Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first, we are deliberating in the Senate about a highway bill. I appreciate the work the chairman of the committee and ranking member have done on this piece of legislation. It has been a long and tortured process to get this piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate. While I may not agree with every single line in the bill, I admire their work. I think their work is commendable, and it will advance this country's interests. For that reason, I intend to support the legislation. I think with respect to this country's future, its economy, future opportunities in expanding our economy, there is nothing that more quickly expands the country's economy or more quickly provides opportunity all across this country than the investment Congress makes in a program that provides for highway and bridge construction and road maintenance and repair. It is a sure way to put people to work immediately all across this country. This highway bill has been long delayed, but now while it is on the floor, I also want to not only commend the committee for its work, I want to offer an amendment that deals with something that relates to it. Let me discuss briefly the amendment and then describe why I want this amendment considered on this bill. My amendment simply deals with the price of gasoline and asks the FTC to, within 90 days of the legislation being enacted, conduct an investigation of gasoline prices in this country. Let me describe a bit of the background for this. I don't allege there is corruption, price fixing, or collusion. What I do know is this: When big companies get bigger and more companies become fewer companies, there is a capability to influence the marketplace in a significant way. I chaired the hearings in the Senate that investigated the Enron situation. Now, having sat in the chair investigating what Enron did with respect, not to gasoline, but with respect to electricity sales on the west coast, the creation of strategies called Death Star, Fat Boy, Get Shorty--all of which were strategies to literally steal from the pockets of people living on the west coast. They bilked people out of billions of dollars by manipulating and overpricing with respect to the electricity market. We know that now and we also know that some executives from that company are on trial, about to go on trial, or have finished their trials, and some have been sentenced to 10 years of hard tennis at a minimum security prison. Others will get a stiffer penalty. It was wholesale stealing from the American people. Why? One, because they could; and, two, because there are people who are corrupt in their hearts engaging in these practices. I don't allege the same exists with oil. I don't have any idea with respect to oil and the price of gasoline. I understand that the circumstances with oil are complicated. Sixty percent of the oil we use in this country--incidentally, the increased usage substantially is for transportation--comes from off our shore. The pricing for oil coming from the spot market relates to supply and demand, I am sure, but the supply largely comes from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, and others. Now, we are really fooling ourselves if we think it is not holding America hostage and our economic future hostage with 60 percent of our oil coming from off our shores and most of it coming from troubled parts of the world. If, God forbid, terrorists should interrupt the flow of oil into this country tomorrow night, our economy would be belly up very quickly. So that calls for and begs for a new energy policy, instead of simply saying that our exclusive energy policy is digging and drilling, which we must do; but if that is our exclusive policy, that is a ``yesterday forever'' policy. We need a new energy policy on the floor of the Senate. I also think even as all of these events are occurring--the price of oil increasing, the spot market showing the price of oil is $50 or $52 or $55 a barrel, and the price of gasoline is increasing at the pumps, and you drive up to a gas pump someplace and somebody is driving a 6,500- or 7,000-pound car, perhaps a humvee, and you wonder a little bit about how all this works. When I drive up next to a humvee and everybody has a right to drive a humvee I think of the Latin term, ``totus porcus.'' I am not sure why I think of that. When somebody sits there with a 7,000-pound vehicle, with one person in the vehicle going to work, you wonder about that. The marketplace probably takes care of some of that, although somebody who is going to buy a humvee probably doesn't care much about the price of gasoline. The price of gasoline is an interesting phenomenon in our country. As the price of oil goes up, and we hear about it on the news, all of a sudden, that day or the next day the price of gasoline goes up with a blink of an eye, following the price of oil. Then the price of oil comes down a bit, and the price of gasoline doesn't move down with quite the same rapidity. Something interesting is going on. I would like to discuss a bit of it. Since 1990, the number of major oil and gas companies has gone from 34 to 13. The number of refining companies has gone from 13 to 7. The other day, I noticed that while we have very high prices for oil and gasoline, Exxon Oil had the highest profit ever for a corporation-- record profits. So I am asking myself the question: Why should an oil company have record profits just because the price of oil is high and the price of gasoline is higher? Has the margin between those two prices changed with respect to those that are delivering it? The answer comes in the evaluation of what has happened to total revenues and to net income for the major oil companies. As we have gone from more to fewer oil companies, what we see is now, with the price of oil and gasoline in many cases at near record levels, so, too, are the profits of the oil companies. There have been profit increases year to year of 108 percent, 79 percent, 101 percent, 152 percent, 1,000 percent, 400 percent--these are the major oil companies and the increase in their profits from 2003 to 2004. Question: Given what we know about what has happened in some areas and in some industries with respect to manipulation of supply and demand and manipulation of prices, should we not have aggressive oversight and investigation to make sure the consumer is protected? I don't have the information to come to the floor to say there is something fundamentally wrong in the pricing strategy, but there are some indications, it seems to me, that some enterprises that have now merged successfully and become larger and stronger and have better capability to be involved in affecting the market in a more deliberate way are increasing their profits because they can, not because there is aggressive and robust competition, but because they have the economic clout to do it. I am wondering if on behalf of the American consumers we ought not have aggressive oversight and aggressive investigation. Now, we have seen activities from very large oil companies in the Congress. The House of Representatives, by the way, just passed an energy bill saying we need more incentives for these energy companies to be exploring for more oil and natural gas, at a time when the oil prices are at a record high. Even the President says that doesn't make any sense at all. It is interesting while they are wanting more tax incentives to explore for more oil, they are busy buying up stock with extra profits. That is what they are doing: they are not putting those profits in the ground. I find that interesting as well. I think the FTC is the appropriate agency to investigate gas prices. I think, on behalf of American consumers, we ought to take a hard look at it, and the FTC is the place to do it. I pulled up at a four-way stop sign near Mohall, ND, one day, and there was an old car in front of me, and it was well used and well worn, with the back bumper kind of askew and not much of a paint job left. It had four or five people in it, and it was belching smoke out of the back end. They had a plain, simple little bumper sticker. The bumper sticker from this old wreck of a car that is now stopped at a four-way stop said: We fought the gas war and gas won. Well, the message from that old car, ``gas won,'' is a message I think everybody understands. We are talking about a big industry that has consolidated and merged so that there are far fewer companies, with much greater market clout, and I think we need substantial oversight. The basic consumer protection statute enforced by the Federal Trade Commission is in section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act. It provides that unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce are declared unlawful. Unfair practices are defined to mean those that: cause or are likely to cause substantial injury to consumers which is not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves and not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition. In the State of North Dakota, a State I represent in the Senate, we actually drive a lot because we are a State that is 10 times the size of the State of Massachusetts. We have 642,000 citizens and we drive a lot. In fact, it is interesting; we drive almost twice as much per person as they do in New York. The average North Dakotan drives twice as much per person per year as a New Yorker, which means of course the burden of the gas tax itself is twice as high, but that is all right. We understand that. We like where we live. North Dakota is a wonderful State. But because gasoline is a significant issue for us and the price of gasoline is important for people who drive as much as we do, it is very important to us that we see that these prices are fair. It is hard for me to understand how at a time when the oil prices have spiked and gasoline prices have risen substantially, how the profit margin has increased so dramatically for the oil companies themselves if in fact this is a competitive market. If it is not a competitive market, then I think there needs to be substantial investigation to see whether the consumers are being gouged. Let me say again when I chaired the hearings about the manipulation of the market and the grand theft that occurred with the Enron Corporation bilking billions of dollars from consumers on the west coast, California, Oregon, Washington, and so on, it was unbelievable to see what those companies did because they could. They had larceny in their heart and they decided to profit to the tune of billions of dollars by literally stealing from consumers. As I have said before, I am not alleging that is happening here. I do not have the foggiest idea what the mechanics are for the pricing strategies or what has led to record profits for the oil companies. All I know is the oil companies are bigger. They have more muscle. They have more capability to affect the marketplace, and I believe when there are fewer competitors and less competition, there is a responsibility on behalf of consumers to ask for a referee to look over their shoulder and see that everything is all right. I only wish we had done that earlier in the Congress when it was quite clear that the wholesale prices for electricity charged by Enron and others in the west coast marketplace--I only wish we had been more aggressive and we had demanded the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and others to be in there up to their neck in investigating what was going on, but the Congress was late. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was asleep from the neck up. As a result, there was grand theft on the west coast from those markets, particularly by the Enron Corporation. Let us not let that happen with other industries. Again, I do not allege that is the case here. I do not have the foggiest idea what the ingredients are of these pricing strategies, but I would like the Federal Trade Commission, on behalf of the American people, to take a good hard look. So my amendment would provide that be the case 90 days following the enactment of this legislation, and we would then have the benefit of a formal Federal Trade Commission study of gasoline pricing. I think on behalf of the American people, given this time, given these circumstances, we ought to expect that and demand that and that is what I do in this amendment. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like to have considered. My amendment is No. 652, which I have filed and is at the desk.

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. Let me just observe, because the Senator mentioned me, my point of supporting the 60-vote threshold is that is what requires compromise. The very presence of the filibuster is what requires compromise. Otherwise you do not have any incentive to compromise, be it the executive branch relative to the legislative branch. That was not my point. It wasn't that we should find a way to allow the nuclear option to exist without changing the rules of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe, by unanimous consent, I am to be recognized at 2:15 for 15 minutes. I allocate 2\1/2\ minutes of that time to the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me go much longer. I am sorry, for 3 seconds let me thank my colleagues. This is the time to be controlled on our side by consent, if I might read it into the record? My guess is it will go back and forth: Senator Byrd, 20 minutes; Senator Reid, 15 minutes; Senator Salazar, 15 minutes; Senator Corzine, 10 minutes; Senator Obama, 10 minutes, Senator Lieberman, 10 minutes; Senator Leahy, 15 minutes; Senator Durbin, 1 hour, 10 minutes of that to go to Senator Murray; and Senator Feingold, 10 minutes. Let me ask by consent to understand that is the progress on our side, understanding it would be interspersed with Republican speakers.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am told this is within the time that has been granted.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I commend my colleague from Wisconsin. I agree with all he has described. I think this is a really important issue and increased food aid is critically important. So I appreciate him being here. I will speak for a moment about this $82 billion supplemental bill. Most of it is to restore accounts in the U.S. Army and other military installations or military organizations because that money was not in the budget. We had asked last year that it be put in the appropriations process so that it could be considered. We know that we are going to spend money in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the administration, year after year, does not put any money in for these accounts and then comes back with an emergency request later. It is a fiction that is being created. We know this is costing money every single month. I guess the reason to do it on an emergency basis is so that nobody has to pay for it. This is $82 billion not paid for, just emergency, stack it on top of the debt and say to the troops: Go to Iraq, serve your country, do your duty and, by the way, when you come back we will have the debt waiting for you, so you have served in Iraq and you can also come back and pay for the cost of that. That does not make any sense to me. We had a small provision on the issue of government spending when this bill was before the Senate, and I want to talk about it for a moment. It dealt with the appointment of an independent counsel in 1995 that was to investigate the allegation that a Cabinet official lied about payments he had made to his mistress. So an independent counsel was formed 10 years ago. That independent counsel was to investigate Mr. Cisneros, a man who I may have met in 1993 or 1994 and have not seen since. In any event, an independent counsel was appointed to investigate whether he lied about payments he had made to a mistress. Ten years ago, that independent counsel started working and spending money. In 1999, Mr. Cisneros, the subject of the investigation, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. In 2001, 2 years later, the President pardoned him. So 10 years ago the independent counsel was formed, 6 years ago the subject of the investigation pleaded guilty, and 4 years ago the subject of the investigation was pardoned by the President. This independent counsel is still in business and still spending money. In the last 6 months, the independent counsel has spent nearly $1.3 million. I offered an amendment, that the Senate passed, which says, tell them to finish by June and shut down. In fact, 2 years ago, the three-judge panel which supervises this independent counsel told him to wrap it up, and get it done. This independent counsel has now spent $21 million over 10 years, and so we offered an amendment that said, shut it down. The Senate accepted it. It went to conference and it was pulled out. So the independent counsel still spends money. The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial saying this was some nefarious amendment designed to try and protect some information that exists deep in the bowels about some scandal with the Internal Revenue Service--typical political sludge coming from the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Then we have the same sludge offered by Mr. Novak in his column, I believe it was last Thursday, suggesting there is something else going on here. Well, let me just say this: If we have enough money to have independent counsels continuing to be paid 6 years after the subject of their investigation pled guilty, and 4 years after they were pardoned, it is a high-water mark for bad judgment. It is unbelievable. All it describes to me, with respect to Mr. Novak and the folks who believe we should keep spending this money, is that even waste has a constituency, in some cases a very aggressive constituency. We really need to save the taxpayers' money, and this is an unbelievable waste of the taxpayers' money. Let me ask how much time I have remaining.

Mr. DORGAN. Robert Fulghum wrote a book entitled simply, ``All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.'' Many have read that book. Some of it is, of course, wash your hands, share, be nice to others. One, of course, is to tell the truth. That simple kindergarten lesson is lost in some cases and particularly in the media wars that go on over significant issues. I brought to the floor today some advertisements that are being run across the country in support of those who in this Senate Chamber are prepared to exercise what is called a self-described ``nuclear option'' by the majority. What is their nuclear option? Well, they are in kind of a snit. They do not get all of the judges approved--just over 95 percent of the judges sent to us by the President. Now, because not every single judge has been approved by the Senate, the majority party is out of sorts, cranky, upset, and sufficiently so that they and the groups from outside this Chamber have decided what they ought to do is violate the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate. Let me just point out what is happening as they lead up to this so- called nuclear option where they violate the rules of the Senate. They are creating their own fiction. The President, by the Constitution, has the right to nominate Federal judges who will sit for a lifetime on the Federal bench. We have a separate responsibility to advise and consent. The President sends a name down, and we say yes or no. This President, George W. Bush, has sent 218 names of people he wants to serve for a lifetime on the Federal bench. We have approved 208 of them. Because they have not gotten approval for all of them, they have decided they want to violate the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate. Let me give an example of one of the 10, Janice Rogers Brown. Here is what she says, and I am quoting her directly: Senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much free stuff as the political system will permit them to extract. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand what this means. This is somebody whose philosophy believes that there is something inherently wrong with Social Security and Medicare. It is the old folks living off the rest of the country. I do not know, maybe it is a person who does not know senior citizens, has not visited a nursing home, does not understand what it is like to work without very much money, without resources, and wonder what their retirement is going to be like. Do I want this person sitting on the Federal bench? No. Am I pleased that I participated in saying, no, this person should not sit on the Federal bench? One can bet their life I am. There are groups that are advertising in our States, and they are saying this is an attack on people of faith if we do not support these judges, or it is an attack on a minority. Here is a religious organization that is running ads in States: . . . Never before has the political minority hijacked democracy in this way. . . . This religious organization says, in paid political advertising: . . . Senate Democrats have abused the rules . . . Another religious organization states: . . . Never before in history have judges with majority support been denied a vote by the misuse of the filibuster rule. . . . Well, there are Ten Commandments and they can be found in the 20th chapter of Exodus. I suggest to those who throw around this issue of faith, those organizations that call themselves religious organizations and want to buy political ads and then not tell the truth in the ads, that they refer to the 20th chapter of Exodus and the ninth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness. There are Ten Commandments, not nine. Do not skip the ninth when getting involved in this discussion. The least that is owed to the American people is the truth, and it is simply not true that the minority in the Senate has abused the rules, or has hijacked democracy. That is simply not true. The facts are that we have supported 208 of 218 nominees sent to us by this President. The facts are that the 60-vote requirement to get cloture in this Chamber is a requirement that has existed for a long time, and it is a requirement that is healthy for this Chamber. It is protective of the minority, whether it be Republican or Democrat. It is what requires compromise. Compromise is a good thing. There are some in this Chamber who think that no one should ever compromise. If one party runs the White House, the Senate and the House, they ought to have it their way all the time, and if they do not get it their way, they have a right to be angry and to change the rules of the Senate even if they violate the rules to do it. There is a way to change the rules of the Senate. It takes 67 votes. I hope the 67 votes is not in dispute. The majority has concocted a scheme by which with 51 votes they will change or attempt to change the rules of the Senate with something they mislabel as the nuclear option. This is something that disserves the interests of the Senate and the American people. We have very serious problems with health care costs. We have problems with the cost of prescription drugs. We have jobs moving overseas in unlimited quantity. We have trade deficits, the largest in the history of this country. We have serious energy problems, and guess what, we have a majority that has their nose bent out of shape because there are 10 judges out of 218 who somehow did not make it, and that is an affront to a majority that insists that they have it their way all the time. I didn't take Latin because I was in a high school senior class of nine, but I think the term ``totus porcus'' might just best describe what the majority party believes it is due on these issues. They want it all--the whole hog--right now. If they do not get it, they are prepared to go to the ultimate length that they describe as the nuclear option. My hope is that in the coming days, heads will clear, and they will rethink this approach. Both parties will be in the minority at some point. Both parties have been and will be in the future at some point. I believe any majority party, whether it be a Democratic Party or a Republican Party, that decides to break the rules to change the rules will rue the day that happens. I came here because I want to work in a constructive way on public policy. I hope we can continue to do that. But I read the Constitution again and again and understand what it says. It says this Government of ours works when we work together. The 60-vote majority in the Senate I know is nettlesome. I know it gets under people's skin. But it is what has always distinguished this Senate from other bodies. It is what requires compromise. It says to a President--any President, Republican or Democratic President--when you send a name down here for a lifetime appointment to the bench, it ought to be a name that reflects some semblance of compromise; and we have approved 208 of them. One of them I regret we approved. I voted against that one, by the way, a candidate for a lifetime appointment on the court who has written that he believes women are subservient to men. I do not think that person belongs on the bench, but the person made it through here. The fact is, 208 of them are now serving for a lifetime on the Federal bench, which I think is extraordinary cooperation. I believe we have the lowest vacancy rate on the Federal bench that we have had for 15 years or more. It is profoundly disappointing to see what is going on around the country with a massive amount of money going to the television and radio stations, some by religious organizations, neck deep in politics, saying you know what the minority party is doing in the Senate is hijacking democracy and engaging in mischief, abusing the rules and so on and so forth. I again say to them that is, in my judgment, bearing false witness. They ought to know it. Let's have a real debate--a thoughtful debate, not a thoughtless debate--about how we proceed to address the major issues affecting America. Yes, the major issues: health care, trade, jobs, energy--the sort of things that determine what kind of life our kids and grandkids are going to have, what kind of opportunity they are going to have. When they sit around the supper table at night as a family, what are the things people talk about? They talk about, Do I have a good job? Does it pay well? Does it have benefits? Can I care for my family with this income? Do Grandpa and Grandma have access to decent health care? Do we live in a safe neighborhood? Do we breathe air that is quality air and drink healthy water that is not going to injure our health? These are the kinds of things that are important to people. Do we send our kids to schools we are proud of? Yet, are we debating that on the floor of the Senate? No. No, regrettably not. That is not the central set of issues we are debating. We are now debating this so-called nuclear option. Why? Because out of 218 names sent to us by the President asking for a lifetime appointment to the Federal courts, we have approved only 208. We have approved only over 95 percent, and that is a problem for the majority. A majority will not long remain a majority if it does not understand the requirement that all of us have to work together: to compromise, to tell the truth, and to do what is best for this country. Mr. President, let me ask how much time I have remaining.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from New York yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at 2:15 for 15 minutes to discuss the supplemental. Senator Byrd is the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. If he is here and wishes to speak at that time, I will yield the floor to him. In the absence of that, I ask consent.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleagues have often heard me speak on this floor about tribal colleges that provide higher education to the residents of this country's Indian reservations. For over 30 years, these institutions have brought hope and opportunity to thousands of students who otherwise would not have had the chance to seek an education beyond high school. There is a reason why the Nation's tribal colleges consistently manage to achieve more with less than any other educational institutions in the United States--talented and committed leadership. One of those leaders, Dr. Gerald ``Carty'' Monette, has been part of the tribal college movement since its inception. As the president of Turtle Mountain Community College since 1978, he has seen his institution grow from a handful of students gathering in an abandoned convent and a series of trailers in Belcourt, ND, to an enrollment of 650 meeting in a state-of-the-art building in a setting that reflects the sacred grounds of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Dr. Monette's modest and self-effacing manner belies a strong and determined leader who has inspired hundreds of graduates of Turtle Mountain Community College. He had an early understanding of the ... relationship between education, economic development, and community partnerships. As a result, the college today boasts the Center for New Growth that is a regional center for economic development; he wanted the College to have energy independence and today there is a wind and geothermal energy center at the College. Not only has Dr. Monette been a leader at Turtle Mountain, he has been a national leader as one of the founders of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, AIHEC, and has served several terms as presidents of the consortium. AIHEC has been the heart and soul of the tribal college movement and under Dr. Monette's leadership it began an aggressive telecommunications initiative that is enhancing communities throughout Indian country. As Dr. Monette prepares to apply his leadership and vision to other educational pursuits, I wish him and his wife, Dr. Loretta DeLong, a Turtle Mountain Community College graduate, the very best. He has left a lasting legacy for his fellow members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and their children. We join them honoring this exceptional man.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wonder if my colleague, the Senator from North Dakota, would yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I notice on our desks there is something called the conference report. It is what I asked Senator Conrad about earlier today, whether he was aware of what was in the conference report. I guess that was at about noon or 1 o'clock. I believe the Senator responded that he was not aware at that point because he had not seen it. But because this is called a conference report, I would ask the Senator--you are the ranking member on the Budget Committee here in the Senate--were you a part of the conference? Were you a conferee?

Mr. DORGAN. Just to further inquire, you were selected by the Senate to be a conferee to this conference but, in fact, were not invited to the conference; is that the fact?

Mr. DORGAN. Let me ask the question: I asked midday whether you knew what was in this conference report, and I well understand now why you could not know if the conferees on this side of the aisle were not welcomed to the conference. In fact, if the conference was held without participation from the minority party, then I understand this report is produced, in whole, by the majority party. It is a big, thick document stuck on our desks maybe midafternoon or late this afternoon. I was listening to the debate by my colleague, Senator Conrad, and he was talking about deficits and debt. I thought maybe someone would challenge him on his figures. Wouldn't it be the case that it would be hard to challenge your figures because they come from page 4 and page 5 of the budget prepared by the majority party? In fact, what it says on page 4, which is their conference report--a conference they didn't allow the minority to participate in--is that each and every single year, they are going to have massive amounts of deficit spending. And they start with $7.9 trillion of debt on page 4 and end up with $11.1 trillion. Yet they are out here thumbing their suspenders, boasting about how terrific they are at reducing the Federal deficit. Can you show me any place in here where they are reducing the Federal deficit? It looks to me, on page 4 or page 5, they are filling the tub with deficits.

Mr. DORGAN. If I may inquire further, isn't it the case that this budget document is actually a budget document that is wearing makeup? If you take the makeup off this document, what does it look like? Let's assume they put everything in this document that they know is going to happen. Then what does it look like? As bad as it is now, isn't it the case that this becomes a fiscal catastrophe?

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator made a very powerful presentation, as usual. This is an embarrassment--this train wreck of a budget that was brought to the floor of the Senate in a manner that excluded the minority party from participating, in a manner that excluded those who were designated as our conferees from participating, brought to the floor the afternoon it is to be considered. The only thing that trumps the bad numbers here is the bad judgment. A hundred years from now, everybody here will be dead. Historians can look at this and determine what were our priorities, what was important in this country to the policymakers, and how they spent the money. This is an embarrassment, a train wreck. We are going to have a lot of discussion about choices and judgment. That is important, the choices of: What did we decide to invest in? Who got the tax cuts? That is important. But the bad numbers the Senator has spoken about are staggering. I know nobody is going to come to the floor to respond directly to what he has described because there is no response to it. As I conclude, I will say that some while ago somebody told me you don't understand the economic strategy that is employed here: Don't worry about the deficits; spend all this money, and give big tax cuts to upper income folks. Katie bar the door. Don't stare problems directly in the eye; don't deal with them. Let me explain it to you. You take three glasses and one apple. Cut the apple in half and put one-half in the first glass, put the other half of the apple in the second glass, and the third half in the third glass. I said: But there are only 2 halves. He said: You don't understand our economic strategy. I said: No, I sure don't. That is exactly the basis on which they create a strategy. It is a mirage, a total myth. This document pretends to do something it doesn't. It is an embarrassment. The minority was not allowed to come to conference, and the majority that is supposed to represent the conservative movement in the United States has become the biggest spenders in the history of this country and the biggest supporters of Federal debt and deficits we have ever seen. And that is in this document. Do not take it from me, it is not my word, it is in black and white on page 4 and page 5. I am very anxious tonight for somebody to come down here and describe why and how they got to this point and how they justify it. I appreciate the Senator yielding.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains on our side?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, everyone in this country knows what a dangerous intersection is. We all drive and understand the consequences of a dangerous intersection. We are coming to a dangerous intersection in American politics, especially in the Congress: first, by actions that are, on their face, wrong and are harmful to our country; and second, by inaction on matters that cry out for attention--but, again, get none in this Congress and by this administration. We face a different kind of politics than most have experienced before when we see prominent members of the Congress participate in exercises with outside groups who suggest those who are not with them on the issues are people who lack faith, are people who are not people of faith. Those are dangerous grounds to tread on politically. Yet they do it and do it willingly. As I was listening to my colleague, I remembered going to a puppet show my daughter participated in during grade school some years ago. Of course, in a puppet show you see only the puppet; you do not see who is behind the black cloth. There are puppet shows going on here in the Congress, of course, and in the administration. Perhaps today's USA Today tells us a little bit about who is behind the screen. The chief political adviser to the White House, Mr. Karl Rove, says there will be no compromise on this issue of judges. It seems to me, a White House that has said it is not involved in this issue is clearly neck deep in this issue, and perhaps is the one behind the screen in this case. Whether it is on this so-called nuclear option with respect to the vote on the judges in the Senate or the Social Security debate going on regarding whether we should privatize Social Security as recommended by the White House, Mr. Rove has played a very prominent role. To take Social Security for a moment, the memorandum leaked in January from the White House by the chief strategist on this issue, who works for Mr. Rove, said that, for the first time in six decades, we have a chance to win on Social Security. What does that mean? It means they have never liked Social Security. They want to take Social Security apart. That memorandum also said we have to claim there is a crisis and convince people there is a crisis in Social Security. Of course, it is not working because there is not a crisis in Social Security which has been and is an enormously important program, lifting tens of millions of senior citizens out of poverty in this country. The fact is that Social Security will be fully solvent until President George W. Bush is 106 years old. That is hardly a crisis. People are living longer, and we may need to make adjustments in Social Security as we move along, but it does not require major surgery. And, the President's proposal to borrow $5 trillion and then stick it in the stock market and cut Social Security benefits and sit back and hope, is not much of a plan. It is interesting to me that the American people, in poll after poll after poll, are rejecting this. I was at a Social Security forum over the weekend. We did them in several States. A fellow came up to us at the forum and said, I am 88 years old. I am blind, and Social Security is all I have. I think people are very concerned about this notion of sticking this money in private accounts and just hoping, after you have borrowed trillions, hoping somehow things will be better. Whether it is Social Security and private accounts and the attempt to take the Social Security system apart or this issue of the nuclear option because the majority party and the President have gotten only 95 percent of the Federal judges they want, these intersections are dangerous. Let me describe the danger of the intersection with respect to the so-called nuclear option. The Constitution of the United States is clear about judges. In fact, originally when they put this Constitution together, they felt perhaps they would have the Senate or the Congress appoint judges. Instead, there is a two-step process. The President decides who shall be nominated to the Senate for a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench to the Federal courts and then the Senate decides whether they will support that nomination. It is called advice and consent. This President, President Bush, has sent the Senate 215 nominees to serve for a lifetime on the Federal court. We have supported 205 of them. That is 95 percent. But that is not enough. The President and the majority party say we want it all. I remember people like that on the playground when I was in school. They want it all. If they do not get it all, they are going to take their bat and ball and go home. In this case, if they do not get it all, they will violate the Senate rules in order to change the Senate rules. How will they violate the rules? They will overturn precedent in the Senate in terms of how the rules are changed. It takes 67 votes to change the rules of the Senate. The so-called nuclear option devised by the majority party is a strategy by which they will overturn the ruling of the Parliamentarian that the rules are being violated, and by a majority vote, overturn the rule and effectively change the rules of the Senate by violating the rules of the Senate. Some people do not care about that. That is fine. If you care a lot about the future of this country, if you care a lot about democracy, if you care about making a democratic government work by compromise, you ought to care a lot about this. It is arrogant. It reflects the feeling of a party that controls the White House, the House, and the Senate, that they must get their way on everything. The reason a 60-vote requirement--that is, a filibuster--is useful to the workings of democracy is because it requires compromise. It requires Members to reach a threshold of 60 votes in the Senate, which requires you to reach across the aisle and talk to people of the other party. That is a good thing, not a bad thing. Compromise is a good thing. Bipartisanship is a good thing, not a bad thing. We have people now who look at it as something that is awful. We want to take a partisan group that has 51 votes and is muscle-bound--it is politics on steroids--and ram it through the Congress and violate the rules in order to change the rules. It is not what this country should expect from the Congress. Here is today's paper: ``Filibuster Rule Change Opposed.'' It is interesting that there is a broad center of common sense. There always has been. Over two centuries, this country's political system moves one direction and then the other direction. But there is a strong magnetic pull back to the center. That magnetic pull comes from a reservoir of common sense all across this country of people who basically know what is the right thing. They know from their school days, from their civic organizations, they know from their everyday lives you do not violate the rules to change rules. We have certain rules. You do not violate rules to change rules. People know that inherently, and they also know the consequences of one-party rule that says it is our way and that is the only way and we refuse to compromise on anything. For that reason, it is quite clear that two-thirds of the American people have that reservoir of common sense and are expressing it. I hope the majority party will listen. I especially hope Mr. Rove and the White House, who says there will be no compromise, will understand that compromise is what makes this Senate work. In the McCullough book about John Adams, as I told my colleagues previously, he would write to Abigail--because John Adams was in Europe, representing our country in England and France as they tried to put this new country together--he would write to his wife, Abigail, and ask the question, plaintively: Who will be the leaders? Who will emerge as the leaders to help form this new country of ours? From where will the leadership come? And then in the next letter to Abigail, he would ask the question in different ways again: Who will be the leaders? Then he would say: It appears there is only us. There is me, there is George Washington, there is Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Mason, Madison. In the rearview mirror of history, the only ``us'' is some of the greatest human talent that has ever been assembled that created quite a remarkable country. For 2 centuries, Americans have asked the same question: From where will the leadership come? How will the leadership emerge to steer this country and provide direction for this great democracy of ours? In almost every case, the American people have been surprised by those who step forward. We have been enormously blessed by wonderful leaders--Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals--leaders who step forward at the right time, at the right moment, to say: Here is where America needs to move. Here is how we need to improve and strengthen this great democracy of ours. I ask again, and I think America asks again, with the backdrop of these questions, violating the Senate rules to change Senate rules, taking apart the most successful program we have had in this country's history, the Social Security Program, the American people are asking, as they answer these polls: Where is the leadership? Where will the leadership come from to put this country on track? We do have crisis. It is not Social Security. We have a bona fide crisis in health care. Prescription drug costs, health care costs are going straight up, and no one is doing anything about it. We have a crisis in jobs. We have the biggest trade deficit in human history, and we are choking on it. We have massive numbers of American jobs moving every single day overseas. It is an epidemic because American workers are being told by their multinational employers: You either compete with 30-cent labor from China or we are sorry, it is over for you. That job goes to China for 30 cents an hour, working 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, often kids. We have an epidemic in jobs and trade. We have a serious problem with the largest budget deficits in the history of this country. Yes, that is a crisis. Last week, we passed an $80 billion emergency supplemental bill to pay for the costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and not one penny was paid for. The administration that requested it did not suggest it be paid for. Congress did not suggest it be paid for. Just add it to the debt. Send the soldiers to Iraq and bring them back later and have them pay for the debt. So, yes, we have some crises. Health care, jobs, trade deficit, fiscal policy, energy. Drive to the gas pumps and ask yourself whether there is a problem there. And then we have the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia going to Texas yesterday to explain how much additional oil they will pump in order to help us with our energy problem. Sixty percent of our oil comes from off our shores, much of it from troubled parts of the world--Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, Kuwait. If, God forbid, tomorrow the pipeline for sending oil to this country from those troubled parts of the world were ruptured, this country's economy would be flat on its back. We are held hostage by oil from off our shores to the extent we have to have the Saudis come to Texas, to the ranch, to explain to us how they are going to help us solve our problems. The fact is, we do have crises. The operative question is, Where is the leadership? Where is the leadership? Where will it come from to deal with these issues? No, I am not talking about the nuclear option. That is a specious approach, one that will injure this Senate and injure this country. I am not talking about taking Social Security apart--exactly the wrong thing. I am talking about the leadership for things that really matter to American families. When people are in their homes, sitting at their tables, having supper, they talk about issues such as: Do I have a good job? Does it pay well? Do I have job security? Do grandpa and grandma have access to good health care? How about the kids, do they have access to doctors when they need it? Are our kids going to a school we are proud of? Do we live in safe neighborhoods? Those are things that are operative in the midst of families' interests about this country and where they live. I hope very much the majority party will understand what the American people are telling them: Lay off the nuclear option. Accept that 95- percent support for judges nominated by this President, which is a pretty good record. Ninety-five percent, that is a good record. Accept and understand there is an opposition party. They, too, have rights. And accept and understand that compromise is not a bad word. Compromise recognizes that this democracy works when you have bipartisanship, when you reach across the aisle. That is what the 60-vote margin requires us to do, in my judgment. And answer the question, Where is the leadership? Just answer that question, Where is the leadership on issues that matter to American families? My hope is, in the coming days we will see some of that leadership both here in the Congress and also from this administration. Last, and most importantly, let's not ever hear again that those with whom you disagree are not people of faith. What a shameless thing to be doing, to suggest that your political opponents are people who are not people of faith. This country is better than that. Political debate and dialog can be better than that. And the American people expect and deserve better. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first of all, I am really pleased we finally have the highway bill on the floor. I appreciate the leadership of the chairman and the ranking member. This is an authorization that is, I think, 2\1/2\ years old or so. Many of us have been frustrated. I know the chairman and Senator Jeffords have been frustrated that we have not been able to finish this work. I hope we can finish this bill and move it through the Senate. I wanted to comment about another couple of issues. I am worried about the way things develop here in the Senate. We treat serious things too lightly; we treat light things too seriously. We have, it seems to me, the framework for a huge brawl in the Senate over procedure, and there are so many challenges facing our country that this President and this Congress are not looking in the eye with the thought of responding directly to them. I will mention a few of them today. Politics, regrettably, in recent times has become a sport in which one side trashes the other side, and it is either our way, or no way, or the highway. Now, we have a circumstance where we are facing serious challenges: we face fiscal policies that are off the rail, the largest budget deficits in history; we face the largest trade deficit in history, with massive numbers of American jobs being shipped overseas; we face energy problems that are causing severe pain and dislocation, and everybody knows what the price of gasoline is these days; we struggle with health care costs that are skyrocketing; and all of these issues are hard for families to deal with. And yet, despite these issues, we are confronted by the prospect of a majority that doesn't like the current rules with respect to judgeships, so they will try to break the rules of the Senate, for the first time in history, in order to change the rules because we have approved only 205 out of 215 judges sent to us by the President--again, we have approved 97 percent of all of the judges sent to us by the President for lifetime appointments on the bench. But because there are 10 that have not been approved, the President and the majority party believe they want to break the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate. There are so many other important things we ought to deal with. It is just Byzantine that this issue is what we are fighting about. There is a constitutional role for the Congress--particularly the Senate--with respect to judgeships. The President proposes, and we advise and consent. There is nothing in the Constitution that says we cannot use the rules of the Senate for those few judges we believe are inappropriate, those few we think represent the extreme and should not be on the bench for a lifetime. Yet, because, again, 3 percent of the judges have not been approved, while 97 percent have, we have the prospect of what is commonly called the ``nuclear'' option of trying to change the Senate rules by breaking the Senate rules. I will tell you what I think we should be working on. First, health care costs. The fact is, when most families sit around their supper table and talk about their lives, they are talking about things that relate to their everyday existence: Do I have a good job? Does it pay well? Do I have job security? Do grandpa and grandma have access to good health care? Are we sending our kids to good schools? Do we live in a safe neighborhood? These issues affect the daily lives of the American people. Health care is not an option. When you are sick, you need health care. We have 45 million people without health insurance. We have the cost of health care skyrocketing. It is rising at a much more rapid pace than inflation. The cost of prescription drugs is going out of sight. Yet, is this Congress tackling health care issues? No, we are not. Will we allow legislation on the floor of the Senate that would provide for the safe reimportation of prescription drugs to put downward pressure on prescription drugs? No. Will we allow the Federal Government to negotiate lower prices with the pharmaceutical companies like the VA? Will we allow that negotiation for the Medicare Program? No. In fact, this Congress explicitly says you may not do that. It is unbelievable. We have these huge health care challenges, but we will not look that issue in the eye. Our budget deficits are the largest in the history of our country. We just passed an $80 billion emergency bill last week. We knew for 2 years that is what it would cost--$5 billion, $6 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan--and there was zero in the President's budget request for it. So they proposed spending it on an emergency basis. Nobody talks about raising money for it; just spend it. In fact, I have raised questions about how it is being spent--and I offered an amendment saying we are being stolen blind with respect to contractors in Iraq--to wit, Halliburton. Halliburton is charging us for 42,000 meals a day served to U.S. soldiers, when it turns out they are serving only 14,000 meals a day. In my hometown, they have a word for that sort of thing. I asked for an investigation into this kind of waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting. It is massive. But you cannot get a committee to investigate that. The Congress doesn't want to have a select committee to investigate that. So it is just throwing the money out the door in hopes that some of it will stick. In fact, there is massive waste, fraud, and abuse and everybody knows it. But nobody wants to confront it. Education. We have a serious problem with education in this country. There are 400,000 qualified high-school kids that will not go to college this year because of financial burdens, and another 220,000 kids won't go to college because they simply cannot afford it. You have well over a half-million qualified kids who will not be going to college who should be in college. We know college tuition has risen 28 percent, after inflation, in the last 4 years. We have not considered the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. We extended it, but that should have been reauthorized several years ago. It is set to expire. The President's budget would eliminate the Perkins student loan program, Upward Bound, and a series of other programs that I think are very important. Pell grants have largely been stagnant in terms of their level, while tuition has gone way out of sight. We don't look energy right in the eye, although I must say there is hope here. I met with Senators Domenici and Bingaman. I am a senior member on the Energy Committee, and I hope we can bring a bill to the floor of the Senate. That is a bipartisan bill. Go to the gas pump these days, and then read in the paper after you paid for that gas, that Exxon reported the highest profit ever reported for one quarter by any corporation. Think of that. We have a revenue- sharing system by which the American taxpayer, the American consumer shares their money with the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, the Venezuelans, and others who have the oil, and then the oil companies that are the conduit for that oil are making record profits as well. If anything demands an investigation, it is that, in my judgment. We need an energy policy that does not hold this country hostage to oil, 60 percent of which comes from off our shores. These are a few of the issues we ought to stare straight in the eye, and those of us who are not part of the political extreme--and there are too many these days who are perverting the political process in this country, I think a shameful perversion of the political process in many ways--but I hope those of us who are part of the strong political center in America will finally convince this administration and this Congress to take a hard look at the real challenges our country faces and then begin the long, challenging work to try to address them. This is a great place. We are lucky to be here, lucky to be alive now. There is no place like it on Earth. It is our job as caretakers of this wonderful democracy to fix problems as we see them, to address problems, not to go off on these political searches to figure out who is the worst. The question is not who is the worst in the political system of ours, the question is whose ideas are the best that can move this country forward and give our country and our children the prospect for a better and brighter future. I have much more to say, but because of time constraints today, I will leave it at that and say I hope as these weeks unfold we will begin to address the substance of the real challenges facing our country--Federal budget deficits, trade deficits, health care, education, energy, and other issues--all of which have a significant impact on the way we live in the country and all of which will have a significant impact on America's future. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.