so let's just keep it moving, and i can assure you that we will -- i want to get out of here quicker than you do, so we'll keep it going. mr. kerry: then let's go right now. mr. inhofe: at this time, i would like something of far greater significance than anything we have been talking about, i would like to yield to the senator from wyoming to discuss this new subject. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i thank the senator from oklahoma. it is a great pleasure for me to be able to make an announcement from the floor of the united states senate, and i would ask unanimous consent to go as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: i would ask unanimous consent to have my whole statement appear if i don't make it through it. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: i got an early christmas present on the day it was actually expected. wednesday, december 15. allison was born to my daughter

and her husband mike. i have been able to hold each grandchild on the day they were born. this baby,al son, was -- allison, was a bit more difficult. i voted and made a dash to dulles airport. i flew to denver, rented a car, and drove to cheyenne, wyoming. i got to the hospital, it was late enough that all the desks were shut down. but i found my way to the maternity ward and i got help to find the right room and once again got to hold another grandchild on the day that she was born. there's no greater feeling of wonder and awe and appreciation on this planet than to hold another generation in my hands. i welcome a new life to this earth and it's always breathtaking. the feel grandpa feels is indescribable. it is an incredible feeling. it's only love and known only to grandparents. as i hold her and she tests the new world with eyes that

recognize little, as mouth and tongue explore a new atmosphere, a tiny hand with small fingers open and close, i watch changing expressions as tiny ears hear sounds that have been muted before. i now have instant replay memories of that little face and a moving hand and all those blankets and the tiny stocking cap to hold body heat in locked in my mind. she was 6 pounds, 12 1/2 ounces. to see such a miniature person and a huge miracle. the wonder of life. my own first child came into the world almost three months early. we didn't hold her for over two months. we could only watch as she struggled for life. i'm often doing little instant replays in my mind and thanking god for that and the other opportunities he's given me from finding diana who became my wife to learning about prayer with that first child, the daughter

who was born premature, who showed us how worthwhile fighting for life is. then the birth of our son, the birth of our youngest daughter who just had this baby, and the birth of my grandson trey and lily, followed closely by mike and emily's megan who became the big sister of allison. the call to let me know i was a grandpa came from three-year-old megan riley mcgrady who enthusiastically said "i'm a big sister." grandma wanted the phone to give me some details but big sister said "no, i'm talking to grandpa." about six weeks ago megan started pointing to her mom's tummy and saying that's my sister allison. they are not sure where megan came up with the name but she stuck with that name all the time. the new baby looked like an allison so mike and emily named her allison and gave her a good

irish middle name of quinn. after our first grandchild was born i found a message on my phone from our youngest daughter who said i used to be the baby of the family. so now the baby of the family has had another baby. emily and her husband mike met at the university of wyoming. mike broke his family gator tradition to come to the university of wyoming. it was part of god's plan. emily and mike fell in love and got married. emily worked at the university while mike went to law school. he clerked for federal circuit judge terry o'brien and now works in private practice. three years ago they called to ask what we were planning to do for memorial day and suggested we might want to be near them for the birth of a grandchild. the senate was on recess and we were in nearby. we were in wyoming when each of the other two grandchildren were born. this time i wasn't so lucky, i was a nation away but got to hold allison that first day too.

i do ask to be called grandpa. that's not grandfather. that would be too stilted for me. the name is also not grandpa. that's a great title but still too elevated. grandpa is spelled with an m and no d. my grandpa bradley taught me a lot: fishing, hunting and work. he believed in work. when i was four, he let me help him plant and water trees. he showed me how to make flagstone walks. he covered up holes he encouraged me to dig. he covered them so people wouldn't drive a car into them. that was when i was seven. later he taught me how to mow and trim a lawn properly. when i was a teenager, he showed me the point in life when you're supposed to start carrying the heavy end of the log. he liked to be called grampa. in my opinion, grampa is the

greatest title anyone could have and i wish i could adequately share with you the joy in my heart. allison, i want to pass on to you your great grandma's admonition. do what's right, treat others how you want to be treated. i expect everyone on my staff to measure legislation and casework requests by it too. now because of you and trey and lily, i have an additional admonition for myself. i don't want my kids to say my grandpa could have fixed that but he didn't. allison, i hope i'm around to watch you discover, learn to play, to grow, to get to know you and speufrbl to visit with you -- and especially to visit with you. to hear your dreams, your ideas, maybe to comfort you through difficulties and encourage you in whatever you try. in case i'm not around and i have a few things i want to pass

on that i hope you'll remember and hopefully pass on to your children. first, be proud of your reputation. that's really all you have that's really yours. although you borrow part of it from those who went before, you have a debt to those who follow. learn from the mistakes you make. more importantly, learn from the mistakes of others. you don't have time to make them all yourself. it will save you a lot of grief. when you see something wrong, say i hope i never do that and then file away a plan to avoid it. don't do anything you wouldn't want to read about on the front page of the newspaper. learn everything you can. read everything you can. see everything you can. listen for new ideas. watch for things you can change. everything can be improved. ideas and thoughts as well as things. so while you're at it, invent something that will improve the world or that will help those around you. the most important decision you will make in your life is marriage. my hope is that you will find

someone who can be your best friend, someone you miss when away and enjoy waking up with every morning, someone different enough to cover your weaknesses and strong enough to rely on you for your strength, someone who shares your faith and someone mutually faithful. finally and most importantly, find faith in god. there will be times that will try you. with faith, you can pray for help through the suffering. and with faith, god will always answer that prayer, no matter what you may have done or what may have happened to you or to someone you love, there's always a way through the crisis. don't try to live life on your own strength. no one has ever been that strong. i thank god for helping me through open-heart surgery 15 years ago so that i might have this chance to have held you in my hands. i think the courage of jabez in chronicles where he said lord continue to bless me. for that i thank for blessings

noticed and unnoticed, but especially for this new life. allison quinn mcgrady, welcome to this world of faith and love. i'm excited to have you in our lives. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i want to thank the senator from wyoming for a grounding moment in the senate. we are enormously appreciative of his words, and i especially know what he was saying because my wife and i had the pleasure of welcoming a young grandchild about a month ago. as the senator was standing there speak, i couldn't help but think this is the son of christopher heinz, who is jack heinz' youngest. the child is called jack, little jack. and i think you gave us a good reminder. thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: before my friend

leaves the floor, my friend from wyoming, let me just say that i can identify with the things that he said. to prove that, let me put this up here. these are my 20 kids and grandkids. and while he may be, he has his name, they have given him, my name is pop eye. i is for inhofe. so it's mom-i and pop-i. that's what these kids call me. as i was listening to the great words that you were sharing for their lives, i would ask unanimous consent that those same words go to each one of these little grandkids up here. as you mentioned, one after another in your experiences, this little girl here, she was one of them. she was only four pounds, and she -- we held her in one hand. the same thing was true with this one over here.

and so when you look at this, i just get very excited. what's really important -- we talk about a lot of things around here, but what is really important, one of the criticisms i've had in considering this thing is i want to get back during this christmas season, like i think most of the others did too, to be with them. let me mention this. see this little girl up here? that's my wife. today is our 51st wedding anniversary. so i just want to say that some things are important. i deliver my message to my wife who is back in oklahoma, where she should be with all the rest of these kids -- that's where they are -- kay, i love you as much today as i did 51 years ago. now, mr. president, we have another amendment that's -- that i think is very, very significant. it's one having to do with

verification. i think if you look at all the problems that we're trying to address with amendments, we've been talking about the missile defense, which is the one that i was most passionate about. we've been talking about other areas too, but in the case of verification, i think it's very significant to understand that the start i treaty, or the new start treaty has less verification, remarkably less than the start i treaty did. there are only 180 inspections over ten years under new start. that's versus 600 inspection over 15 years in start i. that's a drop of 40 inspections per year to 18 inspections per year. in a minute i'll tell you why i think it's more precipitous than that, because of the significance of the inspections as the arsenals are dropping down in terms of the percentage of inspections versus the arsenals. the new start treaty inspections

to verify the elimination of nuclear weapons delivery systems has been fundamentally changed from those in start i, replaced with a lesser provision of twice a year permitting the other party to view the debris from half of the eliminated first stages. what we're talking about, in a minute i'll break these down, is that you have a treaty now that is, that addresses two things which we'll talk about in a minute. one type is the icbm basis, the submarine basis, and the air basis. these are delivery systems. i think this has to be talked about as well as the actual warheads. the type 2 refers to the form early declared facilities to confirm that such facilities are not being used for purposes inconsistent with the treaty. now, when i say that, we were

talking about the fact that the elimination, we're trying to verify the, those things that are in existence today but also those that have been eliminated. in the first start i treaty, we were able to actually witness the destruction of these various warheads and of the systems that are under the consideration of this treaty. as it is now, under the new treaty, we cannot witness it. all we can do is look at the debris that remains after something is destroyed. my concern is this, that if you keep the debris around from something you destroyed, you could use the same debris as evidence under the new start treaty to show that you have destroyed something that was destroyed in the past and not addressing those that are still there today. so in that area, i think it's very difficult. finally, under the new start

treaty, 24 hours of advanced notice is required before an inspection. a dramatic increase from the nine hours advance notice required under old start. why is this important? it's important because as we get down to fewer and fewer inspections that would be made because we are limiting the number, the arms under the treaty, then you would actually, should actually have a longer period of time advance notice of the inspections. so what we're trying to do, i have an amendment that will correct these inadequacies. the amendment triples the numbers of inspections under new start for the two types of inspections. and under start i, type 1, type 2 inspections. i mentioned type 1 and type 2, and this would actually triple the number of inspections. type 1 inspections would increase from 10 to 30 inspections a year. type 2 inspections would increase from 8 to 24, the total

being 54 inspections. on july 20, 2010, the principal deputy under secretary of defense policy -- that's james n. miller -- testified before the senate armed services committee, and i was there, that the russian cheating or breakout under the treaty would have little effect because the united states' second strike strategy nuclear capability. and i whole heart ily disagree. the whole idea that we would say that the current under secretary of defense, you in the obama administration, what's pea admit is that the russians cheat. but he's saying that it doesn't really matter. i would say this: the first -- the smaller size of the nuclear arsenal, that's what we have today, as in new starkts and the larger impact of cheating has become on a strategic nuclear balance. in other words, if you're cheating with a smaller nuclear

arsenal, then that's much more significant than with a large one. it is a percentage of a smaller figure. so if it's 50% of a smaller figure, it would have been 10% of the larger figure of the nuclear arsenals that were there under the original start treaty. an increase in the number of type 1 and type 2 inspections is critical to new start verification because the total number of inspections is actually dramatically re-reduced in new tart from the old start. as the weapons increase, weapons should actually be enhanced. haired brown explained this when he said this is the case in testimony before the senate foreign relations committee on the original start treaty and that, mr. president, was october of 1991. he said "verification will become even more important as the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons on each side decreases

because uncertainties of a given size become a larger percentage of the total forces occurs." that was way back in 1991. since then, you have -- you had former yuj secretary of state for arms control and international security john bolton, he stated this year on may 3, he said that "while verification is important in any arms control treaty, verification becomes even more important at lower wore head levels." they all agreement. we're talking about going all the way back to 1991. in 1997 bent scowcroft and arnold canter said "current force levels provide a kind of buffer because they are high enough for relatively intensive -- insensitive to imperfect intelligence and modest force changes. as force levels go down, the balance of nuclear power can become increasingly delicate and vulnerable to cheating on arms

control limits, concerns about hidden missiles and the actions of nuclear third parties. "kings that was 19 e9s. so we've 1991, 1997 and the present and then of course in may of this year in front of the senate foreign relations committee, former secretary of state james impark summarized that the new start verification regime is weaker than its predecessor, testifying to congress that the new start verification program -- quote -- "does not appear as rigorous or extensive as the one that verified the numerous and diverse treaty obleses and prohibitions under start i. this complex parlt of the treaty is even more crucial when fewer deployed nuclear warheads are allowed that en-- than were allowed in the past." so they're all consistently in agreement on two things. number one, the russians cheat. we all know that. and number two it becomes more -- verification becomes more important as the arsenals

decrease in size. so i think that we can say that russia has essentially violated every arms control treaty that we've had with them in the past. the statement of the department this year submitted -- the state department this year constitue a report. this is a report that came out this year in 2010, and they refer to the last report, which was 2005. they said, the start -- there is a number of long-standing compliance issues such as an obstruction to u.s. right to inexpect warheads raised in the start treaty joint compliance and i specks commission that remained unresolved when the treaty expired in december. so this commission endured the time all the way up to december of 2009. in different areas, in the biological weapons convention -- there are a lot of different kinds of weapons of mass destruction. they're not all nuclear.

biological, conventional. in the biological convention, in 2005, the state department concluded that "russia maintains a mature offensive biological weapons program and that its nature and status have not changed" and then in 2010 the state department report said that russia's confidence-building measure declaration since 1992 have not satisfactorily documented whether its biological weapons program was terminated." even back in 2005 they said it was inadequate because they are still continuing. they're violating the accord. this was back in 2005 -- on biological weapons. then that was renewed in 2010 saying they're still not doing it today. so that was biological weapons. chemical weapons we find the same thing. in 2005, the state department assessed that -- quote -- "russia is in violation of its chemical weapons compensation,

obligations because its declaration was incomplete with respect to declaration of production and development facilities." in 2010, the state department again stated that there was an absence of additional information from russia resulting in the united states being unable to ascertain whether priewsh has declared all of its -- russia has declared awful its chemical weapons stock spiel, all chemical weapons production facilities. so we have the biological weapons, they haven't complied there. in the chemical weapons they haven't complied there. conventional weapons in europe. the united states notes in the 2010 report that russia -- russia's actions have resulted in noncompliance with its treaty obligations. "the wall street journal" recently reported that according to u.s. officials, the u.s. believes russia has moved short-ring tactical nuclear warheads to facilities near nato allies as recently as this

spring. i think that the senator from idaho who has covered this with some degree. so we are concerned about those tactical problems. so i ghast we say is we know one thing and nobody seems to disagree with this. russia cheats. but there are five things to be considered. one is there are fewer inspections now than there would have been -- there were under the old one. secondly, instead of actually seeing the destruction of these warheads, we depend on the debris that remains after the destruction has taken place. and i think everyone understands that if you're depending on debris, you can be looking at debris from one destruction effort and then declare they have done it three or four times since then using the same debris. and the third thing is advance notice. it's three times longer now. it should be shorter now because of the more significance as you get the smaller stockpile, you

should have greater compliance requirement. and the fourth thing is weapons decrease, that we should be paying more attention to them. and the fifth, that they -- that russia does cheat. i really believe that of all the amendments -- now, i believe the amendments on the missile defense are significant. it concerns me that we have something, as i said on the floor yerksd and i quoted several russians from the very beginning were saying that were don't want the united states and it is the intent of this treaty to be able to enhance their nuclear -- their missile defense capabilities and yet right now i look at this -- i've said several times, this is fine, the treaty. except it is with the wrong people. this fret is with russia, not with where the threat is, not with north korea, not with iran. that is where the problem is. and so i've had very strong feelings. i disagreed at the taking down the termination of the ground-based system that was --

that was to be in bowland because -- in poland because our intelligence tells us -- it is not even classified -- that iran will have the capability of sending a nuclear warhead and having a delivery system as far as the eastern part of the united states by 20156789 we would have with the site -- ground-based interceptor site in poland, we would have had that opportunity. now that site is down. we would b be dependent on a iib system. maybe it will be done by 2020. we have no assurance that it will. i look at that as if we, the united states, are going to be naked in this effort for a period of time between 2015 and at least 2020, maybe even longer than that. all these things are important. but this one is equally important because it doesn't do any good to have a verification system that is as flawed as this system. and so we'll have an opportunity

to talk about this in more detail, and for that reason, it's my understanding that -- and i will assure the senator of massachusetts that my being unwilling to agree to a time agreement is -- this is not going to shorten it at all, it is my intention to move on with this as soon as we can get to t my understanding is it is pretty well locked in for tomorrow. with that, i yield the floor. mr. kerry: mr. president, i thank the senator from oklahoma very much for that. and i know he's not trying to prolong t i was just trying to see if we could get a time certain now. but i'm confident we will. i don't know if the senator -- the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: oh, mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. consider kir apologize. i don't know if -- mr. kerry: i apologize. i don't know if the senator from oklahoma is planning to be here. i would ask if anybody knows whether he is or not. but let me speak teement of the senator from oklahoma for a few

minutes and i want to thank him for this amendment on verification. it's an amendment that will -- it's an amendment that will help us to sort of flush out this question of verification, which is important to everybody in the senate. i guess three words that have become famous beyond what people might have thought when they were first uttered is the pronouncement of president reagan "trust, but verify," which at the time were accompanied by his articulation of the russian words for that. and, obviously, any agreement that we would enter into with the russians or with anybody can

never rely completely on somebody's word, either word, because neither side is going to be satisfied with somebody's word with whom they have the necessity of actually having to reach this kind of an agreement to reduce weapons that are pointed at each other for lots of different reasons over a long period of time. so i assure the senator from oklahoma that every senator on our side and, most importantly, the unbelievably experienced negotiators who put this treaty together who've made a lifetime of trying to understand these kinds of relationships and the ways in which you adequately verify -- you know, they wouldn't be standing in front of the country and the world and the congress saying to us, this treaty provides better verification in many ways than

we had previously. now tomorrow in the classified session, we'll have an opportunity to dig into a little bit of exactly what those ingredients are that fill out the better. and i'm not going to go into them all now. let me talk about the amendment that the senator has proposed. he proposes an amendment to the treaty itself, which we all understand now, after two votes, both of which have been to reject the change to the treaty itself because of the implications of changing it, those don't change here with this particular amendment. but let me go beyond that so that we hopefully could enlist the opposition to this amendment of some people who will see why it's unnecessary and in fact conceivably even counterproductive. the senator wants to increase the number of type 1 inspections.

i might add, this concept of a type 1 inspection and a type 2 inspection is new to the new start treaty. it's new to the process. and what the senator would like to do is triple the number of inspections currently set forth in the treaty. now, the second reason, after the question of why you don't want, for this reason particularly, amend the tremendous -- i mean, it might be a circumstance under which a treaty were so egregious or it presented us with such a challenge that the senate might decide to advice and consent. we'd all say, hey, we ought to send this back. but this doesn't rise to that level, in my judgment, and i think my completion will share that -- my colleagues will share that opinion. let me say why.

we can achieve effective verification with the number of inspections that are set forth in the treaty. admiral mullen has said we can. the strategic command says we can. the national intelligence community says we can. the people responsible for verification. this treat would never have been sent to the united states senate -- this treaty would never have been sent to the united states if this treaty did not have adequate verification measures in this that would allow the intelligence community to sign off and say to senators, please vote for this treaty. but let's go underneath that and examine a little bit, that that is the judgment of our military, the state department, our intelligence community, james clapper, the director of national intelligence told us we should approve this treaty the earlier, the sooner, the better. and i think we need to heed his judgment and the judgment of our military here.

now, the senator expresses the concern that there are fewer inspections here than the original start treaty had and sort of just -- you know, sort of on its face terms, that's a truth. that's a true statement. if you simply compared the total number that existed in start i and you compare the number that is set forth in the new start. but that's not what we're comparing here, mr. president. and the reason for that is that in 1992, when we approved start i, there were four countries that we were approving inspections for: byelarus, kazakstan, ukraine, and russia. because they all had nuclear facilities. mr. kerry: there were about 70

sites that we inspected back then in 1992. but as we all know, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of cold-war years for years and year, from the end of world war ii until this historic moment of 1992, the fact is that, you know, we were inspecting those 70 viets wit sites with a very t relationship in a very different world. today, today, the new start agreement only seeks 35 russian sites to inspect because kazakstan, byelarus, and ukraine no longer have any nuclear weapons. those weapons were consolidated in russia and the sites in russia were reduced. so it's not -- you don't want an apples-and-oranges comparison here. the comparison of how many fixed

number of inspections there were back in 1992 is simply not applicable to what you need in 2010, given the change of locations, the change of relationship, and -- and the numbers of sites where there are nuclear weapons. now, the comparison is also problematic beyond that because, in fact, under the move start -- under the new start, the inspections that we do have, because of the way they've been set up in the type i, type ii and the way they've been laid out, they're actually about two inspections equivalent to one inspection under start i. let me explain that. under the original start treaty, an inspection of a missile to see whether or not it had too many warheads, that inspection of a missile was counted as a separate inspection from

so-called update inspections of the base. in other words, there was an inspection of the base, which might take place because we had been told or learned that there was some change in delivery vehicles or other aspects of the base, so we could go to the base and have an update inspection and that was counted as a separate inspection from the inspection of the missile that might have been located there. but under the new start, we're allowed to conduct up to ten type i inspections a year and each inspection includes both the counting of the warheads mounted on one missile bomber and the conducting of the equivalent of the start i trea treaty, separate update inspection. so you get two for one, mr. president, two inspections for one. so you can't compare these inspections in the way that the senator from oklahoma has.

a type -- ten type i and eight type ii inspections per year under the new start agreement is at least comparable to the 15 data update inspections and ten reentry vehicle inspections that we had under the old start. and the ten reentry vehicle inspections per year under new start are the same as under the old start. so the truth is, the inspection numbers under new start are comparable to those under the original start treaty and that is precisely why our military and intelligence officials told us that this number would be sufficient to comply -- to provide verification compliance with this treaty. and as i said, we can discuss more of this in the closed session tomorrow. now, i want to remind my colleagues, tripling the number

of inspections per year, as the senator's amendment would require, is not a freebie. it's not something that we can just say to the russians, we're going to triple your inspectio inspections. guess what? they're going to demand the same number of inspections of us. and our military bases would have to be prepared to host three times as many inspections per year as they're currently preparing for. now, frankly, that could seriously disrupt day-to-day operations of strategic forces and any time the russians select one of our bases for inspections, we'd have to lock down the movements of any treaty items at that base for 24 hours before and throughout the inspection, which is at least another day. that means dropping everything, stopping any movements of our delivery vehicles, halting any work on those systems, and you have to get ready to protect any unrelated classified information

that you don't want the russians to see. so i think it's one thing to ask our strategic nuclear forces to do that ten times a year, or less than once a month. it's another thing for them to be waiting for 30 inspections a year. we have two submarine bases, three bomber bases, and three icbm bases that are going to be subject to type i inspections. and i think if we follow through with those amendments, frankly, i think our base commanders, not to mention the pentagon, would be less than satisfied. right now, they're comfortable with what we have in this trea treaty, but far more importantly, they're comfortable that we can -- we can verify, which is the key to the ratification of any treaty. now, let me also remind my colleagues that the verification provisions in this treaty were developed with the concerns and the prospective -- perspective

of the u.s. department of defense totally in that mix. they helped guide what came out here. admiral mike mil mike mill mull. let me quote him -- "the verification regime that exists in the new start treaty is, in ways, better than the one that has existed in the past." why would we want to challenge that? why would we want to open up now a whole new can of worms of renegotiation when they think what we have is better than what we have previously? admiral mullen also stated that he's convinced that the verification regime is as stringent as it is transparent and borne of more than 15 years of lessons learned under the original start treaty. general chilton has said -- quote -- "without new start, we would rapidly lose some of our insight into russian strategic nuclear force developments and activities and our force modernization planning and hedging strategy would be more

complex and more costly." let me also quote a letter that secretary gates sent necessity summer -- sent me this summer about whether or not russia could cheat on this treaty in a manner that would be militarily significant. he said -- quote -- "the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the joint chiefs commander, u.s. strategic command, and i assess that russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant cheating or breakout under new start due to both the new start verification regime and the inherent survivability and flexibility of the planned u.s. strategic force structure. our analysis of the n.i.e. and the potential for russian cheating or breakout confirms that the treaty's verification regime is effective and that our national security is stronger with this treaty than without it." now, i mentioned before that

ronald reagan was one of the great advocates of this kind of verification so i want to quote what condoleezza rice wrote the other week. she said, "the new start treaty helpfully reinstates on-site verification of russian nuclear forces which lapsed with the expiration of the original start treaty last year. meaningful verification was a significant achievement of presidents reagan and george h.w. bush and its reinstatement is crucial." finally, i'd like to point out that we addressed the importance of this verification question in condition 2 of the resolution of ratification. that condition requires that before new start can enter into force and every year thereafter, the president has to certify to the senate that our national technical means, in conjunction with the verification activities provided for in the new start treaty, are sufficient to ensure

the effective monitoring of russian compliance with the provisions of the new start treaty. and timely warning of any russian preparation to break out of the limits. so we're going to remain seized of this issue for every year that the treaty is in force. it's my judgment -- i continue the quote. excuse me, that was the end of the quote. the treaty is in force. so, mr. president. so, mr. president, not only could we lose the treaty if this amendment were to pass, not only could we impose unwanted and unneeded requirements on our military bases and our military, not only would we not effectively increase the verification because of the advantages that were built into the new start treaty by our

negotiators, which have been attested to by the very people who need to enforce it, not only that, but we could be without any verification at all for maybe a year, two years longer, who knows whether we get any agreement or not. clearly, that exposes our country in ways that i don't think we want to and it certainly is no guarantee of an increase in the inspections themselves. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, let me just make a couple of comments and observations here. i know the senator from massachusetts, he started out by saying that we -- you know, we've got to take someone's word for it. my concern is -- and i agree with his statement in reference to quotes that were made by -- by ronald reagan, the trust, but verify. he also said -- and when i look at this, i think this is a -- i think it's flawed in all the ways that we talked about

before, but i remember when -- and i remember the statement. actually, i was here when reagan came back from iceland. he said, what mr. gorbachev was demanding at reykjavik was that the united states agree to a new version of the 14-year-old a.b.m. treaty that the soviet union had already violated. i told him that we don't make those kinds of deals in the united states. we prefer no agreement than to bring home a bad agreement to the united states. i think what we're -- most of us that are -- have questions that want answered and we want amendments are those when don't believe that this is a good amendment -- a good treaty. now, when the senator talks about the -- the number of inspections, let's keep in mind, when we did the first treaty, we were only inspecting new facilities, existing facilities, facilities that could be used, warheads that could be used, looking at the mirv'd situation. but now on this one, we also want to inspect to make sure

that those things that they had agreed to destroy, that they actually have destroyed. and that's why i talked about the -- the debris, using the -- rather than seeing something destroyed, they look at the debris that's left over. on the argument on the fact that you're talking about one time in kazakstan and ukraine, when you look at the vastness of russia, i remember -- and one thing that we, the senator from massachusetts and i, have in common is we both are aviators. and i had occasion, i will share with my friend from massachusetts, a few years ago to fly an airplane around the world, republican indicating the flight of wylie post, a very famous oklahoman. and in doing this, went all the way from moscow to provadania, all the way across siberia. and when i -- i can remember going after time zone after time zone after time zone, not seeing anything except vast wilderness and perhaps a few bears now and then. and when i think about the areas

that they have, that things can be hidden there compared to any of these other countries, including our own, it's kind of a scary thing. and i -- i do believe that we need have the opportunity to increase the inspections because there's so much more area to inspect. the idea that it's not a free by, i know it's not. i know that anything in this treaty that i would change, such as the number of inspections would apply to us as well as them. i understood and. but in that respect i don't mind doing it. there's one big difference between the united states and russia. they cheat and we don't. it's fine with me if we have to subject ourselves to a greater number of inspections as long as we can do the same with them. so i still will stand by the statements that were made and also the statements by -- that were discovered in the -- the -- the -- the 2010 department report which i quoted from having to do with biologic

weapons, chemical weapons and conventional forces in europe. the fact that we discovered in 2005 and i'll be glad to repeat all these quotes, but i don't think i have to because it was in the report, but in 2010 the state department said that russia's confidence building measure has not been satisfily documented whether it's biologic weapons or any other of the programs such as the chemical weapons. so we have the fact that they have not complied as they stated that they would in the past and so we're now dealing with that and i think we have to take more precautions, more inspections, more verifications, because they've demonstrated clearly that they aren't telling the truth and they haven't complied with their commitments that they made in the past. i would yield the floor. i'm sure the senator wants to -- the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: i'm not going to engage in a long discussion here. i don't know if the senator from

indiana wants to make any comments. i want to say, first of all, i'm envious of that flight. i would have loved to have made that. as the senator knows, and i will reserve this -- most of this for the classified session tomorrow, we have -- to notice changes of various kinds notwithstanding the vastness, yes, there have been occasions where there have been some misunderstandings or differences of opinions about enforcement requirements and we've had some differences on those things and we can discuss some of them in the closed session. but i would say to him, the treaties have worked. the process setup by which we get into dispute resolution or -- and distribution and sort of raise these issues have worked. when we they're -- knots something not -- notice something not in compliance, we

have gotten together an because of a treaty we've come into a discussion and worked those things through. i think tomorrow we can come at this, but i think our intelligence communities -- community's conclusion is that they've never exceeded the limits even though there have been some misunderstandings about one -- about sort of a process of -- of getting from one place to another with respect to one's system or another. so let's have that discussion, i think, in a place where we can do it without sense of restraint. but i think it's a good one and it's a good one to have and i look forward to continuing that with my colleague. i ask -- i don't know if the senator from indiana has anything he wants to add. mr. president -- i don't know -- i understand the senator from south dakota will not be here for that part of the amendment so unless there is another senator seeking recognition or looking for an amendment to be

acted on at this point, i will yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: 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: i think the senator from massachusetts is right. we've covered enough of this tonight. there are some things that would be worth going into in a closed session much one thing that doesn't have to be in a closed session is the -- the fact that there's a long record of the russians not complying with the -- the -- the first treaty and i think that -- i'd rather use another word than cheating, but nonetheless, that's one that everyone understands and that's something that characterized the russians' behavior in the previous treaty. i would only say the statement that we're making right now, everyone's in agreement that the lower the arsenal becomes, the more significant it is for -- for inspections for verification. and i think that everyone that is in agreement with that is probably the strongest point of our argument. and the last thing i would say

would just repeat something that i said, but i was a little bit overwhelmed when i said it and that is, this is the first of the -- in 51 years time that we missed our wedding anniversary and what i was trying to say before i got choked up, to my wife at home, i love you more today than i did 51 years ago. with that, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: