mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent i be recognized for 15 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, first of all, let me just make a comment on something totally unrelated to the subject of the day and that is that we have a very significant bill that's coming up that the -- the occupier of the chair and i have put together. it's called the pilots' bill of rights. and the reason i want to say something about it, getting toward the end of the week right now, is that it happens that a week from today, the largest gathering any time, any place in the world of pilots to get together at oshkosh for the big event. i have been going for 32 consecutive years. we have probably the most significant single piece of legislation that we've ever introduced at oshkosh and we're going to have literally thousands -- i'm talking about 200,000 pilots, these are singl

mr. inhofe got out of the plane he reportedly said, what the [ bleep ] is this, i was supposed to have limitede. that has nothing to do with an x on the runway, my friend. the faa gave inhofe a huge break compared to any other pilot that may have done that. saying his sanction would be remedial training instead of supervision. inhofe is indignant saying, i did nothing wrong, but at the time i could have suffered is the revocation of a license. did nothing wrong, really? he says the faa is guilty of agency overreach. and he's introducing this bill. the pilot's bill of rights? we're supposed to be excited about that. not because it has any chance of passing, but because he feels privileged and he's bitter, and he wants revenge. and he's using his position to try to leverage that. listen up, folks. i have 2500 hours and i've never landed on a runway that has an x on it. that x is there to say, hey, don't land here. the fact that there were actually workers on the runway tells me, senator you gotta get your eyes checked. it's probably easier for you to introduce legislation and make a news story o

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, just one comment on the subject at hand, and then i want to talk about something completely different that's very significant and happening today. you know, it's -- it's so easy -- i listened to the senator from new jersey down here. he kept talking about only in washington what can happen, only in washington. yet never was anything said about cutting spending. it was always about passing tax increases and that's what we'll be faced with tomorrow. let me mention that just a few minutes ago i did introduce -- and we have a bill number, it's s. 1335, it is the pilot's bill of rights. this is very significant that we get this done today, and i'm going to explain y first of all, when senator john glenn from ohio retired, that left me as the last active commercial pilot on the -- in the united states senate. consequently, i probably get more complaints than anybody else does. and i -- about problems, abuses with the f.a.a. and i have to say this, that i was very complementary ye

mr. inhofe: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to be recognized as if in morning business for such time as i shall consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: madam president, first of all, we came back. we weren't anticipating coming back from this recess that we were going to be on, and i can't help but think a lot of that was the result of the statements that president obama had made criticizing the senate for leaving at a time when the debt is so bad and all of that when, in fact, i just -- i think that's a bum rap. i mean, you know, we were -- we have a serious problem i think we need to address, and that is the spending, and all these things that president obama is doing right now to make everyone think that we're trying to address it, appointing committees, appointing groups to get together, having the vice president head up this group and the other group and republicans and democrats, all the president has to do is quit spending. madam president, i have bee

mr. inhofe: there is a simple reason we are talking about the debt limit increase and it's the fact this president has spent more money than i ever believed would be possible. so far he spent over $10 trillion in three years and next year if he has his way will spend another $3.5 trillion. i remember so well in the clinton administration, i think it was 1995, i was outraged, i me down this to this podium and said can you believe a president has a budget of $1.5 trillion, and this president has spent $10 trillion in this short time. if he hadn't spent all this money we wouldn't be talking about a debtimit increase right now. i hate to sound so partisan about it but it's truly a partisan issue. the democrats have supported his spending and the republicans have not. the boehner plan that we're going to vote on, they're going to vote in the house today and i think we might have an opportunity to vote on here later on tonight, may not be perfect. none of the stuff around here is perfect but it is good and has dramatically improved over the last 12 hours. it allows the dt limit increase but on

mr. inhofe: madam president, first, i stand here in total agreement with everything the senator has said.he time is right. it is now. you know, we've been talking about a balanced budget amendment. we've been talking about this problem for many, many years. to me, it's -- i feel great frustration that i'm even here right now in the chamber. we've quite often -- quite often what i do, i have kind of a regular schedule, if i am not on a weekend in iraq, afghanistan, or africa, someplace having to do with the duties that i have as the second-ranking member of the armed services committee, i'm back in oklahoma and i've been a pilot for 50 years, and i ghet a little plane andgy out and i talk to real people and people shake their heads and say, why are we still talking about this? why aren't we doing it? why is it that we are so wrapped up in this thing and the answer -- there's not an easy answer to this thing. we're supposed to be back here, i guess, talking about the libya resolution. i think we all realize that that's something that kind of diverts the attention of the american people from

mr. flores: i want to respond to what my amendment really does. let me read a letter from the department of defense general counsel to senator inhofe from july of 2008. and i quote, it creates uncertainty about what fuels d.o.d. can procure and will discourage the development of new sources, particularly reliable domestic sources of energy sploys for the armed forces -- supplies for the armed forces, unquote. let me go on. let me give you a practical real-world example of what section 526 does. our closest neighbor with stable energy supplies is canada. and we import 650,000-plus barrels a day of oil that's produced from oil sands in canada. . and that oil gets blended in jet fuels and diesel. section 526 would say that the u.s. military, united states government, more broadly, cannot utilize any of those fuels. there's no technical or commercial way that the military of the united states government can make sure it is not using any fuel source that came from that crude oil. let me go on and wrap up like this. you are going to hear a lot of remarks from the other side of the aisle regarding the claims about section 526 or about my amendment. my amen

mr. inhofe: there is a simple reason we are talking about the debt limit increase and it's the fact this president has spent more money than i ever believed would be possible. so far he spent over $10 trillion in three years and next year if he has his way will spend another $3.5 trillion. i remember so well in the clinton administration, i think it was 1995, i was outraged, i came down this to this podium and said can you believe a president has a budget of $1.5 trillion, and this president has spent $10 trillion in this short time. if he hadn't spent all this money we wouldn't be talking about a debt limit increase right now. i hate to sound so partisan about it but it's truly a partisan issue. the democrats have supported his spending and the republicans have not. the boehner plan that we're going to vote on, they're going to vote in the house today and i think we might have an opportunity to vote on here later on tonight, may not be perfect. none of the stuff around here is perfect but it is good and has dramatically improved over the last 12 hours. it allows the debt limit increase

mrs. boxer: madam president, the department of defense runs schools that serve over 86,000 children across america, europe and the pacific region. that's why i was able to get together with senator graham and senator inhofe to work on a way that we could get those schools fixed, because they're crumbling. since a picture is worth a thousand words, i'll just show this picture from one of the schools. you can see the tiles on the roof just crumbling. we've had that in our public schools before we woke up. literally, these tiles fall down, and it's just by the grace of god that a child doesn't get hit or a teacher doesn't get hit and very hurt. so clearly, we need to do something about it. what i'd like to say is that we started off with an amendment that actually required the d.o.d. to fix up these schools. now we're asking for a report that they do it because we have to avoid some parliamentary procedure problems of legislating on aprops. so we believe we've done this. i think everyone should read last month's "newsweek." they published an investigation by the center for integrity which documented the condition of d.o.d.-run schools with serious problems: leaks, corrosion and mold and overcrowding and rel