Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, when we return to the JOBS Act, the bill that the majority party pulled from the Senate floor because Senator Harkin offered an amendment on overtime, Senator Mikulski and I are going to offer an amendment. The amendment is very simple. It says this: We are going to end that provision in our Tax Code that says to American companies, if they will just pack up all of their belongings, fire all of their workers and move somewhere else offshore, make the same product and ship it back into our country, we will give them a tax break. Talk about perversity, that is perverse, offering a tax break to someone who moves their American jobs overseas. Yet, that is exactly what exists in the Tax Code. We have voted on this before because I offered a similar amendment a number of years ago. Let me describe exactly how this tax break works. Let's say there are two companies in this country with manufacturing plants. Each company produces garage door openers and these companies do a good job. They employ American workers, they produce garage door openers for sale in the U.S. marketplace and they earn some profit. But one company decides what it really wants to do is move overseas because it does not have to pay $11 an hour for a manufacturing worker. The company can go to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia or China and hire a 16 year-old-kid or a 12-year-old kid and pay them 12 cents an hour, working them 12 hours a day 7 days a week. So one of the companies that makes garage door openers leaves, makes exactly the same garage door opener now in Sri Lanka and ships it back into this country. The other company that makes garage door openers stays in America. The difference is that the company that left this country does not have to pay income taxes on their profits any longer because we have something called tax deferral. Until and unless they repatriate those earnings, those earnings are tax free in this country. Our amendment is very simple. It says this: If a company leaves this country and moves its jobs overseas to produce a product to ship back into this marketplace, the company loses tax deferral that now perversely incentivizes companies to leave this country. It is one thing to have companies leave because of bad trade agreements, because they can avoid the things we have fought for for years in this country--safe workplaces, fair labor standards, and decent wages. It is quite another thing for them to leave because in part we say we will give them a tax break if they leave our country. What a nutty idea and one that we ought to change.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I came to the floor not to talk about the obstruction by the majority party; I came instead to talk about a new report that is just out. It is a report by the GAO, and it says something important about fiscal policy in this country. The GAO report, which Senator Carl Levin and I asked for, compares the reported tax liabilities of some of the biggest companies that do business in this country, both domestic companies and foreign companies. This report studied a period of time when we had robust economic growth in our economy, 1996-2000. On the summary page, it says that an average of 71 percent of all foreign corporations doing business in the United States of America pay no income tax at all. These are names almost all Americans would easily recognize. Obviously, this report does not provide these names. But when one talks about the major foreign corporations selling products in this country, earning billions of dollars from those sales and paying zero to the Federal Government in tax liability, it raises very serious questions about gaping holes in this country's tax system. We are nearing April 15, when Americans will march off to the post office and pay their taxes. They will pay their taxes because they do not have any alternative or any flexibility. They understand the obligation in this country to pay taxes. Now, 71 percent of the foreign corporations that do business and make money in this country have decided they want to participate in our country and market system, but they do not want to participate in paying taxes on those profits. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. Once again, it demonstrates the gaping holes in our tax system. No, not for ordinary people, just for the big interests who do a lot of business, make a lot of money and pay no taxes. Shame on them. This report also found that 61 percent of domestic companies during this period of economic growth paid no income taxes in this country. We know the stories about companies that have decided they want to run their company out of a mailbox in Bermuda or the Bahamas. Why? Because they do not want to pay taxes to the United States. I say this to companies that want to do that: If they want to run their company out of a mailbox in the Bahamas, the next time they get in trouble, call the Bahamian Navy. I understand they have 21 sailors. Call them to get their company out of trouble. These foreign corporations that do business and make profits in this country have an obligation to pay taxes in this country. Domestic companies that make profits in this country have an obligation as well. That obligation is to participate with ordinary Americans who understand that part of the cost of citizenship in this country is to help fund schools, pay for defense and pay for the social services that make this a great country. That is part of the obligation. We have some of the biggest economic interests who have decided they want to participate in every way of being an American except paying taxes. That has to stop. I hope this Congress will begin to take this seriously. This is the second GAO report we have done in the last 6 years on this subject. The tax avoidance problem is not getting better, it is getting worse. Tax loopholes are not getting narrower, they are getting wider. Again, as we near April 15, when Americans think about the obligation to pay taxes into this Government, I think it is shameful to get a report like this that says so many big economic interests that make so much money have decided they want all of the advantages America has to offer, but they do not want to pay taxes to the United States of America. That is a shameful situation and one we ought to fix.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will make one additional point on another subject. Last week, I went to see the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, and made a presentation in support of a pilot project I want him to approve which would allow the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada. My pilot project is very simple. It sets up a 2-year pilot project for North Dakota that would allow North Dakota pharmacists to access FDA-approved drugs from pharmacists in Canada. As you know, the administration has been fighting this notion of reimporting prescription drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is fighting it. The administration is fighting it. This is why it is important: In every case--the drug Lipitor, Prevacid, Zocor, Celebrex--it is the same drug put in the same bottle made by the same company sold in two countries, but the charges are much higher to the U.S. consumer. It is not just true with Canada; it is true for every country in the world because the U.S. consumer is charged the highest prices in the world for FDA-approved prescription drugs, and that is not fair. Let me ask consent to show two pill bottles on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. These are bottles of a drug called Lipitor. This, I believe, is one of the fastest selling, most popular drugs in the United States. It is used for the lowering of cholesterol. By all accounts, it is a very successful drug and it sells rapidly and is prescribed often. As you can see, these two bottles of Lipitor are identical. These are both bottles that have 10 milligram tablets of Lipitor in them. They are made in the same plant. These are FDA-approved drugs made in an FDA-approved plant. The same pill is put in the same bottle made by the same company. There is one difference. This one is sold to Canadians at $1.01 per tablet. This one is sold to Americans at $1.81 per tablet. It is the same pill, the same bottle, same company, FDA approved, but nearly twice as much money is charged to the American consumer than the Canadian consumer. I could have used Germany as an example, Italy, England, France, Spain--almost anyone. I could have used almost any country and come up with nearly the same result. In Europe, they have something called parallel trading. If you are in Spain and want to buy a drug from Germany, there is no problem, you go through the parallel trading system. If you are in Italy and want to buy a drug from France, no problem, parallel trading. In this country we are told by FDA and others that there would be a huge safety problem if we purchased drugs from Canada--total nonsense. The Canadians have virtually the same chain of custody as we do. The Canadian drug supply is safe. Even our health authorities will admit that. So having licensed U.S. pharmacists acquire from licensed pharmacists or licensed distributors in Canada the identical drug and passing the savings along to the American consumer makes good sense and poses no--I repeat no-- safety issues for citizens of this country. I have asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services for a waiver to allow this pilot program to go forward. We will continue on the floor of the Senate to pass legislation. I believe we will soon pass legislation that deals with this issue, but, in the meantime, I am asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make a decision on this waiver request. He is now studying that. I assume it will be some weeks. But my hope is he will understand that the issue, which is a safety issue that they have described, simply does not, cannot, and will not exist with respect to this matter. The question is, Who is going to stand up for the American consumer? Will somebody stand up and say, on behalf of the American consumers, that what is happening here is not fair? I hope so. This proposal is called Prairie Prescriptions. It is a 2-year pilot project I put together. My hope is my State can be a pilot project that will demonstrate for everyone that the issue of safety in the reimportation of drugs with Canada, which has a nearly identical chain of custody, will always be a bogus issue. The issue is whether the American people will continue to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Miracle drugs offer no miracle for those who cannot afford them. Our senior citizens of this country are 12 percent of America's population and they take one-third of the prescription drugs. They are often the people least able to afford these prices. Yet day after day, month after month in this country we have senior citizens going down to their grocery store, and finding out how much their prescription drugs are going to cost so they know how much they have left to buy their groceries. I notice my colleague Senator Harkin is waiting to speak. I am sure in Iowa, as we have in North Dakota, when you go to a meeting someplace you often have somebody 80 years old touch you on the elbow and say: Can you help me? You say: What is it? And the tears well up in their eyes and their chin begins to quiver and they say: I have heart disease and diabetes and I am supposed to take this medicine and I can't afford it. Can you help me? The fact is, we pay too much for prescription drugs. We pay the highest prices in the world, and it is just not fair. Obviously, my interest is at some point to force a repricing in this country, but in the absence of that, I believe reimportation is the way to let the market system even out these prices. I believe that can, should, and will be done without any safety issues whatsoever. I await anxiously the decision by the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the administration. The Prairie Prescriptions Pilot Project is a solid project, one that will benefit, in my judgment, the entire country by demonstrating once and for all this phony issue that has been raised by the former head of FDA, Dr. McClellan, and so many others. The issue of safety is just not an issue at all. The issue really is will the American people finally be treated fairly with respect to prescription drug pricing. 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, in the last couple of hours since we had our vote today, I have been asked by a couple of press people who are lingering in the hallways about the issue of obstructionism. Apparently, there are some who suggest there is obstruction going on in the Senate. It is interesting to me that there are charges of obstructionism to the Senate's business. We are not voting today, really. We voted once on a cloture vote. We did not vote yesterday. Apparently, we are not voting now until next Wednesday. Why is that the case? Because there was an amendment offered to increase the minimum wage, and the majority party did not want to vote on the amendment. It seems to me if there is obstruction around here, it is obstructing the ability to have a vote on an amendment to increase the minimum wage. The people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country have not had an increase in the minimum wage for years. It is perfectly appropriate for us to consider that in the context of welfare reform. So an amendment is offered; but because the majority does not want it to be voted on, business essentially is stopped dead on the floor, and there are no votes, and we are at parade rest for 4 or 5 days. If anybody is obstructing, I would say it is those who brought the welfare reform bill to the floor and then decided they did not want to vote on anything, and we go, day after day, with no votes. And those who create that situation now accuse others of obstructing. I think it is a curious thing to do, but maybe there is a language here I have not yet learned and do not yet understand. But there is certainly no obstruction on the part of those of us who want to have a vote on the amendments we offered. Outsourcing of American Jobs Mr. President, we are going to be turning, we think, in the next week or two back to a piece of legislation that was on the floor of the Senate that was also pulled from consideration because they did not want a vote on an amendment that was pending. When that bill comes back that deals with the issue of tax incentives for foreign sales--when that bill comes back to the floor, I intend to offer an amendment dealing with an issue that has been discussed recently, and that is the movement of jobs from this country to overseas. We talk a lot about the concern of the outsourcing of jobs. This country, as you know, has lost over 3 million jobs in recent years, the last 3 years or so, 3\1/2\ years, and we are now down a net roughly 2.5 million jobs. We gained a few jobs back, but we are about 2.5 million jobs less than we were 3\1/2\ years ago. So the question is, will this economy create new jobs? We need them desperately. The other question is, why are we having policies in place that remain in place that actually incentivize the movement of jobs overseas? Let me describe one of them I intend to fix with an amendment as soon as I have the ability to offer the amendment on the floor of the Senate. Assume, for a moment, there are two businesses. Both produce garage door openers. They are both located in the United States. They both manufacture garage door openers, and they sell them in the United States. One of them decides they will move to China, so they move their plant to China. They fire their American workers. They hire workers in China. They make the same garage door opener in China and ship it back to our country. There is one substantial difference now between those two firms, and that is the taxes they will pay on the profits they earn. The company that has moved to China to produce the product to ship back into this country will pay a lower U.S. income tax. In fact, they will largely pay no U.S. income tax. We have a tax incentive in our law books that says: If you move your plant overseas and produce there for the purpose of shipping back into our country, we will give you a tax cut. You talk about perversity, this is it. Our country says: We will reward you if you shut down your American company, your American business, move it to China, move it to another country, and ship the product back into our country. Well, at a time when we are losing jobs and desperately need jobs in our country, the very least we should do--at least the baby step we ought to take--is to shut down the perverse incentive in our Tax Code that says: Ship your jobs overseas and we will give you a big break. We will have an opportunity to vote on that. The Senate voted on that, actually, in an amendment I offered some years ago, and my amendment came up short. Perhaps having lost now 2.5 million net jobs in the last 3\1/2\ years, the Senate will come to a different conclusion. I hope that is the case because this issue of jobs is critically important. Trade Agreements Mr. President, I have spoken often on the floor of the Senate about the subject of international trade. I will do so again briefly, just to say we have recently negotiated two free trade agreements, negotiated by the trade ambassador. I do not expect either, frankly, to come to the floor of the Senate this year. Why? Because I do not expect the administration, which negotiated these trade agreements, will want to have a debate on them: the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the Australian Free Trade Agreement. Why don't they want to have a debate on them? Because, like most recent trade agreements, they are not mutually beneficial; that is, beneficial to us and those with whom we negotiated the treaty. In most cases, they will end up costing this country lost jobs and large trade deficits. I will not go into great discussion about the so-called CAFTA, Central American Free Trade Agreement, or to go back and talk about NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, both of which are terrible agreements, or the recent bilateral agreement we did with China, which is an awful agreement, or the agreement with Australia that really shortchanges us in terms of what we should have required to have happen with state trading enterprises. I will not do that. But suffice it to say, I do not expect there to be brought to this floor a debate on this trade agreement by the administration because that is the last thing they want between now and this election, because it will be a significant debate about jobs and whether these trade agreements cost us jobs or gain jobs. The record is quite clear, we are losing jobs as a result of these many trade agreements. We have the highest trade deficit in the history of this country, by far: a $470 billion trade deficit. Every single day--every single day-- almost $1.5 billion in trade deficit; that is, goods we are importing in excess of goods we are exporting. Someday, someone has to pay the cost of that trade deficit. Now let me describe my concern about this trade. I am not concerned about expanding trade. I happen to believe it is largely beneficial to expand trade. I think countries that engage in activities because of natural resources, and other things, where they have a natural advantage, that it makes sense for us to trade with them, and for those countries to trade with us in circumstances that are the reverse. But that is not the case with most trade agreements today. In fact, the case is we have not a doctrine of comparative advantage, as Ricardo used to talk about nearly 200 years ago. The doctrine of comparative advantage is irrelevant. It is a natural advantage that becomes a political advantage by countries that create circumstances of production that are fundamentally unfair with respect to free trade. An example: A country says: We will not allow workers to organize. If they try to organize, we will fire them. And, oh, by the way, we will not require the payment of any kind of a minimum wage. You can hire workers for 16 cents an hour, if you wish. And, by the way, there is no age issue with respect to child labor, so if you want to pay 16 cents an hour, and hire a 12-year-old kid to do it, that is fine as well. And, also, we will not require the workplace be safe. If you want to hire 12-year-olds, pay them 12 cents an hour, and put them in an unsafe workplace, that is all right, too. By the way, when you do it, and you have a 12-year-old working in an unsafe plant, working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, you can dump the chemicals into the air and the water from that plant, and that is just fine as well. Now if countries decide that is the condition of production in their country, and plants move to those countries to hire those workers so they can produce a product to ship back into our country, is that what we should aspire to have American workers compete with? The answer is, no, of course not. Yet that is exactly what is happening today. You think I am wrong? Check the facts. I am not saying in every factory they are hiring 12-year-olds, but I am saying it is happening in many parts of the world. I will give you one example I have used on the floor of the Senate previously to describe in more specific terms the way this works. This is a picture of a Huffy bicycle. Most people know about Huffy bicycles--20 percent of the American marketplace. You can buy them at K-Mart, you can buy them at Wal-Mart, and you can buy them at Sears. Huffy bicycles used to be made in Ohio. They were made by workers who made $11 an hour. They would get up and go to their jobs. I am sure they were proud of their jobs. They worked $11- an-hour jobs in Ohio to make Huffy bicycles. Right between the handlebars and the front fender they had a little insignia, a little metal insignia of the American flag. Well, Huffy bicycles are no longer made in America. They are now made in China. The workers who made Huffy bicycles in Ohio were fired because $11 an hour was too much to pay someone to make a bicycle. Huffy bicycles are now made in China by workers who work 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, and are paid 33 cents an hour. In fact, Huffy bicycles no longer have the decal of the American flag between the handlebar and the front fender. They have a decal of the globe, descriptive, it seems to me, of what is happening to the elements of production and the manufacturing base in this country. The question is this: Is it fair competition to ask workers in Ohio, making $11 an hour, to compete with workers in China who work 7 days a week, and make 33 cents an hour? Does that represent fair competition? Is that what we aspire to do? Or is this driving to the bottom the wages of American workers? And is it exporting the manufacturing expertise and base of the U.S. economy? Globalization has happened quickly. The rules of globalization have not kept pace. We know that we don't want the product of Chinese prison labor to come in and hang on a store shelf in an American store and represent that as fair competition. Most all in the Chamber would probably agree the product of Chinese prison labor ought not be sold in this country because it is not fair competition. But then what about someone in Indonesia who works for 16 cents an hour? Is that fair competition for an American worker? Should we aspire to have an American worker compete in a circumstance where someone works 12 hours a day, sleeps in a bunker, 12 to a room, works 7 days a week in a plant that is unsafe? The question of outsourcing of American jobs and the question of what is fair trade are questions that this Congress ultimately will have to answer because, if not, we will see a continued exodus from this country of jobs. The economists, the so-called big thinkers who wear small glasses, tell us we are only talking about the outsourcing of low-tech, low- skill, low-wage jobs. That is absolutely untrue, flat out false. If those economists are still giving opinions and still making money, they should not be. I won't name the economists, but the economists who told us what would happen with the United States-Mexico trade agreement who were dead, flat out wrong. They said with that agreement we will import from Mexico the product of low-skilled, low-wage labor, and we will, therefore, benefit from that. It won't cost us high-skill, high-wage labor in the United States. That is not true. The three largest exports from Mexico are automobiles, automobile parts, and electronics--the product of high- skilled labor. It has cost dearly American jobs. There are so many elements to this that almost defy description. Part of it is the start of this process, when we negotiate the trade agreement. Let me give you one of the most idiotic provisions in an agreement I have ever seen. It was done a couple years ago. I have no idea which unnamed and unseen negotiator negotiated this, but we negotiated a bilateral trade agreement with China. And we have with China a very large trade deficit, now nearly $130 billion a year. So this is what our side agreed to: we will put a 2.5-percent tariff on Chinese automobiles shipped to the United States, and the Chinese will impose a tariff 10 times higher on any U.S. cars that we aspire to sell in China. How would one come to that agreement with a country with whom we have such a large trade deficit? I have no idea. It is fundamentally incompetent to negotiate treaties that so undermine the basic manufacturing interests of our country. Another example of automobiles--I don't come from a State that produces automobiles--is the country of Korea. I have a chart that shows what is happening with Korea. We import a substantial number of cars from Korea. Most people know the names of those cars. They buy those cars. We have ships coming across the ocean loaded with Korean cars. In fact, in a recent year, we had 618,000 Korean cars shipped in the U.S. marketplace for sale. Do you know how many cars we sold in Korea? Two thousand eight hundred. So there were 618,000 cars coming from Korea to the United States and 2,800 cars from the United States to Korea. Why is that the case? Is it because Korean consumers don't want to buy American cars? No. It is because the Korean government has put up barrier after barrier to try to stop such sales. That is why you have a ratio of 217 to 1 Korean cars sold in the United States to U.S. cars sold in Korea. Why do we put up with it? It is because this country lacks the backbone and the spine and the will to demand fair trade and stand up for our products. If our producers can't compete, shame on us. Then we lose. But requiring our producers to compete when the game is rigged, saying our producers ought to compete, when foreign markets are closed to us, is fundamentally wrong. Yet that is what is happening. Japan, Europe, Korea, China--you can go right down the list. I have mentioned a number of times that we have a trade regime in this country and people who work in that area seem to lack the stiff backbone that is necessary to stand up for our own economic interests. There is no evidence that we ever get tough with anybody, no matter the circumstances, because most of our trade policy is mushy-headed, foreign policy rather than sound, sensible economic policy. We had a dispute with Europe on about beef trade, because Europe will not allow U.S. beef into its market. The WTO, for a change, ruled that the United States was right, and that we could retaliate on Europe for blocking our exports. And what do we do? We put tariffs on Roquefort cheese, goose liver, and truffles. That is going to scare the devil out of somebody, scare them with tariffs on Roquefort cheese, goose liver, and truffles, won't it? Our country's trade officials don't have the foggiest idea how to deal with trade problems, whether it is standing up for beef interests in this country or standing up for manufacturers or the interests of workers. Our trade officials simply have been AWOL. There is much to talk about with respect to international trade and jobs. The discussion about all of this relates to whether we have a job base to allow those who aspire to go to work to find a job. We have seen 2.5 million fewer jobs now than 3\1/2\ years ago, and at least a part of that is because we are outsourcing and seeing jobs move from this country to other countries. At least two of the reasons for that are, one, we have a perverse Tax Code that actually rewards companies that move their jobs out of this country, and we ought to do something about that. And, second, we have basically incompetent trade agreements that fail to stand up for this country's economic interests. My hope is that we could have a debate on trade in the Senate this year. It appears to me we are going to have a debate on virtually nothing. The minute someone offers an amendment, the others pack up their duffel bags and leave town. I don't understand it. Day after day we have no votes. Why? Because someone dared come to the floor to say, after 6 or 8 years, maybe we should have an increase in the minimum wage. What does that do? It fills up airplanes leaving Washington, DC, because nobody wants to vote. And while they are out of town, they tell the press that those who offered the amendment are obstructionists, forgetting, of course, that the obstruction is really the refusal to give a vote to those who offered a very sensible amendment to the bill. Most of us came here because we want to do serious things about serious issues. It would be good if, in the interest of this country, we could, in a spirit of some cooperation, decide here is the legislation we want on the floor, offer your amendments, have reasonable time agreements, have votes, and move on. Whatever the will of the Senate is, that is what we ought to do. But instead, especially recently, we have seen a regrettable situation of the Senate deciding, if there is a controversial amendment that is offered, the majority doesn't like it, we will just stop working. There is a lot to do. This country has an economy that regrettably at this point, while producing some growth, is not producing jobs. I just finished reading an article by an economist from the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts, who was one of the architects of the economic strategy back in the 1980s. Paul Craig Roberts has it about right. He said this may well be an economic recovery without new jobs--a jobless recovery. And if that is the case, we are in trouble. We need to search for ways to begin to create these jobs. If we have a recovery and no new jobs being created, we face some pretty difficult times. The American people want to go to work. These kids coming out of college want jobs. They want opportunity and hope. They want a good future. You do that by having an economy that produces jobs. There is no social program we discuss in the Congress that is as important or as productive as a good job that pays well. That is what allows people to have a good life, provide for their family, and do the things they want to do. So the question for us is, what happened here? Why the disconnect? Why is an economy that is growing not producing jobs? One answer is that we are seeing jobs moving to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, Mexico--you name it. They are leaving. As they leave, a part of that departure is to be rewarded with a reverse tax cut, a tax incentive that says we will reward you while you leave. We ought to close that now. We ought to go back and look at some of these trade agreements and decide whether it is in this country's interests not to be protectionist but to demand that the rules of trade be fair. If we are unwilling to do that, we are not going to see the creation of the kind of jobs that are necessary to restore the 2\1/2\ millions jobs that were lost and provide the additional jobs an increase in population requires year by year. Mr. President, there are no votes today, tomorrow, Monday, or Tuesday. I guess the Senate comes back with perhaps a vote on Wednesday. I hope that perhaps we can start over and decide to treat seriously those things that are serious. There is such a tendency here to treat lightly those things that are serious and treat seriously those things that should be treated lightly. We never get to where we should be with respect to the interests of this country. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I am pleased to support with my colleague, Senator McCain, the Professional Boxing Amendments Act of 2003. This is an issue that we have now been examining for some time, and I am pleased that the Senate is moving this legislation forward. The Senate Commerce Committee had the opportunity over the past years to spend time with figures such as Roy Jones Junior, Muhammad Ali, Bert Sugar, Lou Dibella, and Bernard Hopkins, and we heard some things that caused great concern. I grew up as a boxing fan who wants to see the sport succeed, but I have worried about how the sport is doing, and I believe this legislation will take an important step. Professional boxing is the only major sport in the United States that does not have a strong, centralized association or league to establish and enforce uniform rules and practices for its participants. There is no union, no organization that polices promoters or managers, and unfortunately no consistent level of state regulation among the state athletic commissions. Part of the problem is the alphabet soup of 29 sanctioning bodies-- all with different titles and rankings--and another part is a lack of faith that anyone, not the state commissions, managers or promoters are on the up and up. I believe that a system based on state commissions alone just takes us to the lowest common denominator. We are in desperate need of some basic national standards and uniform enforcement. There continue to be stories about how some people are exploiting the patchwork of federal and state boxing regulations to the detriment of boxers and their fans. This manipulation is often tolerated, or tacitly permitted by the state boxing commissions, and too often current laws are rarely enforced by the state attorneys general, or the U.S. Attorney's office who are too busy or just not interested. This bill will create a United States Boxing Commission to oversee the sport. The federal Commission would have the responsibility to license promoters, managers, and sanctioning organizations. The Commission would be able to keep things in line by revoking or suspending licenses as situations warrant. It is imperative that we establish this federal mechanism in order to protect not only the boxers, but also the overall integrity of the sport.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, is it the case that the former Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, was fired for saying essentially what the Senator from North Dakota is saying on the floor today, talking about a fiscal policy that doesn't add up, about proposals to increase spending on defense, homeland security, and then cut taxes mostly for wealthy Americans, saying that it would result in balance; is it not the case the Treasury Secretary under this administration was fired for believing that this is irresponsible fiscal policy?

Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield for a further question, to clarify what the Senator from Maryland asked and the question about borrowing money from South Korea, in fact the perversity is we actually borrow money from South Korea so we can reconstruct Iraq. It is not even money to invest in the strength of this country. Aside from that, President Reagan talked about $1 trillion in debt when he took office. He said $1 trillion in debt is $1,000 bills stacked 67 miles high. As I look at what this President is proposing, he is proposing a fiscal policy that says let us have another stack of $1,000 bills that goes 335 miles high in debt. Who is going to carry that? Who is going to take care of that? Isn't it the case that the President is saying somebody else, somebody behind the tree, maybe our kids, maybe our grandkids but not us? Is it the case that these proposals, this budget on the floor and the budget submitted by the President, is a budget which is so seriously out of balance that we will in the long term have the largest deficit and the biggest debt in the history of humankind with no provision at all of asking anybody to own up to that responsibility? Is it the case that the question Senator Conrad is asking here has to do with accountability? When do we decide we have to make a u-turn and begin moving toward responsibility? That is the point. If I might make one final comment. I say to Senator Conrad, you are right, we proposed tax cuts, but in 2001 we also said: Let's not put in place something permanent that could get us in trouble because we might have some unforeseen circumstances. The other side said: No. Katie bar the door. Let's do it all and don't worry. Be happy. Then we had a recession, a terrorist attack, a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq. The fact is, we had all kinds of unforeseen circumstances, and now we have a situation that is calling for dramatically increased spending, as requested by this President. We have these long-term tax cuts and the largest debt in history. The Senator uses the term ``irresponsible.'' This is an irresponsible fiscal policy. The Senator does the Senate a great service, in my judgment, by coming to the floor with these charts and describing exactly to the American people what this fiscal policy is about.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield for a question.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, having just heard the majority leader come to the floor of the Senate and discuss the record of my colleague, Senator John Kerry, I thought it might be useful to respond just a bit. This Chamber, given some of the dialog--and especially the dialog I heard a few minutes ago--only lacks the balloons, the buttons, and the brass band for being a political convention in a full-scale support of a candidate in a Presidential operation, a Presidential campaign. It is not my desire nor my intent to talk about the Presidential race. But when I hear people come to the floor and decide to talk about John Kerry's record on energy as a Member of the Senate, I think it is important to respond. There are a great many allegations being made about Senator John Kerry's record and many--most that I have heard recently--have been flat out untrue, just wrong. One of the great things about the First Amendment in this country is you can say whatever you want to say and, in politics, you can misrepresent someone's record and nobody seems to care very much. Let me talk for a couple of minutes about these issues. First of all, let's talk about the energy bill. We don't have an energy bill right now. Do you know why? It failed by two votes in the Senate. I voted for it. So did the minority leader. Do you know why it failed by two votes in the Senate? Because the majority leader in the U.S. House stuck a provision in that bill that cost him four, or five, or six votes against the bill in the Senate. Now I hear the majority leader of the U.S. House blame Senator Daschle for us not having an energy bill. I looked at that in the paper and I thought, what on earth can he be thinking about? He killed the energy bill by sticking in this insidious provision, a retroactive waiver on MTBE liability. He stuck that provision in. He demanded it. It was killed on the floor of the Senate by two votes. That bill would have passed the Senate easily without that provision stuck in by the majority leader of the U.S. House. So to have him talk about Senator Daschle as somehow holding up the energy bill in this country doesn't make much sense to me. It is just wrong. He is the one who killed that bill on the floor of the Senate with this provision that he inserted. As to the comments this evening, we have the majority leader come to the floor of the Senate and he seems to imply that my colleague, John Kerry, is against production, against conservation, against efficiency, against renewables. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. I can tell you what Senator Kerry is for. I sat in meeting after meeting with him over recent years on energy policy, most of which I agree with him on. Sometimes we disagreed. I will tell you something. This is a man who is very concerned about energy policy in this country. When we talk about these issues, it seems to me it would best behoove us to talk seriously about serious issues. That has not been the case with respect to Senator Kerry's record on energy, as misrepresented on the floor of the Senate this evening. So let's talk about a couple of these issues. Renewable energy: Senator Kerry supports renewable energy--wind energy, biodiesel energy, a whole series of areas of renewable energy-- that will improve this country's energy supply and extend America's energy supply. He supports it. Efficiency titles in the Energy bill: Senator Kerry very much supports improved efficiency of all the appliances we use every single day. Conservation: Senator Kerry has a very strong record on conservation, and the same is true with respect to production. There has been a lot of misrepresentation. In fact, I heard some misrepresentation recently that Senator Kerry voted for a 50-cent-a- gallon gas tax increase. That is totally untrue, just wrong, flat out wrong. Talk is cheap so people can come here and assert whatever they like, but when I hear it, I am going to come to the floor of the Senate and say it is not true. The fact is, this country chooses its leader by going to the ballot box, and this country is owed a serious debate about serious issues. Regrettably, it too seldom gets a serious debate about serious issues. Yes, energy is a serious issue and we have a very serious energy problem and we need an Energy bill passed in the U.S. Congress. Do not blame Democrats for the failure to pass an Energy bill. It failed in the Senate by two votes. It passed the House and failed in the Senate by two votes, and everyone here understands that at least four or five of those two votes that would have been used to pass that bill resulted in a negative vote because of what the majority leader in the House did. Everyone understands that. All you have to do is read a newspaper and you will understand that. People are concerned about the price of gasoline in this country, and they should be. When I say we need an energy policy, we are now close to 60 percent of our oil coming from off our shores, often from troubled parts of the world. That is dangerous. The fact is, our economy is reliant on energy sources from parts of the world that are very troubled. If we want to keep importing oil from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, and other parts of the world, the fact is it will injure us inevitably, it will injure our economy, and it will injure our opportunity to create new jobs, expand and provide hope and opportunity for the American people. We need to go much further than the kind of debate we traditionally held on energy issues, and that is where Senator Kerry talked about the future. We need to talk about issues such as hydrogen and fuel cells and pole-vault over some of this to talk about how we are going to avoid in the future putting gasoline through carburetors and being dependent on OPEC countries. Tomorrow there is a meeting of OPEC ministers. They already cut production and are talking about cutting production again. This country ought to jawbone and use the leverage we have to say we need increased production. We have gas prices that are going through the roof. I do not know what the President is going to do, whether he is going to involve himself and try to jawbone OPEC, but I think he should. We have a serious problem, and it is not just the current spike in gas prices. That happens. It is now happening because of a series of factors. One is the cutback in OPEC production. The second is an imbalance with respect to fuels that are coming into refineries and the lack of refinery capacity. There is a whole series of factors. Even as we address the shorter term, we have to think about the longer term. I will say to those who want to be critical of Senator Kerry's record, there is nobody in the Senate, in my judgment, who has cared more and worked harder for longer term solutions for an energy policy in this country. It does not serve the country or responsible political debate to come to the Senate and slap people around with bad information. I am sick and tired of that. If you want to turn this into a political convention, get some balloons, bunting, put up crepe paper, hire a brass band, and pretend this is a political convention. But it is not a political convention. This is the Chamber of the United States Senate, and we ought to, it seems to me, talk about what the real policy positions are of the respective candidates and have a competition of ideas. I, frankly, think both political parties have something good to offer this country, and the interaction of both parties and responsible debate over a long period of time strengthens our country. But I get a little weary of this machine that is so relentless in trying to misrepresent someone's position and slap that misrepresentation around for a while. That is not the way this Presidential campaign ought to be waged. It is not fair to Senator Kerry, who is not in this Chamber, for people to come and mischaracterize his record. I understand people have the right to do it. I am just saying it is not fair. So I hope as we begin to think through some of these issues in the future that we understand there is a place for a political campaign for the Presidency in this country. It is in Ohio, New York, Nevada, North Dakota, Texas, and California--all around America--and there the bands do play, and there the balloons are used to great effect, and people love the political system. That is fine. But I worry a lot about the Senate Chamber being used to misrepresent someone's position on an issue that is as important as this. What bothered me and persuaded me to come to the Senate floor this moment are two things: One is something I read in the newspaper about 2 or 3 days ago in which the allegation by the majority leader of the other body was it was Senator Daschle who was holding up an Energy bill. Nonsense. The majority leader of the other body is the one who killed the Energy bill by putting in this insidious provision, a retroactive waiver of MTBE liability. That is a plain fact. Second, I heard a speech on the floor of the Senate a moment ago that was just a pure campaign speech that had nothing to do with the merits on one side. It had everything to do with misrepresenting the merits on the other side. That is unfair. I am going to come to the floor again when I hear this done. I hope the American people are treated to a serious debate about serious issues. Energy is a serious issue. John Kerry is a serious candidate for the Presidency, and he has strong positions, I think defensible positions, on energy dealing with production, conservation, efficiency, renewables, and more. I am sure if he were here to stand up and speak in response to the majority leader, he would want to do that. I came to the floor simply to say I hope the American people are treated to a debate that is accurate about energy positions and energy policy by the two candidates. I, for one, feel very comfortable with the long-term view of energy policy as advocated by Senator John Kerry. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I say in response to the question from the Senator from Nevada, I have done what little research I could, because I understood this ad was being set to run across the country that said Senator Kerry has voted for a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase. My understanding is it is simply untrue. If somebody has evidence of which I am not aware, bring it to the floor. My understanding is it is not true. It is similarly not true that Senator Kerry is opposed to renewable fuels, opposed to conservation, opposed to increased efficiency of appliances which was alleged a few minutes ago on the Senate floor. They are not grounded in fact. As I said, everybody has a right to say these things. It is the political system. This is the floor of the Senate, and those of us who hear something we know is demonstrably false also have a right to come to the floor to say this is not the best of what this system has to offer the American people. This ought to be a competition of ideas of both sides using facts and saying here is where one stands and here is where the other stands, and here is why and take your pick. That is what the political system ought to be about. To the extent there are exaggerations--and there sure are in politics; they occur on the political stage all around the country-- that is fine as well; that is politics. It is a bit different especially to come to the Senate floor and misrepresent the record of Senator Kerry. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, 15 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, struck down a Texas flag protection statute. The Supreme Court ruled that burning an American flag was a form of ``speech,'' and therefore protected under the first amendment of the Constitution. I disagreed with the Court's decisions then and I still do. I don't believe that the act of desecrating a flag is an act of speech. And I believe that our flag, as our national symbol, can and should be protected by law. In the intervening years since the Supreme Court decision, I have supported Federal legislation that would make flag desecration illegal. Yet on several occasions, I have also voted against amendments to the Constitution to do the same. I voted that way because, while I believe that flag desecration is despicable conduct that should be prohibited by law, I also believe that amending our Constitution is a step that should be taken only rarely, and then only as a last resort. In the past year I have once again reviewed in detail nearly all of the legal opinions and written materials published by constitutional scholars and courts on all sides of this issue. After that review, I have concluded that there remains a way to protect our flag without having to alter the Constitution of the United States. So I am joining Senator Bennett today to introduce bipartisan legislation that accomplishes that goal. The bill we introduce today protects the flag but does so without altering the Constitution. A number of respected constitutional scholars tell us they believe this type of statute will be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. This statute protects the flag by criminalizing flag desecration when its intended purpose is to incite violence. I know that supporters of a constitutional amendment will be disappointed by my decision to support this statutory remedy to protect the flag, rather than support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I know they are impatient to correct a decision by the Supreme Court that they and I believe was wrong. I have wrestled with this issue for a long time, and I wish I were not, with my decision, disappointing those, including many of my friends, who passionately believe that we must amend the Constitution to protect the flag. But, in the end, I know that our country will be better served reserving our attempts to alter the Constitution only for those things that are, in the words of James Madison, ``extraordinary occasion.'' More than 11,000 constitutional amendments have been proposed since our Constitution was ratified. However, since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 only 17 amendments have been enacted. These 17 include 3 reconstruction era amendments that abolished slavery and gave African Americans the right to vote. The amendments included giving women the right to vote, limiting Presidents to two terms, and establishing an order of succession in case of a President's death or departure from office. The last time Congress considered and passed a new constitutional amendment was when it changed the voting age to 18, more than a quarter of a century ago. All of these matters were of such scope they required a constitutional amendment to be accomplished. They could not have been accomplished otherwise. But protecting the American flag can be accomplished without amending the Constitution, and that is a critically important point. The bill we are introducing today, on a bipartisan basis, outlaws three types of illegal flag desecration. First, anyone who destroys or damages a U.S. flag with a clear intent to incite imminent violence or a breach of the peace may be punished by a fine of up to $100,000, or up to 1 year in jail, or both. Second, anyone who steals a flag that belongs to the United States and destroys or damages that flag may be fined up to $250,000 or imprisoned up to 2 years, or both. And third, anyone who steals a flag may also be fined up to $250,000 or imprisoned up to 2 years, or both. Constitutional scholars, including those at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, and Duke University's Professor William Alstyne, have concluded that this statute passes constitutional muster, because it recognizes that the same standard that already applies to other forms of speech applies to burning the flag as well. This is the same standard which makes it illegal to falsely cry ``fire'' in a crowded theater. Reckless speech that is likely to cause violence is not protected under the ``fighting words'' standard, long recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States. So we are offering this bipartisan legislation with the confidence that its passage would meaningfully and effectively protect our cherished flag. I believe that future generations, and our Founding Fathers, would agree that it is worthwhile for us to find a way to protect our flag without altering the Constitution. And so I ask those colleagues who, like me, care deeply about both our flag and our Constitution, to support this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, 15 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, struck down a Texas flag protection statute. The Supreme Court ruled that burning an American flag was a form of ``speech,'' and therefore protected under the first amendment of the Constitution. I disagreed with the Court's decisions then and I still do. I don't believe that the act of desecrating a flag is an act of speech. And I believe that our flag, as our national symbol, can and should be protected by law. In the intervening years since the Supreme Court decision, I have supported Federal legislation that would make flag desecration illegal. Yet on several occasions, I have also voted against amendments to the Constitution to do the same. I voted that way because, while I believe that flag desecration is despicable conduct that should be prohibited by law, I also believe that amending our Constitution is a step that should be taken only rarely, and then only as a last resort. In the past year I have once again reviewed in detail nearly all of the legal opinions and written materials published by constitutional scholars and courts on all sides of this issue. After that review, I have concluded that there remains a way to protect our flag without having to alter the Constitution of the United States. So I am joining Senator Bennett today to introduce bipartisan legislation that accomplishes that goal. The bill we introduce today protects the flag but does so without altering the Constitution. A number of respected constitutional scholars tell us they believe this type of statute will be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. This statute protects the flag by criminalizing flag desecration when its intended purpose is to incite violence. I know that supporters of a constitutional amendment will be disappointed by my decision to support this statutory remedy to protect the flag, rather than support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I know they are impatient to correct a decision by the Supreme Court that they and I believe was wrong. I have wrestled with this issue for a long time, and I wish I were not, with my decision, disappointing those, including many of my friends, who passionately believe that we must amend the Constitution to protect the flag. But, in the end, I know that our country will be better served reserving our attempts to alter the Constitution only for those things that are, in the words of James Madison, ``extraordinary occasion.'' More than 11,000 constitutional amendments have been proposed since our Constitution was ratified. However, since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 only 17 amendments have been enacted. These 17 include 3 reconstruction era amendments that abolished slavery and gave African Americans the right to vote. The amendments included giving women the right to vote, limiting Presidents to two terms, and establishing an order of succession in case of a President's death or departure from office. The last time Congress considered and passed a new constitutional amendment was when it changed the voting age to 18, more than a quarter of a century ago. All of these matters were of such scope they required a constitutional amendment to be accomplished. They could not have been accomplished otherwise. But protecting the American flag can be accomplished without amending the Constitution, and that is a critically important point. The bill we are introducing today, on a bipartisan basis, outlaws three types of illegal flag desecration. First, anyone who destroys or damages a U.S. flag with a clear intent to incite imminent violence or a breach of the peace may be punished by a fine of up to $100,000, or up to 1 year in jail, or both. Second, anyone who steals a flag that belongs to the United States and destroys or damages that flag may be fined up to $250,000 or imprisoned up to 2 years, or both. And third, anyone who steals a flag may also be fined up to $250,000 or imprisoned up to 2 years, or both. Constitutional scholars, including those at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, and Duke University's Professor William Alstyne, have concluded that this statute passes constitutional muster, because it recognizes that the same standard that already applies to other forms of speech applies to burning the flag as well. This is the same standard which makes it illegal to falsely cry ``fire'' in a crowded theater. Reckless speech that is likely to cause violence is not protected under the ``fighting words'' standard, long recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States. So we are offering this bipartisan legislation with the confidence that its passage would meaningfully and effectively protect our cherished flag. I believe that future generations, and our Founding Fathers, would agree that it is worthwhile for us to find a way to protect our flag without altering the Constitution. And so I ask those colleagues who, like me, care deeply about both our flag and our Constitution, to support this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last December, there were news reports around the country about the disappearance of a young student at the University of North Dakota whose name was Dru Sjodin. I am sorry to tell you that Dru Sjodin has never been found. It is likely that she has been murdered. The person who allegedly committed that murder is now under lock and key in a North Dakota jail, awaiting a trial. And, as is too often the case, the man that apparently committed this crime had earlier been released from prison for committing similar offenses. Let me talk for a moment about this case and about some legislation I have introduced in the Senate--bipartisan legislation--to respond to it. Dru Sjodin was a student at the University of North Dakota. On a December afternoon, she was abducted in a parking lot at the shopping center in Grand Forks, ND. The suspect who was arrested for that disappearance was a man named Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr. Law enforcement has released some details, saying that a knife with blood of the type of Dru Sjodin's blood was found in the automobile of Mr. Alfonso Rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez had only been released 6 months earlier from a 23-year sentence that he served in a prison for a previous rape and sexual assault in Minnesota. In fact, the Minnesota Department of Corrections had rated Mr. Rodriguez a ``type 3'' sexual offender, meaning that he was at the highest risk for reoffending. In an evaluation conducted in January 2003, a little over a year ago, a prison psychiatrist wrote that Mr. Rodriguez had demonstrated ``a willingness to use substantial force, including the use of a weapon, in order to gain compliance from his victims.'' Yet Mr. Rodriguez was released in May of 2003--not yet a year ago--by the Minnesota Department of Corrections. He had served 23 years; he had served his full sentence, and the Department of Corrections released him and imposed no further supervision for his release. The Minnesota Department of Corrections could have recommended that the State Attorney General seek what is known as a civil commitment. That means a State court would have required Rodriguez to be confined in prison as long as he posed a significant threat to the public, even if he had already served his original sentence. But the Attorney General was not notified of Mr. Rodriguez's release, and so no action was taken there. Upon his release, Mr. Rodriguez went to live in Crookston, MN, unsupervised, just a short distance from the Grand Forks, ND, shopping mall where Dru Sjodin was abducted. Mr. Rodriguez was listed on a list of sexual predators in Minnesota. But each State has listings of sexual predators. If concerned citizens in Grand Forks, ND, wanted to know whether there was a sexual predator living nearby, they would have accessed the North Dakota sexual predator list and would not have found Mr. Rodriguez's name, despite the fact that he lived just a short distance from that Grand Forks shopping center, across the state line. In my judgment, we have to do much, much better than that. A recent study found that 72 percent of the highest risk sexual offenders commit another sexual assault within 6 years of being released. And the Bureau of Justice statistics tell us that sex offenders released from prison are over 10 times more likely to be arrested for a sexual crime than individuals who have no record of sexual assault at all. We just cannot continue to release sexual predators from prison with no supervision whatsoever and let them prey on an unsuspecting public. So I have offered legislation that I hope will deal with some of the breakdowns that have occurred in this case. The legislation I have offered is cosponsored by Senator Coleman and Senator Dayton from Minnesota, and by my colleague, Senator Conrad, from North Dakota. I ask unanimous consent to add as a cosponsor Senator Johnston from South Dakota.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will define what the bill does. First, it directs the Department of Justice to create a national registry of sex offenders, which would be accessible to the public. This isn't difficult. You just aggregate the State lists so you have a national list. All Americans who live near State borders will be able to access that list. Second, this legislation will try to ensure that the highest risk sex offenders are not released at all. The bill requires that States provide automatic and timely notification to the States' attorneys of the planned release of any high-risk sex offender. Before the release, the State's attorney shall be formally notified. That will give them time to pursue civil commitment cases for those who are the most dangerous, in order to continue to keep them in prison. They are able to do that under current law. My bill doesn't change current State laws, but it requires notification of the States' attorneys when somebody who is a type 3 high-risk sexual predator is about to be released from prison. Third, the bill provides that for those high-risk sexual predators who are released after serving their full sentences, there will be intensive State supervision for a period of not less than one year. Mr. President, in developing this piece of legislation, we have worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Vanished Children's Alliance, the National Council of Cities, and many others. A companion bill to my legislation has been offered in the House by Paul Gillmor from Ohio and Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota. That, too, is a bipartisan piece of legislation. Dru Sjodin, was, by all accounts, a wonderful person. I visited with her family and with her roommate in college. It is a tragedy the likes of which we see very seldom in our part of the country. Dru Sjodin has been missing since December. They have had search parties, the National Guard has searched, and her family is still out searching even after the formal law enforcement search has discontinued. This young woman walked out of a shopping center in the town of Grand Forks, ND, and was abducted by someone who had just been released after 23 years in prison as a sexual predator. We have to do a lot better than that to protect the American people. This is a tragedy. It is heartbreaking just to talk about this, but in the name of Dru Sjodin and so many other victims of crime, this Congress needs to do better. One way to do better is to create and require the creation of a national registry of sexual predators so that we know where they are and where they live, not just by State, but where they are across this country, so one can identify them by sorting ZIP Codes or any other definition one wants. That is important. And when the highest risk sexual predators are about to be released from American prisons, I believe States' attorneys must be notified so they can properly take action for civil commitment in cases where they believe it is necessary. Mr. Rodriguez, in my judgment, should have been in prison, not walking the streets of Grand Forks, ND. It is easy, perhaps, to suggest criticism of those who did not do their job. But that is not the point. The point is to try to protect others in the future. I hope in the future, whether it is in Grand Forks, ND, or along the streets of any other American city, that no one--no one--has to confront a sexual predator who was just released from prison, and who we knew was violent. We should anticipate such cases, and make use of civil commitment laws. I hope this legislation moves us in that direction. Mr. President, I thank the bipartisan cosponsors of this legislation and hope we can take action on this legislation in the Congress soon. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 10 minutes following the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me follow on the comments of my colleagues from New York and Oregon. The issue of 9/11 is very important. I have spoken a couple of times about it previously, only because we created a commission to take a look at what happened with respect to 9/11, events leading up to it and following, to try to understand what happened, how did it happen, and what lessons can we learn. I have been very distraught that the 9/11 Commission has actually had to issue subpoenas. This Commission that we, with the President, have impaneled to find the answers of what happened and what we can learn has had to issue subpoenas to our government to get information. I don't understand that. Why on earth should this Commission have had to use any subpoena power at any time? Why would not the administration have said to all of the agencies under their control, anything this Commission wants, anything they ask for--they are doing the country's work--provide complete information? Instead, they have met with roadblocks. I do not understand that. I learned this morning that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is willing to testify but not in public and in limited circumstances. The fact is, on Sunday she was a guest on all five network morning shows. She has plenty of time to do that, but somehow there is not enough time to appear publicly before the 9/11 Commission to give testimony. I do not understand that. I believe and hope that all Republicans and Democrats, this President and this Congress, just want the unvarnished facts, what happened and what can we learn from it. I know in recent days there have been discussions about a number of books that have been written. I was on the floor also and spoke about former Treasury Secretary O'Neill's book. The Secretary described circumstances where almost instantly, in meetings in the White House, the question posed by the President and the Vice President and Mr. Wolfowitz and others was, What about Iraq? Let's get the evidence on Iraq. Suggesting that there was only one issue, and that was to use 9/ 11 to get Iraq. My colleague from Oregon said it well. The leader of Iraq was a murderer. We are unearthing football-field-sized graves in Iraq. This man was a butcher, no question about that. But there are bad people around the world who are in place now and there are no plans in this Chamber or at the White House to go after them. The pretext of dealing with Iraq was that they had weapons of mass destruction, we were told. The CIA and others provided secret briefings to us, and Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and many others provided the evidence. Secretary Rumsfeld said, ``We know where those weapons of mass destruction are, where they exist.'' The Secretary of State went to the United Nations and laid it out with pictures and slides and said, ``Here is the evidence.'' It turns out that evidence wasn't accurate. So Mr. O'Neill writes a bit about that. Now Mr. Clarke writes a book about it. He is not a Democrat; he is a Republican. There is now an industry in the last 24 hours to try to destroy his credibility. I don't know Mr. Clarke. I don't believe I have ever met him. All I know is that legitimate questions are being raised about these issues, about intelligence, about Iraq, and about the commission that has been impaneled to look into 9/11. It all has the same kind of origin; that is, let's not ask questions, let's not disclose this or that, let's keep it all secret, if we can. Part of this shroud of secrecy that Mr. Krugman writes about, in fact, I believe in this morning's New York Times, also relates to something we learned last week that is of incredible importance. We learned last week that this issue of the Medicare bill being discussed on the floor of the Senate--adding prescription drugs to Medicare--that the estimates of the cost of that proposal that were given to Congress were wrong and, in fact, the administration had estimates that would have had a substantial impact, perhaps, on the debate on that legislation. They had those estimates, but the person who had them, the chief actuary--again, no Democrat, just a career public servant who, by all accounts, is a wonderful public servant--had the estimates and was told: If you provide the real estimates to Congress, you will be fired. If anything demands an investigation, it is that. It demands an immediate investigation. If you cannot rely on information coming from the executive branch about programs we are considering on the floor of the Senate because someone threatened to fire someone if they tell the truth to the Congress, there is something radically wrong. So it doesn't matter whether it is Mr. Clarke who writes a book and describes what he found in the White House. He also worked, as you know, for the Clinton administration. He worked for the first George Bush Presidency. He has worked for George W. Bush for the last couple of years. He writes a book and raises serious questions about the information that was used to decide to focus on Iraq rather than on al-Qaida. I think many of us now, at least in the rearview mirror, look at that and say moving from Afghanistan to Iraq and not continuing to focus on the destruction of al-Qaida may have been a serious mistake. How did that happen? Why did that happen? These are legitimate public policy questions. I suppose there is politics in some of it. I think the well-being and future of this country depends on our getting this right. We talk about the quality of intelligence and the questions about that, and whether intelligence information was misrepresented. Look, the next potential terrorist attack against this country will be thwarted--if it is thwarted, and we certainly hope it is--by good intelligence. We must rely on our intelligence system. Is there something wrong with that system? If there is, it must be fixed now. It is not sufficient just to say, somebody wrote a book, so let's trash this person time and time again. That is not what we ought to do. We ought to get to the bottom of what is happening here, what caused all these things to happen, what can we learn about it and what can we do to protect our country. Mr. President, I yield the remaining time I might have to the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper. How much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was listening with interest to my colleagues from Massachusetts and Iowa talk about the overtime issue. I was thinking about this in the context of jobs. One of the great debates we have is an economy that apparently is growing but producing really no new jobs. We are about 2.5 million jobs down from 3 years ago. Last month's jobs numbers were pretty anemic--I think 12,000 jobs, almost all of them government jobs. I was thinking about the announcement 2 weeks ago that scheduled to create this manufacturing jobs czar that had been promised last fall. The administration is going to create a jobs czar because they are concerned about jobs, so they announced a ceremony that was going to be held to introduce their jobs czar. And then just before it happens, it is called off because the jobs czar is in China visiting his manufacturing plant he has moved from Nebraska to China. Everybody in the Administration was embarrassed about that. They are going to have a jobs czar that actually moved some of his American jobs to China. He was over there visiting his employees when the President was prepared to announce a new jobs czar for U.S. jobs. It seems to me that the 40-hour workweek has always been about creating jobs, because if you can work employees 50 hours, 60 hours, 70 hours, and there is no consequence to it, then you don't have to create new jobs. You just work your current employees overtime, on and on. But for 60 or 70 years in this country we have decided if you are required to work more than 40 hours a week, you have a right to be paid overtime. That is incentive to create jobs for the amount of work that is available or necessary for that amount over 40 hours. So at a time when we are losing jobs, and when jobs are the issue, I ask my colleague from Iowa, isn't it the case this overtime proposal actually retards the creation of new jobs, and to keep the 40-hour workweek and to get rid of this goofy proposal from the Department of Labor would actually be job creating?

Mr. DORGAN. As I walked over to the Chamber a few moments ago, it occurred to me there is almost never someone walking around this building, or standing out in front of the building who is advocating on behalf of working families, saying my job is to be here to make sure the voice of working families is heard in the Halls of Congress. There are a lot of people with shiny shoes, suspenders, and Cohiba cigars here and they are paid well to look after the big interests of this country, and they do a great job, God bless them. But the fact is working families don't have so much influence, regrettably, in Washington, DC. They don't have people here looking after their interests. I am talking about those families in this country who know about second jobs. Why? Because they work second jobs. They know about second shifts. Why? Because they have the second-shift job. They know about secondhand, they know about second mortgages, and about second everything. Now they are worried about job security and about whether they will keep their jobs, about whether their jobs will be exported to China because they cannot compete with 33-cent labor. Now they have to worry about a proposal that says, for 70 years we have had a 40-hour workweek, and we are thinking of changing that so the big employers have the opportunity to work you 50 hours a week or 60 hours a week if we choose. We go to bed at night in this country feeling good and safe. Why? Because the men and women from our police forces are driving up and down the streets to keep us safe. We go to bed not worrying about fires because we have firefighters out there who are awake all night. Many of them work extra hours and are paid overtime for it. That is an important part of their family's income. Now we are told by the Department of Labor we would like to change all that after almost 70 years; we don't think employers ought to pay overtime. My colleague had it right. In fact, the sole job of some consulting companies it is to say to corporations, we are going to find a way with these rules to allow you not to have to pay overtime to your employees. I don't understand it. I watched this morning when my colleague from Iowa was on the floor. I don't understand why we are not voting on this amendment. We voted on it before. The Senate already expressed itself. We said we support this amendment. I don't have the foggiest idea what those who are now scheduling this place think they are accomplishing. This isn't going away. This is going to be voted on. Perhaps not 5 minutes from now, maybe not 5 hours from now, but the Senate will vote. When the Senate votes on this, the Senate is going to say the Department of Labor should not be allowed to promulgate those rules. Why? Because the Senate, by and large, has a sense of fairness about this. The only way the leadership can stop this is to prevent a vote. That is why we are here today, trying to force a vote. But those who have their foot in the door are doing it for one reason. They would lose a vote if they had it. They are going to have it and lose it. It will probably be tomorrow or next week, but this vote will happen and they are going to lose it. Why? Because there is a basic sense of fairness, in my judgment. Finally, I come back to the proposition I started with. This kind of rule at this point is a way of saying we don't need more jobs in this country. Eliminating overtime for 6 or 8 million people is a way of saying we don't care about creating jobs. If you cannot work people overtime, over 40 hours, without paying time and a half--if you cannot do that, you have to create jobs to do the extra work. That is the way the system works. That is what has allowed the economy to grow. That is what produces new jobs. Those who now support this proposition--the administration, Department of Labor, the majority party in Congress--that these overtime rules ought to be changed after 60-some years and prevent overtime payments to 6 million or 8 million people, they are the ones who are saying, apparently, we don't need new jobs in this country. They don't stand for creating new jobs. I cannot think of a worse position to take at this point than, in the face of diminishing jobs and jobs moving overseas and outsourcing and those issues, for somebody to come to this floor and say, by the way, let's cut down even more on jobs by forcing people to work longer without paying them overtime. This makes no sense to me at all. Again, my colleague is doing a service to the Senate by standing here and saying we are going to vote on this.

Mr. DORGAN. That is an interesting construct of the debate, and I think a reasonably accurate one. This underlying bill, while it has some flaws, would pass the Senate, in my judgment, and will pass the Senate. Those who are the architects of the bill and bring it to the floor want to bring it in a circumstance where they say, oh, by the way, this is our idea and you cannot add any of your ideas to it. What the Senator from Iowa is doing is using the only alternative available to him to try to stop something that diminishes and destroys jobs in this country and destroys the opportunity to create more jobs. The Senator from Iowa is perfectly within his rights to offer this amendment. The Senate already expressed itself on this amendment. Republicans and Democrats have said: We believe we ought to stop the Department of Labor from issuing these rules on overtime. It is not a radical position. The Senate has already taken this position. It had the vote. I conclude by trying to put this in some perspective. I find it interesting that there are people in our political system who like organized labor as long as it is overseas. I will describe a story of something that happened. My colleague was perhaps there at the time. There was a joint session of Congress held in Washington, DC. As joint sessions are in almost all cases, it was a majestic situation. The House and Senate come together in the House Chamber. It is normally when the President gives a State of the Union Address, but sometimes a foreign leader is invited to speak to a joint session of Congress. On this day, at the backdoor of the House of Representatives, a man was introduced to a joint session as Lech Walesa from Poland. I will never forget the day because this man, probably 5'8" tall, kind of chubby cheeks, red cheeks and a handlebar mustache, walked to the front of the room of the House and the applause began. It went on and on and on and on. Then this man, no politician, no diplomat, no scholar, no intellectual, no military hero, told his story. I will never forget the speech he gave that day. The story briefly was this: He was a worker in a shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. He had been fired from his job as an electrician because he was leading a strike to organize workers. He was fired by the Communist government. On a Saturday morning, he was back in the shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, leading a strike of workers in that shipyard once again against the Communist government. He told us that the Communist secret police grabbed him and beat him severely. They took him to the edge of the shipyard and they hoisted him up unceremoniously over the barbed wire fence and threw him on the other side of the fence in this shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. He told us that he lay there face down bleeding. Remember, this is an unemployed electrician who was leading a strike for a free labor movement against a Communist government. He lay there on that Saturday morning, bleeding face down in the dirt, wondering what to do next. The history books, of course, tell us what he did next. He pulled himself back up, climbed right back over the fence into that shipyard, and then 10 years later he was introduced in the House of Representatives to a joint session of the Congress as the President of the country of Poland. This is what he said to us: We did not have any guns. The Communist government had all the guns. We did not have any bullets. The Communist government had all the bullets. We were only armed with an idea, and that is workers ought to be free to choose their own destiny. He said: My friends, ideas are more powerful than guns. This man was no intellectual, no politician or diplomat, he was an unemployed electrician. And 10 years later he walked into this building as the President of his country, saying that workers have rights. Our country embraced him. Our country embraced the effort and the sacrifice by Lech Walesa and so many others in the country of Poland in support of workers rights, in support of labor unions, in support of the very things we are talking about today. It is interesting that it was Lech Walesa and Poland that lit the fuse that created a free Eastern Europe. In country after country, he lit the fuse that started it all and changed the world--the power of one and the power of an idea. My colleague from Iowa is talking about the power of an idea, and this is not a new idea; it is a timeless truth. Yes, there are some timeless truths, and that is working people have a right to expect to be treated fairly. This country is not just about people at the top; this is about people at the top and the bottom and everything in between. In my part of the country, we understood a century and a half ago, as the wagon trains moved across the landscape in North Dakota heading west, that one does not move a wagon train ahead by leaving some wagons behind. We understood that long ago. The same is true with respect to policies in this country, especially economic policies. The things that represented the root and the core of belief for Lech Walesa of Poland was represented on the streets of America 75 to 100 years ago about the rights of workers. Business has rights, workers have rights, investors have rights. I understand all of that. Now we are talking about the right of people who for 60 years have understood the rules, and the rules are that if one's employer wants to work a person more than 40 hours a week, they have a right to expect to be paid overtime. All of a sudden, for millions of families, law enforcement folks, firefighters and others, this administration wants to say: We are changing that rule; we believe employers have a right to tell you to work 50 or 60 hours and they do not need to pay you overtime. As I said before, that is a quick way to say we do not need to create new jobs. We will just overwork existing workers. It is not fair. There is a basic sense of fairness in this Congress. That is why when this is voted on, as it was before, it will pass. The basic contention of Senator Harkin is that this is, at its root, unfair. It changes the rules of the game. You can talk a lot about this country of ours. I suppose in political campaigns there is way too much negative talk about our country. But there is a lot right about our country, and much of what has been right about our country has been manifested by people who have gone to the streets and gone to the ballot boxes and effected positive change that has improved the lives of working people and raised an entire middle class in this country which did not previously exist. This is a big issue and an important issue. It is probably not as big or important to anybody in this Senate who doesn't get paid overtime. But there are millions of families who rely on overtime, who work hard every day to get the extra hours and get the overtime pay because that is the way they send their kids to school and buy their schoolbooks and send their kids to college or buy the spring clothing--to those families, it is important. I come back again to say those are the families who know about second: Second choice, second mortgage, second shift, second job, and too often, in my judgment, they get shortchanged here in Congress. But they will not, I repeat not, be shortchanged if the Senator from Iowa and I and others who demand a vote on this provision get a vote because we will win that vote. We won it before in the Senate. We will win it again. When we win that vote, we will stop the Department of Labor from doing this, and we will, in my judgment, have advanced two things: No. 1, the respect for the rights of American workers; and, No. 2, we will have forced the creation of additional jobs in this country, something that is desperately needed at a time when we see far too many jobs going overseas. I don't know what the time situation is of the Senator from Iowa, but I want to make one more comment. I talk about jobs overseas because it is the core of this issue about jobs that brings me to the floor to talk about overtime. I have spoken a good number of times about this issue and I am going to talk one more time for a minute. The symbol of outsourcing of jobs is for me Huffy bicycles. We all know about Huffy bicycles. They are 20 percent of the American marketplace. Buy a good Huffy bicycle, buy it at Sears, Kmart, buy it at Wal-Mart. It used to be made in Ohio by American workers. I am sure they were proud of their jobs. I don't know any of them. Eleven dollars an hour they were paid to make Huffy bicycles. Between the handlebar and the fender they put a little decal on Huffy bicycles and the decal was the American flag. But Huffy bicycles are not made there anymore. They are made in China. The decal isn't an American flag anymore. They changed the decal. In fact, I was told it was the last job the workers in Ohio had to do, was replace on existing inventory the American flag decal with a decal of the globe. Huffy bicycles are made in China by people making 33 cents an hour, working 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. The workers in Ohio can't compete with 33 cents an hour. That is the struggle of American workers these days. It is a big struggle. We have big questions to answer. We have trade policies we must try to set right. We have to deal with all these issues. We have to find some way to stand up for the interests of American jobs and American workers. This overtime issue is just one piece of that, just one piece. But to some families it is everything. It is the way they send their kids to school; it is the way they help pay their mortgage; it is the way they help provide the income to raise their families. So this is a big deal to many families in this country. For the 6 to 8 million families, workers who are affected by this, I think they owe a great debt of gratitude to my friend, Senator Harkin from Iowa. I will stand with him as will many of my colleagues to say he has a right to get this vote. When we get this vote we are going to win. We are going to do it not because we want to have a political argument with anybody; we are going to do it because this is very important to millions of Americans families who, all too often, are left behind in public policy here in this Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, following the comments of my colleague, this is a shameful thing to have had happen and to read about. It breaks the bonds of trust that exist in this town. This is a political town, so we expect politics, but not in the context of information given us by agencies that are inherently nonpolitical and are supposed to give us good information with which to make public judgments and policy. I agree fully with my colleague. This not only breaks the bonds of trust, but it is a shameful and disgusting thing to read in a paper this morning. My hope is that it is fully investigated.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we have finished our work on the budget resolution early this morning, I guess at 1:30 or so this morning. One of the last items of business that was conducted by the Senate this morning was the clearing of the nomination of Dr. Mark McClellan. I want to talk, just for a moment, about that issue. As you know, I had put a hold on his nomination. I want to explain the background of that hold and what happened last evening that allowed me to withdraw my hold on the nomination and allow his confirmation to occur. First of all, Dr. McClellan is the head of the Food and Drug Administration, and he has been nominated by the President to run the organization that administers the Medicare and Medicaid Programs. It is a very important position. It is an important position that he held as head of the FDA, and the new position is also very important. We had asked Dr. McClellan for some months to come to the Senate Commerce Committee and testify. The reason we did that is we have a very significant debate in this country, and especially in this Congress, about the subject of the cost of prescription drugs. We have had an abiding, lengthy debate here in the Congress about the prospect of importing prescription drugs: Medicines from Canada, for example, are the same prescription drugs sold in this country--same pill, put in the same bottle, made by the same company. The only difference is that they are sold for a substantial discount in Canada compared to the price U.S. consumers pay in this country. The U.S. consumer pays the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, so many pharmacists and individuals have a desire to import that identical drug for a lesser price from other countries. They do this in Europe all the time. It is called parallel trading. If you are in Spain and want to buy a prescription drug from Germany, you order it. If you are in Italy and want to buy a prescription drug from France, that is not a problem. So the trade in prescription drugs between countries in Europe occurs regularly. The Senate Commerce Committee has heard testimony about it. There are no safety issues. We have run into a problem because Dr. McClellan as head of the FDA decided to wage an aggressive campaign to try to prevent the re- importation of prescription drugs and to prevent the enactment of legislation in Congress that would allow for the re-importation of prescription drugs. We asked Dr. McClellan to come to the Senate Commerce Committee to discuss this issue, and he was also asked repeatedly to testify in the House of Representatives. He repeatedly refused to do so. As a result, I put a hold on his nomination. It was not acceptable to me to move Dr. McClellan's nomination unless he was willing to come and testify before the Congress on these issues. Yesterday, Dr. McClellan did testify before the Commerce Committee. I and others, including Senator McCain, asked him a substantial number of questions about these issues. I had a long telephone conversation with Dr. McClellan last evening. I also had a conversation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services about these same issues. A couple of things happened as a result. No. 1, Dr. McClellan has given me a commitment that in his new position, when he is asked to testify before the Congress, he is going to testify. That is an important principle for this Congress. We ought not say to people: We will promote you even though you stiff us. I use the term ``stiff,'' which is a term Senator McCain used yesterday at the hearing. That is exactly what had happened. Dr. McClellan said he has learned from his confirmation experience and when asked to testify before relevant committees of Congress in the future, he intends to do so. That is No. 1. That is an important step. No. 2, when Dr. McClellan's name was cleared last evening, Senator Frist put this statement in the Senate Record: Mr. President, I announce for the information of my colleagues that, in consultation with the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Senator Dorgan, Senator Stabenow, Senator McCain, Senator Cochran, and other interested Senators, the Senate will begin a process for developing proposals that would allow for the safe reimportation of FDA-approved prescription drugs. What is the import of that? The majority leader of the Senate, for the first time, has made a commitment: He wants to put together a group that will develop proposals that will allow for the safe re-importation of prescription drugs. That is a change. The question now is not whether we have some mechanism by which we can import prescription drugs and, therefore, have access to the reduced prices. Instead, the question is how can we do that. The majority leader used the word ``allow.'' ``Developing a process that will allow for the safe reimportation of FDA-approved prescription drugs.'' That is a significant change and a significant commitment. We will no longer fight about whether this ought to happen. We will fight about, perhaps, the mechanics of how to make it happen. And that is OK with me. I appreciate Senator Frist's statement and his commitment. Senator Frist and I spoke four or five times last evening about this before he put his statement in the Record. Again, the majority leader has said that he commits to beginning a process that will develop proposals that will allow for the safe importation of approved prescription drugs. That is a significant change and a significant commitment. I appreciate the words and the commitment of the majority leader. The minority leader, Senator Daschle, has also worked on this issue for some long while. Senator Daschle is a supporter of re-importation done under conditions that would provide for safety and also for savings for American consumers. Based on those two things--a commitment from Dr. McClellan that when asked to testify, he will testify, and also the commitment by Senator Frist to move towards developing proposals that will allow for the re- importation of FDA-approved drugs--I lifted my hold and Dr. McClellan was approved. What we have accomplished in the last few days--Senator McCain, myself, Senator Snowe, Senator Stabenow, and others--is a significant shift, and it will inevitably lead to a change in public policy that will allow for the safe reimportation of FDA-approved drugs that will allow the American people to get them at a lower price. That is the goal. I yield the floor.