Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Harkin has shown great leadership in the effort to create a hydrogen fuel-cell economy and I welcome his support and look forward to working with him and other cosponsors as we move this legislation forward.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last week I introduced legislation in the Senate dealing with a critically important subject. I am proud to say that the Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, joined me as cosponsor of this legislation. It deals particularly with the murder of young women in this country by sexual predators. We all know the story recently about the murder of Jessica Lunsford. Jessica Lunsford was a 9-year-old young girl abducted in February from the bedroom of her home in Florida. Her body was found a month later. The crime was allegedly committed by a 46-year-old convicted sex offender with a 30-year criminal history. More recently, we all remember the April 9 abduction of Sarah Michelle Lunde from her family's mobile home south of Tampa, FL. A convicted sex offender who had once had a relationship with the girl's mother has now confessed to killing her. In March, Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids, IA, was abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered. A convicted sex offender on Iowa's sex offender registry was charged with that crime and arrested for that crime. In August of last year, a 6-year-old Nebraska girl whose name has been withheld was sexually assaulted by a 39-year-old convicted sex offender. We all remember the case of Polly Klaas, the 12-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered by a previously diagnosed sex offender. There was a young woman in my State named Dru Sjodin who was murdered in late 2003. Walking out of the shopping center into a parking lot about 5 in the afternoon, she apparently was abducted by a formerly convicted sex offender who has now been charged with this crime. Dru Sjodin was a wonderful young woman. She was, as has been the case with these other circumstances, the innocent victim of a sex offender. Alfonso Rodriguez has been charged in her case. Alfonso Rodriguez served 23 years in prison as a violent sexual predator. He was deemed by prison officials to be a high-risk offender who would reoffend when released. He was nonetheless released from prison, and within 6 months he allegedly murdered Dru Sjodin. I have introduced a law called ``Dru's Law.'' It is supported by Mr. Lunsford, Mr. Klaas, and so many other families who have been visited by these tragedies. Dru's Law does three things. First, it says there should be a national registry of convicted sex offenders. There is not one now. There are State registries but not a national registry. Many Americans live near a State border. If they check their State registry of who the violent sex offenders are in their region, they will find out who is in their State but not who is 5 or 20 miles away across the border. There should be a national registry of convicted sex offenders, No. 1. No. 2, if a high-risk sex offender is about to be released from prison and if that person is deemed to be at high risk for committing another violent offense, the local State's attorneys must be notified that this high-risk sex offender is about to be released so they can seek further civil commitment if they believe it appropriate. No. 3, if, in fact, a high-risk sex offender is released from prison and there is no further civil commitment, there must be monitoring of that sex offender upon release. There cannot be at the prison door a wave and say: So long, you served your 23 years, have a good life. There must be high-level monitoring. It is unbelievable to me that we know the names of these people who are committing these murders because they have been behind bars and they are released despite the fact that psychiatrists, psychologists, and others judge them to be at high risk for reoffending. I don't want to see the list of victims, which includes Dru Sjodin, Polly Klaas, Jessica Lunsford, and Sarah Lunde, get longer. We can do something about this. We can pass this legislation. Incidentally, this legislation which I reintroduced now with Arlen Specter was passed by unanimous consent last year. We did not get it through the House, but I have now reintroduced it. I am going to try again, and I hope this time that this legislation gets to the President's desk for signature. It is long past the time that we do what is necessary to save lives. We ought not any longer accept the status quo. Violent sexual predators need to be identified, need to be on a national registry, and need to be either recommitted, if they are at high risk for reoffending, or there needs to be high-level monitoring when they are released. That is simply the case. How much time have I consumed?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on another subject, this morning I read some very troubling comments by a member of the House leadership, on the subject of judges. I normally would not comment about remarks made by a member of the House, but we face in the Senate the prospect of what some are calling the nuclear option. This relates to an attempt by an arrogant majority to violate the rules of the Senate, in order to change the rules with respect to the confirmation of judicial nominations. Because of the real possibility that this so-called nuclear option will be exercised, I wish to react to some of these things that have been said about judges. Judges serve for a lifetime. There are two steps to put a judge on the bench for a lifetime. One, the President must nominate. Second, the Senate advises and consents. In other words, the Senate decides whether it agrees a judge is fit for service for a lifetime. It is not unusual for the Senate to decide that a judicial nominee by a President should not go forward. In fact, that happened to America's first President, George Washington. He lost one of his judicial nominations. The Senate has approved 205 out of 215 Federal judicial nominations sent to us by President Bush. Because we have only approved 205 out of 215, which is 95 percent-plus, because there are a few who we have selected who we would not want to confirm, there are those who speak of changing the Senate rules, and to do so by violating the Senate rules. That is called the nuclear option. What is the origin of all of this? Some of it has been described in stark terms by colleagues in the Congress. It is that they would like to define what good behavior means for judges. They do not agree with some judicial rulings, so they want to impeach Supreme Court Justices. They must have missed that course in high school and college that talked about checks and balances, as well as the course that talked about separation of powers. Some in the Congress believe the judiciary ought to report to them and believe America's judiciary ought to conform to their interests, to their notions, of how to read our Constitution. It reminds me again that there is a very big difference between an open mind and an empty head when I hear people talking about how we must find ways to get the Federal judiciary to bend to the will of the Congress. That is exactly what our Framers did not intend to have happen. Let me say again, we have confirmed 205 of 215 requested lifetime appointments to the Federal bench offered to us by this President. That is an incredibly good record. But because 10 have not been confirmed-- because this Congress has decided not to be a rubberstamp for lifetime appointments on the Federal bench--we have some who have decided they want to break the Senate rules in order to change the Senate rules. I read in today's papers we have others who are deciding they would like to take a crack at impeaching Federal judges and bend the Federal judiciary to the will of the majority here in the Congress. I think it is arrogant and I think it is dangerous and I think most of the American people would believe the same. I hope, as we proceed in the coming days, there will be some sober reflection among those who understand the roles of those in this institution and the judiciary, who understand the separation of powers, and who understand checks and balances. If that is the case, those who now talk about the so-called nuclear option will rethink their position. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I rise today to describe S. 792, a bipartisan piece of legislation called ``Dru's Law,'' which I introduced in the Senate yesterday. This bill seeks to fill some gaping holes in our criminal justice system, made tragically evident by a recent tragedy in North Dakota. In November 2003, Dru Sjodin, a student at the University of North Dakota, was abducted in the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall. She was found in a ditch in Minnesota some 6 months later. A suspect was eventually arrested and is awaiting trial. There is abundant evidence that he was responsible for Dru's abduction. The alleged assailant, Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., had been released from prison only 6 months earlier, having served a 23-year sentence for rape in Minnesota. And what's more, Minnesota authorities had known that he was at high risk of committing another sexual assault if released. The Minnesota Department of Corrections had rated Rodriguez as a ``type 3'' offender--meaning that he was at the highest risk for reoffending. In an evaluation conducted in January 2003, a prison psychiatrist wrote that Rodriguez had demonstrated ``a willingness to use substantial force, including the use of a weapon, in order to gain compliance from his victims.'' Despite this determination, the Minnesota Department of Corrections released Rodriguez in May 2003, and essentially washed its hands of the case. Since Rodriguez had served the full term of his sentence, the Department of Corrections imposed no further supervision on him at all. The Minnesota Department of Corrections could have recommended that the State Attorney General seek what is known as a ``civil commitment.'' Under this procedure, a State court would have required Rodriguez to be confined as long as he posed a sufficient threat to the public, even if he had served his original sentence. But the State Attorney General was never notified that Rodriguez was getting out, and there was no chance for the Minnesota courts to consider the case. So upon his release, Mr. Rodriguez went to live in Crookston, MN, completely unsupervised, a short distance from the Grand Forks shopping mall where Dru Sjodin was abducted. To make matters worse, while Mr. Rodriguez registered as a sex offender in Minnesota, there was no indication of his release for nearby North Dakota communities. I suspect that most Americans would be surprised to learn that there is currently no national sex offender registry available to the public. So sex offender registries currently stop at State lines. Each State has its own sex offender registry, which tracks only its own residents. For all intents and purposes, Rodriguez was free to prey on nearby communities in North Dakota, without fear of recognition. This situation is simply unacceptable. We must do better. A recent study found that 72 percent of ``highest risk'' sexual offenders reoffend within 6 years of being released. And the Bureau of Justice Statistics has determined that sex offenders released from prison are over ten times more likely to be arrested for a sexual crime than individuals who have no record of sexual assault. We cannot just release such individuals with no supervision whatsoever, and let them prey upon an unsuspecting public. Today, I am reintroducing legislation that will hopefully help to prevent such breakdowns in our criminal justice system, and that will give our citizens the tools to better protect themselves from sexual offenders. This bill is cosponsored by Senator Specter, the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It also has a growing list of bipartisan cosponsors, which currently includes Senators Conrad, Dayton, Coleman, Lugar, Johnson, and Durbin. The bill does the following three things: First, it requires the Justice Department to create a national sex offender database accessible to the public through the Internet--with data drawn from the FBI's existing National Sex Offender Registry. This public website would allow users to specify a search radius across State lines, providing much more complete information on nearby sex offenders. Second, it requires State prisons to notify States attorneys whenever ``high risk'' offenders are about to be released, so that States attorneys can consider petitioning the courts for continued confinement of the offender. The ``civil commitment'' option is available under the law in many States, if an individual is deemed a continuing threat to the public safety. In the Dru Sjodin case, prison officials did not alert the States attorney of Rodriguez' impending release. If they had done so, this tragedy might have been avoided. Third, it requires states to monitor ``high-risk'' offenders who are released after serving their full sentence--and are otherwise not subject to probation or other supervision--for a period of no less than 1 year. The cost of these steps would be shared by the Federal Government and the States. The Federal Government would bear the cost of maintaining the national sex offender registry, and the States would bear the cost of supervising high risk offenders upon their release from prison. To ensure compliance with these measures, the legislation would reduce Federal funding for prison construction by 25 percent for those States that did not comply, and would reallocate such funds to States that do comply with those provisions. This will be the ``stick'' that some States may need to ensure that they comply with these important protections. I should note that this identical legislation was passed in the Senate toward the conclusion of the 108th Congress. It passed by unanimous consent, with the support of Senator Hatch, who was then the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and also with the support of Senator Leahy, who was--and remains--the ranking member of the committee. Regrettably, the House of Representatives did not act on Dru's Law before adjourning in the last Congress, and so we must start the legislative process on this bill again in the 109th Congress. But I am committed to getting this done, and I expect that the House will pass Dru's Law in this Congress. Our thoughts and prayers go to Dru Sjodin's family. I cannot guarantee that that passage of the legislation we are introducing today will prevent such tragedies from ever occurring again. But I believe that it will be a significant step toward making our neighborhoods safer for our loved ones. In recent weeks, we have had some very sad reminders of the need for such legislation. In February, 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was abducted and murdered in Florida by a previously convicted sexual offender. The offender fled across State lines to Georgia, where he was apprehended. He has now confessed to this brutal crime. Had he not been arrested, he might well have offended again. This was, again, a reminder that while sex offender registries currently stop at State lines, sex offenders do not. Mark Lunsford, Jessica's father, has written in strong support of this bill. I look forward to working with my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, to secure passage of this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to make a couple of comments today on some very important issues we will face in the days ahead. We have the supplemental appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate asking for just over $80 billion for the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of it is to replenish military accounts. A number of amendments have been offered. Immigration amendments are now pending. I intend to offer a couple of amendments as well. I will describe one of those amendments this morning. It deals with the establishment of a special committee of the Senate, modeled after the Truman Commission, to investigate the waste, fraud, and abuse that is happening with respect to contracting in Iraq. I also wish to address another amendment I will offer, that would shut down the investigation that has been going on now 10 years by Mr. Barrett, an independent counsel. He started in 1995 to investigate allegations against Henry Cisneros, who was a Cabinet Secretary, allegations that he had given payments to a former mistress and then lied about it. That independent counsel investigation started in 1995 and has been going on ever since. But Mr. Cisneros pled guilty in 1999. And he was pardoned in 2001 by a Presidential pardon. Yet here it is 2005 and the independent counsel is still spending money, $1.3 million, I believe, for the previous 6 months. I believe it is time for this Congress to say stop, enough is enough. Stop wasting the taxpayers money. What on Earth could you be thinking about? Four years after the person was pardoned and 7 years after the person pled guilty, the independent counsel is still spending money? If ever there were an example of Government waste and lack of common sense, this is it. I also wish to mention briefly this country's trade deficit. I wanted to come to the floor the day before yesterday, but I was not able to do that. There was a small announcement the day before yesterday that in February our trade deficit was $61 billion in 1 month. This is an example of what is happening to this country's trade deficits: We are choking on red ink. This is serious. It is a crisis, and nobody seems to care. The White House is snoring its way through this issue. The Congress is sleeping through it. Nobody gives a rip about this at all. Nearly $2 billion a day is the amount we purchase from abroad from other countries in goods and services in excess of the amount we sell to them. That means every single day foreign countries and foreign investors own $2 billion more of our country, claims against our country, stocks, bonds, assets, or real estate. This is a crisis that will have a profound impact on future economic growth in this country. It will have a profound impact, and does, on the wholesale export of American jobs all across the world. Yesterday, I read a piece that General Motors called in its subcontractors and said: You need to start moving your jobs to China to be more competitive. Evidence is all around us that this trade strategy we have is unsound. It does not work. It injures our country. It is hollowing out our manufacturing sector, and it is moving American jobs overseas. This country had better take notice. This Congress had better sit up and start caring about this, and this President had better start parking Air Force One and providing some leadership on things that are a crisis. No, Social Security is not in crisis. Social Security will be fully solvent until George Bush is 106 years old. That is hardly a crisis. But the announcement that in February of this year we had a $61 billion 1-month trade deficit ought to provoke this White House and this Congress, Republicans and Democrats, to take action in support of this country's economic interests for a change. What do we hear about trade? We do not hear anybody wanting to do anything about this, and I will speak later on about what we should do in some detail. What we hear is we want another trade agreement to be passed by the Congress called the Central American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA. To me, it is an acronym that means careless and foolish trade agreement. Along with my colleague from Georgia, Senator Lindsey Graham, we are going to lead the opposition, and I hope we can round up the votes in this Congress to defeat this trade agreement. The message ought to be to those folks who are negotiating these agreements and then sending them to Congress under fast track, please fix some of the problems that have been created in past trade agreements before negotiating new ones and before asking the Congress to approve new ones. Fix a few of the problems that have been created. Do my colleagues think this is not a problem? This comes from NAFTA. This comes from GATT. This comes from all of the distant cousins of the trade agreements that we brought to the Senate floor, almost all of which I have voted against, because I believe they pull the rug out from under the interests of this country. They pull the rug out from under our workers and our businesses. So I hope very much that we can finally get someone's attention. If $61 billion a month in trade deficits is not a wake-up call that gets someone's attention, my guess is they are permanently asleep. Now, I wish to speak about the issue of contracting in Iraq. There is massive waste, fraud, and abuse going on in contracting in Iraq, as is the case in many circumstances where a lot of money is being poured out to prosecute a war. If one does not watch carefully, people are going to fleece the taxpayers, and that is what is happening. Nobody seems to care about that, either. We cannot get aggressive hearings in the Congress about oversight. Why is that? I do not know. So as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, we have held four hearings on these abuses. In a moment, I will read a few newspaper headlines about this waste, and yes, these headlines mention the word Halliburton, and I know that when the word Halliburton is mentioned people think, okay, now this is political, it is partisan, now we are going after Vice President Cheney because he used to head that corporation. This has nothing to do with Vice President Cheney. He has been long gone from Halliburton. This has nothing to do with the Vice President, nothing to do with partisan politics. It has everything to do with the American taxpayers being cheated. So to the extent that Halliburton is in these headlines, it is because they were given very large sole-source contracts without any competitive bidding. Billions of dollars have gone into the pockets of Halliburton and here is the result, with a substantial lack of oversight. First, let me describe this picture. This does not deal with Halliburton, by the way. This deals with a company called Custer Battles, two guys named Custer and Battles. This picture shows $2 million in cash wrapped in Saran wrap. This fellow, incidentally, was the guy who was turning over the $2 million because the company that was owed the $2 million showed up with a bag. Why did they show up with a bag to collect cash wrapped in Saran wrap? Because they were told in Iraq: When you are contracting, bring a bag, you are going to get cash, by the bagful. Now, these people got a lot of cash. This is their first $2 million. They have been accused of substantial fraud. Doing security at airports, they allegedly confiscated the forklift trucks, took them off the airport property, repainted them, and then sold them back to the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was the U.S. taxpayer. So here is the first delivery of $2 million in cash in a bag to a company that is now widely accused of fraud. Now, here are some of the stories of waste that I mentioned, involving Halliburton. I will read some of these headlines. This was a former Halliburton employee who testified before our committee: ``Halliburton Manipulated Purchase Orders to Avoid Oversight''--that is a newspaper headline. For purchase orders under $2,500 buyers only needed to solicit one quote from a vendor. To avoid competitive bidding, requisitions were quoted individually and later combined into the $2,500 and more. They were told to do that in order to cheat. In fact, this particular guy held up a towel, and he said: This was a towel we were supposed to order because we were buying towels for U.S. soldiers. They paid nearly double the price for the towels because instead of ordering the towel that was the plain towel, they ordered one embroidered with their company's logo on it so the American taxpayer could pay nearly double. ``Halliburton Discouraged Full Disclosure to Auditors.'' ``Halliburton Overcharged for Oil.'' This is from the fellow who used to run the portion of the Defense Department that would purchase oil, yes, even in areas where we were at war, and he said: During my tenure at the Defense Department, we were occasionally forced to pay sole- source prices in some locations, but not even in remote central Asia did we pay close to a gallon for jet fuel of what Halliburton was charging in Iraq. He said that overcharging for oil was simply out of control. This is a former Defense Department official. By the way, Halliburton ordered 25 tons of nails--that is 50,000 pounds of nails. Do my colleagues know where they are today? They are laying in the sand of Iraq because they came in the wrong size. Somebody made a mistake on the order. If someone wants 50,000 pounds of nails, they are laying in the sands of Iraq someplace. The American taxpayer paid for them, and Halliburton got reimbursed for it. We had testimony of people driving $85,000 trucks in Iraq, and those trucks were abandoned just because they had a flat tire or because they had a clogged fuel pump. They were abandoned and torched, and they went and bought new trucks. So much for oversight. Nobody cares because it is a war and because there are sole-source contracts. These are pieces of testimony from whistleblowers, from former employees, who said: Here is what is going on. The truck piece was from a truckdriver in Iraq who worked for Halliburton. It is just unbelievable when one listens to what is happening: Bags of cash, billions of dollars. We say we are going to put air- conditioning in a building near Baghdad, and so our contractor hires a subcontractor, who hires a couple of workers, and we get charged for air-conditioning and they put in a ceiling fan that does not work. Does anybody care? Can we get anybody in this Congress, any committee, to hold oversight hearings to care about the massive fraud, waste, and abuse? Not on one's life, not a chance. God forbid that we should be critical of anything that is going on around here, despite the fact that the American taxpayer is getting fleeced wholesale. I offered an amendment in the Appropriations Committee that would have set up a Truman-style investigating committee. Senator Harry Truman from Missouri, at a time when there was a Democrat in the White House, decided there was substantial abuse by contractors at the start of World War II, and he persuaded a Democratic Congress to set up an investigative committee. Yes, a Democratic Congress and a Democrat in the White House set up an investigative committee, and they saved a massive amount of money by uncovering a dramatic amount of fraud and waste. Now we have one party control, and nobody wants to embarrass anyone else, so they do not look at anything. It is see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Meanwhile, the American taxpayers are completely getting fleeced by massive waste, fraud, and abuse. We have done four hearings. I mentioned Halliburton, but I also can mention Custer Battles. I can mention other companies. Obviously, Halliburton is the poster child because they received giant contracts without bidding, and then we see that they are charging the American taxpayer to feed 42,000 soldiers a day when, in fact, they are only feeding 14,000 soldiers a day. So they are charging us for 28,000 meals that are not served. Fraud? I would think so. But what happens these days? First, it does not even get investigated. If it does get investigated, they get a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back with another contract. This Congress needs to start facing up to these issues and getting tough. No, this is not partisan. If we are going to shove $81 billion out the door in a supplemental defense funding bill, should we not, along with it, provide the appropriate approach to investigate these? That is what my amendment will do. I offered my amendment in the Appropriations Committee. It was turned down on a partisan vote, regrettably. This is not a partisan amendment. My hope is that perhaps I will see a different result on the Senate floor. How much time remains on our 30 minutes?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Connecticut is going to be coming over to claim parts of our 30 minutes, but the time is running. I see the Senator from Kentucky is on the floor. I know that by previous consent we have established 30 minutes on our side followed by 30 minutes on the other side. At this point, I will relinquish the floor if I could ask that we would reserve the remaining time for Senator Lieberman from Connecticut because he is not here. If the other side would like to continue to take some of their time and then provided that when Senator Lieberman comes, he would have reserved the additional 15\1/2\ minutes? I will make that a unanimous consent request and see if the Senator from Kentucky would agree to that.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. My colleague from Connecticut is here. Let me take a couple of minutes and then yield to my colleague for the remaining time. I must confess, it is hard sometimes to listen on the floor of the Senate without a big broad smile at the irony of this debate. Restoring the normal traditions of the Senate? There is a debate going on in the Senate, but that is not what it is about. This is about changing the rules in the middle of a game because one party in control doesn't get everything they want on every issue all the time. We have confirmed 205 judges for this President and opposed the confirmation of only 10 of them. Because of that, the other side has an apoplectic seizure and decides they want to turn this Senate into the House, where there is no unlimited debate and one party can treat the other party like a piece of furniture they can sit on. The Framers of this Constitution did not consider the Senate should be a compliant body during one-party rule. The minority has rights. One of those rights is unlimited debate. I think it is very interesting to hear on the floor of the Senate how generously the Republicans treated nominees under the Presidency of President Clinton, when they--in 50 cases of people who were notified by the President they were nominated for a lifetime appointment on the Federal court--did not even have the courtesy of giving them 1 day of hearings. Not even a day of hearings. They didn't get to see the light of day in this Congress, let alone a filibuster. What a shameful thing to do to someone to whom the President says, I am going to nominate you for a lifetime appointment on the court. They didn't give them 1 day of hearings. Now they complain because we approved 204 and didn't approve 10. Now they complain the President didn't get every single judgeship he wanted. Have they ever heard of the words ``checks and balances''? Did they take a course at least in high school to understand what it means? No. If this nuclear option, as it is called in this town, is employed by the majority party, with an arrogance that I have never seen in the years I have served in the Congress--if they do that, they will rue the day because they, one day, will be in the minority and they, one day, will wonder what on Earth did we do, to eliminate the unlimited debate provision in the United States Senate that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson said represents the cooling of the passions in this country, represents the one location of reasoned debate in this Government of ours. I hear all these discussions about how this is about traditions and norms. Nothing could be further from the truth. What the majority is trying to do is change the rules of the Senate because the minority didn't approve 10 out of 215 judges. What an arrogant attitude and what damage they will do to this institution if they employ a tactic to change the rules at this point and turn this Senate into another House of Representatives. They will have done damage for the long term and damage I believe they themselves will regret because one day they, too, will be in the minority. Then they will again understand what this Constitution provides with respect to minority rights. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I rise in support of the Byrd amendment. This amendment is important. It is offered at an important time, and it is offered during a period when we have seen so many examples of fake news, or propaganda, to use another word. I don't think this is partisan. I think it would apply to a Republican or Democratic administration. The question is, Should the Federal Government be involved in propaganda? Should we be observant of fake news and do nothing about it? The Senator from West Virginia offers an amendment that is filled with common sense. Let me describe a fake news program. A report narrated by a woman who speaks in glowing terms about an administration's plan and concludes by saying: ``In Washington, this is Karen Ryan reporting.'' The Department of Health and Human Services spent $44,000 in taxpayer dollars on this type of propaganda. Is this what we want to pass for news? I have talked often in the Senate on a subject very important to me, the concentration of broadcasting in this country. Fewer and fewer people owning more and more broadcast properties, controlling what people see, hear, and think by what is presented to them. As more and more companies are bought, they hollow out the newsrooms, get rid of the newsroom staff, and just have a shell left. Then they are interested in filling that shell with cheap media feeds. If you read the discussion about what has prompted these television stations to run these prepackaged fake news items, they are looking for fillers for a news script because they got rid of their news people. So this, now, passes as news when, in fact, it is fake news. In my judgment, it ought to be labeled exactly what it is. That is what the Senator is offering with respect to this amendment. This is not an amendment that is in any way radical. It is an amendment that is filled with common sense. A few minutes ago my colleague who talked about Public Broadcasting or National Public Radio was clever and funny--and good for him--but this has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Winning debates that we are not having is hardly a blue ribbon activity in this Chamber. This debate is not about National Public Radio or anything of the sort. It is about the specific subject that my colleague from West Virginia brings to the Senate. The subject, incidentally, has more tentacles attached to it. We learned in January a syndicated columnist, Armstrong Williams, had been paid a quarter of a million dollars, actually $240,000, to promote the No Child Left Behind Program on his television show and to urge other African-American journalists to do the same. That contract was not disclosed to the public. It was taxpayers' dollars offered to a journalist, commentator, television personality, and we only learned about it because USA Today obtained the document through a Freedom of Information request. That, incidentally, was part of a $1 million deal with the Ketchum public relations firm which was contracted to produce video news releases designed to appear like real news reports. So there is more to do on this issue than just the Byrd amendment. That is why I say this amendment is modest in itself. It is not, as some would suggest, a big deal. It is a modest amendment that addresses a problem in a very specific way. We really do have more to do dealing with some of the other tentacles--the hiring of public relations firms to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. We found out in late January the Department of Health and Human Services paid $21,500 to another syndicated columnist to advocate a $300 million Presidential proposal encouraging marriage. That contract was not disclosed either. The list goes on. Fake news. We discovered a while back the White House had allowed a fake journalist, using a fake name, to get a daily clearance to come into the Presidential news conference and daily news briefings and to ask questions. Another part of fake news, I guess, a different tentacle and a different description. The Byrd amendment is simple on its face. The question is, Do we want fake news being produced with taxpayers' dollars with no disclosure at all; that it is, in fact, propaganda, not news? I support the Byrd amendment. I hope we will address other parts of this issue at some future time. This amendment is modest enough, and my hope is to engage a majority of the Senate to be supportive of it. While I have the floor, I might indicate a second time that I intend to offer an amendment that would cease or discontinue funding for the independent counsel who is still active, an independent counsel who was impaneled to investigate the payment of money to a mistress by a former Cabinet official, Mr. Cisneros. That independent counsel has spent now $21 million over 10 years. The particular Cabinet official admitted the indiscretion. He pled guilty in Federal court and he since left office and has since been pardoned by a President in 2001. Yet the independent counsel investigating this is still investigating it, still spending money. The most recent report showed this independent counsel spent $1.26 million in Federal funds over the previous 6 months, which brings it to $21 million by an independent counsel's office that was launched nearly 10 years ago to investigate a Cabinet official who left the Government very soon thereafter, who then pled guilty, who then was pardoned. In 1995, the independent counsel was named. That was 10 years ago. In 1999, the Cabinet official pled guilty. In 2001, 4 years ago, the Cabinet official was given a Presidential pardon. Yet we have an independent counsel's office that is still spending money. We ought to shut off that money. I will offer an amendment to do that, telling that independent counsel the money dries up on June 1. Finish your report and leave town--at least if your home is elsewhere-- but finish up the report and get off the public payroll after 10 years, 4 years after the subject in question received a Presidential pardon, 6 years after the subject in question pled guilty in court. Some things need addressing on an urgent basis. This one does. I understand it, too, will not be, perhaps, germane to this bill, but it is one that I hope every Senator would understand we ought to shut down. With that, I appreciate the amendment offered by Senator Byrd. I am pleased to come over in support of that amendment this afternoon.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wonder if I might ask my colleague, the chairman of the committee, my understanding is the pending amendment is the Byrd amendment. But I heard my colleague Senator Byrd indicate he was trying to see whether there was some language that could be changed so this amendment would be acceptable. I have an amendment I had previously announced I would like to offer. It is an amendment dealing with the independent counsel expenditure of $21 million. I twice before mentioned this. I ask the Senator from Mississippi whether it would be appropriate at this point to offer an amendment. My understanding is we would have to set aside the Byrd amendment to do so. I ask the chairman and also Senator Byrd whether that is possible at this moment.

Mr. DORGAN. I will be mercifully brief. This is not an amendment that will take a long time to explain, and I do not intend to delay the proceedings of the Senate at all. Amendment No. 399

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, with that in mind and with the cooperation of the Senator from Mississippi, the chairman of the committee, and my colleague Senator Byrd, as well, I offer an amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Durbin has asked to be a cosponsor as well. I send the amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this matter deals with something I was quite surprised to read about, frankly, in the newspaper, and I have since done some research about it. It was a rather lengthy newspaper article disclosing that an independent counsel who had been appointed 10 years ago in 1995, a Mr. David Barrett, was still in business and was involved in an investigation that has now cost the American taxpayers $21 million. That was an investigation dealing with a Cabinet Secretary who was alleged to have lied, I believe, to the FBI, to authorities, about a payment he gave to a mistress. So an independent counsel was impaneled and began investigating that charge. That independent counsel has been working for some 10 years, in fact. But the Cabinet officer who was the subject of the investigation pled guilty in 1999. That was 6 years ago. That Cabinet officer was also subsequently pardoned in the year 2001. In the most recent 6-month report, the independent counsel who was appointed for investigating this transgression is still in business, and had spent $1.26 million in just that period. And the costs are trending upward, 10 years after he started, 6 years after the subject pled guilty, and 4 years after the subject was pardoned. It is unbelievable. I do not know anything about the case. I do not really know the Cabinet official in question. I guess I met him some years ago. But this is not about that official any longer. He has pled guilty, been pardoned, and here we are years later with an independent counsel's office still spending money. I quote Judge Stanley Sporkin, the presiding judge over Mr. Cisneros' trial: The problem with this case is that it took too long to develop and much too long to bring to judgment day . . . [the matter] should have been resolved a long time ago, perhaps even years ago. That was a quote from 1999. It is now 2005. The independent counsel is still spending money. David Barrett, the independent counsel, said in 1999: We are just glad to have this over and done with. That was following the plea agreement of Mr. Cisneros. Here it is 6 years later and the independent counsel is still in business. Mr. Barrett said in July 2001: I want to conclude this investigation as soon as possible. It is now 4 years later, with the counsel spending $1.26 million in the last 6 months. The three-judge panel that is providing oversight to the independent counsel said: Whether a cost-benefit analysis at this point would support Mr. Barrett's effort is a question to which I have no answer. Judge Cudahy, a member of the three-judge oversight panel said: Mr. Barrett can go on forever. A great deal of time has elapsed and a lot of money spent in pursuing charges that on their face do not seem of overwhelming complexity. Again, this is someone who is accused of lying to the FBI about paying money to a mistress. In the year 1995, the investigation began with Mr. Barrett and the independent counsel. In 1999, the individual pled guilty. In the year 2001, the individual was pardoned. And the independent counsel is still in business spending money. What on Earth is going on? A former Federal prosecutor following the plea agreement, Lawrence Barcella, said this: This is a classic example of why this independent counsel statute was a problem. You give this person all the resources to go after one person, and the first thing that is lost is perspective. Joseph DiGenova, a Republican lawyer and former independent counsel himself, said in the April 1, 2005, Washington Post: If this does not prove [the independent counsel's] worthlessness as a governmental entity, I don't know what does. I do not come here as a partisan, a member of a political party. I come here as someone outraged to wake up in the morning and read a report about an independent counsel impaneled 10 years ago to investigate a subject who pled guilty 6 years ago and was pardoned 4 years ago, and the independent counsel is still spending the taxpayers' money, $1.26 million over the last 6 months. My amendment is painfully simple. I propose we stop the spending on June 1 and tell this independent counsel: Finish your report, finish up, move on, and give the taxpayers a break. That is what the amendment is. It is very simple. I hope it might be considered and supported by my colleagues. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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. 1268 amendment No. 398, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.

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. 1268 amendment No. 399, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I'm joined by Senator Levin of Michigan in introducing legislation that we believe will help the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) combat offshore tax-haven abuses and ensure that U.S. multinational companies pay the U.S. taxes that they rightfully owe. Tens of millions of taxpayers will be rushing to file their tax returns in the next few days in order to fulfill their taxpaying responsibility by the April 15 filing deadline. Some tax experts estimate that taxpayers will spend over $100 billion and more than 6 billion hours this year trying to comply with their federal tax obligation. It's no wonder that many Americans are frustrated with the current tax system and would gladly welcome substantive efforts to simplify it. However, this frustration changes to anger when the taxpayers who pay their taxes on time each year discover that many corporate taxpayers are shirking their tax obligations by actively shifting their profits to foreign tax havens or using other inappropriate tax avoidance techniques. The bill that Senator Levin and I are introducing today is a simple and straightforward way to try to tackle the offshore tax- haven problem. Specifically, our legislation denies tax benefits, namely tax deferral, to U.S. multinational companies that set up controlled foreign corporations in tax-haven countries by treating those subsidiaries as domestic companies for U.S. income tax purposes. This tracks the same general approach embraced and passed by the Congress in other tax legislation designed to curb the problem of corporate inversions. We have known for many years that some very profitable U.S. multinational businesses are using offshore tax havens to avoid paying their fair share of U.S. taxes. But Congress has really done very little to stop this hemorrhaging of tax revenues. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the tax-haven problem is getting much worse and may be draining the U.S. Treasury of tens of billions of dollars every year. The New York Times got it right when it suggested that ``instead of moving headquarters offshore, many companies are simply placing patents on drugs, ownership of corporate logos, techniques for manufacturing processes and other intangible assets in tax havens . . . The companies then charge their subsidiaries in higher-tax locales, including the U.S., for the use of these intellectual properties. This allows the companies to take profits in these havens and pay far less in taxes.'' How pervasive is the tax-haven subsidiary problem? Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, issued a report that Senator Levin and I requested that gives some insight to the potential magnitude of this tax avoidance activity. The GAO found that 59 out of the 100 largest publicly-traded federal contractors in 2001--with tens of billions of dollars of federal contracts in 2001--had established hundreds of subsidiaries located in offshore tax havens. According to the GAO, Exxon-Mobil Corporation, the 21st largest publicly traded federal contractor in 2001, has some 11 tax-haven subsidiaries in the Bahamas. Halliburton Company reportedly has 17 tax- haven subsidiaries, including 13 in the Cayman Islands, a country that has never imposed a corporate income tax, as well as 2 in Liechtenstein and 2 in Panama. And the now infamous Enron Corporation had 1,300 different foreign entities, including some 441 located in the Cayman Islands. More recently, former Joint Committee on Taxation economist Martin Sullivan released a study that looked at the amount of profits that US. companies are shifting to offshore tax havens. He found that U.S. multinationals had moved hundreds of billions of profits to tax havens for years 1999-2002, the latest years for which IRS data is available. Although Congress passed legislation, which I supported, that addresses the problem of corporate expatriates that reincorporate overseas, that legislation did nothing to deal with the problem of U.S. companies that are setting up tax-haven subsidiaries to avoid their taxpaying responsibilities in this country. The legislation that we are introducing builds upon the good work of Senators Grassley and Baucus and other members of the Senate Finance Committee by extending similar tax policy changes to cover the case of U.S. companies and their tax-haven subsidiaries. Specifically, our legislation would do the following: 1. Treat U.S. controlled foreign subsidiaries that are set up in tax-haven countries as domestic companies for U.S. tax purposes. In other words, we would simply treat these companies as if they never left the United States, which is essentially the case in these tax avoidance motivated transactions. 2. List specific tax-haven countries subject to the new rule (based upon the previous work by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and give the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to add or remove a foreign country from this list in appropriate cases. 3. Provide an exception where substantially all of a U.S. controlled foreign corporation's income is derived from the active conduct of a trade or business within the listed tax-haven country. 4. Make these proposed changes effective beginning after December 31, 2007. This will give businesses ample time to restructure their tax- haven operations if they so choose. This legislation will help end the tax benefits for U.S. companies that shift income to offshore tax-haven subsidiaries. For example, any efforts by a U.S. company to move profits to the subsidiary through transfer pricing schemes will not work because the income earned by the subsidiary would still be immediately taxable by the United States. Likewise, any efforts to move otherwise active income earned by a U.S. company in a high-tax foreign country to a tax haven would cause the income to be immediately taxable by the United States. Companies that try to move intangible assets--and the income they produce--to tax havens would be unsuccessful because the income would still be immediately taxable by the United States. Let me be very clear about one thing. This legislation will not adversely impact U.S. companies with controlled foreign subsidiaries that are located in tax havens and doing legitimate and substantial business. The legislation expressly exempts a U.S.-controlled foreign subsidiary from its tax rule changes when substantially all of its income is derived from the active conduct of a trade or business within a listed tax-haven country. In 2002, then-IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti told Congress that ``nothing undermines confidence in the tax system more than the impression that the average honest taxpayer has to pay his or her taxes while more wealthy or unscrupulous taxpayers are allowed to get away with not paying.'' Last week, IRS Commissioner Everson echoed similar sentiments at a Senate Transportation-Treasury Appropriations Subcommittee hearing I attended on the IRS's FY 2006 budget request. They are absolutely right. It's grossly unfair to ask our Main Street businesses to operate at a competitive disadvantage to large multinational businesses simply because our tax authorities are unable to grapple with the growing offshore tax avoidance problem. It is outrageous that tens of millions of working families who pay their taxes on time every year are shouldering the tax burden of large profitable U.S. multinational companies that use tax-haven subsidiaries. I hope that Congress will act promptly to enact legislation to curb these tax-haven subsidiary abuses. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I'm joined by Senator Levin of Michigan in introducing legislation that we believe will help the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) combat offshore tax-haven abuses and ensure that U.S. multinational companies pay the U.S. taxes that they rightfully owe. Tens of millions of taxpayers will be rushing to file their tax returns in the next few days in order to fulfill their taxpaying responsibility by the April 15 filing deadline. Some tax experts estimate that taxpayers will spend over $100 billion and more than 6 billion hours this year trying to comply with their federal tax obligation. It's no wonder that many Americans are frustrated with the current tax system and would gladly welcome substantive efforts to simplify it. However, this frustration changes to anger when the taxpayers who pay their taxes on time each year discover that many corporate taxpayers are shirking their tax obligations by actively shifting their profits to foreign tax havens or using other inappropriate tax avoidance techniques. The bill that Senator Levin and I are introducing today is a simple and straightforward way to try to tackle the offshore tax- haven problem. Specifically, our legislation denies tax benefits, namely tax deferral, to U.S. multinational companies that set up controlled foreign corporations in tax-haven countries by treating those subsidiaries as domestic companies for U.S. income tax purposes. This tracks the same general approach embraced and passed by the Congress in other tax legislation designed to curb the problem of corporate inversions. We have known for many years that some very profitable U.S. multinational businesses are using offshore tax havens to avoid paying their fair share of U.S. taxes. But Congress has really done very little to stop this hemorrhaging of tax revenues. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the tax-haven problem is getting much worse and may be draining the U.S. Treasury of tens of billions of dollars every year. The New York Times got it right when it suggested that ``instead of moving headquarters offshore, many companies are simply placing patents on drugs, ownership of corporate logos, techniques for manufacturing processes and other intangible assets in tax havens . . . The companies then charge their subsidiaries in higher-tax locales, including the U.S., for the use of these intellectual properties. This allows the companies to take profits in these havens and pay far less in taxes.'' How pervasive is the tax-haven subsidiary problem? Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, issued a report that Senator Levin and I requested that gives some insight to the potential magnitude of this tax avoidance activity. The GAO found that 59 out of the 100 largest publicly-traded federal contractors in 2001--with tens of billions of dollars of federal contracts in 2001--had established hundreds of subsidiaries located in offshore tax havens. According to the GAO, Exxon-Mobil Corporation, the 21st largest publicly traded federal contractor in 2001, has some 11 tax-haven subsidiaries in the Bahamas. Halliburton Company reportedly has 17 tax- haven subsidiaries, including 13 in the Cayman Islands, a country that has never imposed a corporate income tax, as well as 2 in Liechtenstein and 2 in Panama. And the now infamous Enron Corporation had 1,300 different foreign entities, including some 441 located in the Cayman Islands. More recently, former Joint Committee on Taxation economist Martin Sullivan released a study that looked at the amount of profits that US. companies are shifting to offshore tax havens. He found that U.S. multinationals had moved hundreds of billions of profits to tax havens for years 1999-2002, the latest years for which IRS data is available. Although Congress passed legislation, which I supported, that addresses the problem of corporate expatriates that reincorporate overseas, that legislation did nothing to deal with the problem of U.S. companies that are setting up tax-haven subsidiaries to avoid their taxpaying responsibilities in this country. The legislation that we are introducing builds upon the good work of Senators Grassley and Baucus and other members of the Senate Finance Committee by extending similar tax policy changes to cover the case of U.S. companies and their tax-haven subsidiaries. Specifically, our legislation would do the following: 1. Treat U.S. controlled foreign subsidiaries that are set up in tax-haven countries as domestic companies for U.S. tax purposes. In other words, we would simply treat these companies as if they never left the United States, which is essentially the case in these tax avoidance motivated transactions. 2. List specific tax-haven countries subject to the new rule (based upon the previous work by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and give the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to add or remove a foreign country from this list in appropriate cases. 3. Provide an exception where substantially all of a U.S. controlled foreign corporation's income is derived from the active conduct of a trade or business within the listed tax-haven country. 4. Make these proposed changes effective beginning after December 31, 2007. This will give businesses ample time to restructure their tax- haven operations if they so choose. This legislation will help end the tax benefits for U.S. companies that shift income to offshore tax-haven subsidiaries. For example, any efforts by a U.S. company to move profits to the subsidiary through transfer pricing schemes will not work because the income earned by the subsidiary would still be immediately taxable by the United States. Likewise, any efforts to move otherwise active income earned by a U.S. company in a high-tax foreign country to a tax haven would cause the income to be immediately taxable by the United States. Companies that try to move intangible assets--and the income they produce--to tax havens would be unsuccessful because the income would still be immediately taxable by the United States. Let me be very clear about one thing. This legislation will not adversely impact U.S. companies with controlled foreign subsidiaries that are located in tax havens and doing legitimate and substantial business. The legislation expressly exempts a U.S.-controlled foreign subsidiary from its tax rule changes when substantially all of its income is derived from the active conduct of a trade or business within a listed tax-haven country. In 2002, then-IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti told Congress that ``nothing undermines confidence in the tax system more than the impression that the average honest taxpayer has to pay his or her taxes while more wealthy or unscrupulous taxpayers are allowed to get away with not paying.'' Last week, IRS Commissioner Everson echoed similar sentiments at a Senate Transportation-Treasury Appropriations Subcommittee hearing I attended on the IRS's FY 2006 budget request. They are absolutely right. It's grossly unfair to ask our Main Street businesses to operate at a competitive disadvantage to large multinational businesses simply because our tax authorities are unable to grapple with the growing offshore tax avoidance problem. It is outrageous that tens of millions of working families who pay their taxes on time every year are shouldering the tax burden of large profitable U.S. multinational companies that use tax-haven subsidiaries. I hope that Congress will act promptly to enact legislation to curb these tax-haven subsidiary abuses. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this bill.

Mr. DORGAN

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 rise in support of the amendment offered by my colleague, Senator Murray. Senator Murray, I believe, offered this identical amendment in the Appropriations Committee when it marked up the appropriations supplemental bill. I was very pleased to support her then. I want to refer back to a time when we held a hearing with the Secretary of Defense. My colleague, Senator Murray, was at that hearing. She asked some questions, and other colleagues did, and I did, about this issue of health care, health care for soldiers and health care for veterans. One of the questions we asked was, What is the continuum here between a soldier and a veteran? I would guess all of us in this Chamber have driven to Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed Medical Center to visit young men and women who have been wounded with respect to hostilities in Iraq. I have made many such visits. I have seen these brave soldiers lying in their hospital bed, often with an arm missing or a leg missing or other serious wounds, convalescing and recovering. In most cases, God willing, when they recover, they will get rehabilitation, and then they will, in most cases, be discharged from the service. We asked the Secretary of Defense, at that point, What is the difference between a soldier on active duty and a young soldier who has just been released from Walter Reed Medical Center who is then discharged but continues to need medical help for the wounds they suffered in the war? Is there really any difference? And should there really be a difference in the health care that is delivered? I am enormously proud of the men and women who work at hospitals such as Walter Reed Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital, those we see most often when we visit. That health care could not be better. They do an extraordinary job. There was recently an article about the job they do in a publication called the Washington Monthly. I discussed that article with Mr. Principi, then the head of the VA. I said, you ought to send this article out to every single employee of the VA because without sufficient money--and they have not had sufficient money--they have done an extraordinary job. But the question is, When someone becomes a veteran, having come off active duty with a war wound, what happens? Is there full funding in that case for the kind of health care they need? The answer is no. My colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Murray, understands that. She has led the fight on this issue for a long while, to say: Can't we have full funding for health care for veterans? You can go any place in this country these days and talk about America's service men and women, and people respond to it. They care about the people who wear this country's uniform, and they want to support them. But that support does not just occur with respect to when they are in a hospital such as Walter Reed or Bethesda. That support must occur with respect to VA hospitals and community-based veterans clinics. As you know, the President's budget does not provide funding for the clinics that were promised, the clinics that would allow a veteran who has health care issues to show up at a local storefront VA clinic instead of having to drive, particularly in rural States, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles. Well, that is not funded by the President's budget. Even though they had decided they were going to do that, the President says, no, we do not have the money. My colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Murray, asks the question: What is more important in this country? I am not asking you for 10 things, but just give us a couple. What is more important than keeping our promise of health care to veterans? Just give me a couple of things that are more important. These are the people to whom we offered a promise, who answered the call: Uncle Sam wants you. Wear the uniform of this country. Put yourself in harm's way, perhaps lose an arm, perhaps lose a leg, maybe lose your life. What is more important than saying to those people who answered that call that when you need medical help in our veterans medical system, we will have adequate funding to make sure you get that help? I recall one day a father calling me and saying: I have a son who fought in the Vietnam war, and he suffered a head wound, a bullet to the brain. It was a very serious head wound that left him in devastating condition, and because of that brain wound and his incapacity, he was suffering muscle atrophy, and at some point he had to have a toe removed. They said, well, to have that toe removed, you have to take this young veteran to Fargo, ND, which was about 250 miles away--500 miles round trip. So for this young man, who suffered a wound to the head in a war and was incapacitated as a result of it, put him in a car and drive him 500 miles round trip to have a toe removed. I said: Isn't there some common sense here? Couldn't this be done somewhere closer? We finally resolved that. But the fact is, the money that was left out of the President's budget for the storefront community clinics for veterans, that is exactly the kind of thing they can do in many cases. Yet somehow this is not an urgent priority, with all of the young veterans coming back with wounds from this war, the Iraqi war, and with all of the World War II veterans now reaching that age where they need maximum care, the maximum claim on health care they were promised. If ever we need to decide as a priority in this Congress that we need to keep our promise to veterans, it is now. That is all the Senator from the State of Washington is saying: Let's keep this promise. There seems to be money for a lot of other priorities around here that rank far lower than health care for America's veterans. All of us have stories about these veterans, about those we have visited who were involved in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and now the gulf war. Those stories, individually and collectively, talk about heroism and commitment and service, duty, honor, country. Duty and honor, it seems to me, for us is to make the right choice. It is always about choices in Congress. Who among us will decide today that it is the wrong choice to fully fund veterans health care in this country? Who among us will decide that is the wrong choice? For me, it is the right choice to decide veterans deserve to know we keep our promise. That is the import of the amendment from Senator Murray. I am proud to stand here and speak for it and support it and vote for it. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, with the passing of Pope John Paul II, I take this opportunity to pay homage to one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. He was a truly gifted religious leader who touched people all over the world: young and old, rich and poor, the powerful and the underprivileged, Catholics and non-Catholics. Pope John Paul II defied political labels and was constant in his beliefs. For him, defending life included opposing capital punishment and recourse to war as well as opposing abortion. Defending families meant a commitment to faith and moral uprightness, but it also meant standing up for just wages and a social safety net. These beliefs and convictions made him a respected leader all over the world. One of John Paul's strengths was reaching out to young adults. World Youth Day was established by the Pope on Palm Sunday, 1984. He invited the Youth of Rome to celebrate the Holy Year of Redemption with him at Saint Peter's Square. It was a great success. Building upon this success and its popularity, the Pope held this worldwide event every 3 years. Over the last 20 years, millions of young people from hundreds of countries have participated in World Youth Day. One young woman who attended said that young people loved the Pope because the Pope loved them: ``People think that teenagers and young people are just out there and reckless, but he didn't see it that way. He said, `You are the future and I love you for that.' '' The world is now mourning the death of Pope John Paul II. In parishes from the Americas to Europe to Africa to Asia, millions are paying tribute to a leader whose central message was love, respect, faith and responsibility to our fellow man. That example is his legacy, and regardless of our individual faiths, it is an example for all of us of how to live and relate to our neighbors. May God grant Pope John Paul II eternal rest and peace, and we thank him for a life lived in the service of people everywhere.