Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague from Michigan has said it pretty well. This is not an unusual time. The money we have spent with respect to the war in Iraq and the reconstruction of Iraq are not usual expenditures. We have been asked, and the Congress has complied, with support for legislation that moves $50 billion, $60 billion, $20 billion--huge chunks of money--to pursue, first of all, the war in Iraq to support our troops and also to pursue what is called the reconstruction of Iraq. Almost all of that--I think perhaps all of it--was done without any requirement to pay for it. It was all designed as an emergency, just to add it to the debt of this country. My colleague, Senator Levin, said we have not in any way, nor would we refuse any request that would be helpful to our troops. When we ask men and women in uniform to risk their lives, we have a responsibility to them, and that is to give them everything they need to carry out the mission they have been asked to carry out. That is not what is at issue with this amendment. This amendment is designed to respond to what we already know, and everyone in this Chamber knows, is a massive amount of waste, fraud, and abuse of the taxpayers' money. I spoke yesterday about this, but can anyone here justify having the American taxpayers purchase $85,000 trucks to be used on the roads of Iraq by contractors, and when the trucks get a flat tire, what do they do with them? They leave them beside the road and let them be torched. An $85,000 truck with a plugged fuel pump, what do they do? Abandon it. It is a plus-cost, sole-source contract. The American taxpayer will pay for that; don't worry about it. The list is almost endless. A company--Halliburton in this case--charged the taxpayers for 42,000 meals served to American troops. It turns out they were only serving 14,000 meals. They have overcharged us by 28,000 meals. The people who last were responsible in the Pentagon, now retired, for managing all the fuel contracts to move fuel to the battlefield, after they retired they came back and testified and said: What has happened since is just unbelievable. The massive overcharges to move fuel to the battlefield by these contractors is almost unthinkable. The stories go on and on. Renting a car for $7,500 a month, buying towels for the troops, double the price so you can put the company logo on it because the company tells their buyers that is what they are required to do: Double the cost of the towels so we can put our company logo on it. How many of these stories do we need? Do we need 100 more stories like it? There is rampant waste, fraud, and abuse. Why is that the case? Because massive quantities of money are being shipped over there in pursuit of reconstruction. Massive quantities of money are going, in many cases, to no-bid, sole-source contracts under the buddy system, and the taxpayers, I think in many of these cases, are being robbed blind. Will someone do something about it? This amendment I have offered would establish what I call a Truman- type committee. Harry Truman stood on this floor in the 1940s in the middle of a war with a President of his own political party in the White House, and said: I think there is substantial waste, fraud, and abuse in military contracting and in military spending. They formed a special Truman committee, and he went after and uncovered tens of billions of dollars, in today's dollars, of waste, fraud, and abuse. Normally, we would do this through oversight hearings, but we have not had many oversight hearings. In some cases, in other venues, none at all; in other venues, a few but really no aggressive oversight hearings designed to track this massive amount of money. Yesterday, I showed a picture of a fellow who testified at a hearing I chaired that we have been doing in the Policy Committee. Why? Because the regular committees don't want to have oversight hearings. Why don't they want to do that? I guess they don't want to embarrass anybody. It would be embarrassing to the White House, I guess, if we had hearings about no-bid, sole-source contracts under the buddy system to big companies that then waste a lot of money. It would be embarrassing to display that in public. The fact is, we owe it to the taxpayers to get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse. Yesterday, I showed a photograph of money that was in the downstairs vault of a building that was occupied by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, which was us, by the way. CPA is us, not anything else. It is a fancy name for us. They were dealing in cash. I showed a photograph of one hundred dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap in bundles. The guy who testified at my committee and who was pictured in that photograph said: We told all the contractors, show up with a bag because we pay in cash. He said this was like the Old West. Bring a bag, we pay in cash. He said: We actually threw around like a football those bundles of one hundred dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. You would be able to play catch with them. It was the Old West. After all, when we provide funding for these contracts, it doesn't come out of the pockets of the 100 Members of the Senate. It is taxpayers' money, and we have a responsibility to the taxpayers to make sure it is spent appropriately. If all of the 100 Senators would sit and listen to the stories I have listened to in many hearings now from contractor employees who were sickened and disgusted by the waste, fraud, and abuse they saw, if all of the Members of this Senate could hear that and then vote against an amendment that asks for this kind of long-term investigation, I don't know how they can sleep at night. We have had this vote previously, and sufficient Members of the Senate have said it does not matter what the evidence is; I don't intend to support a special type committee to investigate this waste, fraud, and abuse. And they have prevailed. So we will have another vote today. I say to those Senators who have voted against this amendment previously, if they still believe this waste, fraud, and abuse doesn't matter very much, then vote against it. If they still believe it is OK for the regular committees of the Senate not to hold any significant oversight hearings, not to do their due diligence, not to meet their accountability responsibility, and they don't care about that, then vote against this. Just vote against it, it doesn't matter. But then they should not stand up at home and say to their constituents that they care about how this money is spent when there is such dramatic evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse. I used some newspaper headlines yesterday to describe the charges: $18.6 million worth of Government equipment missing at the moment that a contracting company was given to manage. One-third of the equipment that company was entrusted with at this point cannot be accounted for. Does it matter? Is somebody looking into this? It doesn't look like it to me. It is really pretty unbelievable. I have spoken before. I am guessing nobody in this Chamber--at least only a few in this Chamber-- care. My colleague from Michigan was at a hearing we held with Bunnatine Greenhouse who rose to become the top civilian contracting official in the Corps of Engineers. She was the top civilian contracting official in the Corps of Engineers. She had outstanding recommendations every single year. She was an outstanding Federal employee, and she was in charge as the highest civilian in the Corps of Engineers for making sure contracting was done properly. As the war in Iraq ramped up and some companies began to get substantial no-bid contracts under the old buddy system, she said this doesn't meet the test of the law; you are violating the procedures of the Corps of Engineers. You are not doing things the right way; there is a right way and wrong way to do things. You do it this way. We are going to see substantial waste, abuse, and fraud. When she started raising those questions, something important happened to her. She was told one of two things will happen: You will either be fired or you will be demoted. This public servant had the courage to speak up and speak out against practices she thought were horribly unfair and were going to hurt this country, and she paid for it with her career. What a message to send to those who have the courage to blow the whistle and speak up. Does anybody care about that? It doesn't appear so. It really doesn't appear that way. We have asked Secretary Rumsfeld. We sent many letters to Secretary Rumsfeld. It is like sending those letters into a deep abyss someplace. You get a little one-paragraph reply saying: Got your letter, get back to you later. And there will never be a later. That is the way it works. Zip it up, cover it up, sew it up, it doesn't matter and, oh, by the way, ask Congress for more money; they will certainly appropriate it. Don't worry where it is going. If it is waste, nobody cares very much and, by the way, if somebody does care and raises the issue, we will have sufficient votes on it to say we won't do anything about it. And those sufficient votes will go home and talk about the fact, boy, they are tigers watching out for the American taxpayers. Hardly. Hardly. We will see, once again, in a few minutes whether people really do care about this and whether they are willing to own up to the oversight responsibility Congress has, to care about how the taxpayers' money is spent. This case is made. This is not an open case, it is not an argument that has to be made. This case is made. The evidence is all around us. The question is whether enough Senators will care. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of the time.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Virginia is quite right that we have twice before voted on this amendment and I believe ignored the value of the amendment. In almost all cases, there is virtue in being consistent, but being consistently wrong is hardly virtuous. My hope is the Senate will understand the value of this amendment this morning as we vote on it for the third time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, respond on this amendment?

Mr. DORGAN. In 30 seconds, I say the Senator has just made my point. He recited a long description of people interested in this, none of whom reside in the Congress. The oversight responsibility belongs to the Congress. It belongs here, and it is not happening here. That is precisely the point I believe the Senator made on the floor just a moment ago. That is precisely why we ought to support this amendment.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have an amendment to offer, an amendment I have shared with both sides. It is, in fact, an amendment that we have previously debated. It deals with the subject of contracting abuses, especially contracting abuses in the reconstruction in Iraq-- the money that is paid by American taxpayers, through our Government, to major contractors that are given no-bid contracts, spending billions of dollars, and the stories about contracting abuse are horrifying. Yet nothing seems to happen. I have described previously something that happened in the 1940s. Harry Truman was in the Senate. Harry Truman was a Democrat. A member of his party was in the White House, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He couldn't have been very happy about Harry Truman because Truman came to the floor of Senate and said: I have substantial evidence of wrongdoing, of contracting, of military waste with respect to defense contracts and defense spending. I think it needs to be investigated. They began holding a series of hearings. He finally was able to get a committee together called the Truman Committee. They began a series of hearings. It lasted a number of years. At a time when a member of his own political party was President, it was probably embarrassing for everybody that Harry Truman was leading the charge while FDR was in the White House. But they uncovered a substantial amount of abuse and waste and fraud. Good for them. The memory of the Truman Committee lives on today as an example of what should be done with respect to oversight by the Congress. We spend a dramatic amount of taxpayer money. The question is, Is it spent wisely? If it is not, when it is wasted or stolen or subject to cheating of the taxpayers, shouldn't somebody know it? Shouldn't somebody see it and do something about it? That is the issue. I have held a number of hearings as chairman of the Policy Committee on this subject, only because no one else is holding any substantial hearings on it. We will have a couple people come to the floor and say: We have held a good number of hearings. That is not true. Very few if any hearings have been held on this issue. I wish to go through a few examples of the hearings that we have held, along with some of the headlines. I wish to say this before I get into this too far: Some of this deals with a company called Halliburton. The minute you mention the company Halliburton on the floor of the Senate, they say: Aha, this is a criticism of Vice President Cheney because he used to be president of Halliburton. It is not about Vice President Cheney. Vice President Cheney is not now president of Halliburton. He left that job when he became Vice President. This is not about him. All of these actions have occurred after Vice President Cheney left the Halliburton Corporation. But this is about Halliburton and some other companies--Halliburton being the largest--that have gotten big, fat, multibillion-dollar contracts, no-bid, sole-source contracts, and, with all of the evidence in front of us, have been charging American taxpayers for services they have not delivered or overcharging the taxpayers for other services. We need to aggressively root out that waste, fraud, and abuse. Let me give some examples. The committee that I chair, the Policy Committee, had a hearing. We heard from a man named Rory Mayberry. Rory Mayberry is the former food production manager for KBR, which is a Halliburton subsidiary. Halliburton has gotten billions of dollars to deliver all sorts of things to our troops in Iraq, including feeding the troops. Here is what Mr. Mayberry, who was the food service supervisor, told us: Food items were being brought in to our military base that were outdated or expired by as much as a year and we were told by the food service managers, feed them anyway, use them anyway. So the food was fed to the troops, expired food with expired date stamps. For trucks that were hit by convoy fire and bombings we were told to go into the trucks, remove the food items and use them after removing the bullets and any shrapnel from the bad food that was hit. And we were told then to remove the bullets and turn them over to the managers of the food service operation as souvenirs. We had hearings at which Bunnatine Greenhouse testified. Bunny Greenhouse was the top civilian official at the Corps of Engineers. She rose to the very top, the highest civilian official in the Corps of Engineers. That is the area of the Pentagon where they actually do the contracts for these firms. In that position, she was responsible for reviewing all contracts worth more than $10 million. After she objected to special treatment given Halliburton on a number of occasions, including an occasion where the company was brought into the meeting at which the contract was being discussed, the specs developed, and who it was going to be awarded to, after objecting to all that, she was forced to either resign or face demotion. This is a woman who was the highest civilian official in the Corps of Engineers, given stellar performance reviews always, an outstanding employee. But then she started raising questions with the good old boy network about giving billions of dollars of sole-source contracts under the buddy system. She said: I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR [Halliburton] represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career. That is pretty strong. Now let me go through a couple of headlines. Boston Globe, June of this year: Internal Pentagon audits have flagged about $1.4 billion in expenses submitted by Halliburton for services the firm is providing in Iraq. Charges include $45 for a case of soda, $100 per bag for laundry service, and several months preparing at least 10,000 daily meals that the troops didn't need and ultimately went to--by the way, in this meal issue, there is another complaint. The other complaint is they were charging for 42,000 meals a day and preparing 14,000 meals a day. That meant they were charging the taxpayers for 28,000 meals they were not serving the troops. ``Ex-Halliburton Workers Allege Rampant Waste: They say the firm makes no efforts to control costs, overspending taxpayers' money in Iraq and Kuwait.'' One former employee: ``They didn't want to control costs at all. Their motto was don't worry about cost. It's a cost plus contract.'' The supervisor described an arrangement in which Halliburton provided 10 percent of additional payment on its phone calls to a Kuwaiti company for providing cellular phones although nothing in the contract between Halliburton and the company called for the payments. They just added 10 percent. Well, I won't go through it at great length, but $7,500 a month to rent ordinary cars and trucks; $85,000 new trucks left on the side of the road because they had a flat tire, to be trashed and torched. Yes, the taxpayer paid for them. How about a fuel pump that was plugged. Leave the truck on the side of the road. It gets torched. It is all over. The taxpayer pays for it. It is all cost plus. ``Millions in U.S. Property Lost in Iraq, Report Says; Halliburton Claims Figures Only `projections'.'' ``Halliburton Unable to Prove $1.8 Billion in Work, Pentagon Says.'' ``Halliburton Faces Criminal Investigation,'' Houston Chronicle. ``Pentagon Proving Alleged Overcharges for Iraq Fuel.'' ``Uncle Sam Looks Into Meal Bills; Halliburton Refunds $27 million as a Result.'' You would think with all of this you would have committees in the Congress saying: Wait a second, we are going to pull back the curtain. We are going to have tough investigations to evaluate what is happening, what is happening to the American taxpayer, what is happening with contracts that are given without any competition, soul- source, no-bid contracts.

Mr. DORGAN. Of course.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, that gives me some hope, and I hope as a result of that the Senator would support my amendment as well. The fact is, we have not had many oversight hearings. We have now been in this conflict for several years, and a substantial amount of money has been spent. A very substantial amount of it has been wasted, regrettably. But I think anything that any committee or subcommittee does to shine a spotlight on this makes some sense. I must say, however, as my colleague knows, there is substantial brushback from the administration. They do not want anything to do with this. And I understand why. But the fact is, what happened here was wrong. A top contracting official gets demoted because she blows the whistle on bad practices, and the taxpayer takes a bath to the tune, I think, of billions of dollars. So whatever subcommittee or committee wants to dig into this, I think that would be great, and I certainly will commend my colleague if he convenes these hearings. But I would say this: I think there are substantial pressures on many of our committees and subcommittees by the administration not to move too far. We had an example of that on the issue of intelligence recently, and I won't explore that more, but there has been a lot of foot dragging in a lot of areas. The point of this on behalf of myself, Senator Durbin, Senator Lautenberg, Senator Boxer, and others, the point of it is to establish what we know works, and what we know works is the Truman committee. Yes, it is an old model, but it is a model that really did work-- nonpartisan, bipartisan. Take a hard look at what is going on. Don't care where the chips fall, investigate it all. If somebody is cheating the American taxpayer, hold them accountable for it. I mean how do you miss 28,000 meals, overbilling somebody by 28,000 meals a day? I come from a town of 300 people, so we had a small restaurant. You can understand somebody missing a cheeseburger or two but 28,000 meals a day? That is cheating. And it ought not take twice to learn the lesson. Do business with companies that cheat. Cut them off. Shut it down. I am not going into this at great length, but I can give the example of companies that in the same week that they were paying multimillion dollar penalties for cheating and defrauding the Government, in that same week they were signing new contracts for new business with this Government. Are we that lamebrained that we can't understand when somebody cheats you once you don't need a second chance? In my hometown, again, a town of 300 people, you wouldn't need to learn that lesson twice. You do business with somebody who cheats you, you don't do business with them again. Not in this town. It is a slap on the wrist, a pat on the back. Atta boy. That is not the way it ought to work. I could spend a lot of time on this. I will not do it now, but I could spend a lot of time talking about the abuses--the taxpayer pays to air-condition a building under reconstruction in Iraq. Well, that contract that goes to a subcontract, that goes to a local subcontract and pretty soon it is all done. We pay it. It is like an ice cube; it melts in your hand like money does as it goes through to--guess what-- pay for air-conditioning, and it is a ceiling fan in a room in Iraq some place. Cheating? You bet it is. I want to show you a picture of two million dollars. Incidentally, this guy wearing the striped shirt, he worked in this area. These are hundred-dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. What would they be doing with a pile of bills wrapped in Saran Wrap? He testified: I was over there with the Coalition Provisional Authority, which is really us, as you know. He says: We were telling people that when you come to pick up the cash for your contracts and so on, understand it is going to be in cash, so bring a bag. We deal in cash. He said we actually threw these around as footballs from time to time in the office, hundred-dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. I don't know how that would feel. But you can look at what it looked like, how they appeared. He said: Bring a bag. We deal in cash. He said: It was like the Old West I have spoken at some length about this with a company called Custer Battle. A couple guys show up in Iraq, and they decide: We are going to be contractors. Pretty soon they are contractors. Pretty soon they have millions of dollars, millions of dollars in contracting, and then they start setting up offshore subsidiaries and selling to them, cheating the Federal Government. A couple of their employees decide that is not right and they are going to disclose it. Then their lives are threatened. There is so much going on that it is just almost unbelievable to me. The inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority issued a report about the use of funds that actually belong to the Iraqis. It came from the oil revenues which was under our control then. There were 8,206 guards at one Iraqi ministry, 8,206 guards at one of the ministries. And that is what we were paying for through this $9 billion. It turns out, in paying 8,206 security people, there were only 602 of them. But 8,206 were paid. Where did the money go? If we could have dyed all that money purple and walked around to see who had purple pants pockets, we could have figured it out. This is a massive cheating and abuse scandal. This is like a Rip Van Winkle operation. We sort of doze through it all, don't offend anybody, upset anybody. I am delighted to hear my colleague is going to hold some hearings in December, but I am telling you this is a cesspool of trouble, digging into this. The guy who used to buy towels for our troops, from K.B.R. Halliburton, bought hand towels--you know, the little hand towels. He told us how he ordered the hand towels. Need some thousands and thousands and thousands of hand towels for the troops? Well, you just order them, don't you? Oh, no, no. His supervisor said you don't just order hand towels, you order hand towels embroidered with the company's logo on it so it can double the price. You think when the troops are washing their hands and face they are going to want just a plain towel? No, they are going to want one with our company logo on it, so order the more expensive one. The sky is the limit. It is all cost plus. Don't worry. Be happy. We are all making money--except the taxpayer is taking a bath. I have raised this issue now for about 2 years on the floor of the Senate, to dead silence. There was a silence back in the forties when Harry Truman raised it. They empowered a committee to take a look and they discovered billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. The taxpayer was taking a bath and the Congress did something about it. The question is, Will it now? We haven't received one answer from the Pentagon about all these issues. We haven't received one single answer. This has all been transmitted to the Pentagon, all of the testimony from five or six hearings. It is just unbelievable. By the way, do you want 50,000 pounds of nails? I know where 25 tons of nails are. They are laying in the sand in Iraq, 25 tons of nails, 50,000 pounds ordered for reconstruction of Iraq. But they are the wrong size, and it does not matter, I guess, so they throw them on the ground and they reorder. It is just the taxpayers' money. It is all cost plus. Order 50,000 pounds of nails the wrong size. Don't sweat it. We are all going to get paid. What a mess. So the point is, Congress has the responsibility. Congress has a responsibility to legislate, and Congress has a responsibility for something called oversight--oversight with respect to the funds that the Congress appropriates. These funds, after all, come in from the American taxpayers and then are used to be expended on various operations, various projects, in this case reconstruction in Iraq or contractors that are contracting to provide assistance to the troops in Iraq. Some of that assistance to the troops manifests itself in food that is expired, manifests itself in charging for food that wasn't delivered. Now, Mr. President, I was tempted to go through the whole list of those who have testified. I shall not do that in deference to my colleague who is on the floor ready to speak. But I think the point is made. The Congress can continue to decide, No, we don't want to do anything about this, and vote against this amendment. They have done it previously. But it is pretty hard, it seems to me, to look in the mirror and think you have done a good job for the people in this country, the taxpayers who pay the taxes, if you don't believe this deserves your special attention and you don't believe that Congress has failed in its responsibility of oversight. If you don't believe that, then you should vote against my amendment. But if you understand the responsibility for oversight and understand there has been virtually nothing done except for the hearings I chair in the Policy Committee and with those hearings have uncovered dramatic examples of massive waste, fraud, and abuse, if you believe that is a real serious problem, then you ought to support this amendment. I hope every Senator will ask questions of the Pentagon about Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest ranking civilian in the Pentagon with outstanding performance reviews, outstanding reviews all along the way until she began to say: You can't do this. You are violating the regulations of the Pentagon in the way you are proceeding with respect to no-bid contracts, no-bid, sole-source, cost-plus contracts, the minute she started telling those at the top of the Corps of Engineers who wanted to award these kinds of contracts to say: Look, you are violating the very rules that exist. The minute she started doing that, her career took a dramatic turn for the worse. At that point, she was told you are either going to be fired or demoted. If the Congress does not care about that, then it does not care about anything. If those who have the courage to speak up and tell the truth, as they see it, are told the consequences for that will be their career, then this Congress doesn't care much about those who have the courage to stand up and speak out when it is necessary. There has been a deafening silence, with the exception of a few Members of Congress, on that point as well. This woman fights on alone. Why? Because not enough people here seem to care, not even to care to ask the basic question of those who run the Pentagon. Mr. President, I send the amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator Durbin, Senator Lautenberg, and Senator Boxer, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I inquire, how much of the 30 minutes allowed to the proponent of the amendment has been used?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. Senator Durbin, I know, wishes to speak on this amendment. I reserve the remainder of the time on this amendment. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, we have come from a Commerce-Energy Committee joint hearing with the CEOs of the major energy companies. They came to talk to us about the price of energy. I made the point this morning--I know the Presiding Officer was also there and made the points she wished to make--as we go into the winter season, those who are trying to figure out how they afford home heating fuel, natural gas, propane, and so on, take a look at the newspapers and see the highest profits in history for the oil companies. They are the ones, the consumers, who will have to bear the pain. Heat your home in the winter or try to figure out how you are going to pay the fuel bill in the spring if you are a farmer or a rancher. These prices are going to eat away all the profit that existed, and then some, with respect to family farmers in my State. That is according to estimates that come from the farm organization and from economists who have looked at it. The question for family farmers who are being ripped by these energy prices or people who drive to the gas pumps or people who are figuring out how to heat their homes is, Is anybody going to do anything about it? You have all the gain on this side and all the pain on this side. All the gain with the big energy companies, the big oil companies, the major integrated oil companies, bigger, stronger, with more raw muscle power in the marketplace because of block buster mergers, and all the pain on the other side, the consumers. Especially in a State that is an agricultural State where we rely on family farmers as a significant part of our economic base, knowing that those family farmers operate on a thin margin, knowing that they are trying to figure out how to pay energy costs going into spring planting and fertilizer costs and so on, knowing that it is going to wipe away any net profit they would have, any opportunity for a net profit next year, they are saying to this Congress: Talk is cheap. What are you going to do? Will Congress take some action? Will Congress take action to ease the pain and provide some fairness and restore fairness? I hope so. I won't go into great detail about the action I think we should take. I have done that many times on the floor with respect to a Windfall Profits Rebate Act, to rebate to consumers a portion of these profits. My hope is that in the shadow of the hearings we held today, Congress will be ready to take some action with respect to energy price issues.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I have received a press statement, issued moments ago, from the Amtrak National Rail Passenger Corporation board of directors. Four members on the board of directors represent membership appointed by the President. Two of them are recess appointments not given the stamp of approval by the Senate. The four members of the board of directors at Amtrak this morning decided to fire David Gunn, president of Amtrak. David Gunn is not anybody's crony. He happens to be an appointment that is smart, tough, with experience in the area. He has run Amtrak like a true champion. He ran afoul of the White House when the White House decided they wanted to shut down Amtrak, shut down long-distance trains and effectively get rid of Amtrak. David Gunn was the president of Amtrak. He and others fought to maintain rail passenger service and fought to persuade this Congress to fund Amtrak. The administration recommended zero funding for Amtrak. The Congress didn't agree. So the Congress funded Amtrak in a manner that would allow it to continue to be a national rail passenger system. Apparently, David Gunn doesn't measure up to the White House, and so they got the board of directors this morning to fire him. Incidentally, two of the recess appointments on the board of directors, one from New Jersey, one from Florida, will have some kind of rail passenger service no matter what happens to Amtrak. All those folks who live on the east coast, from Boston to Florida, they probably are always going to have a train running down that little strip on the eastern seaboard. I can understand these two members of the board, neither of whom were confirmed by the Senate, both of whom were given recess appointments by the President and cannot continue beyond this Congress, I can understand if the President or somebody in the White House said: Let's get rid of this David Gunn. They say: That's all right because even if we get rid of Amtrak, we will have rail passenger service on the east coast. I wish to say what a horrible mistake it was for the board of directors of Amtrak to do this. I understand where it came from. It came from the White House. It came from the Secretary of Transportation. I understand meetings were held in recent days, and the decision was made. That decision was carried out by the President's board of directors. I am saying this: A national rail passenger system, Amtrak, is beneficial to this country. In my State, 100,000 people used Amtrak last year. Many of those people don't have alternative transportation opportunities. Yet when Amtrak, the Empire Builder, in this case, runs from Chicago to Seattle, 100,000 North Dakotans have used it. It is an important part of our Nation's transportation system. But there is a disagreement about Amtrak. The President wants to shut it down. He doesn't want it. That is why he proposed no funding for it. The Congress, the majority from his own party, said: No, we want to fund it. We believe Amtrak advances this country's transportation system. We believe it is worthy, something we should do. The president of Amtrak, David Gunn, is a first-rate executive. He has experience. He has done a great job. I say that as a member of the committee that authorizes Amtrak, so I have watched this enterprise. I have spent time with Mr. Gunn. I have spent time with Amtrak officials. I know what is happening there. This guy is nobody's crony. As a result, he gets fired. The ``you are doing a great job, Brownie stuff,'' I am sick of that. I would like to see people who are qualified to run things running things in this Government. They had one running Amtrak. Today he gets fired because somebody got their nose out of joint and decided, apparently, the Congress won't allow us to shut down Amtrak so we will fire the president of Amtrak. It is a big mistake for the country. I don't know how others in Congress will react, but for me, this is a setback and a setback for those who care about rail passenger service. It was a travesty to treat David Gunn, an executive who came out of retirement to run Amtrak and who did a first-rate job, this way. Shame on those who made that decision. This is all about politics. It has nothing to do with performance. I thought, especially in the wake of what happened with Hurricane Katrina, maybe we would get back to performance and decide that when people know how to do things and organize well, they are appreciated. That is not the case with respect to the decision by the board of directors at Amtrak this morning. Those of us who feel that way probably won't have a chance to overturn this because the board of directors made the decision coming from the Secretary of Transportation, coming from the White House, I guess. But I still think it is a setback for the country. I hope others know it as well.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use 6 minutes of the time that is allocated to Senator Harkin on the amendment that is pending, if in fact the Harkin amendment is now pending. I believe it is.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Harkin amendment is a very simple amendment. Let me describe it. We have something called Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, AFRTS, a worldwide radio and television broadcast. It serves a million American service men and women and their families stationed at bases and American diplomatic posts in 179 countries around the world. Armed Forces Radio and Television is paid for with taxpayers' dollars. It is a wonderful service to our troops and the families who are stationed overseas and at diplomatic posts. One of the questions that we raised recently was the question of programming on Armed Forces Radio and Television, not that anyone would want to censor any programming, far from it, but the question of whether there is balance and diversity on the programming that is on these stations. I visited with a woman named Allison Barber, who is apparently in charge of some of this. She actually came to my office and we visited. And we spoke on the phone earlier this year. I have since tried to reach her again, unsuccessfully, with I think three or four telephone calls. First, she was traveling in Europe. She is back but not returning her telephone calls at this point. I talked to Allison Barber because I felt they were doing the troops a service by providing a certain kind of programming. They have conservative talk shows on Armed Forces Radio and Television, Armed Forces Radio specifically, which is fine. Some of them are enormously successful, entertaining, have a wide listener audience, and that makes a great deal of sense that they would offer that to the troops abroad. The question I asked Allison Barber is, If you are going to offer conservative talk shows, do you not think that you would want to offer a counterbalance so that the troops abroad would have both sides of issues? The reason I asked that is when I began to look at what the 33 local stations in Armed Forces Radio broadcast, it was this: Of the programming that is essentially political programming or defined as conservative programming, there was 100 percent on the conservative side and nothing on the progressive side. I said: Well, I would never suggest that conservative programming be taken off. I think it is probably there because it is entertaining, interesting, well done, and the troops want to hear it. Do you not think, since our country is split very close to 50-50 in terms of political preference, the other side might well be represented? In fact, are not your rules such that they say--I am talking about the directives now that the Department of Defense refers to--the political programming shall be characterized by its fairness and balance? How would one characterize this as fairness and balance? One cannot. The amendment offered by Senator Harkin does not suggest anybody ever be taken off the air. Continue to air all of these things but provide both sides of political dialogue, which is not the case today. That is what my colleague says should be done. I agree with him. Our colleague from Oklahoma comes to the Senate floor and talks about a second-degree amendment. He says, I kind of like what is going on now. Boy, I would guess he would. He belongs to a political party that is heavily supported by the programming on Armed Forces Radio. I can well understand why he would enjoy that sort of decision. I believe Allison Barber, the Department of Defense, and all of those involved in selecting programming should do both things. They ought to provide this kind of programming, conservative talk shows and the rest, to the troops in the field and their families, and they ought to provide what their directive requires, fairness and balance, so that the other side has the same opportunity to be heard by those troops and their families. That is not now the case. That case does not now exist. My colleague from Iowa has offered an amendment that would begin to remedy this. I know this debate will be characterized by the talk shows on the far right as trying to take them off the air. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not recommend that for a moment. I simply believe that Allison Barber and the others involved in these decisions have a responsibility. The responsibility is to provide balance in the political programming on the Armed Forces Radio system that is paid for by the American taxpayer, so that all of those who have access to that radio signal have access to balanced programming, both sides being heard. The other thing is--I assume it is a joke. I assume it is a joke, but I cannot be sure because I have heard it more than once. My colleague from Oklahoma says: Well, Rush Limbaugh is balanced by National Public Radio. How one could actually make that assertion without openly laughing is hard for me to understand. That surely must be a joke. National Public Radio does not counterbalance rightwing talk. National Public Radio, if there is something in this country that is fair and balanced--National Public Radio is not about political programming on the right or the left. We hear a lot of excuses. The question is, Will the Armed Forces Radio system do what is required of them in their directive? The answer apparently is no. So what my colleague from Iowa would do would be to codify in law what the directive now requires them to do, but what they now fail to do. So that is the amendment. It is simple and fair. I do not see how anyone could possibly oppose that amendment. I would hope that we will have a successful vote on it.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, if the Senator would allow me to respond, let me propose an idea which I have proposed to Armed Forces Radio. I said, What about putting someone on from this side with a progressive talk show that would counterbalance this? The answer apparently is, no. So would that not suggest that they are censoring this side of the aisle, censoring this side of the political debate? Is that not censorship?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I might respond.

Mr. DORGAN. That is an unbelievable assertion. I have great respect for the Senator from Virginia, but it is unbelievable. I, too, drive down the road, and on my radio, for example, would listen to Rush Limbaugh, very entertaining, very smart. It is a program a lot of people listen to. What he does is, he relentlessly kicks the living daylights out of the opposite party. Is that found on NPR? The implication and the suggestion on the Senate floor and elsewhere that NPR is some sort of leftwing political show is absolute rubbish. I am sorry. It is absolute nonsense. I am so tired of hearing it.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I do not know if the Senator is willing to lend me more time, I would just say this to the Senator: There is one person in public service who tried to demonstrate what the Senator just said, and that is that National Public Radio is inherently biased. He just resigned last week. His name is Kenneth Tomlinson. Why did he resign? Because the Inspector General took a look at what he did. He hired some nut case from Indiana to do an evaluation of programming on NPR. The guy was so unprofessional--by the way, he was sending his reports from the fax of a Hallmark shop in Indiana, paid Federal money for it, Federal funds for it, inappropriately, a guy who had no experience and a guy who was a rightwinger who came up with the concoction that somehow NPR was not balanced. It is unbelievable that we keep hearing this nonsense. Look, Rush Limbaugh has a fine radio program. A lot of people listen to it. I admire his capabilities. I just believe that our troops ought to be able to hear both sides of this debate on radio, and that is not now the case. That is the only point I make. The Senator should not suggest that National Public Radio somehow leans to the left or jumps to the left, or because it has a modulated voice is leftwing. It is not. It is the only fair and balanced radio program out there, in my judgment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me say to my colleague from Virginia, I do not mean to be irritated about this at all. My only point is this. I believe there are wonderful, talented people on the political right who are on the radio. They are very successful. Good for them. I believe there are talented people on the other side of the political spectrum who are on the radio dial. Good for them. Both ought to have an equal opportunity to be heard with respect to Armed Forces Radio programming. That is the point of it. They are not now. Those on the progressive side are prevented from getting on that dial. We believe that is wrong with respect to a taxpayer-funded radio network. We believe it is inappropriate for the troops not to have access to both sides. The amendment of Senator Harkin, the one I cosponsored, is very simple. It says keep all these folks on, the conservative side, good for them; but put on the other side as well, be fair to them, so the troops have a chance to hear both sides. My friend from Virginia is a good friend, and I didn't mean at all to be irritated, but the NPR allegation does sort of spark my interest from time to time. We will talk about that at some point later. My hope is we can fill in this gap and have our soldiers have a generous discussion on both sides of the political system with radio programming from the right and the left. That does not now happen, and I believe it should on a radio program that is funded by the American taxpayer.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I voted to reject the conference committee's report on the fiscal year 2006 Agriculture appropriations bill. There is much about this bill that I support. It funds important research in North Dakota and across the country that will greatly benefit American agriculture. I voted against the conference report because of how it treats an important issue called country-of-origin labeling. The 2002 farm bill required that fruits, vegetables, seafood, and meat sold in grocery stores and supermarkets be labeled with its country of origin. This is a consumer-friendly, farmer-friendly, rancher-friendly law, and I strongly supported it. After all, if we can look at a label on our T- shirt and know where it came from, we should be able to do the same with the T-bone steak on our dinner plate. Country-of-origin labeling, or COOL, was supposed to begin in September 2004. If we had followed the law we passed in the farm bill, American consumers would today be able to know where their food comes from, and our farmers and ranchers would be reaping the benefits. Unfortunately, 2 years ago, opponents of this commonsense law hid a provision in a massive spending bill that delayed the start date for COOL until 2006. COOL is the law of the land. The Senate has voted overwhelmingly in favor of it. It should have gone into effect years ago. So I was outraged to learn there was another 2-year delay of COOL in this year's Agriculture Appropriations bill. I knew some opponents of COOL wanted to delay this important program. But I expected that when the conference committee met to write a final version of the Agriculture appropriations bill, we would get a chance to debate this issue and vote on it, in public. Instead, a handful of Republican Senators and Representatives went behind closed doors and decided on their own to delay the program for an additional 2 years. That is an outrage. I voted no today because I think we should send this bill back to the conference committee and force the conference committee to vote on this issue.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object, I assume the request means we will go back and forth in rotation across the aisle.