Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Are we in morning business?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask consent to speak for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I read an item on the front page of the Washington Post yesterday which was both surprising to me and also extraordinarily disappointing: ``Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan.'' The strategy includes preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Let me read a portion of this and describe why I am so dismayed. The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The draft Pentagon document is titled ``Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.'' It is written under the direction of Air Force GEN Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to the article in the Post, the document is currently available on the Pentagon Web site. It describes new circumstances might call for preemptive use of nuclear weapons by this country. We saw what has happened with respect to a natural disaster in the Gulf Coast of this country. We saw the devastation of that. Yet that would perhaps be a fraction of the devastation if we have a nuclear device go off in one of America's cities, a terrorist acquiring a nuclear weapon and detonating it in one of America's cities. This country has a responsibility to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, to preach to the world that nuclear weapons must never again be used. Yet this country is now developing policies and putting them on the Web that say here is a new approach in which we might use a preemptive strike of a nuclear weapon. If we get the Defense authorization bill back in the Senate soon, we will have a debate about the development of a new kind of nuclear weapon, a bunker buster nuclear weapon, an Earth-penetrating bunker buster nuclear weapon. Why? Because this Administration thinks we need a new designer nuclear weapon to bust bunkers. We ought not be building nuclear weapons. We ought not build new nuclear weapons. We have stockpiles of thousands of nuclear weapons, the detonation of one of which by a terrorist group would kill thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people. The role for this country is to provide world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, not to be talking to the world about conditions under which we might use nuclear weapons preemptively. It is stark raving nuts to be doing this. I cannot understand what they can possibly be thinking about. The fact is we have American soldiers fighting in the country of Iraq. This Senate authorized the President to initiate hostile actions against Iraq based on a substantial body of intelligence given to us by our intelligence organization, most of which turns out to have been absolutely wrong. Dead wrong. Yet we are talking about preemptive strikes with nuclear weapons. I don't understand it. If I might, by consent, I will show something from my desk. Mr. President, I ask I be permitted to show this. It is a portion of a wing strut from a Soviet Backfire bomber.

Mr. DORGAN. Why do I have this in my desk? We did not shoot this bomber down. We sawed the wing off this bomber, paid for with American taxpayers' money. Does anyone know why? Because of arms control agreements by which we reduced the number of nuclear weapons and the number of nuclear delivery systems--and that includes missiles, bombers and submarines. So I have in the Senate a piece of a wing from a Soviet bomber that used to carry nuclear weapons that would threaten this country. How did that happen? Because Senators Nunn and Lugar and others, along with President Clinton, working on arms control agreements, had the foresight to put together a program by which we reached agreements by which we reduce the number of nuclear weapons and reduce the number of carriers of those nuclear weapons. So I have part of a wing strut from a Backfire bomber. I also have ground-up copper wire from a Soviet submarine that used to carry nuclear tipped missiles aimed at this country. That is our job. Our job is to reduce the nuclear threat. Not use the threat of nuclear weapons against other countries or talk about conditions under which we would use the nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike. This is nuts. We will start debating this once again in the Senate. We have these folks, and we have plenty of them here, who want to build new nuclear weapons. They want to start testing the ones we have. We do not need to test nuclear weapons. We know they work. And they want to build new nuclear weapons, Earth-penetrator bunker busters. It is exactly the wrong thing for this country to do.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, over the past few days, as we have talked about the heartbreak of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, I have noticed that certain firms have been hired now to go in and provide assistance. One of the firms is the Halliburton Corporation. I have held hearings in the policy committee about this company, because there have been numerous serious allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse involving it, and yet none of the Senate's authorizing committees will investigate it. Every time you talk about Halliburton someone says, you are criticizing the Vice President because he used to be president of Halliburton. Well, this has nothing to do with the Vice President. It has to do with the American taxpayers getting bilked by a company that is overbilling. I will not go through the whole list of scandals. We have had hearing after hearing to explore them, because the authorizing committees will not. But this is a company that was paid to feed 42,000 soldiers in Iraq; yet they were only feeding 14,000. That means they are overbilling by 28,000 meals a day. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. It is unbelievable the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse that is going on. And now, when it comes to dealing with Katrina, no-bid contracts, once again, win Katrina work. And we hear that Halliburton is now getting millions of dollars to do hurricane related work. I wonder who is minding the store? And when will someone start to care? Incidentally, a woman by the name of Bunnatine Greenhouse was demoted last week in the Pentagon. She was the highest ranking civilian ever in the Corps of Engineers. She rose to that position, getting outstanding reviews all along the way. And then she spoke up. In the good old boy network, when they wanted to award no-bid contracts to Halliburton in Iraq, she spoke up. All of a sudden she gets demoted. She spoke up because she said what was going on was scandalous. The American taxpayer takes a bath as a result of all of this. Let me tell you what she has told the Congress. Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest ranking civilian employee in the Corps of Engineers, who refused to sign the no-bid contracts that went under a buddy system to Halliburton in Iraq, says: I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to the contracts awarded to KBR [Halliburton] represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career. For blowing the whistle, she gets demoted. This is a woman who has had outstanding reviews by everyone along the way. We have heard from people who worked for Halliburton who testified that the managers of this company said, When U.S. Government auditors come, do not dare speak to them. If you do, one of two things will happen. You will be fired or we will send you to the hot spots where there is active fighting in Iraq. These are people who testified that they are providing food service to American soldiers and routinely serve food, the date stamp of which is expired, and they are told by Halliburton managers, feed it to them anyway. I hope some day, some way, the people in Congress who have the capability to issue subpoenas and hold oversight hearings will finally start doing their job. We ought not go back to the same well for the reconstruction with respect to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The victims of that hurricane need help. They need good help. The American taxpayer shouldn't be taking a bath while that help is given. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. In response to the Senator from Louisiana, I understand in circumstances such as this, we will not go out and get bids and ask for 30 days. We want people in the field working quickly. But the fact is we have a lot of great companies out there in this country with a great ability to mobilize and move quickly. My only point is, I want the victims of this hurricane to receive help now, immediately. I want the American taxpayer to find that help was delivered effectively and efficiently. I don't want it running through people's hands into people's pockets where it shouldn't go.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, yesterday I introduced legislation called the Windfall Profits Rebate Act of 2005 that attempts to address the spiraling cost of oil and gasoline. Let me explain why I introduced this measure. I come from a State of 642,000 citizens spread out in a landmass 10 times the size of Massachusetts. As a result of being a large Northern Great Plains State with a small population and being a predominately agricultural State, we use a substantial amount of energy, specifically gasoline. In fact, North Dakota uses twice as much gasoline per capita than New York does. Though these price spikes hurt all Americans, they are especially devastating to citizens who live in rural States. Let me say first that the tragedy that we are witnessing on the Gulf Coast is devastating. The effects of Hurricane Katrina will be felt by the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama for a long time to come and my prayers go out to them in this time of need. The people in the gulf region have lost so much. It is also the case that the hurricane has affected America's energy supply in the short term. A number of refineries were shut down. A couple of major pipelines were unable to operate and there has been and will be an impact on our energy supply and marketing as a result of this hurricane. But it important to understand that the price spikes we have seen with the price of oil and gasoline cannot be blamed exclusively on this hurricane. We were headed down this road long before Hurricane Katrina hit. In fact, since the beginning of 2004, we have seen the price of oil double from $35 a barrel to nearly $70 a barrel and that has resulted in consumers having to pay more than $3 a gallon for gasoline in many parts of the country. It is important to point out that at $35 a barrel, the energy industry was making record profits. Now the oil industry claims that these higher prices are a result of supply-and-demand issues and that they need these additional profits for exploration. However, I believe that the extra $30 per barrel that is tacked on to a barrel of oil these days represents a windfall or excess profit to the major integrated oil companies, and I propose that we recapture part of that with an excise tax and rebate it to consumers who are paying these inflated gas prices. Here are some numbers to remember: We use 21 million barrels of oil a day in this country. Forty percent of that comes from domestically produced oil. The major integrated oil companies are larger and have more economic clout than they have had previously. They are experiencing the $30-a-barrel increased price above the $35 price that existed in January 2004, and that means they are reaping $7 billion a month in windfall or excess profits. That is $80 billion a year in excess or windfall profits. That is being paid by consumers who drive up to the service station and now receive the sticker shock of paying an arm and a leg for a tank full of gas. A friend of mine gassed up his car and his son's car with 15 gallons in each car the other day and paid $103.00 at the gas pump. In addition to the windfall profits being gathered by the major integrated oil companies in our country, it is also the case that 60 percent of that which we use comes from off our shore. That has become a type of forced revenue sharing from American consumers to the Saudis, Kuwaitis, and others. There is not much we can do about that in the short term except to implement policies that try to wean us away from the addiction we have to foreign oil. However, with respect to domestic companies and domestic production and domestic pricing, we can do something. My legislation calls for a 50-percent excise tax on crude oil profits over $40 a barrel when those prices are earned by the largest oil companies with the most ability to control the overall price. These are companies that, in many cases, move oil from the ground to gas pumps and control all of the processes in between. The revenue that would be collected from this excise tax would be used to provide a rebate to American consumers to help them offset the burden of higher energy costs that they are now forced to pay. But my legislation also has a very important exemption. If the oil company is using the revenue from the extra $30 a barrel they are receiving to increase exploration, or make investments to search for additional sources of energy, or to increase refining capacity, or to pursue investments in other renewable forms of energy, then that money would be exempt from this windfall profits tax. In other words, these large companies would decide themselves whether they pay this tax. If they are buying back their stock or hoarding cash with which to engage in mergers and acquisitions, then they would be paying the excise tax and the consumers would be receiving the benefit of that excise tax. I am not trying to hurt the oil companies or put them out of business. I want additional robust domestic exploration that would be exempt from the windfall profits tax. However, American consumers should not pay these inflated prices just to fatten the corporate treasury of the major integrated oil companies. The substantial rise in the price of oil and gas has produced both pain and gain. The pain is for American consumers and the gain has been for the major integrated oil companies and OPEC countries, and I think Congress ought to weigh in on behalf of American consumers. That is what my bill attempts to do. And with its exemption for investment in exploration, it does not attempt to help consumers by punishing oil companies. I hope Congress will immediately consider adopting this measure and provide some help to American consumers at a time when gasoline prices are providing sticker shock every single day.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator Graham, and Senator Stabenow.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is an amendment that is relatively simple. It would prohibit funding in this bill for our trade negotiators to enter into any agreement that would weaken U.S. trade laws, such as antidumping laws and countervailing duty laws. Let me describe why these are important. We have provisions in our law that establish some level of protection for American industries if some foreign company or foreign country decides to dump products into our country at artificially low prices in order to capture a market or destroy an industry. These are the antidumping laws. We also have laws that provide for the opportunity to apply countervailing duties on products that come into this country that are unfairly subsidized and attempt to undercut American businesses. Why do I offer this amendment? Because we have U.S. negotiators who are engaged in WTO negotiations who are saying that everything is on the table; we are willing to negotiate away the protections that exist for fair trade for American businesses, American jobs, and American industries. We have the highest trade deficit in the history of this country. We have massive numbers of American jobs moving overseas every single day. American companies are closing their businesses, and American jobs are moving overseas. I have told the story repeatedly--and I will not tell it in great depth again--about Huffy bicycles. They used to be an American company. No longer. Huffy bikes are now made in China. Those proud workers in America made $11 an hour plus benefits. They all got fired. Were they bad workers? No. That company makes Huffy bicycles in China now and pays 33 cents an hour, working workers 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, and then they ship the Huffy bicycles back to this country to be sold. Interestingly enough, since they moved to China, Huffy has declared bankruptcy. It has now been purchased by a Chinese company, and they say they still want this to be one of the leading brands in America. Notice that I said ``brands.'' They don't want to make them here. It is too expensive to pay $11 to American workers to produce bicycles in this country; they just want the right to sell them here. I have given long speeches about the fact that Levi's doesn't make a single pair of Levi's anymore. That great American brand is now produced offshore. They are made by contract production in Haiti, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and China. I have given speeches about the fact that if you wear your Tony Lama cowboy boots, they may not be American; they may be Chinese. I have given speeches talking about the fact that if you like Mexican food, you can eat Fig Newton cookies, because Fig Newton moved to Monterey, Mexico. So if you want Mexican food, go buy Fig Newtons. I have given speeches at length about jobs leaving this country. We have the biggest trade deficit in this country. It is dangerous. The question is, When will this country have the nerve, the backbone, and the will to stand up for the economic interests of this country? I am not suggesting putting walls up around this country; I am just suggesting demanding fair trade. We had people die on the streets of this country for the right of workers to organize. In the last century, we decided issues about minimum wage, about child labor laws, about rules that say you cannot dump chemicals into the air and the water from your production plant. We had people work very hard over a century to achieve these rules and regulations, which establish decent conditions of production. One can now escape all that by pole-vaulting over it. Move the plant to China, move the plant to Bangladesh, move the plant to Honduras and hire workers who will work for pennies on the dollar. Hire workers who will work for 33 cents an hour. Hire 12-year-olds and pay them 12 cents an hour and work them 12 hours a day and then ship the product to Los Angeles, Detroit, Fargo, or Mobile. Meanwhile, who is going to buy these products when American jobs have been lost, American workers are told they are no longer affordable, their jobs are gone? Little Red Wagon Radio Flyer, we all rode in that Little Red Wagon when we were kids. For 100 years that company produced in this country, and now it is all gone. So it can be produced more cheaply, less expensively by hiring workers who will work for pennies an hour. As we engage in new trade negotiations, which threaten to once again pull the rug out from under American workers and American businesses, this amendment says something very simple: We will not allow the funding we have approved in this appropriations bill to be used to weaken our trade laws. The United States-China Commission, a bipartisan commission established by Congress, sent us a letter August 1, 2005, that warned that the proposals that our trade negotiators are discussing with respect to antidumping and countervailing duties ``could severely limit our ability to protect our economic interests.'' That is from the United States-China Commission, a bipartisan commission. The Commission reiterated the proposals put on the table by foreign negotiators ``could have substantial impact on our nation's ability to utilize our trade laws and ensure that American farmers, workers, and businesses have the tools they need to respond to unfair and predatory foreign trade practices.'' So the question for us is, Are we going to do anything about that? I hope the answer is, yes. I hope the answer is to say to our trade negotiators that we understand that foreign negotiators are proposing to weaken our trade laws. Our trade negotiators must have the backbone and the will to stand up for our economic interests, something they have not been willing to do for a long time. I offer this amendment, which is a prohibition on funding. It is germane, and I hope to have a vote on it when we have had a proper amount of time to discuss it. One final point. I intend to offer another amendment which I cannot offer at this moment. It is an amendment that I will offer to other appropriations bills as well if it is not acceptable here, and that is to establish a Truman-type committee to investigate the waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting that is going on in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq. I have described the conditions of Halliburton and other companies that have been given billions of dollars, have wasted a substantial amount of money, are now under criminal investigation, and are given a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back and more money and nobody seems to care. I believe there ought to be a Truman-type committee of the type Harry Truman headed long ago when there was a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic Senator said: We must investigate this kind of spending and profligate waste and abuse. I will ask that the Senate at some point decide that there ought to be oversight on what is happening to the taxpayers' money. I will offer that amendment tomorrow. I have offered this amendment today for its consideration, and I hope that as we go along that we will be able to get a vote on this amendment. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend paragraph 4 of rule XVI for the purpose of proposing to the bill H.R. 2862 the following amendment:

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleagues today have spoken about the almost unbelievable disaster that has occurred in the Gulf region. Only now are we fully beginning to understand the lives lost and the complete devastation of the region. I know there will be a lot of time, perhaps, to evaluate what kind of emergency preparedness existed or why proper preparedness did not exist. This is the moment and the time for all of us to concentrate on finding the survivors. There are so many victims. We know that many of those who have died in this disaster have not yet been found. We know there are survivors who have not yet been found. We are nearly certain of that. This is an important time to marshal the resources of this country, to effectively organize the resources to search for survivors, and then to help those who have been made victims by this devastating hurricane. Many of us have suffered disasters. In North Dakota, in 1997, there were the Red River Valley floods, when the entire city of Grand Forks was evacuated. It was an enormous evacuation of people. Thank God at that point we did not lose lives. We lost a great deal of property and people suffered and had very tough times, but there was not loss of life with respect to those floods. But an entire city of over 50,000 people was evacuated from those floods. I recall President Clinton flying into Grand Forks on Air Force One and meeting with a large number of people who had crowded into a hangar at the Air Force base. I remember what President Clinton said to them that day. He said very simply: You are not alone. That is the message that our country must give to all of those who are victims of Hurricane Katrina: You are not alone. This country doesn't move ahead by leaving some behind. This country knows your plight, knows the despair of having lost what you have lost, joins you in sympathy for the loss of lives, and extends a hand to say we want to help you during these difficult times. There are so many needs and so many things that have to be done: housing, basic needs such as food and shelter, jobs, education, short- term spending money to get on your feet if you have lost everything. Those are the things that, in a package of assistance by the Congress, need to be addressed quickly. I know there are some who tend to believe that Government ought not exist. They think Government is the problem. But when something like this happens, we together, through our Government, work to extend a helping hand. This Congress cannot be reticent about arriving at that point to extend a helping hand to provide for the needs of people who have been displaced, who have suffered and are victims of this devastating hurricane. My thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims of this devastating hurricane that has displaced, some say, 1 million people and caused massive loss of life. While there are public policy issues that we should discuss and will discuss in the coming days and months, all of us, as a country, will pray for those poor people who have suffered immensely in recent days. We hope the searches to find survivors continue to move forward and that we find additional survivors. And we hope in every possible way those who have been the victims of this hurricane understand this is a great country and this country extends its hand to say to them: You are not alone. Actions by this Congress will manifest that. We ought to do that quickly and urgently.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I also wish to speak about a subject that has some relationship but an issue that the American people were facing before the hurricane hit. Prior to the devastating Hurricane Katrina, the Senate Energy Committee had scheduled a hearing on gasoline and oil prices. That hearing is now going on. I spent the last 2 hours attending it. It was scheduled before this hurricane. Obviously, when the hurricane hit, a number of oil refineries and a couple of major pipelines shut down. It has had an impact beyond that which was occurring prior to the hurricane. Prior to the hurricane hitting, oil prices had already risen $30 a barrel above that which existed a year and a half to 2 years ago. The major integrated oil companies that have become larger through mergers and concentration in recent years were already earning record profits. Last evening, a friend of mine went to a gas station and pumped gasoline into his car and his son's car, about 15 gallons in each car. The bill was $103 dollars. Every American citizen understands that sticker shock when they pull up to the gas pump. We are told by some: It is the free market. Here is what has happened to the profits of U.S. major oil and gas companies in billions of dollars from 2002, at which point they were $20 billion, to this year, when they are going to be over $100 billion. This is not a free market; this is a market with clogged arteries. It is OPEC pricing. It is a few countries that live on top of sand that is undergirded by substantial deposits of oil sitting around and deciding how much they are going to produce and what price they want to extract. So it is OPEC pricing. It is a concentrated domestic industry through mergers. It is rampant speculation. And it is also substantial windfall profits for some very profitable oil companies. The question is, Where is the gain and where is the pain? Here is the gain. We use 21 million barrels of oil a day. Sixty percent comes from outside of our country, which means we now have revenuesharing going on between the American drivers and consumers and the OPEC countries, including the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and the Iraqis and others. It is forced revenuesharing. We pull up to the pump, we pay an inflated price for gasoline, and we send the money to the Middle East. Forty percent of that which we use is produced domestically by larger and larger oil companies, grown larger by mergers in recent years. That 40 percent has increased by $30 a barrel. That means the profits have increased by $7 billion a month for the domestic producers. The integrated domestic producers in many cases have control of oil from the discovery in the ground to the gasoline pump. Eighty billion dollars a year in extra profits will exist in the coming year if the price of oil stays where it is now. That profit doesn't emerge out of thin air. It comes from extracting it from the consumers who drive up to the gas pump and take out their credit card or their currency and pay for a tank of gasoline. Something needs to be done. Tomorrow, I intend to introduce windfall profits rebate legislation. The bill will establish a price point for a barrel of oil. A portion of the windfall profits above that amount would be captured and sent back to the consumers who are paying the excess or windfall profits to the companies. I would exempt from that windfall profits recapture that amount of additional money that is being used by the companies for domestic exploration or for increasing refinery capacity. If it is being used for that, I say fine. At least we are trying to search for a better future with a greater energy supply. But some of the major oil companies are now buying back their stock with that profit. That doesn't benefit this country. These are windfall profits at the expense of consumers to enrich the larger integrated oil companies. I believe part of it ought to be recaptured and sent back as a rebate to the American consumer. I will introduce that legislation tomorrow. I know it is controversial. I know some people may think the best way to address all of this is to sit around with your hands in your pocket and wipe your brow and wring your hands and fret about it and essentially do nothing. These represent the windfall profits on 40 percent of that which we use. Twenty-one million barrels a day. Forty percent of that comes from domestic producers. That has increased over $30 a barrel with no additional cost incurred by the major oil companies. It amounts to $7 billion windfall profits a month or $80 billion windfall profits a year. I believe some of that ought to be collected and sent back to consumers as rebates. Again, I know that is controversial. I know some won't want to do that. The plain fact is, if we do nothing, you have a massive transfer of income from people who can't afford it to people who shouldn't get it to interests that shouldn't get it. I believe Congress should take action. I understand that this is a shorter term issue, but John Kenneth Galbraith said: In the long run, we are all dead. So let's deal with the short term. Yes, I want to shed our addiction of running gasoline through carburetors and fuel injectors. I wrote the provision in the Energy bill, signed by the President, that has a $3.7 billion title dealing with hydrogen and fuel cells. That ought to be our future, hydrogen and fuel cells. If you run on hydrogen--and hydrogen is ubiquitous, it is everywhere--you get water vapor out the tailpipe, and you have twice the efficiency of power to the wheel. That is wonderful. Put up a wind turbine and collect energy from the wind and use the electricity collected from the wind to separate hydrogen from water with electricity--something called electrolysis--and then put that hydrogen in a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The Energy bill has a pretty good title on that. I wrote that title. We need to shed our addiction to this oil. We need to shed our dependence on Middle East oil. In the meantime, in the short term, when you drive up to a gas pump with 2 cars and pump 15 gallons in each and pay $103, the question is, Who is pocketing that money and why? There is no justification for that kind of windfall profit. If the oil industry wants to have substantial profits to invest back into the ground or to build additional refineries, that is fine. That wouldn't be captured by a windfall profit. But when the oil industry is getting windfall profits to the tune of $7 billion a month, which they are doing right now, and some are busy buying back their stock, the American consumers deserve a break. They have had a bellyful of this. We have seen it all over this country where the big interests get bigger. They extract more from the rest, and nobody seems to care much. One final point, there is also a provision in the final Energy bill that requires the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation of oil and gas prices within 90 days. I wrote that provision as well. But frankly, I have minimum hope that the Federal Trade Commission is going to be an ambitious referee with respect to pricing. This Congress should take action. Here is what we face from now to Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas with respect to $226 million a day of windfall profits. That is $30 a barrel above that which existed when you already had record profits in the domestic industry. I believe some of it ought to be recaptured and given back to American consumers. I saw an old car with an old bumper hanging down. That car had seen a better day--rust in the fenders and the bumper hanging halfway on the right. I saw it at a stop sign near Mohall, ND, one day. The bumper sticker had a plaintive message. It said: We fought the gas war and gas won. The fact is, American consumers ought to be given an even break. That is why I am introducing this legislation tomorrow.

Mr. DORGAN. I wonder if the Senator will yield for a moment.

Mr. DORGAN. There are many companies involved in hydrogen fuel cell technology, including United Technologies, that are very active in this area. The Senator is absolutely right with respect to activities in Connecticut. I also want to point out my point on the floor of the Senate is not to tarnish the oil industry. I have been a supporter of it in areas where I felt we should support it. We produce oil in North Dakota. My point is that as the major integrated companies become bigger and more concentrated, they in some cases work oil from the ground to the gas pumps with tremendous pricing capabilities. They are beneficiaries from the enormous amount of excess profit. If they pump those back into the ground or to increase refinery capacity, that is fine. But when they are buying back their stock, I believe they ought to give that windfall, ill-gained profit back to the consumers from where it came.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. So, for instance, neighborhood electric vehicles or low speed electric vehicles would now qualify under this program even though they are not specifically named?

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the chairman and yield the floor. foreign utility--section 203

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, can I ask you to clarify something regarding Section 703? It is my understanding that by creating an alternative compliance mechanism that essentially we are creating a system that will allow more technologies to receive credit under the EPAct program without specifically naming them.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I looked forward very much to having a debate on stem cell research in the month of July. It now appears that that will not be the case. Nonetheless, I compliment the Senator from Tennessee, the majority leader, on his statement this morning. I did want to make this point and ask a question of the Senator from Illinois. Is it not the case that those unused frozen embryos at in vitro fertilization clinics can become one of a couple of things? First and foremost, at the moment when they are unused and discarded, they become hospital waste. Second, and importantly, they can, if used in stem cell research, be used in the important medical research to preserve and to save lives. I say to my colleague from Kansas, I have lost a daughter to heart disease--many of us have lost loved ones. I will never, ever, on the floor of this Chamber, be a part of those who wish to shut down promising medical research, especially when the ability to provide that research comes from embryos that otherwise would become hospital waste. My colleague from Illinois asked the pertinent question, and perhaps when we have this debate some day we will have a greater description of that, but if in fact that is a human life which is now thrown in the waste basket as hospital waste, unused embryos that are discarded, if in fact that is a human life--it is not, by the way--should the destruction of that as hospital waste not be treated criminally? That would be the logical extension of some of those who are on the Senate floor wishing to shut down this promising area of research. My hope is that we can thoughtfully, with ethical guidelines, proceed with research that is pro-life, that will save lives, that will give a lot of Americans greater hope for the future who suffer from dreaded diseases. I look forward to this debate. I wish very much it had been in the month of July, but nonetheless we will have this debate. When we do, I hope we will have a full and open discussion about it and advance the cause of saving lives in this country and around the world.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Montana. Dru's Law Before I comment on this piece of legislation, let me mention that last evening we passed a piece of legislation called Dru's Law, that deals with sexual predators. I did not say, and I should have last evening, that Senator Dayton, Senator Coleman, Senator Conrad, and others were cosponsors. But especially, although I mentioned Senator Specter, I did not say that Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania played a very significant role. I want to make sure the Senate and the American people understand that Senator Specter played a very significant role, not only being an original cosponsor with me of Dru's Law, but also allowing it to pass the Senate last evening. I thank him for his wonderful leadership. This Interior appropriations bill was a hard bill to get done because we have over one half billion dollars less in spending than the previous year. If anybody asks is anybody cutting any spending any place, you don't have to ask beyond this bill. This bill cuts one half billion dollars plus out of what we are spending in the current fiscal year. That means we will spend half a billion dollars less in the next fiscal year. It is not easy to put a bill together under those restraints, but we did it. It is not a perfect bill. Some things in it I feel good about, some I feel not so good about. I will talk about that in a moment. This bill carries the $1.5 billion appropriation for veterans health care. That is very important. We need to keep our promise to America's veterans. This country cannot fight wars and ask young men and women to serve their country if we do not demonstrate we are going to keep our promises. One of those promises is providing veterans health care to those who served. No one has been more tireless, no one, perhaps, has offered more amendments on the floor of the Senate on this subject--relentlessly, over time--than my colleague from Washington, Senator Murray. I yield 4 minutes to Senator Murray.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first let me say a special thank you to my colleagues from the State of Washington and the State of Texas. They have said it well. Again, I am enormously proud our bill has carried this $1.5 billion for veterans health care. There is a verse that goes: When the night is full of knives, and the lightning is seen, and the drums are heard, the patriots are always there, ready to fight and ready to die, if necessary, for freedom. Our soldiers are our patriots and when they come back from duty, duty our country called them for, we must keep our promise for veterans health care and that is what this $1.5 billion helps to do. Let me for a moment talk about the underlying bill again. There are some good things and some things I wish were better in this bill. I compliment my colleague, Senator Burns from Montana and his staff: Bruce Evans, Virginia James, Leif Fonnesbeck, Ryan Thomas, Rebecca Benn; and also on this side, Peter Kiefhaber and Rachel Taylor. We worked very hard to put a bill together with over $500 million less money than in the past year. That was not easy. Indian Health Service--I regret to say, we are still underfunded. I am told we are funding about 60 percent of the need in Indian Health Service. We just must do better in the years ahead. We have responsibility for Federal prisoners' health care. We also have trust responsibility for the health of American Indians. We spend twice as much per person on Federal prisoners' health care than we do in per capita spending for American Indians for whom we have trust responsibility for health care. My colleague described the tribal colleges, and we have together been able to increase that funding for tribal colleges. That is a good feature in this bill. The reason we have done this is that it is a priority to help people step out of poverty and toward opportunity, and that comes from the tribal colleges. There are so many stories of people whose lives have improved by the ability to access tribal colleges. We have some other areas in the bill that I wish were better. BIA school construction, we need funding increases, not funding cuts, and yet the President's budget proposed very significant cuts and we were not able to add all of that back. Also building for new hospitals and health clinics is down. My hope is that in the next year, we can find a way to add back some funding in these critical Indian health areas. Having said all that, this is a big bill, dealing with so many other areas of the Government--EPA, the Forest Service, and so many other areas of Government. We have worked in a bipartisan way. Let me also say that Senator Byrd wishes consent to speak for 5 minutes prior to vote on Interior at some point later this morning. I talked to the ranking member and also the chairman of the full committee. Finally, let me say the chairman of the full committee should understand that this is the first time in 17 years that we have gotten to the Senate floor this early with an Interior appropriations bill. The last time Congress passed an Interior appropriations bill this early, those pages who serve in the Chamber were not yet born. So I think that says something about the leadership of Senator Cochran and Senator Byrd, who are the two leaders on the Appropriations Committee, and I for one like the notion that we are going to make the trains run on time in the appropriations process. It is the right thing to do and the right way to do it, and I am very blessed that in the month of July, we are in the Chamber passing this conference report. So hats off to Senator Cochran and Senator Byrd as well. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor and yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thought I had done that, but if I have not asked that consent, I so ask.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing bipartisan legislation to remedy a long-standing and glaring inequity in our so- called free-trade system. There are significant and costly differences in prices between agricultural chemicals sold in Canada and similar-- and in some cases, identical--chemicals sold in the United States. This disparity in prices puts an extra burden on American farmers, and it puts them at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to competing in the world market. Currently, American and Canadian farmers use many of the same products on their fields. These products use the same chemicals, are made by the same company, and are sometimes even marketed under the same name; but they are often sold at a much lower cost north of the border. For example, U.S. farmers use the pesticide Garlon, which is sold as Remedy in Canada. It is manufactured by the same company, with the same chemicals. But American farmers pay $8.02 more per acre than their Canadian counterparts. The pesticide Puma, which is widely used on wheat and barley, costs farmers in North Dakota $2.82 more per acre than Canadian farmers pay for Puma 120 Super, which is the same product, made by the same company. That means North Dakota farmers paid nearly $7.9 million more to treat their fields with Puma than they would have paid if they could have accessed it at prices paid by Canadian farmers. This legislation would address that inequity by setting up a process that would allow American farmers to access these chemicals, which are lower priced, but identical to those already approved for use in the United States. Data collected by the North Dakota Department of Agriculture show that farmers in just my home State of North Dakota alone would have saved nearly $11 million last year if they had been able to access agricultural chemicals at Canadian prices. But this problem does not just affect farmers in North Dakota. Farmers all across the northern tier of the United States would benefit if they were able to access U.S.-approved pesticides at Canadian prices. I have come before the Senate time and again to talk about the hidden inequities of trade. For trade to benefit our country, it must be fair. But the pricing inequities in the Canadian and U.S. pesticide markets are a failure of our current trade system. This legislation I am introducing today, along with the Senator from Montana, Mr. Burns, authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to require that certain agricultural chemicals which have already been approved in the U.S. carry a joint label, which would allow them to cross the border freely. The new labels would still be under the strict scrutiny of the Environmental Protection Agency, as would the use of these products. The EPA would continue to insure the health and safety standards that govern the products we use in our food supply. This bill keeps those priorities intact. This bill is not an ending but a beginning. Hidden trade barriers and schemes riddle the fabric of our trade agreements. We cannot continue to accept trade practices that, on the one hand, hamstring Americans, and on the other hand, unduly promote our competitors. We ought not accept second best all of the time, and this bill is a step in bringing American producers back to a level playing field.