mr. inhofe: thank you very much. i object. mrs. boxer: thank you. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mrs. shaheen: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you. let me just say that i'm disappointed to hear that we can't move forward in a way that i think would address both the concern about voting on the keystone pipeline as well as the concern that senator portman and i have to have consideration of the shaheen-portman energy efficiency bill. shaheen-portman is legislation that would go very far to address our energy needs. after all, energy efficiency is the first fuel. it's the cheapest, fastest way to deal with this country's energy needs. it's something that has support from those people who believe in sphiewms and from those -- those people who believe in fossil fuels and those people who believe in alternatives like wind and solar. it's something that everybody benefits from and it's something that would move us in a direction that would help address the pollution that we're seeing not

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent i be allowed to speak until the arrival of the senator from alabama, senator sessions. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, the subject today, of course, is the failed foreign policy of this president and this administration and it's really hard to do it in a limited period of time because once something happens like benghazi and we get into the middle of that thing, then all of a sudden you turn around and this president turns loose arguably the five most heinous terrorists from -- from gitmo, at the same time we have a policy that was going so well in iraq and now we find out that that's not working out either. if i have time i'll touch on that. the first thing i want to do is mention this benghazi thing. being the rab be on the armed services committee, i had the opportunity there and be there, it happens that charles stevens, the ambassado

mr. inhofe: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i think it might be appropriate for the ranking member of the appropriate personnel committee to be heard on this because i -- in my opinion, he is the most knowledgeable person in this subject at this time. that would be senator graham. mr. graham: thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: thank you very much. i join in the objection with senator inhofe. i really appreciate what senator inhofe and levin have done over the last couple of years. working in a bipartisan fashion to make sure that we deal with a problem in the military that's a problem in society -- sexual assault, sexual harassment, and to set a zero tolerance policy, but at the same time keep the military in a position to defend this country. and who does -- what can we say about our military? you have heard her view. my view is it's the finest military in the world. great people. but within that construct, you have people doing things that are just criminal, wrong, but is

mr. inhofe: i've got to get to the last part. rather than to face these issues head on, i'm going to share with you something that happened last -- it was last year and then again this year. there is a very wealthy person named tom steyer. tom steyer has a mansion that overlooks the golden gate bridge. he had a fund-raiser for barack obama last year, raising a lot of money. but what i'm more concerned about is the fund-raiser that he had when he announced -- this is just in the last month -- tom steyer, very wealthy person, said he was going to personally donate $50 million and raise an additional $50 million to try to do two things. one, to resurrect this whole idea on global warming since the people don't care about it anymore. and as a result of that we had an all-night vigil. remember that? that was right after tom steyer made his announcement. the second thing that he's mandating is to kill the keystone pipeline. there's a lot of money out there. the regulatory burdens already being placed on this country are enormous. the c

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: and mr. president i ask that i be recognized for such time as i may consume as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president it's kind of -- a little bit humorous to me we're talking about extending the unemployment benefits in the midst of one of the most intense cold fronts in american history. i saw one newscaster yesterday who said if you're under 40, you've not seen this stuff before it has to make everyone question as to whether -- i'm going to tie this together -- whether global warming was ever real. while i know that the left wing media is giving me a hard time for talking about my opposition to the administration's global warming policies when it gets cold outside i think it's important to point out two things. one, that the administration i

inhofe: thank you, mr. president. and before the senator from iowa leaves, let me just make one comment, and that is, i look at him and all of those who are saying nice things about the senator from iowa -- now, see, i'm from iowa, so i can say this. you got to remember that, senator harkin. that even conservatives can love tom harkin. i think it is important that people need to understand that. i have to say, mr. president, that i have been to, i think, at least 10 of the air shows and spending 90% of my time, my wife and his wife and the four of us together because we're both pilots. you sit around and talk about airpts. yo-- you sit around and talk abt airplanes. there is one thing i want to say to senator sanders. the two of you are two of my favorite in-the-heart liberals because you're not ashamed of it. you stand up -- exactly what senator sanders just said. and the the things that i've seen you do, you have a big harkts you have your own philosophy, you are alternate -- you're not a demagogue. you live your ph

mr. inhofe: how much time is remaining on our side? the presiding officer: 33 minutes is remaining on the republican side buy but the request for the colloquy time has expired. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent i be given four more minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from california. mrs. boxer: what time do we have a veto here? the presiding officer: 4:30. mrs. boxer: the reason we were careful with our time and we gave my good friends, and they are my good friends, a lot of extra time, i'll allow the senator to proceed for a minute but after that we need equal time on this. i give him one minute. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator has asked for four minutes. mrs. boxer: i approve one minute. ms. inhofe: could we compromise at two minutes. mrs. boxer: let me think it over. okay. the presiding officer: without objection. two minutes. mr. inhofe: i thank my good friend from california for thinking that over. i want to mention 432,000 direct jobs. and when you stop and think about it, keep

mr. inhofe: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: what is the general order right now? the presiding officer: the time between now and 12:30 is equally divided and the republicans control five minutes. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent i be recognized for five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: let's say for eight minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: than inhofe all: al. thank you very much. madam president, later this week we're going to have the e.p.a. administrator come to our environment and public works committee to testify about the greenhouse gas rule being developed for existing fleets of power plants. now, we know what the rule is for the new power plants. this is for the existing. in light of that, it's important to point out that the senate has been debating global warming for well over a decade, actually around 14 years now. the first cap and trade bill the senate debated was when republicans were in the majority. i was chairman at that time, madam president,

mr. inhofe: thank you, mr. president. all night long. that's going to be fun. by the way, the oklahoma city thunders aren't playing tonight, so you may get a few more viewers. it's nice to hook over and see probably the most articulate and knowledgeable of all of the alarmists historically as our newest senator, ed markey from massachusetts. i have had the enjoyable time of -- you know, it can be good friends and still disagree. certainly, the senator from rhode island knows that because we had a little disagreement last week, and certainly the senator from california, even though she is not smiling -- i guess you are smiling tonight. anyway, this has been a long, long time that we have been working on this. it started with the kyoto treaty. i think most people have forgotten about that when during the clinton-gore administration, when gore came back to where was it in california -- in south america, they came up with this thing? rio de janeiro, that's right. came back and said oh, we're all going to die. global warming is coming. i would say this -- he knows w

. >> thank you very much, senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i ask you turn the mouse over. this is just for reference. we put this together with the help of the military, the colors represented their come of orange is what is under isil control right now. the gray would he the kurdish controlled and that brown would be the ambitions of isil. do you look at that map and find any problem? >> actually senator, in terms of their ambition, i think that is probably understating. if left unaddressed, they would aspire to restore the agent kingdom of the schaub, which includes the current state of israel and runs all the way down to kuwait. >> we are trying to be conservative on this. it does people know this is a big area in secretary hagel, do you have a problem with this? >> know, general dempsey stated it exactly right. >> okay, according to the reports from u.s. intelligence agencies believe they isil does not represent the immediate threat to the united states. daniel benjamin was the top counterterrorism adviser during his first or third number

mr. inhofe: thank you, madam president. it's been 22 days now since hamas has began its most recent campaign of terrorism attacks against the innocent citizens of israel. since the operation began, 32 tunnels have been uncovered that would have been used to attack israel. on saturday and sunday, this past saturday and sunday alone, almost 100 rockets were fired at israel. in the gaza strip since the beginning of operation protective eagle -- that would have been july 8 -- there have been over 2,000 hamas rockets fired into israel with tel aviv and jerusalem both in the target. israel has responded as any nation protecting its people with airstrikes and ground strikes to silence these hamas terrorists. you know, the israelis are tough. i just have to remind people all the time that since their independence back in the 1940's, they've been attacked -- israel has been attacked six different times, and we remember how they were outnumbered in the six-day war in 1967, and they won, they prevailed. then again the same thing, i do

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i believe under the regular order that i'll be recognized for up to 30 minutes. and if not, i ask unanimous consent that i be recognized. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, with all the things that are going on right now, and i'm particularly interested in the hearing that we had yesterday on isis, it was a big deal. and i applaud general dempsey for his honesty in talking about how serious this war is that we're embarking on right now, the fact that we have just imagine the isis has grown, has tripled in the last three months, up to now well over 30,000 troops, with tanks, with heavy artillery. i mean, this is not -- i know the president has tried to use, make people believe this is just another rag tag terrorist operation over there, like al qaeda or taliban. it's not. this is war. this is a real serious thing that we're in the middle of, and i do applaud general

mr. inhofe: mr. president, it's my understanding that senator bennet is going to be due here shortly. i should be through by that time so i ask unanimous consent that i take senator cornyn's time, about 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, in january of 2014 may go down in record as the coldest of the months in united states history. between the polar vortex storms of last we're freezing temperatures much of the nation experienced cold weather and records, at least once or twice. and this has been going on now for the last three years. so while we won't have official nationwide temperature data for january for a few more weeks, we do have preliminary figures. throughout the entire month over 2,387 daily cold temperature records were set around opportunity, many of those were in my state of oklahoma. at least 49 of these daily records occurred on january 6 and 7 when the first round of the pole har vortex hit. polar vortex hit. yesterday in tulsa it went dow

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i enjoyed very much the remarks of the senator from florida. he's very much concerned about this, very much plugged into the situation with what's happening in the ukraine, and i just would like to make a couple comments about that from a little slightly different perspective. that is, that -- and my current position is the ranking member on the senate armed services committee. 0en that on that you take one pf this proposal, that is the money coming out of the military to take care of a problem that the military should not have to take care of at a time when things are really serious. now, the i.m.f. has always the relief it needs to meet its borrowing needs. the i.m.f. does not need additional u.s. funds to help ukraine. it does not make sense to double the size of the i.m.f. by are ratifying a 2010 agreement paying for -- with money that can be used for d.o.d. to address the shortfalls, which i am going to talk about. by the way, there is another option out there, because th

mr. inhofe: and he has been a capitol hill professional staff member for a long time. he actually was on the house budget committee for a long period of time. then he was a special assistant to our senator thad cochran. this has been some time ago. joe served as the army assistant secretary, then the acting secretary of the army. that was 2001. and then as the 30th army secretary for the past 35 years. he is a good friend of mine much what's different about him -- there are a lot of people that have a career, have a background in academia. but the ones who have shown that they also have a heart, they have a reason for what they're doing, and they have a love for using the position that they hold to help other people, and that's what joe westfall has done for a long period of time. i no that he when he was under secretary -- i think he was actually acting secretary of the army when we were down together in southern oklahoma, fort sill, outside of lawton, oklahoma, in the southwestern part of the state. and we had a school -- two schools down there. one was called jee in

mr. inhofe: madam president, i know that the senator from minnesota was going to be recognized first. she is not in the chamber, so i'll go ahead and then we'll get back in order if that's all right. i ask unanimous consent that i be considered for 15 minutes. the presiding officer: the senator may proceed. mr. inhofe: madam president, i think it's about time to be talking again, as we did five years ago, about what's happening now that the results are in on what i consider to be the greatest failed policy, foreign policy that we've experienced. when you look around the world and you see what happened and what's going on now, this is kind of, in my opinion -- this may be a narrow opinion but is a result of what was a, the apology tour that president obama took immediately after becoming president of the united states. i remember standing at this podium at that time and saying you just don't go to the muslim world and say that we are not going to -- i will not make a speech until we have t

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i read with a lot of interest the trip to china that was made b by -- by president obama and meeting with president shix, over what they characterized as an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. i didn't hear any kind of agreement from anything that was said by the president of china. and they have been talking about this as historic breakthrough. un, that's exactly what -- you know, that's exactly what they said in 2009 back when copenhagen was the center stage for the big annual party so that people are aware of what goes on, once a year the united nations throws a big party trying to get countries to agree to reduce their greenhouse gases by certain amounts to come in. it's kind of interesting, one of the first ones i went to, i saw a good friend of mine from benin in north africa, and i said, you guys aren't getting sucked into that, i know that for sure, in terms of a reduction in greenhouse gases. what would happen in north africa if did you that? and he said, of cou

mr. inhofe: i yield the floor. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i come to the floor to address two issues, a shorter issue on immigration and a longer issue on the student loan program, particularly reference to the legislation that was offered earlier this morning. on immigration, this morning secretary johnson appeared before the judiciary committee. we had a chance to ask a number of questions related to the administration's release of 36,000 criminal aliens, for what reasons the department voluntarily did release them and especially convicted murderers and what they're doing to track down and keep track of where these people are. i didn't get answers but the secretary committed to respond in writing about the matter, and i thank him ahead of time for doing that. i also asked about data on countries that refuse to cooperate in taking back their nationals. today i'm introducing a bill with senator inhofe to fix the situation and allow the government to detain foreign nationals that pose

mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: madam president, i wasn't scheduled to come in here, but something's going on today i want to share with everyone that i think is pretty exciting. there is a new group that has been formed. it's called the i.d.c., in defense of christian summit. i just came from addressing this group, and it's pretty amazing. there are over a thousand down there in the visitor's center, the big auditorium, stampeding room only, the largest crowd that has ever been down there. it's been quickly formed because of the persecution that has taken place throughout the world and primarily in the isis area. a lot of people -- unfortunately, i don't have charts that are big enough to really project well, but at least the president there can see them. this is the area where isis is working. it's not just syria, it's not just iraq. we're talking about in jordan and other areas, it's a very large area. they are not confined to any particular area. but one of t

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, first let me thank my good friend, the chairman of the committee, senator levin. and it's true, we work so closely together, not just the two of us, but our staff directors, the minority and majority staff. it is just rare that we have a difference of opinion. when we do, we sit down and work things out, debate them, and g.e.d. things done -- and get things done. so there's a reason that when senator levin said that we have passed this bill for 52 consecutive years -- you know, there are a lot of bills that hit the floor. some are important, some are not. some are more important to certain members than others. this is one that's important to everybody. there's not one -- ther senatoro doesn't want to pass a defense authorization bill. when he mentioned that it passed by 25-1, we've been ready to go since that time and that's why we're encouraging people and have been encourage people to bring amendments down. let me mention that i personally went, as did senator levin, to b

mr. inhofe: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in process be vitiated. officer sphe without objection. the presiding officer: without objection,. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations, which the clerk will report. the clerk: nominations, department of state. john r. bass of new york to be ambassador of the united states of america to the republic of turkey. eric t.schultz of virginia to be ambassador to the republic of zambia. thomas frederick daughton of arizona to be ambassador of the united states of america to the republic of nam namibia. david pressman of new york to be although representative for special political affairs in the united nations with the rank of ambassador. david pressman of new york to be an alternate representative to the sessions of the general assembly of the united nations. department of defense, deborah ss. wada of hawaii to be assistant secretary of the army. federal housing finance agency, laura s. wertheimer of the district of

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: first of all, let me thank my good friend for yielding. i think we will have several people coming down and talking about this tonight. i want to say something about senator sanders from vermont. i appreciate very much his -- his comments. i think that they were -- let me get this here. i think that they were very, very appropriate, and i remember one time when he and hi a -- i had a difference of opinion on an amendment. it had to do with the amount of money that one of the large oil companies made. he and i debated on the floor for something like three hours. a vote was taken, and after that -- i did win the vote. afterwards, he came up to me and he said i want you to know that since i have been here from the house, that was probably the most enlightened debate that we have ever had. you won and i lost. i really do appreciate it. we have been very good friends since then. well, the comments he made are real because i don't have any doubt in my mind that senator sanders and t

mr. inhofe: mr. president, i spoke last night in anticipation of this all-night session that was going to take place and i wasn't surprised at the general topics that were covered. there were probably five altogether but they were stated over and over and over again. and i would like just to clarify a couple things that probably are worthwhile this morning. one is, my good friend from california -- and this is a quote, and we took it down -- said, "when 97% to 98% of the scientists say something is real, they don't have anything pressing them to say that other than the truth. they don't have any other agenda. they don't work for oil companies. and i will tell you as chairman of the environment committee, every time the republicans chose a so-called expert on climate, we have tracked them down to special interest funding. those 3%, they know where their bread is buttered." that's kind of an interesting and a timely statement to make because what they're not telling you, and i'm talking about the senat

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: i ask i be recognized as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, it came -- i came to the floor to talk about china's inability to keep its promise with the united states. you know, we had someone go over there, of course, the president talked to president xi and they gave the assurances that certain things were going to happen and i've always said and for quite some time i've had occasion to visit with the chinese, a lot of them are hoping we would restrict things in this country so that the only place they can go to get power would be places like china, india, mexico and all that. but one of their -- the promise, but a statement made by the president of china was they would stop increasing their emissions by 2030. but it's impossible to

inhofe: mr. presiden, there are a few of us who wanted to come down and talk about specific things in our state that are reaching a crisis point by having to have -- participate in obamacare, but before doing that i want to make just one comment to make sure it's in the record that we can talk about the election that took place over in afghanistan. you know, we've had quite a time over there. we've lost actually 2,197 of our own troops in afghanistan, and we've injured about ten times that many. so it's just -- it's been a real crisis for a lot of people for a long period of time. things have been going good, and i think that when the decision was made by this president to pull everything out at the -- at a given time, things started turning around a little bit, and now they're in the middle of -- in afghanistan the election that took place, i know that we're not supposed to say this. there's no official position. i want to make that clear -- by the united states of america. but to me there are t

mr. inhofe: mr. president, first, let me just say that -- what a joy it is to be working with senator levin. i know the public out there thinks that no republicans like any democrats and vice versa, that's kind of the flames they try to fan, but it's just not true. in this committee, i can only think of two issues that -- where senator levin and i disagreed with each other. the fact that he has been here for -- he has been through 16 of the ndaa's, as either chairman or as ranking member. so i'm sure that's some kind of a record. but just to work with someone you know will be totally honest with you, when you have a difference of opinion, that you're working together, it really is a joy. i would hope we could be an example for some of the other committees where sometimes it's just not that much of a joy. the long history that he has had here and the integrity that he's expressed is just a -- you will be sorely missed, i have to say to my good friend, senator levin. the bill, as senator levin said, th

senator inhofe. >> thank you mr. chairman. as secretary fox is the former director of the cost assessment program evaluation you lead the strategic choices and management review. in that effort you spent many hours examining the department's military personnel compensation benefit structure including retirement pay and benefits. in your current role as the interim deputy secretary of defense you will have been heavily involved in the departments budget. i have a chart. you can see it over there on this side and it shows -- this is a chart we have used quite a bit. i have talked to you both about this chart in my office. you have to review this. >> can i interrupt you? we have a quorum. could we keep you here for one minute? we want to get nominations and forgive the interactions but senator inhofe has asked me to interrupt anyone. thank you very much. sorry to do that to you. we now have a quorum so i would ask the committee. >> thank you so much for speaking out. >> i shouldn't of singled you out. you would have never done th

inhofe: mr. president, the -- i have to say this: that the resolution by senator klobuchar truly demonstrates the vast political influence of the president's global warming advocates, what they've been doing over time. you know, this is not something that's new. this is something that started in this chamber, oh, late see, about 15 years ago, at the time the clinton-gore effort took place down in south america. it wassen signed on to the -- it was sign the on to the treaty down there. it never came up to be ratified. but the resolution cited 13 different government agencies that are colluding together to merge their policies to promote global warming, which underscores how effective the environmental activists like tom steyer has been at getting their agenda into the obama administration. while some democrats may be convinced that global warming is continuing to occur, the scientific record does not agree. in fact, for the past 15 years tefns across the -- temperatures across the globe have not i

mr. president i promise you there will be another president with different policies and the next time it may not be immigration laws but tax laws our environmental or labor laws. and i fervently believe we need tax reform in environmental reform but there is a proper way to do it is this body making legislative changes through lot? not one president is setting aside the lot. a presidential temper tantrum is not and acceptable means of discourse. one of the characteristics of the monarchy is he or she need not compromise. the president has justified the legal amnesty by saying he told congress would you wanted and between the president and congress they do not get the demand of congress here is the policy and want to give me what i want your i will decree it to be so. but let me be clear. we need common sense immigration reform i support common-sense immigration reform. you have to work with the other branches and compromise. this is the president barely willing to talk to congress led alo

mr. inhofe: let me reclaim my time to make one other comment. the two people sitting down with us, peter levine on our side and john bonzel on our side, their compatibility in working together is also kind of unprecedented. it doesn't happen very often. and i can't speak for you, senator levin, but i can speak for me, that without these two working together, i sure could not have done -- participated in a meaningful way. so i want to thank them. mr. levin: well, you are speaking for both of us, i can assure you, with that comment and so many other things that you've said. and i think at this point, unless there's someone else who wishes to be recognized? i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. levin: would the senator yield for just one second? i just want to thank him for the great contribution that he has made to our committee. i know he's not going to -- i think he's planning on speaking on a different subject, in which case he's played a major role on the intelligence committee and

mr. inhofe: thank you madam president. i -- i think we're going to have a lot of discussions on the floor concerning a number of things that have happened in the last couple of weeks not the least of which is what's going on in the antarctica right now the fact that some people had to be lifted out. it's kind of interesting. and i -- i don't want anyone to misunderstand that i am reviving a lot of the previous interest in the global warming thing for any reason other than the fact that right now after it has been determined without any -- any doubt that the sentiment in the house and the senate would never pass anything like cap and trade but the problem is this president is now doing through regulation what he could not do through legislation and that is the -- that's the expense that i am concerned about. you know, we -- in a minute i want to talk about the cost of these things, but we have a real serious problem in this -- in this country. people are concerned about the spending they're concerned about what's happening

quorum call: mr. coons: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: i ask that proceedings under the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coons: madam president, i come to the floor today my heart heavy with a challenging task which is to convey to you the remarkable, the special, the powerful spirit of a friend who passed just three weeks ago in a tragic accident in india. matt haley was a remarkable delawarean. matt haley was a gifted and accomplished chef and entrepreneur. matt haley was someone who touched so many lives in my home state of delaware. in 2012, matt won the delaware restaurant association's cornerstone award, a lifetime achievement award recognizing restauranteurs who dedicate their lives to humanitarian effort. matt owned eight different restaurants all across the beach region so well-known to folks here in washington. matt owned restaurants in rehobeth beet, lewis, ocean view, bethany beach, feighanwicd was involve

mr. inhofe: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. >> madam president?ma. >> senator from oklahoma. >> when the majority leader said congress can't stand by and not do anything, i have to remind them we have been doing this for quite some time. we have been working on the problem of sexual assaults. the reality is congress has been aggressive in instituting reforms to tackle the sexual assault in the military since '09 with the defense authorization act has enacted 47 provisions directly dealing with this or dealing with efforts to improve allegations of misconduct and they have strengthen the protection of the victims while preserving the rights of the accused. they are vital to assure a fair military justice system. i look at the bill that we are considering that will be coming up in a short while and the bill modifies the way i see the problems. in january a letter to the department sighted technical problems and i will quote from the letter quote potentially not able to be reconciled and if conviction results it would it could result in years of more

mr. carper: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that our amendment, the carper-corker-box he havcarper-corker-boxer amende midpending and that it be reported by number at this time. the presiding officer: without objection, the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from delaware, mr. carper, proposes an amendment numbered 3583. strike all after the enacting clause and insert the following: mr. carper: i would make some comments and then yield to senator corker and back to senator boxer. we have others on the floor that would like to speak on behalf of this amendment. i want to start off by saying to the senator from tennessee, who's here with us as our lead rope the amendment, how grateful i am to have the opportunity to work with you on a very, very important issue. thank you for your courage to stand up. one of the definitions of leadership is the courage to stay out of step when everyone else is marching to the wrong tune. in this case, not everyone else is marching to the wrong tune but a

let me respond to that, mr. inhofe's views by saying the following. climate change is real and there is no longer a scientific debate about that. in the words of the u.s. global change research program, which includes e.p.a., nasa, the national science foundation and the departments of defense, energy, state, health, interior, transportation and commerce, i quote, global warming is unequivocal and primarily human induced, end of quote. that is not my view. that is not senator boxer's view. it is not senator schatz's view. that is the view of the u.s. global change research program, which includes some of the major agencies of the united states government. and by the way, clearly it is not just the united states government or agencies that believe that. there are agencies representing virtually every country on earth who have come to the same conclusion. now, when some people say, mr. president, well, there is debate, the evidence is not yet clear. the scientific community is not quite sure, let me clear the air on that one. according to a study publis

mr. inhofe: i appreciate that. i appreciate the senator from texas yielding at this time. every time i hear people talk about the jobs that are at stake here, i think about my state of oklahoma per capita probably has more jobs in the state than any other state does because we are -- cushing, oklahoma, is the crossroads of the pipeline throughout america. this chart right here -- just over two years ago president obama dame t came to cushing toa speech. you can see the tubes there, talking about how this is a major breakthrough that we're going to -- quote -- "cut through the red tape, break through bureaucratic hurdles and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done." that's his quote right there. yet he's done nothing but obstruct this ever since that tiesm the southern leg of the pipeline may be finished but that was part of the project the president dissents hav didn't hy in. the president could do something when you cross international lines but he could not do it from that point south. it is completely stalled because the president has delayed making a

. >> mr. chairman, senator inhofe, distinguished members of the panel, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today as the president of the association of the united states army, and as a former chief of staff of the united states army. the association of united states army represents hundreds of thousands of members of the active army, army national guard, army reserve, the retired community, civilians, and the army families. 121 chapters worldwide. our members and i are very well aware of the fact that much of "the good soldiers" over the last few years would have been impossible without the commitment of this committee. and we are indebted to each and everyone of you and your predecessors. your tireless and selfless personal stats, professional staffs, we appreciate their efforts. and we understand that in these fiscal times these are very challenging times for our nation. certain things need to be done. now, before i continue i want to acknowledge the bipartisan bill -- i've never

senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. almost everything that you said was in my statement too, so i'll just forgo that except for one thing that wasn't mentioned, and that is the fiscal 2013 ndaa established a commission to undertake the comprehensive review of the military compensation and retirement system and proposed reforms to congress by early 2015. now, when the commission was created, congress made a promise in law to retirees and those currently serving that they be grandfathered from any changes to the benefits that they were promised when they volunteered service to the their country. i've often said that people making a career decision, mr. chairman, and it's predicated on what they are told at that time would be the situation to, and to change that, i think, becomes a moral issue. that promise of grandfathering was again made by the president through the presidential principles submitted to guide the commission, section 403 breaks these promises. i think we all agree that there needs to be a serious look back

general welsh. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member inhofe and members of the commit yeah. it's an honor to be here. mr. chairman, might i add from all the men and women of the air force, thank you for your distinguished service to this country. you're a statesman, sir and have the respect anded a mr. asia of everybody on this panel. >> thank you. >> for the past 23 years the united states marin hey maintained an extremely high tempo in the middle east. nonstop sense desert storm ended in 1991 and performed speck tackily well and you have been supportive of increasing their pay and benefits. today we're in a -- last year, our readiness levels reached an all-time low. ace we struggled to recover, we don't have enough units ready to responsible immediately to a major contingency and we're not always able to provide fully mission ready ewans to meet rotational requirements. our modernization forecasts are bleak. roughly 20% of our aircraft were bill in the 1950s and 60s and half were built more than 25 areas ago and now due to sequestration we cut 50 part of our current plans

senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. not a bashful one among them. let's see how bashful they are here. first of all, a lot of us have seen this coming and i know we don't talk about it very much, but when we see money that otherwise should have gone to in to our military, in to our defense, we see the construction of the biofuel refineries, $160 million. see the navy purchased the greenfield at $26 a gallon, could be purchased on the market for $3 a gallon. the climate change initiatives have gone up now $120 billion since president obama's been in office. i commented the other day, general welsh, that for the $120 billion we could buy 1400 new f-35s. food stamps. $40 billion -- $42 billion additional every year. so, i would like to ask you, in this climate, and i'm going to submit for the record, because there isn't time to read them all, all the quotes from everyone, up to and including secretary hagel about the dilemma that we're in and the fiscal situation that we're in right now, could each one of you briefly describe something in concrete term

senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we had six things i was going to ask, but i think director clapper answered two of them. a lot of detail, but i want to mention snowden that tied a war, and then one other question about the iran. first of all, you -- i thought you covered it very well, director clapper, in terms of what snowden has done. the disturbing thing, and we hear from an awful lot of people, treating him as if he's a hero, and i look at it more as a trader, and i would like to get from each one of you that he is ploabl, the degree he's perpetrated the single greatest compromise of information in american history, and secondly, respond that i believe that the vast majority of the 1.7 million documents that was stolen have nothing to do with nsa or surveillance programs and if disclosed or replaced in the hands of the add veer sorries to defend our homeland. the vast majority has nothing to do with the rights people are concerned about under the nsa. >> as i indicated, the revelations have gone way, way beyond

thank you, mr. chairman. i agree with the comments you made. i want to address that, but i am concerned as everyone is about our national security. two weeks your returned from a trip to africa, afghanistan sought south asia, europe. it is clear from talking to troops, diplomats that the global security environment is complex and growing more dangerous every day. it stating last year before congress, in almost a 50 years and intelligence i do not remember when we have had a more diverse array of threats in crisis situations to deal with. based on the we have seen since a think you're exactly right. the reality is our national security is worse than ten years ago. around the world we're seeing trips to our security rice from the middle east to africa, east asia. allies to not trust us, and enemies of fierce. in iran the agreement has done nothing to stop the regime in richmond activities. in fact, i am willing to submit for the record the reuters -- date successfully test fired missiles. the defense

senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we have expressed our concern about iran and the threats they oppose to us and that our intelligence and classified intelligence as far back as 2007 np indicated they would have a capability by 2015 with a wep within delivery and it was more expressed in a report classified by intelligence in 2010 refirming their suspicious thoughts earlier. i have been concerned about that. we have a president that thinks there is an opportunity to get them to join the global economy and reform their way. it is said they were able to infiltrate the computer network and raising questions they were able to access the blood stream of the navy network. i am going to quote from the report. quote iran's navy hacking was extensive. it took four months to purge them from the biggest unclassified network. if true, such an attack would be profound but it is unclear, what, if anything, the ad munstration would do in response to such behavior. would a similar penetration by war planes be treated with ambivalence

senator inhofe. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for holding this hearing. i think it's important for us to conduct oversight. we need to be hearing from epa and those affected by the role which includes utilities and consumers the manufactures the minors and others. we need the records were put the whole picture of this rule and we need to hear from experts on electricity reliability like ferc and nerc. during his time in office personnel bomb has pursued a systematic strategy for using the government to take over major sectors of the economy starting with obamacare and nationalize the health care system and onto dodd-frank and making bank bailouts a permanent fixture in american society. now we have the first round of the global warming regulations which would nationalize the electricity market and force americans to live out the presidents green dream. we don't have to look any further than obama is model germany to see where that path leads her to think senator vitter covered this well. the fact that they are trying to get out from under them as they are

. >> mr. chairman, senator inhofe, distinguished members of the panel, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today as the president of the association of the united states army and as a former chief of staff of the united states army. association of the united states army represents hundreds of thousands of members of the active army, army national guard, army reserve, the retired community, civilians and the army families. 121 chapters worldwide. our members and i are very well aware of the fact that much of good done for soldiers over the last few years would have been um possible without the commitment -- impossible without the commitment of this committee, and we are indebted to each and every one of you ask your predecessors. your tireless and selfless personal staffs, professional staffs, we appreciate their efforts. and is we understand -- and we understand that in these fiscal times, these very challenging times for our nation, certain things need to be done. now, before i co

so thank you mr. chairman, i appreciate this good hearing. >> thank you, senator. senator inhofe? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have to tell you senator sessions my wife's upset because the deer are eating her begonias. you know my wife well enough to know if she's not happy, i'm not happy. so i've got a stake in this. first of all, i'm glad clay pope is here from oklahoma. i appreciate your coming. clay you and i have worked together with frank lucas on some of our small dam rehabilitation projects, and i look forward to hearing your testimony. although i've already read it, and won't be able to stay for it. that doesn't mean i don't love you anyway. all right. this is -- all we talk about around here since he became chairman of this committee is trying to resurrect, trying to make people believe the world is coming to an end. this is the 31st, 31st hearing this committee's had, this committee i'm talking about the whole committee now, on global warming, since senator boxer came in as chairman, and with each one, the polling data has declined. i mean, it started off where it was

. >> senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we expressed many times our concern about iran and the threat that they pose to us, and that our intelligence and classified intelligence as far back as 2007 indicated that they would have a capability of a weapon, or delivery system by 2015, then it was even more forcefully expressed in an report that was unclassified by our intelligence in 2010, reaffirming their suspicions are earlier. so i have been concerned about that for a long period of time, i'm concerned that a president that some of thinks there's an opportunity to get them to join the global community and reform their ways. in a recent "wall street journal" article, suggesting the iranians were able to successfully infiltrate the navy network. the federally 17th article racist series questions suggesting iran was able to access the bloodstream of the navy network. i'm going to quote from that report. iran's infiltration of a navy computer network was far more extensive than previously thought. it took the navy about four m