Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, yesterday on the floor I suggested that I might offer an amendment to this bill dealing with the CNOOC Chinese oil company's purchase of Unocal. I wanted to tell the ranking member that I decided not to offer this amendment to this appropriations subcommittee bill. There are other avenues with which to discuss and describe that issue. It is very controversial. It is something which I believe very strongly the Congress--the Senate needs to deal with, but I have elected not to do it on this particular piece of legislation because other opportunities will exist in the days ahead.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we have now spent $198 million sending television signals to Cuba that the Cubans cannot see. It is called Television Marti. The President proposes to spend another $21 million in the coming year, including buying an airplane to send these signals. Let me say that the Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent recently reported on this and said he couldn't find anybody who had ever seen TV Marti. In all of the surveys that have been done on people who came over by raft and so on, they couldn't find anybody who saw TV Marti. Why? Because it was jammed. So we are spending another $21 million in the next year to send television signals the Cubans can't see. Meanwhile, we have now cut $25 million in this bill from the President's budget request for the Peace Corps. I say let's take the $21 million we now spend on television signals the Cubans can't watch and spend it on the Peace Corps which will invest in the future of this country and promote a better world. I don't think I need to say much more about this. I could speak about Fat Albert and Commando Solo and the aerostat balloon, but I shall not do that at the moment.

Mr. DORGAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will just take a few minutes. Later this afternoon, at 5:45, we have ordered a vote on the nomination of Dr. Lester Crawford to be Commissioner of the FDA. I had intended to come and speak prior to that vote. My understanding is that there is only a 30-minute time period for debate, equally divided, just prior to the vote on that nomination, so I will take a couple of minutes now to explain why I am going to vote against this nomination. I have spent most of my time in the Senate voting for nominees sent to us by Presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, because I believe those who win the Presidency largely have the right to select their own team and to have their own advisers. So I have, in most cases, voted for the nominees who have come before the Senate to serve in the President's Cabinet and other important positions in the administration. This position is the head of the Food and Drug Administration, a very important agency--one, incidentally, that has had a substantial amount of controversy in recent years. I have been particularly interested in the FDA because we--myself along with others in the Senate--have spent a lot of time working to try to see if we can put some downward pressure on prescription drug prices. Much to our chagrin--to those of us on both the Democratic side and the Republican side who have been working toward this end--the opposition, in many cases, has come from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has alleged safety issues where, in fact, there are no safety issues at all. It has been the Food and Drug Administration that has been shaking the pom-poms for and cheerleading with the pharmaceutical industry on these issues. Let me describe the issue just for a moment. The American consumer pays the highest prices in the world for brand- name prescription drugs. Consumers who purchase those prescription drugs are charged much higher prices in the United States than elsewhere around the world. The pharmaceutical industry says it charges these prices because it can. I held a hearing on this issue when I chaired a subcommittee some years ago. The result is, the drug industry said: Well, we can charge that amount here in the United States, but we can't charge it in other countries because other countries have price controls on prescription drugs. Yet I notice--because of a sweetheart little tax provision that was put in law about a year ago--that the drug industry has made substantial profits overseas. The sweetheart deal allows those companies that have started enterprises overseas and are earning profits overseas to now pay taxes at a 5.25-percent rate for the income they repatriate to this country, quite a deal for big companies that move their jobs overseas. According to newspaper reports, the pharmaceutical industry now has as much as $75 billion in profits they have made in other countries that they are set to repatriate to this country for a 5.25-percent income tax rate. Interesting. They tell us they have to charge higher prices to the American consumers for prescription drugs, and they charge lower prices elsewhere because they are required by pricing policies in those countries to do so. They say they do not make much money in those countries, yet now they have $75 billion in profits from overseas sales in countries in which they have charged dramatically lower prices. So, obviously, they are making substantial profits in their sales in other countries even though the consumers in those other countries enjoy lower prescription drug prices. Mr. President, let me, by unanimous consent, show two pill bottles, if I might.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is a medicine called Celebrex, made by Pfizer. These bottles are large containers that happen to be empty. It would contain 500 capsules; 200 milligrams, the usual adult dosage, it says. As you can see, this other bottle is also Celebrex. It is the same pill, made by the same company, put in the same bottle. The only difference in these bottles is the color on the labels is a bit different, but the pills that were inside were the same. This one bottle is sold in the United States and the other is sold in Canada. What is the difference? Well, the U.S. consumer pays $2.93 per capsule out of this bottle. The Canadian consumer pays $1.32 out of the other bottle. So the one costs almost $3, the other just over $1. The American consumer is charged double the price of the Canadian consumer. It is the same pill, put in the same bottle, made by the same company, at an FDA-approved plant, sent to two different places, and the American consumers pay two and a half times more than the Canadian consumer. Why is that the case? Well, the drug industry says they charge that price in the United States because they can and because they must in order to gather the funds for research and development. But, of course, the record shows that is not the case either. The drug industry actually spends more money on marketing and advertising than they do on research and development. And they actually spend about the same amount on research and development in Europe that they do in the United States when, in fact, in Europe they charge lower prices for exactly the same prescription drugs. So what does all of this have to do with Dr. Crawford and the FDA? Well, for those of us who are working to allow for the importation of FDA-approved drugs from other countries--notably from Canada and Europe--one of the most significant areas of opposition has been from the FDA. Dr. Mark McClellan was the head of the FDA for a while. He was an aggressive advocate on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry could not have had a better cheerleader than Dr. McClellan. And during that time, Dr. Crawford has also been at the FDA serving as deputy. He has been there as acting commissioner for much of this administration, both before and now after Dr. McClellan. And during that time, the FDA has continued to be a roadblock to try to get lower prices on prescription drugs for American consumers. The problem is that there is a law on the books that says the only entity that can import a prescription drug from another country is the manufacturer of that prescription drug. So a licensed pharmacist in Minot, ND, cannot go to Regina, Canada, for example, and buy an FDA- approved prescription drug, even one made in the United States and shipped to Canada. A licensed U.S. pharmacist cannot go to a licensed pharmacist in Canada, buy the FDA-approved drug at half or a third of the price and bring it back and pass the savings along to the customer. Why is that the case? Well, because once again there is a sweetheart deal. Under this deal, trade should apparently only work for everybody but the little guy, the consumer. One would think, with free trade and the opportunity to cross boundaries, that if you are talking about FDA- approved medicines, that American consumers, particularly American pharmacists, would be able to also take advantage of the global marketplace, but they cannot. So I, along with a bipartisan group of colleagues, have been trying to change the law. We are not proposing price controls but instead competition. Very simple: Allow an American pharmacist, a main street drugstore owner to access the identical prescription drug in Canada or Europe at a fraction of the price and bring it back and pass the savings along to the consumer. We are told that American consumers could save as much as $38 billion--that is with a ``B''--a year if that were to happen. As a point of fact, if we were able to get our legislation passed, we would not have people shopping in Canada for prescription drugs. But the very fact that they could would force the repricing of prescription drugs based on market forces here in the United States. Unfortunately, we have been thwarted in our efforts. Senator Olympia Snowe, John McCain, myself, Senator Kennedy, Senator Grassley, Senator Stabenow, and many others have all worked on this for a long, long time. The first bill I introduced on this was in 1999, and still drug importation has not been allowed because it has been blocked. Opponents have said there would be safety issues. Well, let me give you an example of the safety issue. In Europe, what we propose is done every single day: cross-border trading in prescription drugs. A pharmacist in Germany wants to buy a prescription drug from Spain, that is not a problem. If you are a pharmacy in England and want to buy a prescription drug from France, that is no problem either because they have something called parallel trading. In fact, we had the person who headed the parallel trading association come and testify before a U.S. Congressional committee. That person said there are no safety issues. But it opens the market, so consumers see lower drug prices as a result of it. But in this country, we are told we apparently cannot do it. It does not take rocket science to understand there is no safety issue. Let me talk about Canada just for a moment. Canada has nearly an identical chain of custody for the prescription drug that comes from the manufacturer that goes to the consumer. The Canadian system is nearly identical to ours. So if an American licensed pharmacist were to buy a lower priced FDA-approved drug from a licensed Canadian pharmacist, how on Earth could there be any kind of safety issue? There simply is not. This is not about safety. It is about profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Now, I understand that issue. If the pharmaceutical industry were represented by people here--rather than serving in the Senate, they served the pharmaceutical industry--I would understand why you would make the case you want maximum profits. But that is not the way our economic system works. It works best for consumers when you have competition and open borders and an opportunity to trade. That is what we have been trying to do. It is disappointing that over 6 years now we have found a lot of opposition to something that is so filled with common sense. The opposition comes from the pharmaceutical industry, from allies of the pharmaceutical industry here in this Chamber in the Senate, and from the FDA. Now, the FDA is supposed to regulate, not represent. The FDA is to regulate the pharmaceutical industry, not represent the pharmaceutical industry. These are, in many cases, lifesaving drugs. I don't diminish the importance of prescription drugs. They provide miracles in many cases. But miracle drugs offer no miracles to those who cannot pay for them. We have all heard from people who go to the grocery store and go to the pharmacy in the back of the store first to buy the pharmaceuticals in order to understand how much money they have left for groceries. We also know that senior citizens are especially hard hit. They make up 12 percent of America's population, yet they consume one-third of the prescription drugs. It is not unusual to talk to a senior citizen who is taking 5, 7, 12 different prescription drugs every single day. Many of them simply can't afford it. America's most vulnerable population represents those who are hardest hit by prescription drugs prices. I was at a farm in North Dakota last summer, as I was touring around. One fellow, who was about 85 years old, and his wife, who was in her mid 80s, sat on a hay bale and told me their story. He said: My wife has been fighting breast cancer for 4 years. For 4 years we have driven to the Canadian border to buy Tamoxifen because you can buy Tamoxifen at 80-percent less cost in Canada than in the United States. He talked about the number of trips they made. The only reason they could afford Tamoxifen was because they could drive to the border and get it. A small supply of drugs for personal use, a 3-month supply, has been allowed to come across the border for individuals. But very few Americans can reach that Canadian border and, on a routine basis, find a way to buy their FDA-approved drugs from Canada. I took a group of American retired folks to Canada in a bus. We went to a little, one-room drugstore in Emerson, Canada. I saw person to person the prescription drugs they had to buy and the savings with each of them. You should have seen the look of surprise on their faces when they found out what the price was in Canada versus what they had been paying here in the U.S. This is unfair pricing. We need to do something about it. But the cavalier attitude at the FDA, the attitude of representing the drug companies rather than regulating the drug companies, means that we will continue to have to battle the FDA. Having to battle the FDA to do something that is so filled with common sense is a frustrating thing for those of us who have been working on this for years and years. Incidentally, there are some other issues with this Commissioner, and I will not spend my time talking about those. My colleagues, including Senator Kennedy, with whom I spoke the other day, will make the point eloquently that we need an FDA Commissioner. It is unbelievable that we have gone all this time without having an FDA Commissioner. We have had someone who is acting for the bulk of this administration. I don't disagree with that notion. It doesn't make any sense that we have not had a full-time, permanent FDA Commissioner filling that term. But that doesn't mean that Dr. Crawford is the right person. He is not in my judgment. I wish I could vote for him, but I don't intend to. My hope is that in the coming months, we will persuade the majority leader and others, to get a vote on drug importation legislation. If necessary, we will offer amendments at the right time and on the right bills that forces the hand of those who oppose the work we are trying to do. My hope is at the end of the day, we will get a vote. If we get a vote allowing the reimportation of prescription drugs, there is no question it is going to pass the Senate. It will get 60-65 or more votes in the Senate. The question is getting the vote. We thought we had a commitment in the last Congress for a vote. The Senate majority leader and I had a disagreement about what the commitment said, and so we didn't get the vote. What has happened is, the majority has successfully blocked it, and the White House that stands with the pharmaceutical industry has successfully blocked it. There is now a very strong bipartisan group of Senators. I mentioned Senator Snowe, Senators Vitter, McCain, Stabenow, Kennedy, and many others. We have over 30 Senators who have now joined as cosponsors of this legislation. One way or another we are going to prevail. When it is passed, we will see reasonable and competitive prices for prescription drugs. I regret to say that I will vote against Dr. Crawford's nomination when the vote occurs. I wish I could come to the floor and say I will vote for the nominee. But I don't want to put further roadblocks in the way of those of us who are trying to get fair prescription drug pricing for American citizens. I believe it is critically important that we understand prescription drugs are something different, something unusual. Most countries have already understood that. If you need a prescription drug, a lifesaving drug that can either save your life or keep you out of an acute care hospital bed, you don't have a choice. You have to try and buy it, at prices that are double, triple and, in some cases, 10 times the cost for the identical drug in other countries. That is unfair to the American consumer. Some day we will force enough people on the floor of this Senate to stand up and vote. When we do, we will have sufficient votes to move this through the Senate. I will say this: I doubt whether it will be with anything other than the obstruction of Dr. Crawford. He and Dr. McClellan before him have run the play called by the pharmaceutical industry. I really regret that is the way it is going. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to be filing an amendment and also noticing an intention to suspend the rules for such an amendment. I want to preserve the right to address it on this piece of legislation. This is an amendment that would prohibit the sale of Unocal, an American oil company, to CNOOC, a Chinese Government- controlled and owned oil company. I mentioned Friday that I think that this is a fairly simple proposition. The Chinese Government would never, ever allow an American company, let alone an American oil company, to buy a Chinese oil company. The Chinese oil companies are controlled by the Chinese Government. What we have here is a proposal by CNOOC, which is a Chinese oil company controlled by the Government, wishing to purchase an American oil company. You don't have reciprocal capabilities. They say: Let the free market deal with this. Let's let the marketplace decide. There is no free market or marketplace in a circumstance where the Chinese Government controls a company and the controlled company, through deeply subsidized Government loans, wishes to buy an American company, especially in something as strategic as oil. I don't bear any ill will toward the Chinese. They are a big and growing country with a significant impact around the world. They will be a significant part of our future. But we do have an extraordinary trade deficit with China which is dangerous for us. It is headed to over $200 billion this year. That is completely unsustainable. It is dangerous for us. Our relationship with the Chinese should and must be mutually beneficial, especially in the area of trade. Regrettably, it is not. We are a cash cow for the hard currency needs of China. They continue to ratchet up these deficits in a significant way. In many cases, the Chinese markets are closed to our country. We also find on the streets of China a substantial amount of counterfeit and pirated goods that come from intellectual property in this country. The Chinese say they have trouble controlling all that. They don't have trouble controlling it. In fact, the logo now that belongs to the Chinese Government for the Olympic games, the minute that showed up on the streets in China under counterfeiting, the Chinese Government took immediate action, and you can't find it any more because the Chinese Government had an interest in stopping counterfeit and piracy when it came to the logo for the Chinese Olympic games. We have a lot of issues with the Chinese--counterfeiting, piracy, trade deficit, many more. This issue is simple; should we allow a Chinese-controlled and largely Chinese-owned oil company to purchase an American oil company, especially in circumstances where they would not allow that same transaction to take place? My answer to that is no. I don't think it makes sense for this country's strategic or economic future, and it does not make sense from the standpoint of national security. I don't believe it makes sense from the standpoint of reciprocal trade opportunities, and I don't believe those who say this is some sort of marketplace transaction. There is not a marketplace when you have government control of both the industry and the companies in the industry trying to buy American businesses. I am filing the amendment and noticing along with it an intent to suspend the rules which would be required for me to do when I offer such an amendment. I mentioned that I also likely would offer a funding limitation amendment in the Appropriations Committee, and the House of Representatives has done the same. The funding limitation would apply to the Treasury Department, where approval for such a transaction would be required to take place. This is not a reflection of whether I think the Chinese country is trying to do harm to our economy or anything of the sort. China is a large and growing country with 1.3 billion people, an economy that is growing by leaps and bounds. I have been to China a couple of times, and it is quite a remarkable place. But with respect to our relationship with China, that relationship must be mutually beneficial, especially in the area of international trade. It is not now mutually beneficial. There is one-way trade going on, and we are up to our neck in trade debt to the Chinese. This transaction does not advance our interest. It might advance the Chinese interest by giving them more access to oil, but it does not advance America's interest. I hope that it is viewed through the prism of what advances our country's interests. What is it that represents the best policy choice for our country? My sense of that is that we ought to prohibit this sale. The amendment is very simple. It doesn't beat around the bush. It is very short. It is an amendment that would prohibit the sale of an American oil company to a Government-controlled and deeply subsidized oil company in the country of China. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is a medicine called Celebrex, made by Pfizer. These bottles are large containers that happen to be empty. It would contain 500 capsules; 200 milligrams, the usual adult dosage, it says. As you can see, this other bottle is also Celebrex. It is the same pill, made by the same company, put in the same bottle. The only difference in these bottles is the color on the labels is a bit different, but the pills that were inside were the same. This one bottle is sold in the United States and the other is sold in Canada. What is the difference? Well, the U.S. consumer pays $2.93 per capsule out of this bottle. The Canadian consumer pays $1.32 out of the other bottle. So the one costs almost $3, the other just over $1. The American consumer is charged double the price of the Canadian consumer. It is the same pill, put in the same bottle, made by the same company, at an FDA-approved plant, sent to two different places, and the American consumers pay two and a half times more than the Canadian consumer. Why is that the case? Well, the drug industry says they charge that price in the United States because they can and because they must in order to gather the funds for research and development. But, of course, the record shows that is not the case either. The drug industry actually spends more money on marketing and advertising than they do on research and development. And they actually spend about the same amount on research and development in Europe that they do in the United States when, in fact, in Europe they charge lower prices for exactly the same prescription drugs. So what does all of this have to do with Dr. Crawford and the FDA? Well, for those of us who are working to allow for the importation of FDA-approved drugs from other countries--notably from Canada and Europe--one of the most significant areas of opposition has been from the FDA. Dr. Mark McClellan was the head of the FDA for a while. He was an aggressive advocate on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry could not have had a better cheerleader than Dr. McClellan. And during that time, Dr. Crawford has also been at the FDA serving as deputy. He has been there as acting commissioner for much of this administration, both before and now after Dr. McClellan. And during that time, the FDA has continued to be a roadblock to try to get lower prices on prescription drugs for American consumers. The problem is that there is a law on the books that says the only entity that can import a prescription drug from another country is the manufacturer of that prescription drug. So a licensed pharmacist in Minot, ND, cannot go to Regina, Canada, for example, and buy an FDA- approved prescription drug, even one made in the United States and shipped to Canada. A licensed U.S. pharmacist cannot go to a licensed pharmacist in Canada, buy the FDA-approved drug at half or a third of the price and bring it back and pass the savings along to the customer. Why is that the case? Well, because once again there is a sweetheart deal. Under this deal, trade should apparently only work for everybody but the little guy, the consumer. One would think, with free trade and the opportunity to cross boundaries, that if you are talking about FDA- approved medicines, that American consumers, particularly American pharmacists, would be able to also take advantage of the global marketplace, but they cannot. So I, along with a bipartisan group of colleagues, have been trying to change the law. We are not proposing price controls but instead competition. Very simple: Allow an American pharmacist, a main street drugstore owner to access the identical prescription drug in Canada or Europe at a fraction of the price and bring it back and pass the savings along to the consumer. We are told that American consumers could save as much as $38 billion--that is with a ``B''--a year if that were to happen. As a point of fact, if we were able to get our legislation passed, we would not have people shopping in Canada for prescription drugs. But the very fact that they could would force the repricing of prescription drugs based on market forces here in the United States. Unfortunately, we have been thwarted in our efforts. Senator Olympia Snowe, John McCain, myself, Senator Kennedy, Senator Grassley, Senator Stabenow, and many others have all worked on this for a long, long time. The first bill I introduced on this was in 1999, and still drug importation has not been allowed because it has been blocked. Opponents have said there would be safety issues. Well, let me give you an example of the safety issue. In Europe, what we propose is done every single day: cross-border trading in prescription drugs. A pharmacist in Germany wants to buy a prescription drug from Spain, that is not a problem. If you are a pharmacy in England and want to buy a prescription drug from France, that is no problem either because they have something called parallel trading. In fact, we had the person who headed the parallel trading association come and testify before a U.S. Congressional committee. That person said there are no safety issues. But it opens the market, so consumers see lower drug prices as a result of it. But in this country, we are told we apparently cannot do it. It does not take rocket science to understand there is no safety issue. Let me talk about Canada just for a moment. Canada has nearly an identical chain of custody for the prescription drug that comes from the manufacturer that goes to the consumer. The Canadian system is nearly identical to ours. So if an American licensed pharmacist were to buy a lower priced FDA-approved drug from a licensed Canadian pharmacist, how on Earth could there be any kind of safety issue? There simply is not. This is not about safety. It is about profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Now, I understand that issue. If the pharmaceutical industry were represented by people here--rather than serving in the Senate, they served the pharmaceutical industry--I would understand why you would make the case you want maximum profits. But that is not the way our economic system works. It works best for consumers when you have competition and open borders and an opportunity to trade. That is what we have been trying to do. It is disappointing that over 6 years now we have found a lot of opposition to something that is so filled with common sense. The opposition comes from the pharmaceutical industry, from allies of the pharmaceutical industry here in this Chamber in the Senate, and from the FDA. Now, the FDA is supposed to regulate, not represent. The FDA is to regulate the pharmaceutical industry, not represent the pharmaceutical industry. These are, in many cases, lifesaving drugs. I don't diminish the importance of prescription drugs. They provide miracles in many cases. But miracle drugs offer no miracles to those who cannot pay for them. We have all heard from people who go to the grocery store and go to the pharmacy in the back of the store first to buy the pharmaceuticals in order to understand how much money they have left for groceries. We also know that senior citizens are especially hard hit. They make up 12 percent of America's population, yet they consume one-third of the prescription drugs. It is not unusual to talk to a senior citizen who is taking 5, 7, 12 different prescription drugs every single day. Many of them simply can't afford it. America's most vulnerable population represents those who are hardest hit by prescription drugs prices. I was at a farm in North Dakota last summer, as I was touring around. One fellow, who was about 85 years old, and his wife, who was in her mid 80s, sat on a hay bale and told me their story. He said: My wife has been fighting breast cancer for 4 years. For 4 years we have driven to the Canadian border to buy Tamoxifen because you can buy Tamoxifen at 80-percent less cost in Canada than in the United States. He talked about the number of trips they made. The only reason they could afford Tamoxifen was because they could drive to the border and get it. A small supply of drugs for personal use, a 3-month supply, has been allowed to come across the border for individuals. But very few Americans can reach that Canadian border and, on a routine basis, find a way to buy their FDA-approved drugs from Canada. I took a group of American retired folks to Canada in a bus. We went to a little, one-room drugstore in Emerson, Canada. I saw person to person the prescription drugs they had to buy and the savings with each of them. You should have seen the look of surprise on their faces when they found out what the price was in Canada versus what they had been paying here in the U.S. This is unfair pricing. We need to do something about it. But the cavalier attitude at the FDA, the attitude of representing the drug companies rather than regulating the drug companies, means that we will continue to have to battle the FDA. Having to battle the FDA to do something that is so filled with common sense is a frustrating thing for those of us who have been working on this for years and years. Incidentally, there are some other issues with this Commissioner, and I will not spend my time talking about those. My colleagues, including Senator Kennedy, with whom I spoke the other day, will make the point eloquently that we need an FDA Commissioner. It is unbelievable that we have gone all this time without having an FDA Commissioner. We have had someone who is acting for the bulk of this administration. I don't disagree with that notion. It doesn't make any sense that we have not had a full-time, permanent FDA Commissioner filling that term. But that doesn't mean that Dr. Crawford is the right person. He is not in my judgment. I wish I could vote for him, but I don't intend to. My hope is that in the coming months, we will persuade the majority leader and others, to get a vote on drug importation legislation. If necessary, we will offer amendments at the right time and on the right bills that forces the hand of those who oppose the work we are trying to do. My hope is at the end of the day, we will get a vote. If we get a vote allowing the reimportation of prescription drugs, there is no question it is going to pass the Senate. It will get 60-65 or more votes in the Senate. The question is getting the vote. We thought we had a commitment in the last Congress for a vote. The Senate majority leader and I had a disagreement about what the commitment said, and so we didn't get the vote. What has happened is, the majority has successfully blocked it, and the White House that stands with the pharmaceutical industry has successfully blocked it. There is now a very strong bipartisan group of Senators. I mentioned Senator Snowe, Senators Vitter, McCain, Stabenow, Kennedy, and many others. We have over 30 Senators who have now joined as cosponsors of this legislation. One way or another we are going to prevail. When it is passed, we will see reasonable and competitive prices for prescription drugs. I regret to say that I will vote against Dr. Crawford's nomination when the vote occurs. I wish I could come to the floor and say I will vote for the nominee. But I don't want to put further roadblocks in the way of those of us who are trying to get fair prescription drug pricing for American citizens. I believe it is critically important that we understand prescription drugs are something different, something unusual. Most countries have already understood that. If you need a prescription drug, a lifesaving drug that can either save your life or keep you out of an acute care hospital bed, you don't have a choice. You have to try and buy it, at prices that are double, triple and, in some cases, 10 times the cost for the identical drug in other countries. That is unfair to the American consumer. Some day we will force enough people on the floor of this Senate to stand up and vote. When we do, we will have sufficient votes to move this through the Senate. I will say this: I doubt whether it will be with anything other than the obstruction of Dr. Crawford. He and Dr. McClellan before him have run the play called by the pharmaceutical industry. I really regret that is the way it is going. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to be filing an amendment and also noticing an intention to suspend the rules for such an amendment. I want to preserve the right to address it on this piece of legislation. This is an amendment that would prohibit the sale of Unocal, an American oil company, to CNOOC, a Chinese Government- controlled and owned oil company. I mentioned Friday that I think that this is a fairly simple proposition. The Chinese Government would never, ever allow an American company, let alone an American oil company, to buy a Chinese oil company. The Chinese oil companies are controlled by the Chinese Government. What we have here is a proposal by CNOOC, which is a Chinese oil company controlled by the Government, wishing to purchase an American oil company. You don't have reciprocal capabilities. They say: Let the free market deal with this. Let's let the marketplace decide. There is no free market or marketplace in a circumstance where the Chinese Government controls a company and the controlled company, through deeply subsidized Government loans, wishes to buy an American company, especially in something as strategic as oil. I don't bear any ill will toward the Chinese. They are a big and growing country with a significant impact around the world. They will be a significant part of our future. But we do have an extraordinary trade deficit with China which is dangerous for us. It is headed to over $200 billion this year. That is completely unsustainable. It is dangerous for us. Our relationship with the Chinese should and must be mutually beneficial, especially in the area of trade. Regrettably, it is not. We are a cash cow for the hard currency needs of China. They continue to ratchet up these deficits in a significant way. In many cases, the Chinese markets are closed to our country. We also find on the streets of China a substantial amount of counterfeit and pirated goods that come from intellectual property in this country. The Chinese say they have trouble controlling all that. They don't have trouble controlling it. In fact, the logo now that belongs to the Chinese Government for the Olympic games, the minute that showed up on the streets in China under counterfeiting, the Chinese Government took immediate action, and you can't find it any more because the Chinese Government had an interest in stopping counterfeit and piracy when it came to the logo for the Chinese Olympic games. We have a lot of issues with the Chinese--counterfeiting, piracy, trade deficit, many more. This issue is simple; should we allow a Chinese-controlled and largely Chinese-owned oil company to purchase an American oil company, especially in circumstances where they would not allow that same transaction to take place? My answer to that is no. I don't think it makes sense for this country's strategic or economic future, and it does not make sense from the standpoint of national security. I don't believe it makes sense from the standpoint of reciprocal trade opportunities, and I don't believe those who say this is some sort of marketplace transaction. There is not a marketplace when you have government control of both the industry and the companies in the industry trying to buy American businesses. I am filing the amendment and noticing along with it an intent to suspend the rules which would be required for me to do when I offer such an amendment. I mentioned that I also likely would offer a funding limitation amendment in the Appropriations Committee, and the House of Representatives has done the same. The funding limitation would apply to the Treasury Department, where approval for such a transaction would be required to take place. This is not a reflection of whether I think the Chinese country is trying to do harm to our economy or anything of the sort. China is a large and growing country with 1.3 billion people, an economy that is growing by leaps and bounds. I have been to China a couple of times, and it is quite a remarkable place. But with respect to our relationship with China, that relationship must be mutually beneficial, especially in the area of international trade. It is not now mutually beneficial. There is one-way trade going on, and we are up to our neck in trade debt to the Chinese. This transaction does not advance our interest. It might advance the Chinese interest by giving them more access to oil, but it does not advance America's interest. I hope that it is viewed through the prism of what advances our country's interests. What is it that represents the best policy choice for our country? My sense of that is that we ought to prohibit this sale. The amendment is very simple. It doesn't beat around the bush. It is very short. It is an amendment that would prohibit the sale of an American oil company to a Government-controlled and deeply subsidized oil company in the country of China. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will just take a few minutes. Later this afternoon, at 5:45, we have ordered a vote on the nomination of Dr. Lester Crawford to be Commissioner of the FDA. I had intended to come and speak prior to that vote. My understanding is that there is only a 30-minute time period for debate, equally divided, just prior to the vote on that nomination, so I will take a couple of minutes now to explain why I am going to vote against this nomination. I have spent most of my time in the Senate voting for nominees sent to us by Presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, because I believe those who win the Presidency largely have the right to select their own team and to have their own advisers. So I have, in most cases, voted for the nominees who have come before the Senate to serve in the President's Cabinet and other important positions in the administration. This position is the head of the Food and Drug Administration, a very important agency--one, incidentally, that has had a substantial amount of controversy in recent years. I have been particularly interested in the FDA because we--myself along with others in the Senate--have spent a lot of time working to try to see if we can put some downward pressure on prescription drug prices. Much to our chagrin--to those of us on both the Democratic side and the Republican side who have been working toward this end--the opposition, in many cases, has come from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has alleged safety issues where, in fact, there are no safety issues at all. It has been the Food and Drug Administration that has been shaking the pom-poms for and cheerleading with the pharmaceutical industry on these issues. Let me describe the issue just for a moment. The American consumer pays the highest prices in the world for brand- name prescription drugs. Consumers who purchase those prescription drugs are charged much higher prices in the United States than elsewhere around the world. The pharmaceutical industry says it charges these prices because it can. I held a hearing on this issue when I chaired a subcommittee some years ago. The result is, the drug industry said: Well, we can charge that amount here in the United States, but we can't charge it in other countries because other countries have price controls on prescription drugs. Yet I notice--because of a sweetheart little tax provision that was put in law about a year ago--that the drug industry has made substantial profits overseas. The sweetheart deal allows those companies that have started enterprises overseas and are earning profits overseas to now pay taxes at a 5.25-percent rate for the income they repatriate to this country, quite a deal for big companies that move their jobs overseas. According to newspaper reports, the pharmaceutical industry now has as much as $75 billion in profits they have made in other countries that they are set to repatriate to this country for a 5.25-percent income tax rate. Interesting. They tell us they have to charge higher prices to the American consumers for prescription drugs, and they charge lower prices elsewhere because they are required by pricing policies in those countries to do so. They say they do not make much money in those countries, yet now they have $75 billion in profits from overseas sales in countries in which they have charged dramatically lower prices. So, obviously, they are making substantial profits in their sales in other countries even though the consumers in those other countries enjoy lower prescription drug prices. Mr. President, let me, by unanimous consent, show two pill bottles, if I might.

Mr. DORGAN

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. 3057 the following amendment:

Mr. DORGAN

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. 3057 the following amendment:

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to offer one other amendment on the Foreign Operations appropriations bill. I will offer it on every appropriations bill I get the chance to offer it on. It is legislating on appropriations, but it is important to do. We have held hearing after hearing on the subject of Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq. There is massive waste of the taxpayers' money. The most recent hearing talked about a whistleblower who worked for Halliburton in a food service enterprise in a supervisory capacity in Iraq. He said: We were serving food to American troops that had expired and outdated stamps on it by as much as a year. We were told to feed it to the troops. There was food in convoys that came under fire, and the food was contaminated with bullets and shrapnel. We were told to take out the bullets and shrapnel, and feed the food to the troops anyway. He also said--with respect to when he worked for Halliburton we were told if we spoke to a government auditor who came to our base, we would be fired or sent to an area to work where there is an active fire zone. And this in fact happened to him. This isn't just this hearing. It is not just feeding outdated food to the troops. It is about people who have testified, whistleblowers who have testified at previous hearings and said: We drove $85,000 new trucks, and we left them on the side of the road. If they had a flat tire or a plugged fuel pump, they got torched. We would just leave them behind. It was a cost plus contract, so there was no need to fix these little problems. Just buy new trucks, and make a nice little profit on the new purchase. The stories of waste and fraud and abuse are unbelievable, and nobody cares. Anybody hear of any oversight hearings by the oversight committees of jurisdiction in the U.S. Senate? None, zero. That is why we are holding the hearings I am chairing in the Policy Committee, because no one here cares. I just sent a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld to say please at least look into this question of whether we are sending men and women in America's uniform to Iraq to fight and serving food that is outdated by as much as a year. Unbelievable. Bunny Greenhouse testified at the hearing. She is the highest ranking civilian official in the Corps of Engineers, and is responsible for approving large contracts. She always got excellent scores on her performance evaluations. But they didn't like her much when she began to interfere with the sweetheart deals given to Halliburton--no bid--under circumstances she objected to. 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. Will someone investigate? Who will investigate? The answer is no one. So I am going to propose, as I have previously, a Truman-type committee. Harry Truman, a Democratic Senator from Missouri, when we had a Democrat in the White House, said: I am going to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse in the military. And he found it. We need an investigation here, and we should have a special committee of the type of the Truman committee. I will offer that amendment once again. We cannot sit idly by and suggest nothing wrong is happening. This is serious. It ought to be taken seriously. It undermines, in my judgment, those who fight the wars, the men and women who wear America's uniform and go, when asked by the Government, to fight. The least we can do is make certain they are not being fed outdated food, that contractors are not shortchanging them in a range of ways, and make sure the taxpayer isn't being bilked. We have had testimony about how we paid to put an air conditioner in a building in Iraq, and then it goes to a subcontractor, and eventually goes to another subcontractor, and another one, and pretty soon that room gets a fan and we get charged for an air conditioner. The American taxpayer just gets shafted, and our troops are ill served. There is so much waste, fraud, and abuse that it is unbelievable. I will offer these amendments: on the issue of the Truman committee, on the issue TV Marti, and also I may offer my amendment on the issue of the purchase of Unocal by CNOOC.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I point out an amendment I will offer to the Foreign Operations appropriations bill. Let me show a picture of something called Fat Albert. Fat Albert is an aerostat balloon. It is on a tether far up in the sky. The purpose of Fat Albert is to broadcast television signals into the country of Cuba to tell the citizens of Cuba that life under Castro, life in communism in Cuba, is a pretty awful life and you ought to aspire toward a democracy and here are all the good things democracy has to offer. The fact is, the Cubans already know all that. That is why they get on rafts and risk their lives trying to leave. In any event, if they don't know that, they can tune into a Miami radio station 90 miles away. If they choose not to tune in to a Miami radio station, they can tune in to Radio Marti. That does work. It sends signals to the country of Cuba and people listen to it. But TV Mart does not work. TV Marti doesn't get into the Cuban marketplace. The Cuban people can't see it, because the Castro regime jams the signals. We have now spent $189 million on TV Marti. We send television signals the Cuban people can't see. We spend $189 million. Apparently, someone feels better because we have wasted this money. I had an amendment earlier this year to shut this down. Strangely enough, this Senate turned it down. I will give them the chance again on the Foreign Operations bill. I am going to take the money out of that bill, and we will vote on it again. Why do the Cubans not see these signals? Because Castro jams them. The President is asking for $21 million more to send television signals to Cuba. They used to use Fat Albert. Fat Albert got loose at one point, meandered over into the Everglades. They had to find some grapple hooks to rescue him. But that wasn't enough. Incidentally, for most of the time they have broadcast these signals, they broadcast them from 3:30 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. All were jammed. They decided to change that on May 20, 2002, and then they began to broadcast in prime time. An administration official from the State Department said this: We don't have any official evidence that the audience has increased due to the broadcast schedule change. Chris Coursen, former chairman of the President's board of advisors on broadcasting to Cuba, says until 6 years ago, TV Marti used to do exit interviews with Cubans coming to the United States on rafts and so on to determine whether Cubans, in fact, watched TV Marti. It was clear from those interviews no one was seeing TV Marti in Cuba because Castro was jamming it. We get people coming off a raft. We say: Have you watched Television Marti? No, we can't see it. It gets jammed. What do we do? We keep spending money anyway. And they stopped doing exit interviews with Cubans coming here, because they didn't want to document the fact that nobody could watch TV Marti. It is now not enough to do it by an aerostat balloon. We now have a specially equipped airplane flying once a week, a C-130, Commando Solo, which is a very special airplane designed for communications strategies in warfare. We have taken an Air National Guard Commando Solo, put it up 4 hours a week, and it still cannot overcome the jammers in Cuba. We went from spending money we don't have on things we don't need to send television signals to people who can't receive them, and then we went to airplanes. Now the President wants to buy an airplane just for this purpose, buy a new one. The President wants to spend $21 million more sending a television signal no one can see. It is unbelievable. I want to see somebody vote to continue this funding and then go home and thumb their suspenders and crow about how they oppose Government waste. I want to see one person do that. If ever there was a demonstrated waste in Government, this is it. Everybody in this Chamber knows it. We will see whether finally this Senate will decide to shut down money that is spent that unwisely.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to mention an issue dealing with sexual predators. We are now hearing, as I did this morning on the news, more information about Mr. Joseph Duncan. He is a violent sexual predator. He raped a young boy at gunpoint and went to prison for 20 years for that crime. He was then released, and went to live in North Dakota. Duncan has now been charged in Idaho with multiple counts of murder and with the abusing of two young children that he kidnapped. This is a man who, just some months ago, in the month of April, was hauled into an American court in the State of Minnesota, charged with molesting a 6-year-old boy, having had the record of violently raping at gunpoint a teenage boy some long while before. But we are told that the judge in Minnesota did not know this person's previous history. So after walking into a Minnesota courtroom, being charged with molesting a 6-year-old, despite his previous history, Mr. Duncan was allowed to post $15,000 bail and was gone. Now children have been abused and kidnapped by this violent sexual predator. People are dead. I have introduced a bill called Dru's law. I will put up a picture of this beautiful, young woman, Dru Sjodin. She walked outside of a shopping center in Grand Forks, ND, one night and, similarly, a violent sexual predator, Mr. Rodriguez, allegedly abducted her and murdered her. Let me tell you about Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez is a man who served 23 years in prison for a violent sexual crime. When released, he was judged by the psychiatrist and psychologist to be at the highest risk for reoffending. He was let out of prison after 23 years. No monitoring at all. At the prison door, it is: So long, see you, hope you do well. Within 6 months, this man allegedly abducted and murdered this wonderful young woman, a student at the University of North Dakota. Now, Martha Stewart went to prison, and when she was let out, she was required to wear an electronic bracelet around her ankle so that they knew her whereabouts. I believe she still wears an electronic bracelet. But Joseph Duncan didn't wear an electronic devise. And Mr. Rodriguez didn't wear an electronic device. What is happening in this country--especially with violent sexual predators--is just shameful. We know what causes this, who does it. In most cases, they have been in the hands of law enforcement and the criminal justice system and they have been let out. We know also that over 70 percent of the violent sexual predators will reoffend and, in most cases, will reoffend more violently. As a result of that, some long while ago, I introduced Dru's law, named after this young woman, Dru Sjodin. It would do three things: One, establish a national registry of sexual predators. There is not now one. There are State registries, but there is no national registry that you can search to find out who lives near you, regardless of state lines. Second, if a high-risk sex offender is about to be released from prison, there must be notification of the local State attorneys so they can, if they wish, seek additional civil commitment and incarceration. Third, if a high-risk offender is, in fact released, they must have high-level monitoring upon release. We just cannot allow these people-- the violent sexual predators--to end their term, or to come into court on a new charge and to walk back out on the sidewalks to terrorize other innocent Americans. The Senate passed Dru's law last fall. It didn't get through the House, so I have to start over. I am proud to tell you that Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is a cosponsor, and Orrin Hatch, the previous chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has been very supportive of this bill. We have bipartisan cosponsorship. I hope next week we will, by consent, move Dru's law through the Senate again and send it to the House. We must address these issues. In April, I held a town meeting about the issue of sexual predators in Fargo, ND, which, coincidentally, is where Mr. Duncan was living. I called up on the North Dakota Registry of Sexual Predators for the names of these people living within 2 miles of where I was having the meeting. I told the people at the meeting I want to know that there is this violent offender within blocks of where we are holding this meeting. Here is what I had. I had this piece of paper. I told them about this sexual predator, and his rape of a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint and the burning of his victim. The fact is, this man was not some stranger with no record. Then Mr. Duncan went to court on the charge of molesting a 6-year-old boy in another state, and was allowed to post $15,000 bail because the judge apparently wasn't aware of his record. The judge should certainly have been apprised of his record. In fact, we cannot any longer--from California, to Texas, to Florida, to Idaho, to North Dakota--continue to see violent sexual predators let out of prison in circumstances that are so much more lenient than that which was required of Martha Stewart when she finished her incarceration. That makes no sense. Mr. President, I hope that next week perhaps we will have the opportunity by consent to move the legislation, with the support and active cosponsorship of Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and also with the support of Senator Hatch, Senator Leahy, and many others. If we do this, I think we will send hope to all of those who have asked this Congress to take action to do the right thing. I hope that perhaps by this day next week, I am able to say we have been successful in moving that legislation and, hopefully, we can move it to the House and get the President to sign this very important piece of legislation. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing a piece of legislation that deals with the issue of a Chinese oil company called CNOOC, a state-owned corporation that has proposed to acquire a United States oil company called Unocal. The purpose of my legislation--and I may well also offer it as an amendment to the Foreign Operations appropriations bill we will consider today and next week--is to prohibit the sale of Unocal Corporation to CNOOC. The legislation provides that notwithstanding any other provision in the law, the merger, acquisition, or takeover of Unocal Corporation by CNOOC is prohibited. Let me explain why I am introducing. I bear no ill will toward the Chinese. China is an extraordinarily large country. The Chinese have an extraordinary rate of economic growth. They are very involved in the world economy. We have a large trade deficit, regrettably, with the Chinese. That has to do with a range of unfair trade practices and other things. We had a $162 billion trade deficit with the Chinese in the past year. This year it is on track to top $200 billion. I understand what the Chinese are trying to do. They are trying to meet their future energy needs. They have four large state-owned energy companies. Their companies, including CNOOC, are attempting to acquire in many different ways opportunities to satisfy their energy needs. In attempting to acquire Unocal, they are attempting to acquire a U.S. corporation with substantial strategically important oil assets for our country. The reason I believe we ought to prohibit the sale of an American oil company to a Chinese state-owned oil company is this: There is not and would not be reciprocal treatment. If a United States oil company or a United States company wanted to buy a Chinese oil company, it wouldn't happen. The Chinese Government wouldn't approve it. The four large oil companies in China are all state controlled, and as a practical matter, the Chinese government is not about to approve that any of those companies be purchased by a foreign government or foreign company. There is no reciprocal opportunity for a United States corporation to acquire an oil company in China. The Chinese Government is a Communist government. Its economy is emerging as market-driven economy under the umbrella of the Chinese Government. That causes a lot of tensions and interesting circumstances. The Chinese have joined the WTO. They have made all kinds of representations about opening their marketplace. But the fact is, once again, the largest oil companies, like most other major enterprises in China, are state controlled. It makes no sense that we would allow a Chinese state-controlled oil company to acquire, in this case Unocal, a United States oil company at a time when we would not be able to reciprocate and we would be prevented from acquiring a Chinese oil company if we wished to do so. I don't know what the administration's position would be on this. They have a review process. To the extent that the review process takes place, I believe that review process ought to be expanded. But I hope we can avoid all of that by simply deciding as a Congress this is not something that meets our national interest. Our strategic, security, and economic national interest is not served by allowing this to happen. I am introducing this legislation today, and I know that there are many Members of Congress who share my view that this is not a transaction that meets the strategic, security, and economic interests of this country. We must trade with China. China is an emerging nation with a very substantial imprint on the world economy. The free flow of commerce and market capital is important. I understand that. This legislation that I am offering is not in any way an attempt to send a message that we do not want good trade relations with China. But it is very much intended to send this message: reciprocal opportunities ought to exist in these transactions, and they would not and do not in this case involving CNOOC and Unocal. It is also important to point out that the money with which CNOOC, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, would purchase a United States oil corporation would be in many ways attributable to deep subsidies by the Government of China for a state-owned enterprise in China that wishes to acquire a United States oil company. For that reason I will introduce this bill today. I may well also offer it as an amendment to the appropriations bill on Monday.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing a piece of legislation that deals with the issue of a Chinese oil company called CNOOC, a state-owned corporation that has proposed to acquire a United States oil company called Unocal. The purpose of my legislation--and I may well also offer it as an amendment to the Foreign Operations appropriations bill we will consider today and next week--is to prohibit the sale of Unocal Corporation to CNOOC. The legislation provides that notwithstanding any other provision in the law, the merger, acquisition, or takeover of Unocal Corporation by CNOOC is prohibited. Let me explain why I am introducing. I bear no ill will toward the Chinese. China is an extraordinarily large country. The Chinese have an extraordinary rate of economic growth. They are very involved in the world economy. We have a large trade deficit, regrettably, with the Chinese. That has to do with a range of unfair trade practices and other things. We had a $162 billion trade deficit with the Chinese in the past year. This year it is on track to top $200 billion. I understand what the Chinese are trying to do. They are trying to meet their future energy needs. They have four large state-owned energy companies. Their companies, including CNOOC, are attempting to acquire in many different ways opportunities to satisfy their energy needs. In attempting to acquire Unocal, they are attempting to acquire a U.S. corporation with substantial strategically important oil assets for our country. The reason I believe we ought to prohibit the sale of an American oil company to a Chinese state-owned oil company is this: There is not and would not be reciprocal treatment. If a United States oil company or a United States company wanted to buy a Chinese oil company, it wouldn't happen. The Chinese Government wouldn't approve it. The four large oil companies in China are all state controlled, and as a practical matter, the Chinese government is not about to approve that any of those companies be purchased by a foreign government or foreign company. There is no reciprocal opportunity for a United States corporation to acquire an oil company in China. The Chinese Government is a Communist government. Its economy is emerging as market-driven economy under the umbrella of the Chinese Government. That causes a lot of tensions and interesting circumstances. The Chinese have joined the WTO. They have made all kinds of representations about opening their marketplace. But the fact is, once again, the largest oil companies, like most other major enterprises in China, are state controlled. It makes no sense that we would allow a Chinese state-controlled oil company to acquire, in this case Unocal, a United States oil company at a time when we would not be able to reciprocate and we would be prevented from acquiring a Chinese oil company if we wished to do so. I don't know what the administration's position would be on this. They have a review process. To the extent that the review process takes place, I believe that review process ought to be expanded. But I hope we can avoid all of that by simply deciding as a Congress this is not something that meets our national interest. Our strategic, security, and economic national interest is not served by allowing this to happen. I am introducing this legislation today, and I know that there are many Members of Congress who share my view that this is not a transaction that meets the strategic, security, and economic interests of this country. We must trade with China. China is an emerging nation with a very substantial imprint on the world economy. The free flow of commerce and market capital is important. I understand that. This legislation that I am offering is not in any way an attempt to send a message that we do not want good trade relations with China. But it is very much intended to send this message: reciprocal opportunities ought to exist in these transactions, and they would not and do not in this case involving CNOOC and Unocal. It is also important to point out that the money with which CNOOC, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, would purchase a United States oil corporation would be in many ways attributable to deep subsidies by the Government of China for a state-owned enterprise in China that wishes to acquire a United States oil company. For that reason I will introduce this bill today. I may well also offer it as an amendment to the appropriations bill on Monday.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1111 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know the manager of the bill and the ranking member are asking for amendments to be offered and considered. I wanted to do that. Very quickly, this amendment deals with the issue of whether to require passports for everyone entering and leaving this country at our borders. We have a common border with the country of Canada, over 4,000 miles. In my State of North Dakota, we have people moving back and forth across the border all the time. We have people who farm on both sides of the border, people with families on both sides of the border. At the Pembina port of entry, we have 100,000 people a month crossing the border. To require a passport for that is, in my judgment, far too burdensome. A passport now costs a $55 fee, a $12 security surcharge, and a $30 execution charge--a total of $97 to obtain a passport. I believe very strongly we do need border security, no question about that. That is important. But I think, especially with respect to day travel and common tourist and business practices across, for example, the United States-Canadian border, with which I am familiar, to require a passport for moving across that border is enormously burdensome. I hope we will not do that. The President, when asked about it, spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors and said: When I first read that in the newspaper, about the need to have passports particularly for day crossing--he is talking about the border--I said, what's going on here? I thought there was a better way to expedite the whole flow of traffic and people. I think the President is right, and I know that since the President said that, the folks in Homeland Security have been reconsidering this issue, but I am very worried that they still may proceed with their regulations at some point, and I hope this Congress would weigh in on the question of whether we think everyone who moves back and forth across the Canadian border should have a passport. I don't believe the requirement for a passport is practical. I think it is overly burdensome. I believe that we ought to send that message to the Department of Homeland Security. I am not suggesting we don't care about security. We do. We care deeply about border security. But there must be other ways in which we can accomplish that task. And so my amendment will address that. I thank my colleague from New Hampshire for giving me the opportunity, just a few minutes, to at least get the amendment offered, to be talking about it, and have it considered. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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