Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the underlying amendment be set aside, and I send to the desk an amendment by Senator Durbin.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I 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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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 ask unanimous consent that I be able to speak in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have spent the last nearly 2 hours prior to coming to the floor chairing a hearing of the Democratic Policy Committee on waste, fraud, and abuse, dealing with the Halliburton Corporation with respect to contracting in Iraq. I don't--along with my colleagues who joined me--take pleasure at holding hearings to expose waste and abuse and, I think, fraud. We do it because the authorizing committees in this Congress have decided they are not interested in having these kinds of hearings. Let me just give you some idea of what we have learned at the five hearings that I have held on this subject. Today, at the hearing, an employee of Halliburton who was providing food service in a portion of Iraq to our troops, said something to me that was almost unbelievable. He said they were routinely serving food to American troops that had outdated stamps on it. When you go to the grocery store, you see that food is going to be good through a certain date. They were getting that kind of food that was out of date and serving it to American soldiers. I understand greed because we see enough of it in some of these circumstances at these hearings. I don't understand the shameful behavior of somebody who is charging this Government for feeding our troops, and then would feed our troops food that is date stamped out of date. The Halliburton Corporation, by the way, said that it was feeding 42,000 troops a day in one contract, and it turns out that only 14,000 were eating. They were charging for 28,000 meals they were not serving. Now we discover, more than that--more than charging for 42,000 meals when only serving 14,000 meals--they were serving food that was out of date to American soldiers. That is unbelievable to me. We send these soldiers to a war zone and we contracted that company to feed them, and they feed them food that is date stamped out of date. Nobody wants to investigate these things. No hearings. It is eerily quiet here. Normally, when you see fraud, waste, and abuse, we have people who are interested in investigating that and putting a stop to it right now. We have heard so many tales of waste, fraud, and abuse. Halliburton orders 50,000 pounds of nails that are the wrong size, so they are laying on the sand in Iraq. Just another bit of waste. It is $40 for a case of pop or soda and $7,000 a month to lease SUVs. There are $85,000 trucks that are abandoned on the roads and are torched because they had a flat tire or a plugged fuel pump. These are all stories we have heard at our hearings, which the authorizing committees won't have. They have been asked to have them, but they will not. I have chaired five hearings--because they won't--on these issues. It doesn't serve American troops. It disserves American troops to allow this sort of thing to happen. When we get involved in circumstances where our country has an obligation to the troops we ask to go into harm's way, we have a responsibility to make sure there is not corruption and looting and thieving going on. We had a woman testify today, Bunnatine Greenhouse. She was the highest civilian official in the Pentagon dealing with Corps of Engineer projects. She was called in at one point and told: Either you can retire or you are going to be demoted. We are not putting up with your objections anymore. She was objecting to sole-source contracts being given to Halliburton--no bids. What is the result of that? Headline after headline about waste and fraud. Here is what she said today: I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR [a subsidiary of Halliburton] represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career. By the way, she had a meeting last week with the acting general counsel, I believe, of the Corps of Engineers, and she was told that it would not be in her best interest to speak publicly about these things. Surprise, surprise. Don't worry so much about the waste or the fraud or the abuse; worry about the people who are going to speak up, who have the courage to step out and say here is what is going on, and I am willing to risk my career to talk about it. Good for this woman. It took courage for her to come forward today. She was one of the top senior officials in that whole pyramid. The old boys just worked around her and worked their will so they could give contracts worth billions and billions of dollars to one company-- Halliburton--and then later to some others, but basically Halliburton. Then we hear from a witness named Rory, who worked in the food facilities in Iraq, that Halliburton was routinely serving out-of-date food to American troops. I thought there wasn't much more that could shock me after having my fifth hearing on this, but there is. I just say this to the authorizing committees: The minute you decide to do the kinds of accountability and oversight hearings Congress is supposed to do, I will not hold any more hearings. It was in 1941 when a Senator on the floor of the Senate, named Harry Truman, with a Democratic President in the White House, initiated a series of hearings that ended up being hundreds of hearings. They documented massive amounts of fraud in defense contracting during a war. It probably wasn't pleasant for a Democratic President to have a Democratic Senator challenging them on what was going on with respect to waste, fraud, and abuse, but Harry Truman did it. Now we have a Republican President, a Republican-controlled Congress, substantial waste, fraud, and abuse, and nobody wants to hold hearings because they are worried it will embarrass somebody. This isn't about embarrassing anybody; it is about standing up for the interests of the American taxpayer, for the interests of the American troops, and deciding that during war it is unconscionable for people to profiteer, and for companies to cheat and defraud the Federal Government. Unfortunately, these days, when you read the headlines and the audit reports, you discover that what this is all about is a slap on the wrist, a pat on the back, and then a continuation of the buddy system. A fellow who testified today with respect to the food service in Iraq said that when Government auditors came, they were told: You are not to be available to speak to Government auditors. And they were told this: If you are caught speaking to a Government auditor, one of two things will happen. Either, A, you will be fired or, B, you will be sent to a base where there is active fighting. It's your choice. I could not believe that. He said it again. He said it a second time. When Government auditors came to audit the Halliburton food contracts, they were ordered not to speak to the auditors, ordered not to respond to auditors' questions, ordered not to be available. And if they were caught answering questions of auditors, they would either be sent to a base where there was active fighting, or they would be fired. So that is some of what is going on. The question is, Does anybody care? Will they, after 2 years of our holding five straight hearings now--when I say ``they,'' I mean the authorizing committees--perhaps begin to hold hearings themselves? Would it be embarrassing to ask that committees to do what they are supposed to do--provide oversight? When you have $10 billion or $12 billion lining the pockets of big contractors whose documented abuse of that money is legend--don't take it from me, take it from the facts that are on the record--will the committees of the Congress do what they have a responsibility to do? We will see. I wanted to point out that this afternoon was spent by me--at least from 1:30 and for the first 2 hours--listening to things that I find shameful with respect to practices by some companies--notably Halliburton--in the country of Iraq, profiteering during a war. Mr. President, the last time we held a hearing dealing with Iraq, we had one of the people there hold up a towel, and he said: My job was to buy towels, among other things. I was a procurement agent. I was to buy towels--the hand towels you would use in the bathroom in the morning. He showed us the hand towel he was going to buy, and then he showed us the one he did buy. The one he did buy had a logo of the company on it--the contracting company. The contracting company wanted him to buy a higher priced towel, a more expensive towel, so they could put their logo on it. Waste of the money? I think so. It is unbelievable when you see all that is going on and nobody is minding the store. I hope perhaps one day this Congress, in a deep slumber about accountability and oversight responsibilities, will wake up and do what it is required to do. At that point, we will no longer have to do hearings in our policy committee. Until that point, however, we intend to continue such hearings. Mr. President, 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 ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there has been quite a controversy developing in recent weeks about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I have spoken on the Senate floor a couple of times about the subject, and I wish to address it now, particularly because of actions that were taken last week. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has a Board of Directors that is headed by a Mr. Kenneth Tomlinson. Mr. Tomlinson decided to take it upon himself to describe public broadcasting as having a liberal bias. Because it has a liberal bias, according to the Chairman of the Board of Directors, appointed by President Bush, he hired a consultant, a fellow who had worked for 20 years at a journalism center founded by the American Conservative Union. He hired a consultant for just over $14,000 without the knowledge of the Board of Directors to evaluate particularly programming by the Bill Moyers show called ``Now.'' The Inspector General at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is now investigating that expenditure of money. It is curious to me that the American people, by a wide margin, believe that public television and public radio, National Public Radio, for example, and PBS, is not biased, is good information, provides good programming, balanced programming, and yet the Chairman of the Board, who is partisan, has made it his cause to tell the American people there is a liberal bias in public broadcasting over television and radio on NPR and so on. Most of us, of course, know public television by Big Bird, Ernie, the Cookie Monster, the Count, Grover. I was thinking, when I have heard the discussions about public broadcasting by the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Tomlinson, I was thinking of Oscar the Grouch, who complains about everything. I would not take the analogy so far because Oscar the Grouch lives in a trash can, but every time he peeks his head out something is wrong. He complains about everything, Oscar the Grouch. Well, maybe we have an Oscar the Grouch running the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. After all, he is a partisan who has decided to allege that there is a partisan and liberal bias at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Then he hires a conservative to do an evaluation of that. When he did that with public funding, I asked Mr. Tomlinson, by letter, to provide me the information gleaned from this consultant. He then sent me the raw data, which was many pages of raw information. I have described that on the Senate floor. I will not do that again. He told me that it was not a summary but he was completing a summary. I have now been given the summary in the last couple of days--I believe last Friday. In the intervening period, Chairman Tomlinson also decided that his candidate to become President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a position that was open, should be assumed by a former Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee. Over the objections of some members of the Board of Directors, he made that happen last week. So the former Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee is now going to become the President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an organization that the Chairman of the Board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting alleges has a liberal bias. He believes that it is political or partisan; therefore, he brings in a partisan. If a former co-chair of the Democratic National Committee had been hired, I assume there would be a howl that one could hear all the way to West Virginia coming from this Chamber and the Chamber across the hall because they would say: You are politicizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Regrettably, that is exactly what Mr. Tomlinson is doing by hiring a former Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee. Public broadcasting does a real service in this country. There are some stories no other broadcasters will do. Do my colleagues think that ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX will ever do a no holds barred, in-depth story about concentration in the media and about the rules that the Federal Communications Commission tried to foist on this country that would allow further concentration until they were stopped by the Federal courts? Do my colleagues think that would ever be dealt with by the major television networks? Not on your life because they are all making money consolidating. The Federal Communications Commission came up with a goofy rule--one that, in my judgment, subverts the interests of the American people-- and said it will be all right if in one major American city one company owns eight radio stations, three television stations, the dominant newspaper, and the cable company. That is just fine, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Well, it is not fine with me. That was the quickest and biggest cave-in to the special interests I have ever seen in my life, and the Federal court has at this point stopped it. Guess who did the in-depth reporting, the hard-hitting reporting on the concentration of corporate interests in broadcasting. Was it CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX News? No, not on your life. They would not touch it because they make money continuing the concentration. It was public broadcasting. It was Bill Moyers. For that, he pays a price. The price he pays: Mr. Tomlinson and others accuse him of going astray, a liberal bias. When I looked at the papers I was given that represent the raw data from the consultant, some of the listings evaluated programming on public broadcasting as either anti-Bush or pro-Bush. Is that what we are going to do in this country--run our evaluation of whether something is fair through a prism of whether it supports our President, whoever our President is? Is that the way one would have wanted to evaluate public broadcasting when President Clinton was in office-- anti-Clinton, pro-Clinton? I do not think so. That is not the way we have a responsibility to evaluate these things. This country is still a democracy, a free country. It is not unpatriotic to be critical of our Government. In the case of the FCC rules, that would allow massive concentration of broadcasting properties so that only four or five people will determine what the American people by and large will see, hear, and read. When that happens, when the FCC tries to do that, it is not unpatriotic to raise questions and do in-depth reporting and do tough reporting on it. There is nothing unpatriotic about that. So the selection of the former Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee to be President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a step that will injure public broadcasting. The board members who objected have told me that they felt the process for the selection of the chairman was not fair, and I intend to ask the Inspector General to include that question in the investigation that is now ongoing about the use of funds for the consultant. I believe most of us, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, should care about retaining a strengthened and important public broadcasting system in this country. Big Bird is not a Republican or a Democrat, nor is the Cookie Monster. This is just good programming. It does a disservice to the interests of public broadcasting in this country to begin to undermine it by demanding that there is a liberal bias, by hiring consultants who themselves come from a conservative background with which to make a judgment of whether things are anti- or pro-Bush in public programming, and then to engineer the hiring of the former Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee as President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All of that moves us in the direction that injures something very important to this country. My hope is at some point we will be able to see progress in putting this back together. But there is no question that substantial damage has been done to public broadcasting in recent weeks and that damage is because of leadership insisting that public broadcasting itself is flawed and is at fault. I disagree with that. I think the problem is not public broadcasting; I think the problem has been the leadership of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the engineering of not only a known partisan to become president but also a partisan to do an evaluation that was destined to show what the Chairman of CPB was alleging. Again I take no pleasure in coming to the floor to be critical of Mr. Tomlinson, but after what I have read from the consulting report that is now being investigated, frankly, I think there is a need to speak up and a need to decide that public broadcasting is important to this country and worth saving and won't be saved by those who want to drag it into the partisan waters. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

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

Mr. DORGAN. On behalf of my colleague Senator Wyden, I propose an amendment.

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. I send two amendments to the desk on behalf of my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Jack Reed, and ask for their consideration.

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send to the desk, on behalf of Senator Feingold, an amendment.

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have an amendment on behalf of Senator Byrd that I send to the desk.

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment by Senator Conrad and ask for its consideration.

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

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