mr. inhofe: mr. president, 15 seconds? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia is recognized. mr. rockefeller: mr. president -- mr. inhofe: i'd like to ask unanimous consent to get a response. mr. rockefeller: mr. president, i move to table the amendment and hope it is defeated. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma does not have the floor and cannot propound a motion at this time. a unanimous consent motion at this time. request. a unanimous consent request, let me be clear. the senator from west virginia is recognized. the senator from west virginia made a motion to table. the question is on the motion to table. mr. rockefeller: and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be a sufficient second. there is a sufficient second. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: are any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or to change their vote? >> mr. dorgan aye. the presiding officer: on this the ay

mr. inhofe: mr. president, the regular order? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: the regular order of amendment number 3475. the presiding officer: that is the regular order. the senator has the right to call for the regular order. mr. inhofe: all right. i call up second-degree amendment number 3549 and ask for its immediate csiration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma, mr. inhofe, proposes amendment numbered 3549 to amendment number 3475. in lieu of the votes to be inserted, insert the following: title "help" act, section 1, "help" act, a, short title. this title may be cited as the honest expenditure -- mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the bill. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. inhofe: this is a fairly simple bill, mr. president. i have talked on the floor several times about this bill, as i've made very clear before, and there's no sense debating it now, i have been opposed to some of the moratoria we've been talking about on earmar

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask i be recognized in morning business for such time as i shall consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, let me just respond to a couple of the remarks that my good friend, the senior senator from illinois, has said. i listen to this all the time when people talk about during the bush administration the costs of -- that have gone up, the deficits and all this stuff. you know, and i appreciate the fact that the senator from illinois did state that the situation was a little different when president bush came into office, because there were -- of course 9/11 happened and we ended up in a couple of wars, and that made it very difficult. but that's understating the situation. what we've ended up with right after the clinton administration -- let's keep in mind, and i remember so well on this floor, and i was a member of the senate armed services com

mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i can't express how frustrated i am with the washington politics and as a result of i believe irresponsible behave on the part of democrats and republicans in the house and in the senate. the federal highway administration shut its doors on money, furloughing 2,000 employees, putting projects across the country at risk and stopping the highway program from paying states the money they are -- they are owed. now, i've been in constant communication with gary ridley, he's oklahoma's transportation secretary -- i think the best one in the country. he flew here this week to help resolve this crisis. he told me that if this is not worked out by friday, there will be very serious consequences in my state of oklahoma. there will be jobs that will be shut down. there will be work that has already been contracted out that will be under default. and i understand tha

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: first of all, i thank the senator from oklahoma for yielding. unanimous consent that i be recognized in morning business for such time as i shall consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, after weeks of global warming scandal and we've talked about it on the floor what happened in climategate, prior to -- just prior to the copenhagen convention, i had the opportunity to -- to visit and to uncover some of the things that we had expect -- suspected were going on for a long period of time five years ago i had the occasion of giving a speech on the floor wherein i outlined from information that had come through the backdoor to me from scientists how bad the science was and how it had been, in fact, cooked. then, of course, along came -- along came climategate. after weeks of the global warming scandal, the world's first potential climate billionaire is running for cover. yes, i'm talking about al gore. he's under siege these days. the credibility

mr. inhofe, proposes and amendment numbered 3588. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with reading of the amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, president obama repeatedly promised during the campaign that no one making over $250,000 per year would see their taxes increase. however, the democrats' plan to spend $6.2 trillion in new health care promises at a time when the country can't afford the promises they have already made and we have a record one-year budget deficit of of $1.4 trillion. we hear president obama always talking about what he inherited from george w. bush, but what he inherited was nothing like what he did. he actually raised the deficit deficit $1.4 trillion in one year. that's more than president bush did in his last five years. now, the health bill which recently passed the house, an unprecedented expansion of government control and increased taxes on americans during a real difficult economic time not only just stopped the one expensive health care bill. now the

inhofe-brown. i ask unanimous consent that senator crapo be added as a cosponsor. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. th cle will report. mr. roberts: and i ask -- i ask the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. roberts: mr. president, included in the half trillion dollars, yes half trillion dollars of new taxes in this reform bill is a tax hike of of $20 billion on medical devices. a $20 billion excise tax on life-saving medical devices. the nonpartisan congressional budget office and joint committee on taxation have both confirmed that these excise taxes will not be borne by the medical device industry, if, in fact, that's what the other side wanted to do. instead, the tax will be passed on to patients in the form of higher prices and higher insurance premiums. my colleagues are going to speak in greater detail about this tax, but let me just take a moment to talk about some of the

inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman i wasn't going to ask this question, but, general petraeus spent a lot of time talking about the programs, and the ccif and all of that. >> right. >> the whole reason for this initially was to give more authority to the commanders in the field, and to be able to do things to respond. and we have had really, i think, testimony, that talks about how much more effectivity is if you are able to do this without going through a lot of the bureaucratic time delays that would come otherwise. i was -- would like to know, they are talking about 1207, the civilian to civilian portion of this, now, reverting more back to the way it was, before, or at least, having a greater state department influence, in it, do you see this as creating any kind of a problem, number one, and, number 2, do you think, starting with this, that it may spread to some of the other elements of train and equip. >> well -- >> policy thing that you may not have any -- >> hugely important. want to kind, want to make

mr. chairman aired >> senator inhofe. >> senator lieberman, to start on a bright note some things that are were talking about some of the things in a meeting in private. some things like the 1206, 1207, 1208, the eye net to surf programs, those are grahams are working well. admiral stavridis, i would ask you with some of the things that have been changed recently, like in the 1207, the whole reason for instruction of these with dod is so they can be activated quickly and get immediate response. and now we're kind of going the other direction with the travel sites. do you want to comment on that? >> senator, first of all i completely agree that the 1206 and the inet programs has been superb. and i think each of the combatant commanders have testified to that over the last couple years and have benefited from the greatly in three years and continue to be a strong advocate here at u.s. european command. 1207 money is kind of dual key between states and department of defense. i think that anytime there's a dual key is going to take a little bit longer to work through the challenges and some of