mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: ask to be recognized for one minute in opposition. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: as i said a few minutes ago i agree with senator sanders the author of this amendment in terms of what is the problem that we have out there. we to have a defense -- a transportation reauthorization bill we're going to have it. i know that senator sanders has characterized his bill as being paid for by closing tax loopholes, but i would still say in my opinion my analysis of this -- and this would equate to nearly a half trillion dollars half increase and this is not the way i want to have a defense -- a transportation reauthorization bill. let me just remind you mr. president, there is a reserve fund in chairman enzi's budget that serves as a placeholder for chairman hatch to address a long-term highway bill later this year. we have a deadline of may 31 and i think we can meet that deadline we're working with senator hatch right now to come up with that funding. soy i urge

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent that the following if he is low be grafntsed floor privileges for the first session of the 114th congress: rebecca farr, elizabeth agree toby and patrick buzzard. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: i want to make a comment about some legislation that we have introduced, actually last week. it is going to be of supreme interest to a relatively small number of people. those people in america who are general aviation pilots. it actually affects another people too but this is something that is very significant and i just want to kind of talk about it for just a minute. it's important to pilots and aviation enthusiasts all over the nation, but over the course of my time, i have -- i can recall when there were so few of us that were active commercial pilots that those individuals who had problems, particularly in our state of oklahoma, they would all come to me because they knew i had an understanding of this, and so people have come in for

mr. inhofe: me. i'm over here. here. mr. inhofe: this week wasn't the senator from vermont's week. in the "wall street journal" on monday, "the myth of climate change: 97%" -- where they say the 97% figure came from 79 respondents out of 23erbgs 146. secondly today is the day that they finalized the annual gallup poll. the gallup poll came out and stayed made the statement that the current level of worry on global warming and climate remains at record lows, right behind the loss of tropical rainforests. so don't vote for this based on the assumption that the 97% figure is accurate or that people really care that much. the presiding officer: question is on the amendment. mr. sanders: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not the ayes are 49. the nays are 50. the amendment is not agreed to. under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided

mr. inhofe: nay way you inhofe: any way you could change that to 2:20 from 2:30. there are four people who can make planes, otherwise. the presiding officer: will the majority leader so modify his request? mr. mcconnell: the request is that the vote occur when? the presiding officer: 2:20 instead of 2:30. without objection. mr. mcconnell: okay, so for the information of all senators, the vote on the veto override will occur at 2:20 and senators should be in the chamber and prepared to vote from their seats. this will be the last roll call vote of the week. the presiding officer: under the previous order the clerk will report the veto message. the clerk: veto message to accompany s. 1 an act to approve the keystone x.l. pipeline. the presiding officer: under the previous orders, the time order the time until 2:20 will be equally divided under the previous order. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my intern, jack manwilson be allowed priz of the floor for the balance of th

senator inhofe: mr. easterly, in your written testimony you elaborated a little bit more how the clean power plan proposal could actually increase the cost -- increase the amount of emissions. this is a position i have held ever since lisa jackson said that no, doing something unilaterally in the united states is not going to affect it -- the positions or problems. because this is not where the problems are, as you saw in the chart. did you want to elaborate any more on the concept about the increase instead of decrease in emissions? mr. easterly: most of our businesses, the basic bottom of our economy, the steel industry , the auto industry rely on energy costs, and they are internationally competitive. you can buy steel from brazil and india and russia and use it. why would you bother to bring the steel to the united states? you bring the finished product here. the emissions will happen in those countries. some of those countries have decided -- i understand china signed an agreement to consider stoppi

mr. chairman. chairman inhofe: thank you senator boxer. we are going to have some introductions. by the request of some of the members. let's start with senator russell. senator: thank you very much mr. chairman. it brings me great pleasure to bring greetings from the committee to one of our -- those witnesses this morning, todd the director of the wyoming -- he has a long history of working in wyoming, and specifically working in this department. you will remember, mr. chairman, that our former director spoke here a number of years ago. todd has worked closely with him and has succeeded him. he is now our director. it is interesting, mr. chairman, because today, as todd testifies, he will have worked with a democrat governor, at a republican governor, and wyoming. and has always put wyoming first. he has done what is best for our state and our environment. it is a privilege they for me to introduce one of those testifying. the director. chairman inhofe: thank you senator. we are going to go ahead and start with our testimony. we're like to ask you to do your best to the time requ

mr. president, catch this. >> inhofe was basically suggesting the existence of snow on one part of the earth warming. then there was also a rebuttal to that debate. >> every major american scientific society has put itself on record many of them a decade ago, that climate change is deadly real. so you can believe every single major american scientific society or you can believe the senator with the snowball. you can believe nasa and you can believe what their satellites measure on the planet or you can believe the senator with the snowball. >> as they say on the senate floor, oh, snap. that was senator sheldon whitehouse. he's a democrat from rhode island. it's one thing to say the government shouldn't regulate climate change. another to pretend that climate change doesn't even exist or it is somehow disproven by the existence of winter. senator, what moved you to march down there with that rebuttal? >> well i guess first there are an awful lot of people out there who are working very very hard to deal with climate change to explain climate change to try to reduce the threat of climate chang

mr. carter: exactly the same answer. key to us is can we do our campaign. senator inhofe: thank you, mr. chairman. senator hirono: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your service and your testimony. secretary carter, there are fairly big challenges in terms of available resources. i know from our january meeting that you agreed that stability in asia-pacific region is critical to our national security even as there is instability in so many other parts of the world. so you mentioned they once again in your testimony that the priority, one of the priorities is to commit and you are committed to the rebalance of the asia-pacific. i want to highlight related issue that i would like to continue to discuss with you and that is there are plans in place to ship the number of military personnel and assets from hawaii to include naval vessels, aircraft, air force tankers, that to the continental u.s. by 2020. i am concerned about how moving these kinds of significant capabilities away from the region while we are supposed to be committed to the rebalance of it the asia-pacific will look to our allies a

mr. myers and work to the end to ellen nowak. you're recognized. >> thank you chairman inhofe ranking member boxer and the committee for inviting me here to testify. i'm michael myers. my perspective is slightly different from those of other members of the panel. as an environmental lawyer i've worked for the past 15 years at the attorney general's office counselling state regulators on legal issues related to air pollution and climate change and litigating those issues in the courts. it's particularly appropriate that the committee should seek to hear state perspectives because under the provision of the clean air act section 111-d states are in the driver's seat. but for us to succeed in this critically important area, each state has to be willing to take the wheel. from the perspective of state new york that's already taken action to cut power plant greenhouse gas emissions i have good news for other states. you can significantly reduce these emissions from the power sector and do so in a way that helps grow your economy. new york and other states in the regional greenhouse

senator inhofe: mr. easterly in your written testimony you elaborated a little bit more about how the clean power plant proposal could actually increase the cost -- increase the amount of emissions. this is a position i have held ever since lisa jackson said doing something unilaterally in the united states is not going to affect it because this is not where the problems are, as you saw in the chart. did you want to elaborate any more on the concept about the increase instead of decrease in emissions? mr. easterly: most of our businesses the basic bottom of our economy, the steel industry and the auto industry rely on energy costs, and they are internationally competitive. you can buy steel from brazil and india and russia and use it. why would you bother to bring the steel to the united states? you bring the finished product here. the emissions will happen in those countries. some of those countries have decided -- i understand china signed an agreement to consider stopping the growth of their emissions

mr. chairman. i appreciate this hearing and the good witnesses. sen. inhofe: senator boxer wanted to have some into -- some time to enter something into the record. 30 seconds for you then 30 seconds for me and then it is over. sen. boxer: it is never over. i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record h hart that shows the california -- a chart that shows californians are paying $20 less as we reduce carbon emissions. sen. inhofe: without objections, so ordered. two documents, saying california has the highest u.s. poverty rate. when comparing income to cost of living and secondly, from the manhattan institute, migration from california to oklahoma increased by 274% in the 2000s. sen. boxer: you are lucky. sen. inhofe: adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> next republican scott walker speaks and that's :00 a.m. your calls and comments -- and then at 7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on "

mr. carter: i do. when i started in the business and was one problem, the soviet union, and now we have -- senator inhofe: those were the good old days. mr. carter: i remember enough not to be too nostalgic. senator: hearing netanyahu this morning, that drove at home. i was thinking how easy that was, yes, the threat was terrible two superpowers, they were predictable, we were predictable, and mutual assured distraction. it does not mean anything anymore. i was thinking about that. how different that is today. the other thing i wanted to mention is that you have heard general odierno and others all testified and they talked about if sequester is coming in. you said something that i think is even more significant. you said even with the fiscal year 2016 budget, the army, navy, and marine corps will not reach their readiness goals until 2020 and the air force until 2023. is that accurate? so what you're saying, even if it is a budget without sequestration, you are saying that threat is there. mr. carter: what is going on there is digging ourselves out of a hole of sequester in the past, particularly the 20

mr. president, catch this. uh-huh. >> that is the new republican chair of the senate environment and public works committee, senator james inhofewill consider to revamp a bill on toxic chemicals. that legislation is highly contested, including among senate democrats. joining us now is senator barbara boxer. thank you for being here tonight. >> thanks so much for doing the story. >> let many ask you about the specific point that i just made a moment ago about the american chemistry council turning up as the apparent author, at least the microsoft word listed author in somewhat appears to be a draft of the bill circulated ahead of tomorrow's hearing. were you the first people who figured that out? >> well, when the bill came over from the senators, senator udall and vitter, there was a copy right there for us, and my staff said to me this reads like it was written by the chemistry council. so we thought, you know, maybe it was. i'm not kidding. and they checked it out, and it was written by the american chemistry council. and this is shocking, and people can run all over it saying it wasn't. we know it was. it's just right there.

mr. chairman. gentlemen thank you for your service. i'd like to follow up on what senator inhofe was discussing in particular admiral greenert you are responding to the mission's questions. this would be for both u.n. general dunford. your judgment are your munitions inventory sufficient to support current operations and the defense strategic guidance or plan? are there individuals who ends inventory are present or protected which are insufficient to meet the requirements and if so what are they and what is being done to address the shortfalls? >> for operations today we have sufficient conditions. for operations in the future by benchmark year our benchmark year is 2020. there are a series of missions where omissions omissions which he outlined a bacardi gave you. they're effectively based on the war plans. we have insufficient finishes in 2020 even in the presence budget they are air-to-air. they are surface to surface cruise missiles. some of our air to ground a senator and half mentioned the joint standoff weapon the j. cell. here are two elements a longer-range and medium-ra

mr. stewart, you say that we face more diverse and complex problems then we have faced in our lifetimes. do you still stand by that? general stewart: yes sir. senator inhofe: there is a sense away from washington that we who are on the committee know a lot of answers we do not know. one of them, and it should be an easy answer -- i want to get something from you guys that i can stand on. when we talk about the power in terms of the strength and number of bodies in isil or isis, september 14, we talked about it has been an additional 20,000 since this started. i think we all agree on that. they said it was somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters in iraq and syria. now, we know it has gone beyond that. in august, they talked about from 80,000 to 100,000. in november, one of the kurdish leaders claimed the isis military grew to 200,000 fighters. can you give us an idea? number one, why is it so difficult to do? and number two, something we can use" you as the sources -- use and quote you two as the sources? director clapper: for my view, it is unfortunate that these they are very hard to come by. we have to derive them inferentially from a number of sou

inhofe amendment number 649. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. there are now two minutes of debate prior to a vote on the stabenow amendment number 523. ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator prosecute michigan. ms. stabenow: mr. president, i would hope we could all come together and agree that we want to bring jobs back to america -- the presiding officer: let's have order. ms. stabenow: thank you very much. this is about saying if you are a business in america and you want to pretend to move offshore on paper but have the benefits of clean air and clean water and roads and all of the benefits of our american way of life, you ought to be contributing to that way of life. so this closes tax loopholes that are being used by companies right now to avoid paying their fair share. small businesses are here paying their fair share. individuals are. the workers are. and yet we have a code where you can pack up and move overseas and american taxpayers have to foot the bill for the move. the workers losing their jobs have to foot the bill for the move. it makes no sense. we want to bring jobs back to america. this simply closes egregio

mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, just wednesday of this week, the new annual gallup poll came out. it said very clearly that among the six environmental concerns in the gallup poll included, its survey global warming polled at the very bottom, right after the loss of tropical rain forests i might add. gallup also found that a majority believe that seriousness of global warming is overstated. the obama administration and others on this side like to claim 97% of the world's scientists believe in manmade global warming. monday's "wall street journal" op-ed debunked the 97% and that the survey represents the views of only 79 respondents out of 3,149. and lastly, the agencies that are talking about the claim that 2014 was the warmest year on record like nasa, nasa now has reduced that to 38%. sr. the senator'sthe presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. inhofe: they have retreated from that position. the people have caught on to this hiss stare yus and i ask you -- hysteria, and i ask you to oppos