principal player in these markets is entirely inconsistent with our nation's capitalistic economic s i'll forcefully oppose the creation of a government-run health plan. before i conclude, i would like to say a few words about the current process of the health care reform in the senate finance committee. i said at the outset i'm committed toward working toward bipartisan health care reform. as a member of the finance committee, i've witnessed and been a part of at least foundations of such reform. there are many hurdles that remain but i want to thank chairman baucus and ranking member grassley for their very hard work on this extremely complex, difficult issue. we've never had an issue that involved as many people in this country. 100% of the people. and it's important that we get it right, take the time to get it right. member grassley has been very cooperative on it and chairman baucus has been open on it, and

that's been extremely helpful. we've spent hours upon hours in that committee receiving inputs and options from both sides on how to reform our nation's health care system. it stands in great contrast to the partisan process that was unfortunately unfolded in the health, education, labor, and pensions committee that we've been tediously working through. there's been a lot of comments about how many amendments we turned in. i think we had about 380 amendments. i had to remind them that if you don't get any piece of the drafting, you've got to get your opinions in somehow, and you do that through multiple amendments. of course i would mention that probably half of those amendments were to fix grammatical errors, punctuation typos. about half of them. those were accepted. it's my hope that the difference in process will result in a difference of substance between the "help" committee legislation and the finance committee legislation. i'll continue to work in the finance committee to shape legislation that improves the

quality of our health care, reduces cost, is responsible in a budgetary impact and increases access to care for all of the american people. as i've said, there's a long way to go in that committee and many differences to resolve, but i continue to work in good faith and hope for responsible bipartisan health care reform. i'm holding out hope a better process will emerge as we continue our work in health, education, labor and pensions. the bill we have before us is a clear sign that just as we have been excluded early on in the health care reform effort, it looks like we'll continue to be excluded as the process continues. there's time to get us included. there is an important reason to get us included. but we'll see. in the end, for me and many people across this country, our discussions about health care can be summed up in a short story with a simple moral.

i was reading a book about a wyoming doctor who decided to settle in big piney. he found ranch land he liked and decided to make it his home. when he was attending a local rodeo, one of the cowboys competing in the contest looked at him and said, "you aren't from here, are you?" he said, well, i'm going to be. i'm a doctor. unable to control his enthusiasm, the cowboy walked away shouting to all within earshot, "hey, we finally got ourselves a doctor." that's what health care is all about in wyoming, the west and in countless towns and cities all across our country. i've got to tell you, this doctor spent most of his life in the congo. he studied ebola and had been mbuto's personal doctor. he established a lot of health clinics over there. when he retired, he did move to

wyoming, and he did health care the old-fashioned way. he made house calls, and he sat with people while they were doing. and he had a lot of friends over there. incidentally, he did not take medicare or medicaid. he said that there were too many strings attached to it. he set up a foundation and the people he worked with could make a donation to his foundation instead. that way he didn't violate federal rules about treating some people and taking money. a tremendous doctor, and unfortunately we lost him this year. so that area is once again without a doctor. if you can send me one that likes rodeos, we'd be happy to have him there. but, that's what health care in wyoming is about. in the big cities and towns of chicago and new york, boston, los angeles, it seeks to -- it seems to me there is a hospital or doctor's office on every corner. in states like wyoming they are few and far between which makes

health care a precious commodity. i tell people the statistics are we are short every single kind of provider in wyoming, including veterinarians, which always brings the comment, "surely veterinarians don't work on people." we say, yes, if you're far enough from a regular doctor, you're happy to have a veterinarian. you just hope he doesn't use the same vaccines. so if we aren't careful with this legislation, we won't make health care more plentiful and abundant. it will make it even more rare and difficult to obtain. when health care gets more expensive and less available in places like the big cities of this nation, imagine what it will be like in the small towns of wyoming and the west. people back home know what it will be like. another one-size-fits-all policy that didn't fit so well in the rural areas of this country to begin with. that's why so many people are really wore r*eud right now. the only way we can assure them is they don't have to worry is we take the time to make sure we

get it right the first time. then and only then will the american people feel like they'll be getting what they said they wanted during our campaigns last year. not just change, but change for the better. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent i be recognized as if in morning business for the time as i consume. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. inhofe: let me, first of all, mr. president -- say of my friend, the senior senator from wyoming, he really does articulate this well. and he has spent countless hours working on this. and when you listen to him, not just in his depth of knowledge in trying to work out something that would give improvements and avoid a total socialization of medicine, he knows what he's

talking about. i think when we go back -- i go back to my state of oklahoma, it's not all that differe than from when he goes back to his state of wyoming. people ask the question, if government isn't working well now, why do we want to put all the rest of these things in government, whether it's health care, the banking industry, the insurance industry, oil and gas and the other takeovers that we're witnessing right now. i do think that you can summarize what he said very simply by merely saying if you, if there's a government option -- of course this is a moving target for those of us not on a committee that is dealing with the health care reform, then we're not sure what's going on there and i'm not sure anyone else is either because it's a moving target. from one time to another you hear different things that are going to be in there and then they change their mind. they keep saying there is going to be a government option. if there's a government option, you're going to see a huge impact on insurers, companies

that offer private insurance. you're going to see that market dwindling. and you can't really blame them for that. the other thing that is a certainty in this whole issue of the kennedy bill and what they're trying to do -- the administration's trying to do with the health delivery system in america, is that they would be putting washington between the patient and the tkpworbgt. that gets a response. when i'm back in oklahoma of something we don't want to happen. so we have a lot of, right now invasions on the systems that we have -- that have worked well in america. and i want to just for a minute talk about one other one, since tomorrow it's scheduled that the house will be voting on what is known as the waxman-markey bill. and which is the democrats' answer to the worst recession in decades, a national energy tax, a tax designed to impose

economic pain through higher energy prices and lost jobs. or as a "washington post" editorial put it -- i'm quoting right now -- "the bill contains regulations on everything from light pwub standards to the specs on hot tubs and who will reshape america's economy in ways others don't realize." in other words, this would, if it were to pass, the largest tax increase in the history of america. i know a little bit about this issue because i started working on this issue back in the late 1990's when they were trying to get us in the united states to ratify the kyoto treaty. the kyoto treaty which is very similar to the proposals that we have had since that taoeufplt we know what that would have cost at that time, somewhere between $300 billion and $300 billion year as a permanent tax increase. and the proposal since then, there have been proposals on the floor of the senate in 2003,

2005, 2007, 2008 and now this time. so i would say we in the senate have more experience in dealing with this issue than the house does, because this is the first time they've ever had to set floor consideration. over the past several weeks, speaker pelosi has been facing an insurrection within hur own rights. we've been reading about the democrats who are pulling out saying we don't want to be a part of the largest tax increase in the history of america. more and more people are jumping in saying we cannot have it. as of yesterday the american farm bureau came in as opposing the strongest opposition to this legislation. so let me just say if democrats are having trouble passing this bill in the house where the majority can pass just about any bill it wants, then there is no hope for a cap-and-trade bill to come out of the senate. i think we know that. we've watched it with the

last -- right now, by my count, the most votes that could come for this largest increase in the history of america would be 34 boats. 34 boats. so they're not even close. i say that because there are a lot of people wringing their hands thinking she wouldn't bring this bill up in the house on friday unless she had the votes. i would only say maybe she will have the votes. there's been a lot of trading. a lot of people getting pad but nevertheless she may have bought enough to make it a reality. the waxman-markey bill is the latest incarnation of the costly cap-and-trade legislation that will have a devastating impact on the economy, cost american jobs by pushing them overseas and drastically increase the size and scope of the federal government. here in the senate, we have successfully defeated cap-and-trade legislation in the years that i mentioned. four different times it's been on the floor. i can remember in 2005, i was

the lead opposition to it. republicans were in the majority at that time. it had five days on the senate floor, ten hours a day, 50 hours. it was the mccain-lieberman bill at that time. and it was defeated then and by larger margins ever since then. just a year later with the economy in a deep recession, it's hard to believe that many more senators would dare vote in favor legislation that would not only increase the price of gas at the pump, create a huge new bureaucracy and raise taxes by record numbers. that's just not going to happen. i appreciate that my democratic colleagues desperately want to pass this bill. they argue that cap-and-trade is necessary to rid the world of global warming and to demonstrate america's leadership in this noble cause. but their strategy is all economic pain and really no climate gain. this is a global issue that demands a global solution.

yet cap-and-trade advocates argue that aggressive unilateral -- unilateral, that's just america. in other words, we pass a tax just on america. aggressive unilateral action is necessary to persuade developing countries, now we're talking about china and indian and mexico. we provide the leadership and they'll follow. the recent actions by the obama administration and by china and and other developing countries continue to prove why you have the the opposite. they continue to confirm what i've been saying, arguing for in the past decade, even if we do act the rest of the world will not. if you can believe and there are fewer people every day that believe that science has settled and man-made gases, co2, methane, are causing global

warming. there are few people left who really believe that. if you are one of those who still believe that, stop and think. why would we want to do something unilaterally in america? it doesn't make sense. the logic is not tkoeuflt understand. carbon caps according to reams of independent analysis will severely damage america's economic global competitiveness by raising the cost of doing business here relative to other countries, like china. and then -- where they have no mandatory carbon caps. so the jobs and business would move overseas, most likely to china. this so-called linkage effect would tip the global economic balance in favor of china. a lot of them are saying china's going to follow our lead. they're going to do it. i want you to look at this chart. this person here is the negotiator for the administration, and his statement is "we don't expect china to take a national cap-and-trade system." and this is the guy that is

supposed to be in charge of seeing to it that they do. this is todd sturdon. he's admitting it. i wish that those people who come to the floor and say, no, we know if america will lead the way that china's going to follow us, they're sitting back there just rejoicing, hoping we'll go ahead and have huge cap-and-trade tax to drive our manufacturing jobs to places like china where they don't have any real controls on emissions, and the result would be an increase in co2. in other words if we pass this huge tax in this country, it will have the resulting effect of increasing the amount of co2 in the atmosphere. china has a vested interest in swearing off carbon emissions to lift its people from poverty. add unilateral u.s. action into the mix and we give china a stronger incentive to impose mandatory reductions in its

economy. china understands this all too well. i believe they will unfailingly pursue their economic self-interest which entails america acting alone to address global warming. in other realms whether on intellectual property rights or human rights, the chinese have conspicuously failed to follow america's example. all of the human rights efforts that we have gone through to try to get political prisoners released, we've said to do it, threatened, begged, asked, they don't do. it why would they do this? so for china climate change will be no exception. now, my colleagues in the senate are rightly focused on the economic effects this bill will have on their states an their constituents. but with china and other developing countries staunchly opposed to accepting any binding emissions requirements, we should ask a more fundamental

question: what exactly are we doing this for? if the goal of cap-and-trade is to reduce temperatures by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations and if china and other leading carbon emitters continue to emit at will, how can this supposed problem be solved? if you accept the alarmist science that gases are causing a ka taska as it fi, then reducing greenhouse gases is a solution. but the solution that america must first act to persuade china and others to follow us, please follow us, please pass a tax in your own country and they will follow our example, but there is no evidence that that has happened before or it would happen again. the only thing that america gets by acting alone is a raw deal and a planet that is no better off. my democrat colleagues want to sweep this reality under the rug. they argue that cap-and-trade -- i hope that everyone understands

what cap-and-trade is. i've often said and people said, including some of the advocates of this that they would prefer to have a carbon tax over cap-and-trade. well, if you're going to are have one or the o'i would too -- one or the other, i would too. they hide the fact that this is a large tax increase. so they argue that cap-and-trade will not only be least to pull china along, and will create millions of new jobs an promote energy security. these are laudable goals and republicans have a simple answer to this. let's provide incentives rather than taxes and mandates to produce clean, affordable and reliable sources of energy. now, you know, i'm for all of the above. i want to have renewables, i want nuclear, wind, solar, clean coal, natural gas. we need it all. but if you cut the red tape and encourage private investment, let all technologies compete in

the marketplace, however, that's not what the democrats are proposing in the waxman bill. i'm talking on the senate floor about a house bill. i'm doing it because it's scheduled to pass tomorrow and then there will be an effort over here and we've had experience with this legislation, and as i said before, it's not going to pass here. but it's a very significant thing. any time one house is proposing to pass the largest tax increase in history, you've got to be concerned. now, this bill does -- does the exact opposite. it imposes access to sources of energy by trying to price certain kinds of energy out of the market. it picks winners and losers that will lead places like the midwest and the south paying higher energy prices than to subsidized areas in the rest of the country. we have a chart showing how much this would raise taxes in middle america as opposed to the east coast and west coast. it creates more bure being a sis

an adds -- bureaucracy and adds more layer. why do my colleagues believe creating an energy tax is necessary? it is all rooted in fabricated global warming science. last week the administration produced another alarmist report on global warming which, of course, is nothing new. it takes the worst possible predictions of the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change. by the way the assessment reports are not reports by scientists, they're reports by political people, policy people. and i have to also say, and -- i've said this on the floor of the senate many times before. a lot of the things that come that are not in the best interest of the united states, come from the united nations. that's where this whole thing started in the middle 1990's, it was the ipcc of the united nations where it started.

it is no surprise that such a report was leased in time for the house vote on waxman-markie. what is clear, is that despite millions of dollars spent on advertising, the american public has clearly rejected the so-called consensus on global warming. there was a time when this wasn't true. i can remember back between the years of 1998 and 2005 when i would be standing on the senate floor in talking about the science that has -- that rejects this notion and since that time hundreds and hundreds of scientists who were on the other side of this issue have come over to the skeptic side saying, well, wait a minute, this isn't really true. i can name names, clawed alegra, -- claude alegra, a top scientist from france. he used to be on al gore he's side, clearly he says we have reevaluated. david bellamy, the same thing is

true there, he was on the other side. so there is no consensus on this -- on the fact that they think that the gases are causing global warming. the other thing is we don't have global warming right now. we're in the fourth year after cooling spell. but that's beside the point. i'm not here to address the science. i'm here to focus on the argument advanced by my colleagues, which is that unilateral u.s. action on global warming will compel other nations to follow our lead. as i've documented in speeches before, since 1998, and, by the way, if anyone wants -- my colleagues want to look up the speeches, it is inhofe.senate.gov. look it up. if you have insomnia some night, it might be good to read them. they're all about two hours long. many would find it troubling, indeed, even if you believe the flawed ipcc or united nations science that science dictates

any unilateral action by the united states will be completely ineffective. the e.p.a. even confirmed it last year during the debate on the lieberman-warner bill and the same would hold true for this year's bill. put simply any isolated u.s. attempt to avert global warming is a futile effort without meaningful or robust cooperation much the american people need to know what they will be geting with their money all costs and no benefit. and this shows the u.s. action without international action would have no affect on world co2. this is asiewching there is no change in the -- this is assuming there is no change in the manufacturing base, which there would be. this brings us to whether a new, robust international agreement can be achieved. in addition to the -- the u.s. is involved with negotiations for a new international climate change agreement to replace the

flawed the keyo treaty, this process is scheduled to culminate in copenhagen. the prospects of such an endeavor look bleak at best. following the conclusion of the climate meeting in bonn, the u.s.'s top climate reofficial, said it would be physically impossible -- now this is the chief advocate of all of this. physically impossible. this is iron telecommunication say the least considering that president obama was supposed to bring all the parties together to transcend their differences and to produce a treaty that would save the world from global warming. but the reality of the cost of carbon reductions has intervened and now a deal appears as if it always has to me far from achievable. and we mustn't forget where the senate stands on global warming. as senators may recall in 1997,

the senate voted favorably 95-0 -- 95-0. that doesn't happen often in this chamber. what was stated is if you go to kyoto, you bring back a treaty, and we will not ratify that treaty if it mandates greenhouse gas reductions from the united states without requiring new specific commitments from developing countries over the same clines period or, two, in serious economic harm to the united states. well, obviously we talked about the serious harm to the united states and the fact that there's no intention at all of having china have to be a part of this new treaty. now, what, 15 years later that they're going to be talking about. so i think that the byrd-hagel commands strong support in the united states senate. any treaty that the obama administration submits must meet

the resolution criteria or it will be easily defeated. remember what that criteria is. if it submits something that says we in the united states have to do something that the rest of the world -- or the developing world doesn't have to do, then it's not going to pass. secondly, it inflicts economic harm on this country. proponents of securing an international treaty or vowelly acknowledging that the gulf is widening between the united states and what the other industrialized nations are willing to do and what countries like china want them to do. i suggest that the gulf has always been wide, but will continue to widen. recent actions by the united states and china continue to confirm my chief. take china's initial reaction to the waxman-markie bill, it was hailed on capitol hill as a historic breakthrough woarcht like a thud during the international negotiations. get this waxman-markie which will be economically ruinist to the united states was criticized

by china for being too week. after another troubling aspect coming out of the meetings, a united states government official mission is here -- many here in the senate may be surprised to learn that this administration's position is to let china off the hook. now, you might wuntder why would -- wonder why would china look at this thing that would destroy us economically and say they don't think it is it strong enough. they want it stronger because the stronger it is, the more manufacturing jobs will leave the united states and -- leave the united states and go to china. nowhere in the u.s. mission is to the conference do we require china to commit to any binding emission requirements before 2020. before 2020 the mission is only asks for nationally appropriate -- that's in quotes, litigation followed by a low-carbon strategy for a long-term net emission reduction by 2050. this is typical of the united states to say well, we have to

do some face saving here, so at least let's put them in an an awkward position of trying do something. china can sit back and say, well, we're trying and meanwhile enjoy all of the jobs coming from the united states to china. so what then is the chinese government's idea of a fair and balanced global treaty? the chinese believe the united states and other western nations should at a minute reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below the 1990 levels by 2020. waxman-markie could become the u.s. negotiating position calls for 17% reductions, not 40%, 17% reductions below the 2005 levels by 2020. despite the positive spin that the u.s. is putting to reduce energy intensity or pass a new energy standard, while laudable,

the official position of the chinese is in their mission is to the united states remains this: this is their position -- i will quote this. quote -- the right to develop -- this is china talking -- the right to develop is a basic human right that is undeprivable economic and social development and poverty eradication is the first and overriding priorities of the developing nations. so chinese china is talking about themselves an india and other other developing nations. the right to develop -- development of developing countries should be adequate and effectively respected and ensured in -- in the process of global common efforts in fighting against climate change. now that statement -- that's their written statement. that speaks for itself. finally, the most telling of all, the chinese and other developing countries argue that the price for reducing their emission sincere a massive 1% of