Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I support the Murray amendment because I think that it includes important investments in port security. The amendment includes $300 million for port security grants so that we can increase our surveillance of the thousands of containers that enter our country. In its current form, this amendment does not include any offsetting reductions to pay for the new investments. If this amendment is adopted today, and I hope that it will be, I intend to work with the conferees to offset these increases by reducing funding that have been earmarked for Iraqi reconstruction. I believe these expenditures should be offset with these other spending cuts. Iraq is a nation that sits on some of the largest oil reserves in the world. My view is that Iraq should pay for its own reconstruction. Last year, this Congress acted in an expedited way to appropriate $18.4 billion for Iraqi reconstruction. And yet, 10 months later, most of that money is still unspent. Less than $1 billion has been actually expended and only about $7 billion has been obligated. Therefore, I support Senator Murray's amendment and I will vote for it today. But my intention is to push for the rescission of those unobligated Iraqi reconstruction funds and use them to offset these needed security investments.

Mr. DORGAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 8 minutes in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the issue of the reimportation of prescription drugs. I do that because we have a very short time remaining in this Congress. We actually began last evening with a couple of votes. I read this morning that the majority leader would like to finish by October 8. There are very few days in which to advance some of these issues. The issue of reimportation of prescription drugs is a very important issue. We pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Many of my constituents who live in North Dakota go across the line and purchase identical prescription drugs, FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada, the same pill put in the same bottle made by the same company sold in Canada and the U.S. The difference is price. One example is Lipitor, a very popular cholesterol-lowering drug. If you buy Lipitor in Canada, it is $1.01 per tablet. If you buy it 5 miles south of the Canadian border, it is $1.82 per tablet, nearly double the price for the American consumer. That is the case with drug after drug, when you compare. A group of us--Senator McCain, myself, and many others--has been working on reimportation legislation that would allow more than just personal use reimportation to come across from Canada, and I have talked to Senator Frist at great length about this issue. On March 11 of this year, about midnight, when we were in session that evening dealing with the budget, Senator Frist and I reached agreement. He put in the Record that he would announce that in consultation with the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, along with Senator Dorgan, Senator Stabenow, Senator McCain, Senator Cochran, and others, that the Senate would begin a process for developing proposals that would allow for the safe reimportation of FDA-approved prescription drugs. Now we face the time period when, nearing the end of the session, we have not yet had that vote. There is a bill at the desk that was passed by the House of Representatives. That is one possibility. The other would be bipartisan legislation Senators McCain, Stabenow, others, and I have introduced. Still other opportunities might be an amendment to another bill. The reason I take the floor at this moment is in this morning's Congressional Quarterly, it says: It appears increasingly unlikely that the Senate will vote this year on legislation that would allow Americans to import prescription drugs from abroad, despite wide public support for the idea. An aide to [Senate] Majority Leader Bill Frist . . . said Tuesday that consensus on permitting the practice remained elusive and that the issue could get swamped by more pressing issues leading up to Election Day. That was from the majority leader's aide. Senator Grassley was quoted as saying that Senator Frist, the majority leader, ``is intentionally keeping drug reimportation off the Senate floor because it would pass by a wide margin.'' That is a direct quote from Senator Grassley. I have spoken at great length with Senator Frist about this issue. I know others have different views and they have their own interests. But I believe there has been a commitment for us to at least try to have votes on reimportation. Some of us feel very strongly about it. It is not partisan because we have Republicans and Democrats who have joined on a bipartisan piece of legislation. It is my hope that in the coming days we will find a way either to take the bill that is at the Senate desk, which is a bipartisan House- passed bill allowing for the reimportation of prescription drugs, or alternatively to have an opportunity to vote on the bipartisan legislation we have developed here in the Senate. I have said many times, my own view is that the pharmaceutical industry is a big industry. They do a lot of good. They produce lifesaving medicines. But miracle medicines offer no miracles to those who can't afford them. It is unfair that we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I believe one way to begin putting downward pressure on prices is to let the market system work. The market system would do for our country just as it does in Europe where they have something called parallel trading. Parallel trading means that for approved prescription drugs, if you are in Germany and want to buy a prescription drug from Spain, that is not a problem, you can do that. If you are in France and want to buy a prescription drug from Italy, that is not a problem. The parallel trading plan works in Europe, works for the safety of the European consumer. Why should the American consumer not be able to purchase or why shouldn't pharmacists from our country not be able to purchase an FDA- approved drug from a licensed pharmacist in Canada? That is the absurdity of all this. A pharmacist from Grand Forks, ND, cannot go to that one-room pharmacy in Emerson, Canada, a licensed pharmacy in Emerson, and purchase that Lipitor at a savings and pass the savings along to the American consumer. We want to change the law to allow that to happen so that pharmacists and licensed distributors can access FDA-approved drugs that are sold in every other country in the world at a lower price and bring them back and allow the savings to be passed along to the American consumer. Ultimately, what it will mean is a repricing of those drugs in our country. The market system will force a repricing and a lowering of prescription drugs prices. That is the goal, and that is what the result would be if the market system is allowed to work. Again, we are only talking about FDA-approved drugs. We are not talking about anything other than FDA-approved drugs that were produced in FDA-inspected plants, sold by a licensed distributor and pharmacist in Canada and/or the United States. That is the issue. I came to the Senate floor only because I saw the statement this morning by Senator Frist's staff suggesting that maybe this won't get done. Again, I refer the majority leader to March 11, the statement in the Congressional Record in which the majority leader said: The Senate will begin a process for developing proposals that would allow for the safe reimportation of FDA-approved drugs, not ``maybe'' but that would allow for the reimportation. The fact is, I feel there is a commitment here, and my hope is that commitment will be kept in the coming couple of weeks as we work to finish our work in this Congress. We have a lot to do. There is a lot of politics running around this Chamber. My hope is that on big issues and important issues, we can decide we want to do the right thing and engage on issues that are important to this country and important to the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Nevada yield?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened to my colleague from Mississippi. I agree we should pass a good energy bill and a jobs bill. I agree with all that. He suggested at the end to the Senator from South Dakota--I assume he was referring to the Democratic leader--that it would be good to get things done. I point out the Wall Street Journal article of today titled ``Lawmakers Face Big Backlog.'' Let me read what this article says, and most of us know this to be the case: The highway bill, for example, is hung up in a dispute between Republican Senators and the White House. . . . That is not obstructionism by this side. In the energy debate, oil-state Republicans, led by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, want liability protections for companies that make the fuel additive MTBE; Northeastern Senators, such as Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, are opposed. That is not obstructionism on this side. That is the Energy bill. Quoting again: The animosity between House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley has slowed progress on tax legislation. That is the JOBS bill about which my colleague was talking. There is the highway bill, the Energy bill, the JOBS bill, and this article from the Wall Street Journal today, hardly a progressive organization, says the problem is not obstructionism by this side of the aisle; it is the other side of the aisle that is having an internal debate they cannot resolve, and that is what is slowing things down. I say on my behalf and I expect I say on behalf of the assistant minority leader from Nevada and certainly from the standpoint of the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, we would like nothing more than to get a good highway bill, to get a good energy bill passed through the Congress, to proceed and deal with the issue of jobs. We cannot resolve on this side of the aisle the internal debate that goes on between the White House and the majority party in the Republican caucus. That is exactly what is holding up these issues. My hope is they will resolve those debates. We can work together and find a way in a bipartisan manner to address all of these issues--energy, jobs, and the highway bill. I think we should do that. I wanted to make that point quoting from an article that was in the Wall Street Journal today which I believe describes what is really at work here that has held up the progress and business of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. If I might inquire on that point. I thank very much the majority leader for his indulgence. My understanding is the proposed $2 billion to restore FEMA money needs to be acted on quickly. I understand that. I think everyone would want to cooperate with the majority leader on that point. The majority leader indicated that the White House would intend then to send down a second request. The reason I am asking a question about that is this. There are, as the Senator knows, other areas of the country that have suffered substantial weather-related disasters. In North Dakota, for example, 1.7 million acres could not even be planted in farmland this year, so we have some farmers in pretty tough shape. It is not only North Dakota, but Minnesota, Montana, and other parts of the area. There are some drought-stricken areas out West as well. Some of us would want to include some help for those producers. I don't think we would want to interrupt what is going on today. The Senator is absolutely correct, we need to move quickly to respond. But, Senator Frist, you indicated the second request may well be put on a Homeland Security appropriations bill. Yet I know there is a unanimous consent request being offered today, or at least one that is being talked about, that would preclude amendments to that that would not be about Homeland Security. How would we get an emergency or disaster piece on that bill? Would those of us who want to add to it to deal with the disaster in farm country have an opportunity to do so?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I expect most Senators feel as do I: Whatever resources are needed by the citizens of Florida to recover should be provided by the Senate. I certainly will be one Senator who wants to support the $2 billion emergency supplemental that is necessary now and whatever additional resources are needed to help Floridians recover from these devastating storms. The storm season is not even over at this point. Most of us do not understand, perhaps, the experience of the citizens of Florida. I did want to make the point earlier that when we do the second piece, there are some other parts of the country that are going to have to be dealt with. That was the point I was making. I want to make sure everybody understands: Whatever resources are needed by the citizens of Florida, I believe the Senate should stand ready to say to them, you are not alone; this country wants to help in times of need and in times of emergency.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the two political conventions. My speech will not be about the politics of the conventions but about the coverage of the conventions. Senator Lott and I have worked all of this year and the major part of last year on an issue dealing with the concentration of broadcast ownership in a rule that was crafted by the Federal Communications Commission that would allow even greater concentration in broadcast ownership. That rule would have allowed in the larger cities for one company to purchase three television stations, eight radio stations, the cable system, and the largest newspaper, and that would be fine. Many Republicans and Democrats don't think that is fine. We think the concentration of ownership of media properties will mean that fewer and fewer Americans, probably fewer than a handful of Americans, will determine what the rest of the American people see, hear, and read. We don't think that is helpful. A Federal court has overturned the rule the FCC developed and sent it back to them, saying ``redo it.'' Senator Lott and I and others hope the FCC will do this the right way. The right way would be to promote more economic opportunity and broader ownership, not concentrated ownership in radio and television and newspapers. This relates to the coverage of the Republican and Democratic Conventions. I thought it was interesting this year that the coverage of the two political conventions was so spartan as to almost be nonexistent with respect to the major networks. Michael Copps, a commissioner at the FCC, wrote an op-ed piece on the subject. I ask unanimous consent to print it in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. Copps makes the point that we give broadcasters the right to use the airwaves in exchange for their agreement to broadcast in the public interest. They don't own the airwaves. They are licensed to use them in exchange for broadcasting in the public interest. They also earn substantial money in broadcasting properties from advertising during television campaigns. It is expected they will earn nearly $1.5 billion from political advertising. What do we get in return? We get almost no coverage any longer, very spartan coverage of the two political conventions. Television and other executives say: That is because people can watch the conventions on cable television. Well, there are more channels. There is cable. But 35 million Americans don't get cable television. Let me take a look at what has happened, as Mr. Copps describes it in his piece. On Monday, August 30, the Republican Convention was held in New York. This is a Monday evening. None of the networks decided they would cover the Republican Convention. It is strange for me to be protesting that, but nonetheless I think the networks have a responsibility and should have had a responsibility to provide extensive coverage of both political conventions. So on Monday night, they did not show the American people the speech by Senator McCain, our colleague. Incidentally, I think that speech should have been heard by the American people. They didn't air the speech by Rudy Giuliani. The American people should have heard that speech. Why is it they couldn't have done that? Let me show you what they were airing on Monday evening. They had ``Access Hollywood.'' That was important. Then they went to ``Fear Factor.'' That is where you sometimes tune in and you see people eating a bowl of maggots or whatever other disgusting thing happens on ``Fear Factor.'' I have seen it as I have used the remote control to change the channels. ``Complex Malibu,'' they aired--eight couples begin the competition by working on a master bedroom--and NFL preseason, and the ``Last Comic Standing.'' The American people couldn't get the Republican Convention that evening because this is what was aired on television. This was a Monday evening, the first evening of the convention. What about the Democratic Convention? The networks decided they wouldn't broadcast on Tuesday evening of the Democratic Convention. They broadcast three nights, 1 hour each evening for three nights. On Tuesday evening, July 27, the keynote speaker Barak Obama spoke, Teresa Heinz spoke. The American people didn't get to listen to those speeches. They should have been able to. Here is what was going on. They aired that evening ``Trading Spouses, Meet Your New Mommy,'' ``Wheel of Fortune,'' ``Last Comic Standing,'' ``Quintuplets,'' ``The Amazing Race,'' eight teams travel from Argentina to St. Petersburg, Russia. The networks were too busy. They didn't want to put on 2 hours a night for four nights, or four hours a night, they used to do that. Some people say the conventions are staged. Really? Well, there are a lot of stories at the conventions. But those stories are not covered these days by the major broadcast networks. Why? Because they are only broadcasting 1 hour a night, three nights; 3 hours, total 6 hours, for both the Republican and the Democratic National Conventions; 6 hours every 4 years. How does that relate to the obligation to serve in the public interest? How does that relate to what Senator Lott and I and others have been talking about, how a few people decide what the American people read or hear? How many people do you think made the decision we will only offer 3 hours to the American people of the Republican National Convention on the major networks? How many people do you think made the decision we will only offer 3 hours of the Democratic Convention? I think both the Republican Convention and the Democratic Convention were shortchanged. Why do I say that? Because the fact is, we make decisions in the political process. Our major national conventions are a significant part of the process. The dialog, the discussion, the debate in those conventions is a significant part of showing and telling the American people what these political parties are about. I know we get plenty of television in politics. But most of it is 30- second incendiary, negative ads talking about who is the worst rather than who is the best. Very few of them have any ideas or talk about issues. The question is, as Commissioner Copps points out in his editorial published in the New York Times, are the networks serving this country's interests by deciding they shall air only 3 hours every 4 years of a major political convention? In 1976, the three major television networks provided more than 50 hours of television convention coverage. In 1996, 20 years later, that had dropped to 12 hours. This year it dropped to 6 hours. The New York Daily News said that before cable and satellite, ABC, CBS, and NBC turned over their prime time to the conventions as a matter of civic duty. It is interesting to me that these conventions are staged so tightly. One of the reasons they are created as tightly as they are with respect to agenda is to fit into the very short time period the networks now offer for the coverage of the conventions. Mr. President, the issue of broadcast ownership and the concentration of broadcast ownership remains at the FCC. The question is, what will they do with these rules and how will the rules affect what people see and hear in the future? How does concentration of economic ownership in broadcast properties affect what we saw this year, the coverage of only 3 hours of the Republican and Democratic Conventions? I have described significant speakers the American people did not have an opportunity to see or hear. Someone made a decision it wasn't worth it. This is what Senator Lott and I and others have been concerned about for a long while--about the concentration of ownership in broadcast properties. Again, I am not against big in every circumstance. I don't think big is always bad or small is always beautiful. But in broadcast properties--radio, television, and newspapers--I think broad-based economic ownership best serves this democracy. I think when we see more and more concentration, where you have fewer and fewer people--in some cases a handful--deciding what the American people will see, hear, and read, frankly, I think that is unhealthy. One sign of that is what they decided to air at a time when they decided the two political conventions by the national Republican party and the national Democratic party were unworthy. I think it goes without saying that they have shortchanged the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was thinking about speaking about trade but I nearly wore out my welcome last week on that subject so I will only say that I would much prefer a trade bill be brought to the Senate floor that solves problems rather than creates new problems. I do not know that a trade agreement with Morocco is going to cause new problems but I do know that in trade agreement after trade agreement over a good many years, we have caused more problems, none of which ever get fixed. The problems of trade with Europe, with Japan, with Korea, with Mexico, with Canada never get fixed. Again, I do not know that this will cause problems with respect to Morocco. Morocco is one of those few countries with which we have a trade surplus. But it has been the case that in every circumstance where we negotiated a trade agreement the surpluses that existed soon turned into deficits. In fact, we have the largest trade deficit in human history right now and that trade deficit exists with China, well over $130 billion a year; we have a trade deficit with Japan, Europe, Korea, and more. The NAFTA agreement was supposed to create a massive number of new jobs, hundreds of thousands of new jobs in this country, yet following the NAFTA agreement with Mexico and Canada we, in fact, turned a small trade surplus we had with Mexico into a very large deficit and we turned a modest deficit that we had with Canada into a very large trade balance deficit. I do not intend to give a lengthy speech about trade today and repeat what I have talked about before, the outsourcing of American jobs, the movement of jobs from this country to other countries that is going on in a wholesale capacity. I will mention just a couple of issues, as examples of broken promises in trade. With respect to Mexico, we were told that we would see the products being imported into this country from Mexico, being the product of low-skill, low-wage labor. In fact, that is not the case at all. The three largest imports into this country from Mexico are automobiles, automobile parts, and electronics, the products of high- skill, high-wage labor except they do not pay high wages in Mexico. That is why these jobs have moved to Mexico. I was told, although I have not yet checked this, that we now perversely import more automobiles from Mexico into the United States than we export to all of the rest of the world. This is after we did a trade agreement with Mexico. I could spend time talking about our trade agreements with China, Japan, Europe, and others, and it is the same result. Now, especially during the Olympic trials, our negotiators really ought to be required to wear jerseys so they can look down and see, as the Olympic athletes do, ``USA'' so at least they know for whom they work. It is not very easy, in my judgment, to see the result of their work and understand whose side they were on when they negotiated these agreements. I mentioned last week the recent agreement that was negotiated with China. In the agreement between the United States and China, we agreed the Chinese could impose a 25-percent tariff on any automobiles the United States ships to China and that we would impose a 2.5-percent tariff on any Chinese automobiles they would aspire to sell in our marketplace. In other words, our negotiator agreed that, with a country with which we have a $100-plus billion deficit, we would allow them to put a tariff on automobiles that would be 10 times higher than the tariff we would impose on Chinese automobiles to be sold in our country. I say to you, that is incompetent. I have no idea how that happens; how someone rationalizes that this is fair. What does it mean to average folks? It means jobs lost. It means jobs are created there rather than here. It means jobs leave here to go there. It means outsourcing. In most cases, it is why I do not support these trade agreements. Those who negotiated the agreements did not decide to stand up for the economic interests of our country. I am not talking about protectionism, I am talking about standing up for our economic interests and requiring and demanding fair trade. It was one thing post the Second World War to be able to have concessionary trade policies, to say to other countries: Look, we will be glad to provide some concessions because we are bigger than you are, we are stronger, we are more capable, we have a thriving, growing economy and we can beat almost anyone in economic competition with one hand tied behind our back. That wasn't a big problem then. But things have changed. We now face stiff, shrewd, international competitors, yet most of our trade policy is still softheaded foreign policy, and those who negotiate it don't stand up for the economic interests of this country, in my judgment. So much for trade. I did want to mention a couple of other items, if I might. Tax Shelters The Washington Post did a story which described something most of us now have known is occurring. The U.S. Treasury Department has tapped a private company called KPMG, one of the largest accounting companies, perhaps the largest in our country, to audit the Treasury Department's consolidated financial statements. These are audits that were done previously by Government folks. These are internal audits by the Inspector General's office or others. But now they have tapped this company to audit the Treasury Department's financial statements. Interestingly enough, the company they have hired to do that down at the Treasury Department is the subject of a Federal grand jury probe into its tax shelter abuses. By tax shelter abuses I mean this is a company that by all accounts now was aggressively marketing tax shelter abuses to clients and refuses to provide to the Treasury Department names of its clients so we can find out who avoided paying taxes by using the aggressive tax shelters proposed by this company. The Treasury Department says: On the one hand, we are investigating you with a grand jury probe. On the other hand, let's give you a big contract. I don't understand that. I don't understand it at all. Why on Earth would the Treasury Department do this? This aggressive marketing of tax dodges to those who want to avoid paying taxes is pretty difficult for the Treasury Department to get at. They have a difficult time trying to shut these down, these aggressive tax shelters. Because of the marketing of aggressive and abusive tax shelters, more and more companies have decided I want to be an American company for purposes of doing business in America and calling myself American, but I don't want to be an American company when it comes to paying taxes. Then I want to call myself a citizen of the Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands, or the Dutch Antilles. I want to run my company through a mailbox. I want to rent a mailbox in one of these countries that sets themselves up as a tax haven, and I want to run my company through a mailbox. Why? Not because that is where the company is going to be run from. It is because they want to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Some companies--not too many, but some--have gone the extra step of deciding to dump their U.S. citizenship, renounce their U.S. citizenship and become citizens of other countries. These corporations are given life as an artificial person. A corporation isn't a real person, but we, in law in this country, have decided to create artificial persons. It is called a corporation. They can sue and be sued, contract and be contracted with. They, by a charter granted them in this country--in most cases by the State of Delaware but in other places as well--become an artificial citizen of the U.S. They do business. With a corporation, they limit liability and they are able to accumulate capital. It has been good for this system of ours, the capitalistic system, the free enterprise system. It has been good. Except now this is what we are saying to companies such as KPMG, that are marketing aggressive tax shelters to these other companies, American companies who want to remain American companies and want to do everything but pay taxes to our country. We have the largest Federal budget deficit in history and we have companies trying to avoid paying taxes right and left and we have a big company that was advising them on how to avoid paying their taxes and in some cases creating abusive and aggressive tax shelters, and the Treasury Department says: Oh, by the way, I know we are investigating you in a grand jury probe, but on the other hand, let us help you out with a big, fat contract. I don't understand who makes these decisions, but I don't think it is a decision that makes sense for the taxpayers of this country. I don't like the signal it sends. I don't know this company. I am not involved with the people involved in this company. It is not about this being personal. It seems to me, if a company, in order to curry favor with its clients, decides it wants to market aggressive and abusive tax shelters, it has to bear the responsibility for having done that. Part of the responsibility is not, in my judgment, bringing down a big, old contract on the positive side of the ledger, to now audit the Department of the Federal Treasury. Let me say, while I am at this, Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus have made statements about this which I think are very admirable. I could read some of them. I think the statements about this by both the chairman and the ranking member of the Finance Committee are right on target. Senator Grassley says: If we could just get Federal agencies not to work at cross purposes it would go a long way towards ensuring everybody pays their fair share of taxes. Senator Baucus launched a probe into the Department of Interior's planned acquisition of mineral rights from a seller who wanted to claim a big charitable deduction. That is the same thing. These companies marketing these strategies these days, they even have now in this country something a lot of people would find strange, subway systems and city hall being sold to the private sector in a leaseback. You actually sell it and then lease it back so the private company can get tax benefits from a building that was owned by the Federal Government or State government or local government--in most cases it is State or local government--and it is kind of a golden handshake where a building that would not be depreciated, because the government wouldn't depreciate it, sells the building to a private business and then leases it back so the private company can actually collect more in tax benefits than it lays out to the government in the first place. It is a big tax dodge. It doesn't make any sense at all. At a time when we have a giant Federal budget deficit, trying to figure out how we make enterprises pay their fair share and people pay their fair share, the ordinary folks, the folks who go to work every day and try to do the best they can, at the end of the year file a tax return on April 15 and pay their fair share, they look at this and say I don't understand that. A company that makes $500 million pays zero or next to zero, companies that make billions of dollars end up claiming these tax dodges. Let me commend Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus and encourage them and say, as one Member of the Senate, I hope you will be as aggressive as possible to try to shut this down because this makes no sense at all. Secret Airplane Flights after 9/11

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to mention one other issue, one that I think very few people are paying as much attention to as they should, especially in the press. I believe my colleague from New Jersey has discussed it on the Senate floor, it was discussed recently in a Commerce Committee hearing, and I have discussed it in many venues--the question of something that happened which was curious and very worrisome to me in the days following September 11, 2001. Let me describe what it was. We have all read snippets about it, and some of them are not accurate. In the days following 9/11, there were six secret charter flights that were allowed to leave this country. They gathered up 142 Saudi nationals that were in the United States. They gathered up those Saudis, which included over two dozen members of the bin Laden family, and got them to a few gathering points, and on six secret charter flights they left this country. The public did not know they were leaving. The public did not know that these flights were occurring until after they left our country. There have been a lot of questions about this issue. Let me describe some of what is in the public record. Fifteen of the 19 terrorists who struck this country on September 11, 2001, were Saudi citizens. So who would have allowed the gathering up of 142 Saudi citizens to be put on 6 secret charter airplane flights to leave this country? On September 3, 2003, Richard Clarke, head of counterterrorism in the White House at the National Security Council, said this before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He addressed this question: It's true that members of the bin Laden family were among those who left. That is part of the 142 Saudis who left on the 6 secret flights. It is true that members of the bin Laden family were among those who left. We knew at the time--I can't say much more in open session--but it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House. That is Richard Clarke testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee when asked about who allowed these secret flights. He said: Well, we knew about it. I can't tell you much more in open session, but it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House. Then Richard Clarke--the same Richard Clarke--appeared under oath in March 2004 at the 9/11 Commission. Here is what he said about who sought these secret charter flights: I'd love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I do not know. The two possibilities that are the most likely are either the Department of State or the White House Chief of Staff's office. That is what he told the 9/11 Commission when asked who proposed these secret flights to be allowed to leave. He said: I do not know. The two possibilities are the Department of State or the White House Chief of Staff's office. In the same testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Mr. Clark testified with respect to the secret flights, and the request that the flights be approved: I suggested that it be routed to the FBI, and the FBI looked at the names of individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with at the time the No. 2 person at the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved the flight. That is Richard Clarke, a direct quote under oath to the 9/11 Commission. The FBI spokesperson, speaking of these charter flights with the Saudis and the bin Laden family members, said: We haven't had anything to do with arranging or clearing the flights. Then the FBI said no one was allowed to depart ``who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks.'' That is what the FBI said. No one was allowed to leave who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks. However, Dale Watson, the No. 2 person at the FBI, head of counterterrorism at the time of these flights, said that the FBI did not conduct in-depth checks on the Saudis being repatriated. He said: They were identified but they were not subject to serious interviews or interrogation. What we now know, according to the 9/11 Commission, is that about 30 of the 142 Saudis who were allowed to leave were interviewed by the FBI. But the No. 2 person at the FBI said none of them were subject to interviews or interrogation. Among those who were allowed to leave this country, the Saudis--and I will not use their names; though I may have used them before--was a cousin of Osama bin Laden who had run the U.S. operations of a charity that had been accused of financing terrorism by the Governments of India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Bosnia. The FBI had investigated this person dating back to 1996. His case file was reopened on September 19, 2001, even as these flights were in progress. Another individual was allowed to leave. He, it turns out, curiously, was in the same hotel as three of the hijackers the night before September 11, 2001. He was a former director of a Saudi charity that has been investigated for ties to terrorism. He was interviewed by the FBI shortly after 9/11, but the interview was cut short when he pretended to be ill. The FBI agent recommended that he should not be allowed to leave until a followup interview could occur. That recommendation was not complied with, and he was allowed to return to Saudi Arabia without a followup interview. The interesting thing about the 9/11 Commission report is what they say about this flight and these citizens. The 9/11 Commission says that no one was allowed to depart who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks. Incidentally, we can't get the manifest of the passenger list; I think Senator Lautenberg has gotten one of them, but the rest of them have not been made available--but at any rate, the 9/11 Commission says that no one was allowed to depart who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks. Just take that for a moment and understand what they are saying. No one was allowed to leave who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks. What about someone who they should have interviewed in connection with financing terrorist activities? What about someone who they should have interviewed because of involvement with a charity that had been financing terrorist activities, perhaps not 9/11 but other terrorist activities? They say no one was allowed to leave who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with these attacks, but I just described to you two people who left, one who an FBI agent did not want permitted to leave, and the other who had his case reopened on September 19, 2001. This is really a little too cute, I think. The 9/11 Commission says no one was allowed to leave who might have had some issue dealing with 9/11. But what about other ties to terrorism? The issue is the gathering up of 142 Saudi citizens in the aftermath of 9/11--keeping in mind that 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia--and putting these 142 people, including two dozen members of the bin Laden family, on 6 secret charter flights, disclosing those flights to no one until they left for Saudi Arabia. The question for me is, Were any of those people involved in any way in the financing of terrorist activities anywhere any time in the world? That has not been answered. The 9/11 Commission has not answered that and may not answer it, apparently, and most people have stopped asking those questions. My colleague from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg, asked those questions. I asked those questions. The American people deserve to know answers to those questions. I don't allege some elaborate coverup. I allege gross incompetence. Somebody said that I was alleging a conspiracy at the White House. I am not alleging that at all. Richard Clarke says that the decision to allow these six secret flights was ``at the highest levels'' of the State Department, the FBI, and the White House. But I am not alleging there is some sort of conspiracy or connection. All I am alleging is gross incompetence, I think, because somebody allowed there to be gathered up a big group of people who should have been properly interrogated, and they allowed them, before those proper interrogations, to jump on six secret charter flights and were given opportunities no one else in this country was given. There are a lot of other Saudi citizens here. A lot of other people weren't given the opportunity to leave this country on secret flights. Why did that happen? How did it happen? Who asked for it and who approved it? Those questions have not yet been answered. I think the American people deserve those answers. We are told now that there is threat of a substantial terrorist attack against this country. Two weeks ago we were told that terrorists would attempt to strike this country between now and the election to disrupt the election, or disrupt the two political conventions. The ability of this country to detect and to stop a potential terrorist attack relies on our ability to use good intelligence and the coordination between the intelligence community and our law enforcement community. If that does not work, then we are in trouble. I don't for the life of me understand how we could have allowed these secret flights to occur without learning everything there was to learn from these passengers. One might say: Well, maybe we would not have learned anything. Maybe not. I expect you would learn something from the two people I described, both of whom had previously been of interest to the FBI, but now, after 9/11, were not questioned thoroughly by the FBI. I don't know about the rest of them. Someone made a grievous error, in my view. Someone did not exhibit the competence we should expect from those making decisions to protect this country. I continue to ask these questions. I know my colleague, will, as well, and I hope at some point we will find out what the answers are. Who authorized these flights? Why were they authorized? What is on the passenger manifest list? Are there more Saudis who the FBI should have questioned further who were allowed to leave this country? I don't know the answer to that, but this country, in my judgment, deserves an answer. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague from South Dakota described the circumstances on the family farms and ranches in this country and why folks who are out there living on the land trying to grow a crop and raise some animals wonder whether the Government is on their side, wonder what is happening here in Washington, DC, with this administration and this Department of Agriculture, and why they won't stand up for their interests. My colleague described many circumstances. Let me describe at least one. I am going to talk later today about the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement, so-called, that I think undermines once again our agricultural interests. Let me describe one example of this administration again deciding we are not going to stand for farmers and ranchers. It deals with China. It deals with wheat. An official from the U.S. Trade Ambassador's office in the last week in which he served in the Government gave a speech. He said the recommendation was that inside the administration they take action against China because China has been unfair in its decisions on trade with respect to U.S. agriculture. If I can interpret that, we have farmers and ranchers who are trying to make a living, who are trying to raise some products and move them around the world and the Chinese, with whom we have a very large trade deficit--the largest in human history--have decided they are not going to play fair with us. What is the result of a recommendation inside this administration to take action against China because China is not playing fair with respect to our ability to sell wheat to China? They say we are not going to take action against China because that would upset the Chinese. What do you think it does to farmers and ranchers out there who are trying to make a decent living? About a week ago, I was out on a ranch in North Dakota, owned by the Ebers. They are out there by themselves. They are not a big conglomerate or a big corporation, only themselves. They run some cattle. They run a ranch, try to do a good job and try to make an income at the end of the year. I asked them, Where do you buy your groceries? It is an hour and a half away to go buy groceries. They are way out in the country. You would expect and they would expect their Government would at least stand up for them when it comes to fairness with respect to trade agreements, whether it is CAFTA, or U.S.-Australia, or NAFTA, or the bilateral with China. Nobody is willing to stand for them. This administration says with respect to China that we know the Chinese Government made commitments. We know the Chinese Government was supposed to do certain things and has not done them with respect to agriculture, but we are not going to do anything about it. March 17 of last year is when a U.S. Trade Ambassador's official in the USTR office told a wheat industry meeting here in Washington, DC, that the USTR should file a case against China at the World Trade Organization in response to the failure of the Chinese to keep their commitments. He was leaving the USTR and going to another agency. Finally, somebody was candid about what was happening inside the administration. This official expressed his frustration with the Chinese Government. He noted that Chinese officials have never disagreed with U.S. technical criticism of how China has been administering these so-called tariff rate quotas. He said the Chinese only make the political argument: You have to understand China. China is a special case, they say. So this fellow said publicly that the trade policy review group in this interagency process in the Bush administration has given the U.S. Trade Ambassador's office the green light to move forward with a WTO case against China. That means in English that China is being unfair to our farmers and ranchers. So the technical folks said clearly we ought to take action against them. But he noted that many in the administration decided we can't do that; that would be an ``in your face'' action with respect to the Chinese. Right after this official made these candid remarks, the administration disavowed those comments saying: No, no, he was not speaking for the administration. Of course he was. He made a very big mistake. He told the truth. He was candid. My colleague from South Dakota asked the question: Why will they not stand up for the interests of farmers and ranchers? These are the bedrock entrepreneurs of our country who live on the land and try to do a good job and make a decent living. They expect their government to stand for them, to be on their side, to help them. When they are confronted with an unfairness--and the example here is with respect to the Chinese who are mistreating our farmers and ranchers in international trade--they expect their government to stand for them. This administration, this trade ambassador, this trade policy from this administration fails to do so. It is a shame.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. No problem.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the majority leader yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the majority leader is speaking of schedules, in this case the schedule of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I inquire of the majority leader about the schedule with respect to legislation he and I have spoken about at great length. The last occasion was about midnight on the floor of the Senate, after which I allowed the nomination of Dr. McClellan to proceed. As a result of that, the issue of allowing prescription drug reimportation in this country and legislation that is bipartisan in scope with over 30 Senators now cosponsoring it, I had intended and hoped we would have an opportunity to vote on that on the Senate floor. I have not had the opportunity to speak with the majority leader at length in recent days, but my hope would be we could go back and revisit what is put in the Congressional Record. And my hope is what was put in the Congressional Record will then allow us to have an opportunity on the floor of the Senate to advance the legislation that we previously discussed dealing with the reimportation of prescription drugs and allowing us to put downward pressure on prescription drug prices in this country. I ask the majority leader whether he has had an opportunity to go through that and whether he could give me some advice as to when he would allow that to be debated on the floor of the Senate?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we meet here in the Senate again to talk about the issue of international trade, a very important issue for our own country. I would like to follow up on my colleague's comments about the Constitution. The Constitution does, indeed, talk about trade. It talks about who is responsible for international trade in this country. It is article I, section 8 of the Constitution. It says: The Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Yet Congress has largely given away that opportunity and the responsibility with respect to trade. What the Congress has done, strangely enough, is to put itself in a straitjacket by voting and passing legislation called ``fast track''-- which doesn't sound like English, perhaps, to most people--fast-track trade authority. Fast track means that Members of Congress will promise that when a trade agreement is negotiated somewhere else in the world in secret, behind closed doors, by our trade ambassador, when it is finally brought back to the Senate for a vote up or down, the Congress will prevent itself from ever being able to offer amendments to change it if it thinks something in it is wrong. That is fast track. The Congress has decided to limit its own ability to fix problems. I didn't vote for fast track, but the majority of my colleagues did. So we have a situation where we have a rather innocuous trade agreement today between the United States and Australia. There is not much in this agreement that is of great moment. There are a couple of bad things in it that should be taken out. We should have a vote on the provision dealing with pharmaceutical drugs. We ought to have an opportunity to amend this trade agreement in a way that deals with trading authorities, such as the Australian Wheat Board and the authority in Australia that deals with the sale of cattle. These are state trading enterprises that would be illegal in this country. We are actually having to say, let's trade with someone else who has a monopoly in marketing operations in agriculture, and we will consider that fair. It is not fair at all. I will talk about that at some length. In any event, the Congress, through its lack of wisdom, I must say, has decided to use what is called fast-track trade authority, which means this agreement is here now and no one may offer any amendments because Congress decided to put itself in a straitjacket. So we have a circumstance with no amendments. Let me at least describe where we are with international trade. Most people do not want to talk about it. This is a massive failure. This is a colossal failure of this country on international trade. This chart shows the countries with which we have trade surpluses. They are not in red, they are in green. All these countries in red are countries with which we have trade deficits--some very large. You look at a map of the world and you will see that we have on only a very few occasions trade surpluses. One of them happens to be with Australia. That will soon be gone after we pass this trade agreement. That is the case with every trade agreement we have done. But Australia, Egypt, Belgium--there are just a few countries with whom we have a surplus. With the rest of the world, of course, we have a large, abiding, substantial trade deficit. Last month, I put this on a chart and showed it on the floor of the Senate. The Washington Post says, ``U.S. Trade Deficit Set Another Record In April.'' That trade deficit was $48 billion in 1 month, almost $50 billion in 1 single month. Month after month after month we see this trade deficit. Let me go through a bit and perhaps show some charts that might give us the opportunity to ask the question, Are we really doing well here? This is all about jobs, as you know. It is about where the jobs are located. It is about outsourcing. It is about moving jobs from here to another country. Let us look at what is happening to our trade balance. This is the merchandise trade deficit. You will see this is dangerous, in my judgment, and very alarming. You won't hear anybody come to talk much about it. This is sort of the unseen, the hidden part of our policy that will cause, in my judgment, substantial problems in the future. You can make a case that the budget deficit, the big budget deficit-- incidentally, it is the biggest in history--will be repaid. It is a deficit the American people will repay to themselves. You can make that point. But you cannot make that point with the trade deficit. This large trade deficit will inevitably be repaid by a lower standard of living in this country. It is getting worse and worse year after year after year. And every single year, when another trade agreement is brought to the Senate floor, we are told what a wonderful agreement it is and how much we are going to sell and what good times we are going to have as a result of this agreement. Yet in every single case our trade deficit grows, jobs leave this country, and you will see that we are mortgaging this country's future. Let me talk about some specifics, if I might. This is our trading partner to the north, Canada, a country with which we have a wonderful relationship. They, of course, have a terrific relationship with us with respect to this trade balance. When we passed something called the North American Free Trade Agreement, we had a relatively modest trade deficit with Canada-- somewhere in here. But now it has grown to be a very substantial trade deficit with Canada. I will talk a little about why in a few moments. China is the granddaddy of trade deficits. You will see what is happening in China. We are seeing massive and record trade deficits, of $130 billion a year. It is getting worse, worse, worse, and it is going to hurt this country. What about the European Union? We used to actually have a bit of a trade surplus with the European Union. That has gotten worse and worse. It is now nearly as large as the merchandise trade deficit we have with China. Japan is another interesting one. Japan, while not quite as large as Europe and China, demonstrates the fundamental and relentless incompetence of policymakers in trade. Over and over again, year after year, every single year, we have this deficit with Japan, somewhere between $50 billion, $60 billion, $70 billion a year, every single year. Now Mexico. We had this big old NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement we negotiated with Mexico and Canada. When we negotiated it, we had a trade surplus with Mexico and a modest deficit with Canada. We turned that into a big deficit with Mexico and a larger deficit with Canada. So much for whether this North American Free Trade Agreement worked. We could not offer any amendments to any of these agreements because of this foolishness called fast track, which, incidentally, inhibits us today in the Senate on this trade agreement with Australia. I will go through some of the examples. I could start by talking about Japan. I mentioned the circumstance with Japan. We have a large trade deficit with Japan, and it just keeps on going every single year, $45, $60, $70 billion, forever. Europe will not allow that, by the way, but we do. I am talking about Europe and its relationship with Japan. We are a country that, in most cases, converts what should be hard economic policy--that is, trade policy--into softheaded foreign policy and we do not want to take action anywhere to stand up for America's interests. I will talk about Japan in the context of my State. We produce a lot of beef. We have a lot of ranchers who work hard. They get up in the morning and work on that ranch. They are hoping to make a decent living. They want to sell some beef to Japan. But guess what. Nearly 15 years after a beef agreement with Japan between our country and Japan, which was trumpeted on the pages of all the newspapers--the United States and Japanese trade negotiators reach agreement on beef--15 years later, there is a 50-percent tariff on every single pound of American beef that goes into Japan. That would be considered a failure under any circumstance here, but in our relationship with Japan, it is just fine--a 50-percent tariff on every pound of beef. Should we be able to send more T-bones to Tokyo? I think so, sure. The tariff actually went down to 38 percent, and because we got a little more beef in to Japan, it snapped back to 50 percent. It is symbolic of the trade problems we have. Does anyone want to do anything? Do we hear anyone rushing off to try to solve that problem? No. No one talks about that problem. Let me use the Chinese tariffs on cars for a moment. Two years ago we did a bilateral agreement with China--actually, almost 3 years ago, now--a bilateral trade agreement with China. Our country decided, through our negotiators with China--a country with which we have a large deficit and it is growing dangerously high--we decided in our bilateral trade in automobiles we would agree to the following: China, you can put a 25-percent tariff on any cars that we try to sell in China after a long phase-in and we will apply a 2.5-percent tariff to any cars that you might want to sell in our marketplace. In other words, our negotiators signed up to a deal that said, we know you have a really big surplus with us, or we have a big deficit with you, but with respect to automobile trade, you go ahead and impose a tariff that is 10 times higher than the one we will impose on automobiles going back and forth between China and the United States. Of course, right now, China is gearing up an auto industry for exports and our negotiators said it is fine for them to have a tariff that is 10 times higher than we would have. That is fundamentally incompetent. We do not know who negotiated that, of course. This is not a matter of Democrats or Republicans. It is just incompetence, gross incompetence. I will talk a little about Korea and automobiles, and I have used this example many times. I don't have the latest year's data, but trust me, it is about the same. Over 600,000 Korean vehicles are coming into this country. Ships are on the high seas, packed with Korean cars, coming in so the American consumers can purchase them. Good for our consumers. But when 618,000 Korean cars come into our country for our consumers to purchase, guess how many American cars are in the Korean marketplace for Koreans to purchase? There are 2,800 U.S. cars able to be sold in Korea and over 600,000 Korean cars in the United States. With respect to Korea, I might point out that we actually were making some progress recently. It was with a vehicle called the Dodge Dakota. When it looked as if that was beginning to pick up, we were actually going to be able to sell some in Korea, they did not like that and took action quickly to begin to shut that down. The question is, Why will this country, when all of this translates to jobs here or there, why will this country decide it is all right in our relationship with Korea to have them ship 600,000 cars this way and then keep American cars out of Korea? It does not make any sense to me. What that means is fewer jobs in the United States and more in Korea. That means people are laid off here and people are hired there. I know the agreement we are debating involves Australia, and I will talk about Australia in a couple of minutes, but it is important to put this discussion in a frame of reference. We will hear today by those who support this trade agreement that this is a wonderful agreement, this is nirvana, and if we just step back and we can see into the future, this will be new jobs, new economic growth, new opportunity. Nonsense. Total nonsense. In each and every circumstance, our trade negotiations have resulted in trade agreements that have undermined our jobs and undermined our economic growth. Want to talk about specifics? I will put the charts back up. Europe, Japan, China, Korea, Canada, Mexico--show me one of these circumstances where the trade agreement has buttressed the producers in this country, the employers in this country, the workers in this country toward new opportunities. In the aggregate, with each of those circumstances, we have lost ground rather than gained ground. I know when we talk about this, people, especially the more institutional thinkers on this subject, say, well, your discussion demonstrates you do not get it, you do not see over the horizon, you do not understand what is happening internationally. This is a global economy. Why not shape up and listen and you will finally begin to understand this. You are nothing but a xenophobic isolationist stooge. Join the rest of the protectionists and just sit down. I am not a protectionist, unless that means you want to protect the economic interests of this country, and if so I plead guilty and demand to be called that. I want to protect the economic interests of this country. I believe it is in this country's best interest to expand opportunities to trade. I believe that strongly. For the first 25 years after the Second World War, our trade policy was almost exclusively foreign policy because we were trying to help others get back on their feet. But in the second 25 years after the Second World War, trade policy continued to be foreign policy when, in fact, it should have been harder nosed economic policy. I began to raise questions about trade as a result of a trade agreement with Canada some long time ago. I suppose it was around 14 years ago. I was serving in the House of Representatives and I was on the Ways and Means committee. They were going to vote on the United States-Canada Free-Trade Agreement. It, too, was done with fast track, where no one was able to offer an amendment. A little provision was stuck in that agreement that allowed the Canadian Wheat Board, a sanctioned monopoly in Canada and which sells Canadian wheat through the monopoly--and that would be illegal in this country--to continue to move massive quantities of Canadian grain, underselling our farmers with unfair prices and secret prices into our country, into our marketplace. I raised those issues but to no avail. So we came to the final vote on the United States-Canada Free-Trade Agreement and the vote in the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives was 34 to 1. I was the one who opposed it. I was told by all my colleagues: We want this to be a unanimous vote. It is very important for our committee. You must join us to get a unanimous vote on this trade agreement. I said: But the agreement is bad. The agreement is wrong. The agreement is going to hurt farmers and ranchers in an awful way in this country. So I voted no. About 3 years later, I drove to the Canadian border one day, the border between North Dakota and Canada. I rode with Earl Jensen, who was driving a 12-year-old orange truck. It was a little old 2-ton orange truck. We rumbled up to border with some durum wheat on the back of his truck, all the way to the Canadian border. On this windy day, we saw 18-wheel trucks coming from Canada to the United States, all loaded with Canadian grain, all of them headed to our marketplace, all of them with secret pricing, all marketed by the Canadian Wheat Board--a monopoly--which would be illegal in this country. All the way to the border we saw those trucks, dozens and dozens of trucks. The Canadians were saturating our marketplace, injuring our farmers in dramatic ways. Well, we got to the border in this little old orange 12-year-old truck. We had about, I guess, 100 bushels of durum wheat in the back. When we got to the border station, the Canadian folks said: What do you have in the back of this truck? We said: We have durum wheat from North Dakota. Remember, all the way to the border, we had 18-wheel trucks full of durum wheat from Canada going into our marketplace at secret prices. We found later, incidentally, they were at prices that were dumped prices that were designed to undermine our farmers. But we were told at the border station entering Canada we could not get just a small amount of wheat from the United States into Canada. Why? Because you just cannot. It is the way this works. It is a trade agreement. One side gets to dump all their products into our marketplace, and a little orange truck gets stopped going into their's. A woman from Bowman, ND, married a Canadian. She told me she came home to Bowman one day, and because she liked to make whole wheat bread, her dad from the farm loaded up some grain in a couple grocery sacks. She drove back to Canada after Thanksgiving. She got to the border. Again, all these 18-wheel trucks were hauling Canadian durum south. She got to the border, and they forced her to throw out these two bags of wheat from a North Dakota farm that she was going to take back into Canada to make whole wheat bread. It was because you could not take that into Canada. There is not one person in this Congress, in my judgment, not one in the U.S. House, not one in U.S. Senate, who will stand up and say: Yes, that is fair. That is right. We support it. We stand by it. That is what we intended. Not one. Yet none will lift a finger to change it. And that is just one small example that got me involved in this question of fair trade. Why on Earth will this Congress not stand up for this country's economic interest? When it comes to international trade issues with respect to the production of manufactured goods--I have mentioned before and let me do it again because I am not at all embarrassed by repetition, so let me do it again and again and again--the Huffy bicycles that are made in this country, which I have spoken about repeatedly, are a wonderful bicycle, but they are no longer American bicycles. Huffy bicycles, most people know, are bought at K-Mart and Wal-Mart and Sears. They are 20 percent of America's marketplace for bicycles. They were made in Ohio by workers who made $11 an hour. They were proud of their jobs. In fact, the Huffy bicycles had a decal on the front just below the handlebar with the American flag. But those workers in Ohio do not make $11 an hour. They were fired. Huffy bicycles are made in China for 33 cents an hour by people who work 7 days a week, in some cases 12 to 14 hours a day. And the people in Ohio, who were proud to make these bicycles, had to go home one day to say to their spouse: Honey, I've lost my job. It wasn't because I didn't do a good job. It wasn't because I didn't like my job. It was because I can't compete with 33- cents-an-hour labor. I don't know, I guess this truly is a globalized economy. Globalization has galloped along, and we are not going to change it. Have the rules for globalization moved along quite so quickly? I don't think so. What are the rules for globalization? The next picture is of a little red wagon most of us have ridden in. The little red wagon is called the Radio Flyer. This little red wagon was an American fixture for 100 years. For 100 years, they made the little red wagon in our country. Not anymore. It is gone. You buy labor for pennies an hour somewhere and have them make the little red wagon, and then make sure you have them make it in a way that allows them to sell it back into the American marketplace. Yes, you can still buy the little red wagon. You can still buy Huffy bicycles in the American marketplace. But they are not made here. They show up as a big red bar on that trade chart I showed you, and that big red bar means jobs, and it means jobs that left here and went there. It means a worker in Ohio who made the Huffy bicycle now does not have a job. Because they are bad workers? No. Because they will not work for 33 cents an hour. They cannot do that. So there are all kinds of elements to this issue of international trade, something that, in my judgment, is going to impose a substantial burden on this country with the kind of Federal deficits and kind of trade deficits we are now waging. You cannot experience these deficits year after year after year and not be forced, at some point, to turn to them, face them, and deal with them. We ought not, in my judgment, deal with them by saying that we want to retreat from trade. Our country, in my judgment, should lead the world in trade--but lead the world in saying to others: There is an admission price to the American marketplace. There is an admission price here. You cannot, as a country, decide you are going to hire kids, pay them pennies, put them in unsafe plants, fire them if they try to form a labor union, and then produce your product and ship it to Pittsburgh or Fargo or Los Angeles or Denver. You cannot do that because we won't let you do that. I will give you an example in China. This is a story from the Washington Post that I was interested in. It is a tragic story, but it is a story that mirrors a story of a couple of young women who came to a hearing I held a few months ago from Honduras who worked in a factory. You can find them all over the country--the young kids who work in a carpet plant at age 11. They tell us they have their fingertips burnt deliberately so that when these young kids are making these carpets with needles and they stick their fingers, it won't hurt because the burning of the fingertips creates scarring, so it does not hurt the kids when they stick themselves. You can find this all over the world. Let me describe this story. This happened to be in China. In this article, it says: On the night she died, Li Chunmei must have been exhausted. Co-workers said she had been on her feet for nearly 16 hours, running back and forth inside the Bainan Toy Factory, carrying toy parts from machine to machine. It was the busy season before Christmas. Orders peaked from Japan and the U.S. for stuffed animals. Long hours were mandatory, and at least two months had passed since Li and the other workers had enjoyed even a Sunday off. Lying in her bed that night, staring at the bunk, the 19- year-old claimed she felt worn out. The factory food was so bad, she said she felt as if she had not eaten at all. ``I want to quit,'' one of her roommates . . . remembered her saying. ``I want to go home.'' Finally the lights went out. [She] started coughing up blood. They found her in the bathroom a few hours later, curled up on the floor, moaning softly in the dark, bleeding from her nose and mouth. Someone called an ambulance, but she died before it arrived. The cause of Li's death remains unknown. But what happened to her last November . . . in southeastern Guangdong province is described by family, friends and co-workers as an example of what China's more daring newspapers call guolaosi. The phrase means ``over-work death,'' and applies to young workers who suddenly collapse and die after working exceedingly long hour days, day after day. Stories of these deaths highlight labor conditions that are the norm for a new generation of workers in China. Tens of millions of migrants have flocked from the nation's impoverished countryside to its prospering coast. Perhaps more evidence is in a story about child labor in El Salvador--a country that our trade ambassador has just signed a new trade deal with: Jesus Franco has scars crisscrossing his legs from his ankles to his thighs, and many more on his small hands. For more than half of his young life--he is age 14--he has spent long days cutting sugar cane, and he has the machete scars to prove it. And so do his four brothers age 9 to 19. The point of this is simple: The rules of trade, in my judgment, have to be rules that recognize what we have accomplished in this country. We had people die on the streets in this country, demonstrating for the right to organize as workers. We had people demonstrate and die in the streets over that principle. It was a hard-fought battle to demand that workplaces be safe for workers in this country but which got there. It was not easy to get kids out of coal mines and kids out of manufacturing plants with child labor laws, but we did it. This country battled long and hard on the question of what is fair compensation, and we have a minimum wage. We fought all of those issues and established standards. Do we now believe the conditions of international trade shall be that anyone who produces anything anywhere should have admission to the American marketplace to sell that product in our marketplace? I don't think so. We ought to lead on the basis of what fair trade relationships really are. There are so many more issues dealing with international trade, many of them that affect our farmers, affect ranchers, affect workers. They affect businesses, small businesses trying to make a living. The Australia trade agreement is brought to us as an innocent, rather innocuous agreement. It is not the CAFTA agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is completed but will not be brought to this Congress before the election. That, of course, is for political reasons. The Australia agreement, despite the fact that I will vote no--and perhaps a few of my colleagues will vote no--will pass today. It is not as controversial as the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is going to have difficulty in the Senate. But CAFTA won't come before the Senate in the coming months, because the President and the trade ambassador decided they don't want to bring it here before the election. They don't want to have this debate. I want to have this debate. I don't think that is a Republican or Democratic problem. I think both political parties have shortchanged the country over two decades on trade policy. But we ought to have the debate now because it is about jobs, growth, and opportunity in the future. Let me talk for a moment about Australia. As I indicated earlier, the Australia trade agreement is with a country that is similar to ours in many respects, a much smaller economy but similar. I don't allege this is the kind of problem we had when we were trying to connect a trade agreement with the country of Mexico, where you were trying to connect two countries with dissimilar wages and dissimilar standards. That is not the case with Australia. Australia is a wonderful country with great people. I would love to visit Australia. I have not yet visited Australia and would love to do that at some point. My complaint is that we reach a trade agreement that consigns farmers and ranchers to great jeopardy. Let me tell you why. The Australians, like the Canadians, sell their grain, their wheat, through an Australian wheat board. In fact, it is the second largest exporter in the world, with 16 percent of the global share. Every grain of that that is sold internationally is sold through the Australian wheat board which is a sanctioned state monopoly, a state trading enterprise that would be illegal in our country. We have been told time and again by the trade ambassador that we are going to deal with that. In future trade agreements we will not allow state trading enterprises to exist in circumstances where they can undercut our prices and dump their products into our country. I described the circumstance in Canada with the massive quantity of grain coming down to our country and my not being able to get into Canada with a little orange truck with a few bushels. We have for years attempted to get information from the Canadian wheat board about the conditions under which they are selling into our marketplace at secret prices, and they have said: Go take a hike. We don't intend to tell you a thing. The prices are secret. We don't intend to disclose them. Get out of here. They told that to the GAO, which went up there at my request: We don't intend to tell you a thing. What evidence we do have suggests that they, as most monopolists will do, abused their pricing power and decided at secret prices to undercut our marketplace, and they have dramatically injured our farmers. That is not only me speaking. That is from studies that have been done by the Center for Agriculture and Trade Research. They have calculated the dramatic amount of money lost by family farmers as a result of unfair trade. Now we have an Australia trade agreement. The Australian wheat board continues to exist in this trade agreement. There is nothing in this agreement that says, as we hitch together and connect our two countries in a trade relationship, you must divest yourself or create a circumstance where you are not using a state trading authority unfairly. Nothing here prevents them from doing exactly what the Canadians do. The Australians are also positioned to do great harm to our country on beef trade. There are almost no export benefits for our cattle and beef producers with this free-trade agreement. Given Australia's relatively small population, its very large cattle herd, and its position as the world's largest beef exporter, the potential of Australia becoming any kind of an importer of our beef is almost nil. Instead, the only significant benefit I can see and many can see as a result of this with respect to cross-beef trade will be the U.S. beef packing industry which will profit from increased imports brought in under this agreement. The beef industry is highly concentrated in a way that is pretty dangerous. I mean dangerous to consumers because the more concentration you have, the more pricing power they have and the more they price profits away from ranchers and towards themselves. They price it in a way that is disadvantageous to consumers. There are serious problems that could exist with respect to agriculture, and there is nothing anybody can do about that. I would love to offer an amendment that deals with these two issues, but you can't because of fast track. Finally, there is a provision in this agreement that is particularly pernicious. This is a trade agreement with Australia that includes a provision on prescription drugs. This is from the New York Times: Congress is poised to approve an international trade agreement that could have the effect of thwarting a goal pursued by many lawmakers of both parties: The import of expensive prescription drugs to help millions of Americans without health insurance. The agreement, negotiated with Australia by the Bush administration, would allow pharmaceutical companies to prevent imports of drugs to the United States. This is a trade agreement, and they stick in a provision about prescription drugs. They did the same in Singapore. My guess is, they will do it every chance they get. What is this? It is anticonsumer, pro-pharmaceutical industry. It is an attempt to thwart those in this country who want to find a way to put downward pressure on prescription drug prices. How might one do that? By allowing the market system to act. We pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, and yet we are not able to purchase the identical prescription drug, the same pill put in the same bottle, made by the same manufacturer, from a pharmacist who is 5 miles north of the United States-Canada border. A man talked to me the other day in North Dakota. He said his wife had breast cancer and she has taken the drug Tamoxifen for her breast cancer for 5 years and has just finished. She is now off the drug. For 5 years they traveled to Canada to buy their 90-day supply of Tamoxifen and bring it back across the border because they will allow 90 days of importation for personal use of prescription drugs. A pharmacist can't do it, but an individual can if they live near the border. So for 5 years they traveled to Canada. Why? Because you can buy Tamoxifen in Canada for 10 percent or 20 percent of the price you will pay in the United States. Why can't a pharmacist or a distributor go to Canada and buy that prescription drug? It is FDA approved, a drug that is put in the same bottle, made by the same company. Another example is Lipitor. Lipitor is made in Ireland. It is one of the best-selling drugs in our country for the lowering of cholesterol. It is sent from Ireland to two places. It is made in Ireland in an FDA- approved plant. It is sent to Winnipeg and then Grand Forks, ND, and all over the world, of course. But the difference between the same bottles that are sent to Grand Forks, ND and Winnipeg is in Winnipeg you will pay $1.01 per tablet, and in Grand Forks you pay $1.81 per tablet. What is the difference? About 100 miles and a border and a provision that protects the pharmaceutical industry from reimportation. That is helped, with respect to Australia and other countries this administration intends to negotiate trade agreements with, by their sticking in this trade agreement a provision dealing with the reimportation of prescription drugs. It is anticonsumer, and it shows how little regard those who negotiated this have for the marketplace. Let's let the marketplace be the arbiter of consumer prices on prescription drugs. Let consumers have opportunities to access prescription drugs in other areas where there is a safe supply. The Australia Free Trade Agreement is going to be passed by the Congress today--not with my vote, I might add, because I think it undercuts and potentially injures family farmers and ranchers and our senior citizens who need affordable prescription drugs. I hope that even as we do this, as the Congress addresses this issue, those who care about the long-term economy, long-term economic health of this country, opportunities and growth of this country--I hope they will take a hard look at these trade relationships and about our aggregate trade deficits that are growing alarmingly. I am not asking that we today do anything that is particularly radical. I am saying we need to address these things. Can we, will we, should we address the trade deficit with Europe that is growing rapidly? Should we, can we address the trade deficit with China that is moving rapidly up, the highest in the world? Mexico? Canada? Korea? Can we address any of those? All of them relate to American jobs. It is safe to say there is not one Member of the Senate who comes to work with a blue suit every day and takes a shower in the morning, not at night, because that's the nature of our job--it is safe to say there is not one Member of the Senate that ever lost his or her job because of a bad trade agreement. It is probably safe to say there is not one journalist in this country who consistently writes about trade issues and seldom talks about these trade balances. It is safe to say they have never lost their job because of a bad trade agreement. But we can talk about a lot of people who have. We have a chart that shows the number of people who have lost their jobs with respect to NAFTA. This is not my speculation; these are companies that actually applied to the Department of Labor as a result of laying off workers due to the North American Free Trade Agreement. There was a provision in NAFTA that if you lay off workers as a result of NAFTA, you can apply for trade adjustment assistance. Here are the top 100 companies certifying they laid off United States workers due to our trade agreement with Mexico and Canada--mostly Mexico in this case. Levi Strauss is No. 2. They laid off 15,676 people. Levis are all- American. That is like bicycles and little red wagons, right? When you buy Levis these days, you are not buying American. Fruit of the Loom shorts and T-shirts used to be made in America. I always said it is one thing to lose your shirt but now Fruit of the Loom is gone. From these 100 companies alone, a couple hundred thousand people lost their jobs. They all had hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They love this country and try to do their best. They were told by any one of these companies, sorry, you are out of work, we are moving to Mexico. Next time you buy a Fig Newton cookie, guess what. You are eating Mexican food. Fig Newtons were made in America for a long, long, long time. But Fig Newtons, like Levis, like Fruit of the Loom, are now Mexican. When somebody says let's have Mexican food, go buy some Fig Newtons. The point is this: We had people working in all these areas producing these products. I will go back to the chart that I used when I began about what has happened in the aggregate to our trade deficit year after year after year. It shows this very substantial failure. All of these big deficits represent jobs that moved, jobs that should have been here but are not, jobs that could have been created here but weren't, or jobs that were here and left. Let me again say I don't believe the solution to this is putting up walls, deciding that we are isolationist, that this is not an international economy. I believe the answer to this is to finally use the term fairness in the context in which it ought to really mean fair trade for all countries. Trade agreements should be mutually beneficial. But these trade agreements, the ones I have described, consistently and relentlessly have been unfair to this country. We were big and strong enough in the 25 years after the Second World War to withstand that. We were the biggest, strongest, and best in the world, and we could take any country on in economic competition and beat them with one hand tied behind our back. After World War II, we were that good. As other countries grew and became stronger and better, they became tough international, economic competitors. Our trade policy never changed. It largely remained foreign policy. Last year, the administration's Trade Policy Review Group recommended take action against China, for failing to live up to its obligations on China trade. But the administration didn't. Why? Because the administration concluded that this would upset the Chinese. That is foreign policy; it has nothing to do with hardnosed economic policy. This country lives in a world in which we have incredibly tough competitors. It requires us, it seems to me--if we are going to maintain this standard of living, it requires us to care a little about the preservation of that standard of living, and that in turn depends on both the entrepreneurs and those who work, the producers and the workers. We have not done nearly what we should do in this country to stand up for our economic interests on international trade. I believe trade can be good, but much of the trade we have been engaged in in recent years has resulted in the largest trade deficit in history and will inevitably detract from this country's opportunity to grow, prosper, and create new jobs in the future, unless and until this Congress and this administration stand up and understand we need to take action on behalf of our country to protect our economic interests. All I ask for is fair trade. I will vote against the Australia Free Trade Agreement because it contains three bad trade provisions, because we cannot get these removed due to fast track, which itself is an unfairness perpetrated in the Congress. My expectation is that, even without my vote, this free-trade agreement will pass. But I will be back to talk about trade issues in the future. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today the Senate is deciding whether to add an amendment to our United States Constitution that would prohibit same-sex marriages. I agree that the subject of marriage is an important matter. So, too, is the prospect of amending the United States Constitution. I also agree with those who say that marriage is an institution that should be reserved for a man and a woman living as a husband and wife. I voted for that position when I supported the Defense of Marriage Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996. That is now Federal law and it clearly defines the institution of marriage for our country. In recent months, there have been some challenges to State laws prohibiting same-sex marriages. In Massachusetts, the State Supreme Court has ruled that the prohibition of same-sex marriages violates that State's constitution. In California, New York, and New Mexico, some have tried to perform same-sex marriages in violation of State law, and authorities have taken legal action to stop same-sex marriages. As a result, the only State in our country where same-sex marriages are now being performed is Massachusetts. But that State's legislature has begun a process to amend the State's constitution to prohibit same- sex marriages. When that is done, there will be no jurisdiction in America where same-sex marriages will be legal. I believe that the State governments, as has been the case for over two centuries, are resolving this issue in a manner that protects the institution of marriage as one that applies only to men and women united as husband and wife. Because of that, there is no need at this time to amend the United States Constitution. The U.S. Constitution is the basic framework for the greatest democracy on Earth. Some of my colleagues find it easy to amend it. I don't. There have been over 11,000 proposals to change it over the years, 67 of them introduced in this Congress alone. But in almost 220 years we have only approved seventeen amendments to the Constitution outside of the Bill of Rights. I am very conservative when it applies to altering our U.S. Constitution. I believe it should be amended only as a last resort. And in this case, the goal of prohibiting same-sex marriage is being achieved without the requirement to amend the U.S. Constitution. I respect those who differ with my judgment, but I simply cannot believe it is in our country's interest to amend the United States Constitution unless it is the only alternative available to solve a problem that is urgent. The work of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Mason, Madison, and others is a document that has given life to the most wonderful place in the world to live. ``We the people'' should dedicate ourselves to protecting that Constitution and the things it stands for. We should not rush to alter the foundation of our democracy.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, yesterday on the Senate floor and this morning watching an interview on NBC's ``Today Show'' by my colleague from Oregon, Senator Smith, there was a great deal of discussion about the issue of youth suicide. All of us in this Chamber, as part of the Senate family, have extended our hearts, thoughts, and prayers to the Smith family upon the loss of their son. It is devastating to lose a child. I lost a beautiful, wonderful daughter some while ago to heart disease. Yesterday, as I listened to my colleague, Senator Smith, describe the loss of his son and discuss the issue of suicide, I know that it adds a dimension to what is an almost unbearable burden of losing a child, to lose a child to suicide. So my thoughts and prayers have been with the Smith family, and I know, too, that what Senator Smith has done in providing leadership for the legislation passed last evening is going to save lives. We will not know their names, but there are going to be young people in this country whose lives are going to be saved because the grants and the resources that are going to be made available through the legislation passed by the Senate last night. I am glad to be an original cosponsor of this bill. It is going to give kids who are despondent and have despair and depression hope, opportunity, and counseling. So what the Senate did last night is going to save lives, and we owe a great debt of gratitude to Senator Smith. I hope the lives that are saved in the years ahead in some way are a memorial to the late son of Senator Smith and his family. I had come to the floor some 2 months or so ago intending to speak about a young girl on the Spirit Lake Nation Indian Reservation in North Dakota. When I came to the floor, I saw my colleague was in the Chair at that point and I decided that I really did not want to describe the circumstances of her death because she had committed suicide. I knew the burden the Smith family had been dealing with surrounding the loss of their son. So I did not describe that young girl's death in any detail, but I would like to today in light of the speech that was delivered and in light of the action the Senate took last evening, which has given me some hope. I will describe this young girl. This young girl was named Avis Littlewind. She died a few months ago now. She took her own life. She was 14 years of age. She lived on the Spirit Lake Nation Indian Reservation. She was a seventh grader at the Four Winds Middle School. I am told she enjoyed riding horses, playing basketball, grooming her animals, and listening to music. The day after she died, someone told me about the plight of this little girl. So I called the reservation and talked to the psychologist and the social worker involved. Since that time, I have gone to that reservation, I have sat around in a circle for an hour visiting with her classmates in the seventh grade, talked to the counselors, talked to the school administrators, talked to members of the tribal council about what is happening on our Indian reservations. Because, although I am speaking today about Avis Littlewind, there is an epidemic of suicides on Indian reservations. The legislation that Senator Smith, Senator Dodd, and others offered in the Senate last evening will help address this epidemic by making tribal governments also eligible for grant funding for suicide prevention. Avis Littlewind died just recently by her own hand. Her sister took her life 2 years ago. Her father took his life in a self-inflicted bullet wound 12 years ago. But it is more than that. The tragedy of suicides is not just a problem on the Spirit Lake Indian reservation-- Just in North Dakota, I have gone on the same mission to talk to people at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation when there was an epidemic of threats of suicide by young people. In this case with Avis Littlewind, there were a lot of warning signs. This little seventh grade girl missed 90 days of school up until April. She was lying in her bed day after day in a near fetal position. Tragically, she had an appointment to see the IHS social worker later the same day that she took her life. She did not live long enough to make that appointment. When I called the reservation to talk to leaders about these issues and then subsequently went there to visit with them, this is what I discovered: The reservation has one psychologist and one social worker. They did not have nearly the capability to follow up with these cases. They just could not cope. They did not have the capability to give somebody a ride to the clinic. They have to borrow a car, beg somebody to give someone a ride to some medical help. It is interesting to me, and tragic as well, that the Federal Government is directly responsible for the health care of only two groups of people. We have a trust responsibility for the health care of American Indians. That is a trust responsibility. That is not optional, that is our responsibility. And we have a responsibility for the health care of Federal prisoners. Do you know that on a per capita basis we spend almost twice as much for health care for Federal prisoners as we do for health care for American Indians? So little girls like Avis Littlewind are found dead by suicide, and we don't have the mental health services to reach out and help these kids. The mental health services are not available. Just call around and ask. There are kids who, for their own reasons, are desperate, are depressed, are reaching out, and yet the services are not available to them. We must do much better than that. Let me describe the circumstances on our Indian reservations in this country because on many of them it looks as if you are visiting a Third World country. Alcoholism, seven times--not double, triple, quadruple-- but seven times the rate of the national average; tuberculosis, seven times the rate of the national average; suicide, double the national average in this country; homicide, double; diabetes, four times. On the Fort Berthold Reservation, the rate of diabetes is 12 times the national average. We have to do much better. We have a responsibility. I never met this young girl, but I met her classmates and they told me about her. She, like a lot of kids, was a wonderful young woman, but she lived in a circle of poverty in a family in which two other family members had taken their lives. Her cousin, incidentally, 2 weeks after Avis Littlewind's death, threatened suicide and had to be hospitalized. But it is not just this family. It is an epidemic on our Indian reservations with young people. We need resources to deal with it. That is why I was so pleased last evening to hear the speech given by Senator Smith, a speech that was obviously very difficult for him to give on the Senate floor. Then that was followed by legislation enacted by this Senate that will begin the long road to do something about this problem, to save the lives of kids like Avis Littlewind. She may not long be remembered because she is just a statistic with respect to teen suicides on Indian reservations, but this young girl, I am sure, wanted the things that we want and that our children want--a good life, an opportunity. She wanted to have hope for the future. She is now lying in a grave, having taken her own life. We bear some responsibility because the resources that were necessary, needed to help treat the depression that this young girl had, were simply not available. I met with the school administrators, the tribal council, all those folks. The fact is, it was clear to me no one took it upon themselves to reach out. If you have a young 14-year- old lying in bed for 90 days, not attending school, in desperate condition, something is wrong. Someone needs to intervene. Someone should have saved her life. I am not blaming anybody today. I am just saying today there is hope. There was not before. Today there is hope. The Senate has taken action on a significant piece of legislation that I think will save lives. It is too late to save Avis Littlewind's life, but it will save other lives. Today I commend my colleague, Senator Smith, whom I believe, through the pain and suffering that his family has experienced, has done something that will give others hope and offer life and opportunity to others. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Wisconsin yield for a unanimous consent request?