop and think that has not worked before. 
They tried the same thing, to divide and conquer, before. In this case 
they brought in some of the refiners and said if you will join with us, 
this will be fine with you. You have to raise your rates, but then you 
can pass that on to the consumers. Then we pass a gas tax increase and 
those consumers will be hit twice, but you will be all right.
  That is not the way it works. The other provision is crafted and 
select business groups. Do they think a bill on cap and trade is good 
for the economy, good for your members? I don't think so.
  Don't forget what happened with Waxman-Markey; some utilities thought 
they had a deal. When the language was actually drafted, the deal made 
Waxman and Markey happy but not the utilities.
  This is interesting, because they had the great unveiling that took 
place last week but didn't have the bill language. It had an outline of 
some things but not the exact bill language. That is exactly what they 
tried to do with Waxman-Markey. This time we will insist on seeing the 
actual language.
  I remind my colleagues of a pattern here. We had the Waxman-Markey 
vote under the cover of night. We had the ``Cornhusker'' kickback, with 
the Senate health care bill. Now we have secret meetings with 
stakeholders and CEOs. There is a sense that what they are doing has 
little support with the American people. They are hiding and obscuring 
and evading.
  I suppose I can't blame them. Remember the August recess of last 
year? That was the beginning of what we call the tea party movement. 
This was interesting because this all happened during the August recess 
when those of us in the House and Senate were back in our States. The 
people of the tea party movement were objecting to four things. There 
are four things they are complaining about.
  No. 1 was the runaway cost of government, the increased deficits. 
Let's stop and think about it. In the first year of the Obama 
administration the deficits increased by $1.4 trillion. That is what 
happened the first year. That was after the tea parties, the August 
recess of 2009.
  The second issue then was not to have a government-run health care 
system. We temporarily lost that. There will be some changes in the 
Senate and House after the November elections. A lot of that can be 
corrected. Nonetheless, those are the first two issues of the tea 
partiers who are out there today. These are people who have not 
identified with any party but they want to save America from this 
socialist trend we have right now.
  The third issue was complaining about the closing of Guantanamo Bay 
or Gitmo. I look at this and I wonder, we have a President with an 
obsession to close Gitmo, a place where we have been able to put people 
who do not fit into a prison system since 1903. It is one of the best 
deals the government has. I think we only pay a lease of $4,000 a year. 
It is just like it was in 1903. Here is a place where you can put 
terrorists, the terrorists who are the

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detainees. These people are not criminals in the sense of our criminal 
code. These are terrorists. They don't fit in our court system. There 
is not an American out there who has not heard about what they are 
doing with the constitutional rights and Miranda rights and all that. 
That does not apply in these cases. It should not apply in these cases. 
But this President has wanted to bring these terrorists--close GITMO, 
with no place else to put them--bring them back to the United States 
for either trial or incarceration.
  At the beginning the President had identified some 17 institutions in 
America where you could put these terrorists. One happened to be in my 
State of Oklahoma. It was Fort Sill. Fort Sill has a great artillery 
installation there and they do have a small prison. I went down after 
he had made these suggestions of putting terrorists throughout the 
United States and I talked to--there is a Sergeant Major Carter down 
there in charge of that prison. She said go back and tell those people 
in Washington keep GITMO open. She happened to have had two tours of 
duty in Gitmo. She said that is state of the art. People are treated 
well; they don't torture anyone; it is the only safe place to keep 
terrorists; they have a courthouse they can use for tribunals that 
cannot be found anyplace else in the United States.
  The third issue of these tea partiers was to reject the idea that we 
should close Gitmo and bring these terrorists to the United States.
  That comes to the fourth one, the one of our discussion today, and 
that is the fact that they were protesting cap and trade. Cap and trade 
is a tax increase. A lot of people say if you want to reduce 
CO2 emissions, why don't you put a tax on CO2 
emissions? Some of the strongest supporters of the global warming 
concept are the ones who say let's have a tax on CO2. Do you 
know why they don't? They don't have it because that way, people know 
what it costs, and they will reject it.

  If you have cap and trade, that is a way you can pick winners and 
losers and convince everyone he or she is going to be a winner. So one 
of the things they were protesting during the August recess of 2009 was 
this thing that would result in being the largest tax increase in the 
history of the country.
  I have often said the most egregious vote in this Senate's history, 
up to that time, up to October 1, 2008, was the $700 billion bailout. 
That led to the AIG bailout and the Chrysler bailout and the General 
Motors bailout. All of that took place and that was on October 1, 2008; 
$700 billion to have an unelected bureaucrat to do whatever he wanted 
without any constraints. As bad as that is, a cap-and-trade bill would 
end up--at least $700 billion, that is a one-shot deal. With the cap 
and trade it is every year.
  I know it is difficult for people in America when you start talking 
about billions and trillions of dollars, so I always do my math in 
relation to the State of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, I take the number of 
families who file a tax return and do the math. For example, the $700 
billion came out that would cost each taxpaying family in Oklahoma 
about $5,000 for that. A cap-and-trade tax--they have actually done 
some calculations, the Wharton School of Economics, MIT, CRA, and other 
groups. The range is always between $300 and $400 billion, but that is 
every year. That would cost my people in Oklahoma, according to the 
calculations of CRA, a little bit over $3,100 a year and you don't get 
anything for it.
  The opposition has only grown stronger and more intense. Thus, the 
back-room dealing and secret deals to get 60 votes are not going to 
work.
  I should note, if Kerry-Lieberman were successful in passing, which 
it will not be, but if it were, it would go to conference--that is the 
way things are worked here--with the Waxman-Markey bill. If this bill 
passed the House, that would go to conference, and if this goes to 
conference that means that Waxman-Markey lives.
  We all remember what it did, the Waxman-Markey bill. The authors of 
that bill, as well as Senators Kerry and Lieberman, have argued that we 
need one standard, one framework to regulate greenhouse gases. However, 
the problem is in addition to imposing what would be the largest tax 
increase in history, these bills do not preempt other laws now being 
used to regulate greenhouse gases and drive up costs for industries. 
This would mean there would be multiple standards, multiple 
regulations, creating more confusion, more bureaucracy and, of course, 
more taxes.
  But we still have a liberal press that is in denial, the same as some 
of the Senators who are promoting this. I picked up USA Today last 
Friday on my way back to Oklahoma and I think on page 3 at the top was 
this article talking about how the lizards are going to become extinct 
as a result of global warming. They don't say ``alleged global 
warming,'' they just say it is global warming. So a lot of people, even 
though they realize the truth of this, because the truth has come out 
with climate change and all that stuff, they keep reading this over and 
over so they assume it is true.
  Today I should have been speaking in Chicago, at the Heartland 
Institute's climate conference, but because we had votes this afternoon 
I was not able to do it. I didn't want to miss these votes. I thank my 
former staffer Marc Morano, who will be speaking at the event, for his 
efforts at exposing global warming alarmism. At the Heartland 
Institute, it is my understanding, is the Fourth International 
Conference on Climate Change. It will be held in Chicago today, held as 
we speak. The theme of the ICCC-4 will be ``Reconsidering the Science 
and Economics.''

       New scientific discoveries are casting doubt on how much of 
     the warming of the twentieth century was natural and how much 
     was manmade, and governments around the world are beginning 
     to confront the astronomical cost of reducing emissions. 
     Economists, meanwhile--

  I am reading now from their statement--

     are calculating that the cost of slowing or stopping global 
     warming exceeds the social benefits.
       The purpose of the ICCC-4 is the same as it was for the 
     first three events, to build momentum and public awareness of 
     the global warming ``realism'' movement, a network of 
     scientists, economists, policymakers and concerned citizens 
     who believe sound science and economics, rather than 
     exaggeration and hype, ought to determine what actions, if 
     any, are taken to address the problem of climate change.

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

       Dr. Don Easterbrook's warning came in the form of a new 
     scientific paper he presented to the fourth International 
     Conference on Climate Change in Chicago . . .

  That is today. Dr. Easterbook is an emeritus professor at Western 
Washington University, who has authored 8 books and 150 journal 
publications. His full resume is here.
  So today the event is taking place. On his Web site, 
climatedepot.com, we highlight some of the details.
  Over the next several weeks, I will be speaking on the EPA's so-
called tailoring rule because this all goes back to the Clean Air Act 
and the Clear Air Amendments. What it says is, they are going to change 
that, since that belongs to--that would cover almost every church, 
every small business, everything in America, to only cover the great 
big giants.
  It is not going to work. Everyone is going to be in on this deal. 
That would not be constitutional. I think everyone knows it. Along with 
the tailoring rule, I will continue to point out that the endangerment 
finding is based on IPCC's flawed science.
  By the way, the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change. It is a part of the United Nations. They are the ones that 
started this whole thing back in 1988. The problem we have with that is 
they had an agenda when they started. I can recall, over the years, 
scientists coming to me and I would stand at this podium and I would 
make truthful statements about how the science is being fixed.
  I have one, if anyone doubts my sincerity when I say this, it is on 
my Web site. You can look it up. Five years ago, I talked about how the 
top scientists in America were coming to me and saying: Look, they will 
not allow people who disagree with their hypothesis, who disagree with 
their opinions, to even be part of the IPCC.
  Well, I was vindicated last December when the Climategate thing came 
out,

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and all these people who had been sending stuff in, they uncovered some 
memos going back and forth on how they were going to try and make 
people believe that actually anthropogenic gases cause global warming. 
Anyway, that came at a very appropriate time. I think the people are 
aware of what is happening.
  Let me make one last comment about this endangerment finding. We have 
tried--not ``we'' but those who are promoting the idea of the 
anthropogenic gases cause global warming, they have been trying to 
introduce the bills to have a cap-and-trade system for the United 
States. They have been doing this now about for about 9 years. It has 
not worked.
  So President Obama has stated: All right, if the House and the Senate 
are not going to vote to do this, we will do it administratively. All 
we have to do is have an endangerment finding, which we could 
influence, and once the endangerment finding is there, then that would 
include, with the real pollutants, SOX, NOX, and 
mercury, CO2. If they do that, then they can start 
regulating CO2.
  Well, it is not quite that easy. Lisa Jackson, I have already said 
some nice things about her, and I appreciated her honesty in response 
to this question. Right before Copenhagen, I suspected that the Obama 
administration was going to have an endangerment finding. When they 
did, I knew it had to be based on science, so I asked her: What science 
would this, by and large, be based on, if you have the endangerment 
finding.
  She said the IPCC. Well, wait a minute. That is the same science 
that, through Climategate, has been totally rebuffed and no longer is 
legitimate, either in reality or in the eyes of the American people and 
people around the world.
  So while I am concerned obviously that we should try to do something 
such as this through an endangerment finding, do administratively what 
he is unable to do through the House and Senate, that is not going to 
work. So I would only say, I know all the Tea Party people are still 
out there. Keep in mind, you lost your fight with the government-run 
health care, you lost your fight with the huge deficit, and so far we 
have not lost on the closing of Gitmo. I think we will be able to keep 
it open. But the one issue that is up for grabs right now is this 
endangerment finding.
  Let's keep reminding all the people whom you meet with prior to the 
elections of November, and particularly during the upcoming August 
recess, that a cap-and-trade system would end up being the largest tax 
increase in the history of America and it would happen every year and 
it would not accomplish anything.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak 
as in morning business but on an amendment that I will bring up later 
on the bill.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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