Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on another subject, I will now make some comments about a North Dakotan who has died. I want to do this for a very special reason. I think his passing needs to be noted by us. Willie Nelson has a song called ``My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.'' Out in my part of the country--I grew up in western North Dakota--we understand Willie Nelson's music and lyrics and what his songs mean. Willie Nelson really gave voice, with ``My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys'' to a way of life--about rodeos, ranch life, 10- gallon hats, pickup trucks, sweet clover, wild horses, newborn calves, going to town on Saturday night, good neighbors, strong families, and living free. I grew up in a small area of western North Dakota. My dad was a good horseman. He raised horses. When I was a young boy, we went to rodeos. We did not have professional sports. We did not have Major League Baseball or the National Football League. We went to rodeos. I recall as a young boy going to the rodeos in all the small towns in North Dakota, but also going to the National Western Livestock Show in the coliseum in Denver, CO. Cy Tallon was the announcer, one of the great rodeo announcers in our country. He would announce, ``Coming out of chute No. 2, Jim Tescher from North Dakota.'' We had cowboys who were the best in the world--Jim Tescher, Tom Tescher, Alvin Nelson, Duane Howard, Dean Armstrong--tops in the world. I remember how proud I had been hearing these North Dakotans being introduced at the National Western Livestock Show--saddle-bronc riders, bareback riders, and bull riders. They were the best in the world-- tough, good people and champions. Last month, one of them died. In a cemetery in the Badlands of North Dakota up on a hill, his casket sat to be buried. His name was Jim Tescher. He came from a ranch in the Badlands of North Dakota. He rode in rodeos in Madison Square Garden, the Boston Garden, and the Cow Palace. He won the saddle-bronc riding in the National Finals Rodeo twice. He was a real champion. He went for 2 years at one stretch as a professional RCA cowboy without being bucked off a saddle-bronc horse. Think of that: 2 years without being bucked off a saddle bronc riding in rodeos. His first love was the ranch, the cows, and the horses, so he rodeoed when he could. He didn't rodeo as much as some of the others, but when he did, he was a winner. After a long rodeo career, he returned to his ranch to live in the Badlands. Last summer, he was driving a little four-wheeler out in the Badlands to check on some cattle and it tipped, fell down a cliff, and pinned him and paralyzed him from the neck down. I went to visit him at Thanksgiving time in the hospital in Mandan, ND. Jim was lying in his hospital room paralyzed. He said to me that what he really wanted to do was try to get back to the ranch and the Badlands and look out the picture window and see his cattle once again. On December 23, they put Jim in a wheelchair and wheeled him down to the front door of the hospital wrapped in a blanket. Unbeknownst to him, his daughter had fetched his horse Bonner, a horse just over 20 years old. Bonner had been with Jim all of his life. She brought his horse Bonner in from 180 miles away. She hauled him in a horse trailer. His daughter had Bonner standing behind a tree. They wheeled Jim out in a wheelchair and led Bonner out from behind the tree. This horse had not seen his master for about 5, 6 months. Jim could not lift his hands, but he made that clicking sound with his mouth that cowboys make to their horse, and Bonner walked over and nuzzled him on the nose. He still knew Jim after 6 months in the hospital. Jim had tears in his eyes that day. About 4 days later, Jim died, and on January 3, a group gathered in the cemetery in the Badlands to bury him. This picture which was in the Cowboy Chronicle in North Dakota shows a man named Brad Gjermundson, also a North Dakotan, a four-time world saddle bronc champion rider. He rode to that cemetery following the hearse leading Jim's horse Bonner. As Jim was to be buried that day in a coffin decorated with his well- worn cowboy boots, some spurs, a rope, and some cedar from the Badlands, the cowboys from North Dakota gathered around to pay their last respects. This picture shows a lonely horse watching his master being put away. When I saw that picture in the Cowboy Chronicle, I knew I wanted to share with my colleagues the fact that this country has lost a really great champion, a champion rodeo rider, but also a champion human being. Teddy Roosevelt once lived in those Badlands, and Teddy Roosevelt once said: Cowboys don't walk real well; that's because they do most of their work in the saddle. He could have said: Cowboys don't talk much either; they just love their country, they honor family values, and they live free. And that describes Jim Tescher's life. He, in my judgment, is one of those real American heroes, a North Dakota champion, and our State will miss him. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr.President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have agreed to a rather short time limit for a debate on my amendment. I know we are facing a lot of votes in the later hours of today and perhaps even tomorrow. So I have agreed to 10 minutes on each side. This budget that is brought to the Senate deals with choices. We make choices. I have great respect for people who have a differing view than mine on the choices of where to spend money and where to save money. They have every right to share views. I respect their views. There are times with respect to this budget document where we disagree. This is one of them. My amendment deals with law enforcement. The budget that is before the Senate, consistent with the Administration's wishes, proposes to cut $1.6 billion of proven, critically important domestic law enforcement programs; then it would restore about $500 million in funding, leaving the budget $1.1 billion short for law enforcement programs. This includes the COPS Program. We know that works, but it would be eviscerated by this budget. The Byrne grant program, that is the most important program to help local law enforcement agencies around this country, would be eliminated. The local law enforcement block grant program would be eliminated. We will be $1.1 billion short for these critical law enforcement needs. My amendment restores that money, and, in addition, reduces the Federal budget deficit by $1 billion. We simply restrict, just restrict, a very small amount of the tax cut that goes to the folks in this country earning more than $1 million a year. This is just a choice that we have to make, one that says a lot about our priorities. Last month I held a meeting in North Dakota, as I have on previous occasions. I had county sheriffs, the highway patrol, local police officers there. We were talking about the scourge of methamphetamine. What a devastating scourge to this country. Methamphetamine is destroying lives. Anyone can buy the ingredients for methamphetamine at the local stores. Then you can cook it up in a trunk or abandoned farmhouse. It is literally like a prairie fire out in rural America. It is an enormous challenge to local law enforcement officers. The equipment, the communications opportunities, the manpower, needed to fight this new meth scourge is very substantial. This is the wrong time to be cutting the law enforcement assistance to the states that we have given previously. So I suggest we restore this money and provide the funding from the tax cut that has been given to those earning over $1 million a year. This choice that we have to make is also about terrorism. We talk a lot about the terrorist threat in this country. The first responders to the next terrorist attack will not come out of the Centers for Disease Control or the FBI or the Secret Service. The first responders are going to be the local police officers on the scene, the firefighters on the scene. The question is, Do they have the training? Do they have the equipment? Do they have the capability, the manpower to deal with these issues? The Edward Byrne grants and the COPS Programs and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants go a long way in making sure that our first responders are ready. Now we discover the priority of the majority and also the administration is to cut that funding. That is, in my judgment, a very significant mistake. You know, I was here months ago leading the fight to try to stop sending $20 billion of the taxpayers' money to reconstruct Iraq. Why did I feel that way? Because Iraq has the money to reconstruct itself. The Iraqi people can pump Iraqi oil and reconstruct Iraq. The American taxpayer does not need to spend $20 billion for that. I lost that vote. This money is on its way to Iraq. And we have all these law enforcement programs now in Iraq. So the American taxpayer is going to pay for law enforcement programs for Iraq, which Iraqis could pay for themselves, and we will cut law enforcement programs in this country. What kind of priority is that? There are some who take a look at those in politics and say: America first; that is pretty selfish. It is not selfish, in my judgment, to ensure that we protect the American public, that we head off future terrorist threats, that we support local law enforcement and respond to the scourge of methamphetamine and other issues. If we do not have the funds for that but we have the funds to invest in local law enforcement in Iraq, which the Iraqis could have paid for themselves, there is something wrong with our priorities. Our priorities need to be changed. I have talked about the three programs that the budget would cut. The proposal is to cut a substantial amount of money from the COPS Program, $698 million, $696 million from the Edward Byrne grant program, and $224 million from the local law enforcement block grant. After cutting $1.6 billion, they create a new program of $500 million, roughly, so you are about $1.1 billion short. Maybe those who say, let's do this, maybe they really think that tax cuts for people who make over $1 million are more important than the Byrne grant. But if you just held meetings with law enforcement officials in your State and understand what they face, the challenge they face every single day, you understand that is a bad choice to be cutting these programs. I recall that days after the devastating attack on September 11, I went to Ground Zero with my colleagues. I recall looking into the eyes of the law enforcement officers and the firefighters who lost brothers and sisters, who were moving up those buildings as the buildings were coming down. They were not punching a timecard. They were not asking whether they were being paid overtime. They were not talking about anything other than their job. They ran right into the face of danger. Many of them lost their lives trying to save people. That is what law enforcement does in this country. This country takes them for granted every day and every night. We go to bed at night feeling safe because law enforcement is on our streets. This country takes it for granted. We ought to say thank-you to the men and women who wear the badge and keep the peace and keep our streets safe. It is the wrong way to cut the Byrne grant program, the COPS Program, and the things that are essential and are needed by local law enforcement, and to do that in order to preserve a tax cut for those who make over $1 million a year. It is a bad choice for the country. And, in my judgment, it is a bad political choice for those who have done it, as well. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I forgot to mention at the start that Senator Daschle joins me as a cosponsor of this amendment. Mr. President, it has been suggested that my amendment amounts to a tax increase. That is just nonsense. The question before us is this: next year, shall we give a $26 billion tax cut to those who receive $1 million or more in income and at the same time restore the funding for law enforcement officials around the country--funding we know works to fight crime? Or shall we instead cut funding for law enforcement officials so we can give a $27 billion tax cut to those whose income is over $1 million a year? This is not about tax increases. I am sorry. My friend from Oklahoma, I am sure, is familiar with Will Rogers, because Will Rogers is from Oklahoma. What a wonderful man. Will Rogers once said: When there's no place left to spit, you either swallow your tobacco juice or you change with the times. Well, there is no place left to spit with respect to these choices. Do you want to cut local law enforcement funding, the Byrne Grant that helps those folks out there today who are keeping this country safe, who are chasing those people who are producing methamphetamine and addicting our children? Do you want to invest in law enforcement? Do you want to chase the criminals? Do you want to apprehend them and get them? Or do you want to decide we cannot afford to do that? Let's cut back on law enforcement efforts so those who make $1 million a year can get an extra $1 billion--from $26 billion to $27 billion--next year in tax cuts. One hundred years from now, we will all be dead--everybody in this Chamber is likely to be dead--and the only thing they will know about us is to look at this budget. And they will say: Here were their values. Here is what they held dear. Here is what they felt was important for this country. Someone once asked: If you didn't know someone, never met someone, and had to write their obituary, and you only had their check register with which to write an obituary, what would you say about them? You would be able to tell something about their value system. The same is true with the Government. The same is true with choices made in this budget. What is our value system? What do we hold most dear? What do we think makes our country strong? The question for us is, Will this Congress stand up for the men and women who wear the uniform on the street who keep this country safe? We talk a lot about national security and the threat of terrorism. Once again, let me say, the first responder, in the event of a terrorist attack, is going to be a man or woman out there in the local sheriff's office, the local police force, the highway patrol. They benefit and their programs benefit from these grant programs that are being proposed to be cut now by $1 billion. I propose to restore it because I think it is the right choice for this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Might I ask for one minute off the resolution?

Mr. DORGAN. Let me say my colleague from Oklahoma talked about the COPS Program--which, incidentally, has been a remarkable program. It has worked very well to reduce crime. He did not mention, for example, the Byrne grant program which today is aiding law enforcement in tracking drug dealers, dealing with this methamphetamine scourge. My colleague from Oklahoma described a new grant program that the Administration is proposing, but this new grant program my colleague described is going to cut funding for local law enforcement officials by $1.1 billion. That is why I felt constrained to come and offer the amendment. It is about choices. If one feels the assistance we have given local law enforcement through the Byrne grant program and other programs has not been effective, then one would want to oppose this amendment. But if you meet with our law enforcement officers at the state and local level, they will tell you to a person how incredibly effective these programs have been in bringing them up to speed with training and equipment and helping them pursue drug dealers and reduce crime on the streets. If one believes that is important, then one must vote for this amendment.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Schumer, Kennedy, Sarbanes, Rockefeller, Corzine, Stabenow, Harkin, Boxer, Durbin, Kohl, and Dodd be added as cosponsors to my amendment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Biden, Senator Daschle, and many others. This would restore $1.1 billion to law enforcement grants that have been cut in this budget. My colleague, Senator Biden, is the author of the COPS Program, the Byrne grant program, and others. I just finished a round of meetings dealing with methamphetamine in North Dakota. Most of you have had the same experience. Law enforcement officials from across the country will tell you these grant programs are critical to their ability to continue to fight this methamphetamine scourge and other issues. We should restore that funding. We do this and pay for it by simply limiting the tax cut for those above $1 million a year. Next year they will receive $27 billion in tax cuts; that is, those Americans with income of $1 million a year or more. Under this amendment, they will only receive $26 billion in tax cuts. We will restore the funding for law enforcement across this country for the COPS Program, the Byrne grant, and the law enforcement grant program. I offer this on behalf of myself, on behalf of Senator Biden, Senator Daschle, and others.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first let me compliment my colleague, Senator Conrad, for the work he has done. Let me also pay tribute to my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Nickles. While we might disagree on a good many issues, Senator Nickles has been someone who has contributed substantially to this Chamber through his service in the Senate. I note he is leaving the Senate at the end of this year and I want to pay my compliments to Senator Nickles. There is a tendency in this Chamber, I think, for us to treat the serious too lightly and the light too seriously. It is very hard to overestimate the importance of this fiscal policy that is completely off track, completely out of sync with reality. We have until recently had a fiscal policy that said: Here is what we will do. We will increase defense spending a great deal, we will increase spending on homeland security a substantial amount, we will cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes again, and then we will hope the economy grows enough to cover all of that. The fact is the economy has not grown to cover all of that and we now have sunk into the largest Federal budget deficits in the history of our country. But some don't want to admit that we are there. They want to ignore it and continue to say this is not a problem, we will just grow out of this. We have a responsibility now to address these issues. It is irresponsible for us to say, let's just do it all and let the kids worry about this, or let the grandkids worry about it. We are technically capable of doing so many things. Today, on Tuesday, we have two little vehicles--made in this country--scrounging around the surface of Mars, controlled by some controllers in NASA, and we are picking up rocks and analyzing rocks on the surface of Mars. What a remarkable thing. By the way, I might say just from the pictures I have seen from Mars it looks like a place about 5 miles south of my hometown. But we spent a lot of money to get to Mars, I want them to do well with these experiments, and I think they are wonderful. I think it is quite remarkable, the technology we have to put vehicles on Mars. Why is it we are technically capable of doing these breathtaking things and then we seem so unable to come to the floor of the Senate and at least admit that there is a giant problem in fiscal policy? We are far off track. Just 3 years ago, we had very large surpluses and Alan Greenspan couldn't even sleep at night because he was worried these surpluses would be too big. He didn't know what we could do with them. Three years later, of course, we now find the largest deficits in the history of this country stretching out as far as the eye can see, stretching out every single year for the next decade. The budget brought to the floor of the Senate by the majority party says the following: We will take the Federal debt to $10.2 trillion by the year 2009. Let's see if we can ratchet this debt up to $10.2 trillion. It says let's have a deficit this year of $512 billion. Let's have a deficit next year of $445 billion; the year after, let's have a Federal budget deficit of $431 billion; the year following that, let's have a Federal budget deficit of $441 billion; and the year following that, the fifth year, the last year for this budget resolution, let's have a budget deficit of $439 billion. This is not a budget that tackles problems. This retreats from the problems and from the challenge. There is a circumstance that has occurred in this country that should require all of us to be more serious about this: We ran into a recession. It began in the spring of 2001. Precisely, it began in March 2001. Following that recession we were the victims of a terrorist attack on 9/11. Then we had to fight a war against terrorism. Following that attack against our country the entire aviation industry was grounded. It had a profound impact on our economy. Then we were involved in Afghanistan and a war in Iraq. We have had some pretty tough times and some big challenges. But the administration has said and the majority party has said we can do all of this. We can and should and will increase defense spending. We can, should and will increase spending on homeland security. And we will cut your taxes again and again and, if the Republicans get their way, again this year. And it will not matter because it will all add up. This is like the old story in the movies, what are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? Your own eyes will tell you what is in this document. It says let's take this country to $10.2 trillion in debt in 2009. The question is, when will the Congress, and especially when will the President, be serious about these policies? It is interesting that the budget sent to us by the President this year predicted we would spend zero, no money at all, for Afghanistan and Iraq. We have been spending very close to $5 billion a month in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last year I raised the same question. If we are spending money, why don't we budget for it? The answer is, we don't know how much to budget. We do know what we are spending, we are spending $5 billion a month, $60 billion a year. Do you know what these documents from the President and the majority say? It says zero, we are not spending anything. What do they mean? They will just hide it by coming up with a supplemental bill later on, I suppose after the election, and we will act as if it doesn't matter. It does matter. It is saying to the kids, you go ahead and pay this bill because we don't have the courage to do it. We don't want to pay for it. We don't intend to pay for it. We will ask you kids to pay for it when you are old enough to work and pay taxes and inherit this debt. There are many issues to discuss with respect to the budget. My colleague has offered an amendment that I came to support, dealing with Social Security trust funds. This is certainly the biggest bait-and- switch operation in the history of mankind. The bait and switch that has been going on says the following: When you work, you pay a tax from your paycheck and we will tell you this, we will guarantee you we will put that money in a trust fund called the Social Security trust fund. Then, when you get to the point where you are retiring, we will have sufficient moneys in the trust fund to be able to meet those retirement needs. The problem is the trust fund at this point is not accepting new money because all the new money being taken from paychecks in the form of Social Security taxes is being used as an offset for other spending. We had people genuflecting on the floor of the Senate about lockboxes for the last 4 or 5 years. They would come to the floor and have an apoplectic seizure about some lockbox they wanted to create for Social Security. There is no lockbox. The box is open and all the money is gone because budgets like this say we are going to spend all that money. The only priority with this is to preserve the tax cuts that went to upper-income Americans. I think it is wonderful if you are an upper-income American. Look, if you make $100 million or $10 million or $1 million a year, God bless you, this is a great country and you have a right to do that and I congratulate you on your success. But I would say I expect as an American you would also want to contribute to this country, and part of that contribution is to pay for that which we need--a war on terrorism and money to fund the troops when we send them overseas to protect this country. All of these issues are important issues that we have to provide for. When we also protect these upper income tax cuts, we spend the Social Security trust fund. This makes no sense at all. That is a classic bait and switch. This reminds me of an old story about elephants. When I was a young kid, I grew up in a very small town. But even though it was a small town of 400 or 500 people, we occasionally had a circus come to town. It was a relatively small circus but they at least had one elephant. I never quite understood as a kid why a very large elephant would stand in one place if they just put a cuff around the elephant's back foot and then a chain with one little steel stake driven into the ground. How on Earth would that keep an elephant from escaping? Then I read about how they do that. They do it in Thailand where they capture these elephants in the wild and then find a big banyan tree. They put a big steel cuff on the elephant's leg and they chain that big steel cuff to a huge banyan tree. For a week that elephant will struggle and grunt and grown and fight and try to pull away from that banyan tree. But it can't. It doesn't get away from that banyan tree. In a while, it learns it is there permanently as long as that chain is on its leg, as long as that cuff exists. Then they take the other end of the banyan tree and put a stake in the ground and the elephant will never move because the elephant is chained to his habit. The elephant knows it can't move. So it doesn't move. A big chain to a habit is what I see in this Chamber by the majority party. They say it doesn't matter what the facts are, it doesn't matter what the deficits are, it doesn't matter that we are off the ditch with respect to fiscal policy. We are going to pretend and act as if things are just fine, that things are going along just fine. Those who will pay the cost of this, in my judgment, will be people 5, 15, 25, and 40 years from now and who will bear the consequences of an irresponsible fiscal policy. My colleague has offered an amendment that says: Look, let's prohibit the use of Social Security trust funds except for the purpose they were intended to be used. Radical? No. I don't think so. Obviously, there is some common sense to do that. I don't expect that this amendment will pass the Senate when it is voted on because the majority party has to protect the fiscal policy despite the fact that all the evidence is this fiscal policy doesn't work. We have an economy that is not producing jobs. We have an economy that is not providing the opportunity we expect it to provide and that the administration said it would provide. Why? I have some theories about that. We held a hearing last Friday on the question of why American jobs are shipped overseas in large quantities. Why do we see all of these announcements about companies that used to make American coats are now producing them overseas? Did you know that the Levis you are wearing are not American pants? If you are wearing Fruit of the Loom, you are not wearing American underwear. Did you know that if you are eating Fig Newtons, you are eating Mexican Fig Newtons? Yes. They are not produced in America--not even Fig Newton cookies. The question is, Why are we exporting all of these jobs overseas? What kind of economy is it that says we have economic growth in this country but we are not producing new jobs? The new jobs are being created in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, and Mexico. This is a failed economic strategy, a set of failed economic policies, and all you have to do is go to the budget document. Page 4 of this document, which comes from the majority party, says the following. Let us increase the Federal debt to $10.2 trillion by the year 2009. They say, let us every year between now and then have a Federal budget deficit over $400 billion. That is over $1.5 billion a day every single day for the next 4 to 5 years. This isn't a budget document; this is a failure. It is a failure of responsibility to own up to what is happening in this country and to fix it not just on behalf of politicians but on behalf of the American people and their children who aspire to have a country that expands the most opportunity and new jobs and growth once again.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes.

Mr. DORGAN. I would like 15 or 20 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois is absolutely correct. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, did testify and say that we have to look at cutting Social Security benefits. I find it interesting that Mr. Greenspan, who was actually shaking the pom-poms in support of the tax cut and this administration's fiscal policy, is now saying part of the cost of the policy should be for us now to consider cutting Social Security for senior citizens. Look, their fiscal policy has provided the largest rewards in history in the form of tax cuts for upper income Americans. We have one-half of the world's billionaires living in this country. Good for them. I wish I were one of them. I wish my colleague from Illinois was among them, and I wish my colleague from Wyoming was among them. But it seems to me those who have done so well in this country would want to help pay the bill. Promoting tax cuts for the upper income folks, those at the very top of the ladder--for example, those who have $1 million a year in income--and saying during these tough times you get $80,000 a year in tax cuts makes no sense to me. Yet Chairman Greenspan supported that, and he now comes back and says--he doesn't say it quite this way but the cause and effect are the same--we don't have the money now. We gave money in terms of tax cuts to the folks who make $1 million a year. Now we should ask the folks at the other end of the ladder to take a cut in Social Security benefits. I don't understand that. In my judgment, when we talk about fuzzy math, this isn't fuzzy; this is vacant math.

Mr. DORGAN. As always, the Senator from Illinois creates the calculation exactly the right way. It is true the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board chaired the commission in the early 1980s that decided to collect more money in the Social Security trust fund than was necessary to meet current expenses. Why? Because when the war babies or the baby boomers retire, we will have the largest crop of babies ever produced in this country who will hit the retirement rolls, and we need to save for that day. In fact, it was the Greenspan commission that recommended that. Congress embraced that. Now Mr. Greenspan comes back to the Congress and says you are using all that money for tax cuts for upper income Americans and you are increasing defense, increasing homeland security, and telling people you do not have to pay for that. So now why don't we cut Social Security payments for the elderly. There is an old song in that movie, ``Where have you been, Joe DiMaggio?'' We ought to ask the question, Where have you been, Alan Greenspan? It seems to me that as the construct of this fiscal policy has become clearer and clearer, I would have expected the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board perhaps to send some warning signs. I finished the book ``The Price of Loyalty,'' written by Mr. Suskind. What he says, according to former Treasury Secretary O'Neill, is that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is a critic of this fiscal policy in private while being supportive of this fiscal policy in public. A wrong approach.

Mr. DORGAN. I yield myself an additional 10 minutes on the resolution.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the budget that is presented in the Senate has on page 5 their estimate of what the debt should be in the year 2009. This is recommended policy. By 2009, we should have a debt of $10.2 trillion, they recommend. Every year getting there we should have budget deficits, each and every year, of over $400 billion a year. Maybe it is something in the water. Maybe it is the food. One would expect there to be some conservative impulses here to decide that a fiscal policy ought to add up. This simply does not add up. I mention one additional point. It was not very long ago when the Senate considered a proposal to spend a substantial amount of money, $20 billion--do you know how hard it is to get $20 billion for anything? It is a huge amount of money. The proposal was to spend $20 billion to reconstruct the country of Iraq. We must have it, they said. We won't pay for it; just have to have it. I said, Iraq has the third largest reserves of oil in the world. The Iraqis can pump their oil and pay for their own reconstruction. They said, We will not hear any of that. We demand the $20 billion. The majority party, the same folks who have written this budget said, we demand that money. We do not want to pay for it, just borrow it and spend it in the country of Iraq for reconstruction. It is the kind of thing that if you did not know where the desks were placed in this Chamber you would not recognize who was saying this. There is no common sense with respect to this kind of a budget document. This fiscal policy is radically off track and the quicker we stop, say wait, this has to somehow add up or this country will bear the consequences--this somehow has to make sense. Let me conclude by making this point. We have a lot of people who think they know how the economy works and yet the Treasury Secretary said he is mystified. I used to teach economics and I am not sure I know how it works, but I know despite all the judgments about fiscal and monetary policies, this economy moves forward when the American people are confident about the future. If citizens are confident about the future, they do things that manifest that confidence and there is an expansion of the economy. They buy a house, buy a home, take a trip, do the things that expand the economy. If citizens are not confident, they do exactly the opposite and the economy contracts. The biggest problem we have, in my judgment, is that it is very hard for the American people to take a look at this fiscal policy--deficits as far as the eye can see, the largest in American history, a $10.2 trillion debt--and conclude, yes, that works all right for us. Instead, this looks to them like a bunch of politicians who have their heads in the sand. I came to the floor to support the amendment my colleague from North Dakota offered dealing with Social Security trust funds. I am happy to do that. After having debates in the Senate for about 5 years on the subject of lockbox, there is not a lockbox in sight. If there was a box, there would be no lock in site. Every single penny of money collected for Social Security is being used to give tax cuts to upper income folks and defend spending in homeland security because this majority party says you can do it all, do not worry, charge it to the kids. That is irresponsible fiscal policy and one we need to change. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Fifteen minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first, I want to respond to the question posed by my colleague from Colorado. The amendment before us does, in fact, propose that we increase spending for veterans by recovering some of the tax cuts. But it does that only for those who are receiving incomes in excess of $1 million a year. So with respect to the concern that was expressed about those National Guard men and women who are now serving in Iraq being inconvenienced by this amendment, I would venture to guess there are very few of those who are now serving in Iraq who are making $1 million a year or more. This amendment is not about reducing the child tax credit. It is not about cutting aid for working families. It is not about that at all. It is about trying to ratchet back just a little bit of the tax cut for those earning over $1 million a year in income and using it to invest in health care for veterans. It is very simple. In the year 2005--that is next year--those with incomes in excess of $1 million a year will have received $27 billion in tax cuts from the President's tax cut proposal. This amendment proposes taking $2.7 billion of that $27 billion and using it to invest in veterans health care. The other side is saying this amendment will hurt working families, kids, and childcare. Don't believe any of that; just read the amendment. Then you will understand none of that applies to this debate. So the question for this Congress is, Will we ever keep our promise to veterans? Will we ever do that? We have a kind of tax that we apply for veterans who have a disability. Their military pensions are reduced dollar-for-dollar by the amount they receive in disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs. We tried to get rid of that offset. But the President threatened to the entire Defense Authorization Bill if Congress tried to fix the problem. Serve our country, we say to our veterans, and you will receive health care benefits. But we do not meet the promise. It is time for this Congress to ask itself the question: Are you going to keep promising? If so, are you ever going to keep the promise? Because you cannot promise veterans you will provide health care and then have them serve their country and then come back to find out we actually did not really mean that. Many of those who need this health care, these days, are those who Tom Brokaw calls the greatest generation, that group of Americans who, in his book, he describes as laying on Omaha Beach on the D-Day invasion, who were in Guadalcanal, who went across the sands of northern Africa, through France, and into Germany. That greatest generation fought for this country with valor. At the end of May we are going to dedicate a wonderful memorial to the World War II veterans here on The Mall. But we apparently have decided that we do not have enough money to keep our promise to them for the health care we indicated they would receive. Many of them are now in their seventies and eighties and are at the maximum need for that health care, and we say we just do not have the money. But we have the money to give those who make $1 million or more in income a year $27 billion in tax cuts next year but we do not have $2.7 billion to invest in health care for veterans. It does not make sense to me. One day I traveled to a VA hospital on a Sunday morning. A sister of a veteran had asked if I could get the medals for this veteran. I have already told my colleagues this story on another occasion, but it is worth repeating. They were medals he earned in World War II conflicts. So I did. On a Sunday morning, I went to the VA hospital to present him with his medals. He was an American Indian. His name was Edmond Young Eagle. Edmond was dying of lung cancer. I did not know it at the time but he would die in 7 days. But on that Sunday morning, at that VA hospital, the doctors came into the room, the nurses came into the room--his sisters were there; some people even drove up from the Old Soldiers Home in Lisbon, ND--and we cranked up the bed so Edmond Young Eagle was in a sitting position. He was sick but he was well aware of what was happening that morning. I pinned on his pajama top the medals this man had earned in the Second World War. He fought in northern Africa. He fought in Europe. He had been at D-Day, at Normandy. On that day, 7 days before he died of lung cancer, as I pinned the medals on his pajama top, this American Indian said to me: It's the proudest day of my life. He fought for his country. He came back, lived on the reservation, never had very much, never had a family. He did not have children. He worked odd jobs. But he was enormously proud--enormously proud--as he lay dying in the hospital of the service he had given to his country. This country can do no less, in my judgment, for all of those veterans than to say to them: We are proud of you. And part of that pride will be registered by our vote in favor of full health care benefits for veterans to whom we have given that promise. One day I was holding a town meeting in North Dakota. A man came to the meeting, an older fellow with kind of stubbled white whiskers. He had not shaved for some long while. He walked up in front of the entire crowd and he said: Mr. Senator, my teeth don't fit, and they cut my gums and cut my lips. He opened his mouth to show me the cuts in his mouth. He said: I flew in the Air Corps in the Second World War and they promised me health care. And they gave me teeth a long time go. Now they don't fit. They won't give me new teeth. He said: I don't have any money. He was nearly 80 years old, destitute, with no money. He had cuts in his mouth from teeth that didn't fit and a VA that said: We're sorry, no teeth. That should not happen to veterans in this country. It should not happen. We know better than that. If this country cannot keep its promise and show its gratitude to those who serve America, tell me what is a higher priority--not five, just one? Tell me what is a higher priority? We have seen people come to this floor breathless about giving millionaires tax cuts, believing if we give more tax cuts to those at the upper income level, somehow American's ship of state should begin sailing once again. We will spend $27 billion next year to give tax cuts to those whose incomes are $1 million or more a year. The question on this amendment is, will we spend $2.7 billion of that to provide health care for veterans to whom we have promised that health care? My colleague Senator Conrad has described the circumstances of the veterans health care delivery system. We have more people reaching that age, Second World War veterans who need health care. They come to the VA system to claim it, only to be told: We are sorry. It is not available. You have cataracts? You can wait a year or, in the case of North Dakota, as my colleague said, you can drive from Fargo to Minneapolis, 225 miles and, by the way, do it three times. Then you get your cataract surgery. You go down for a checkup, then go back for surgery, and then go back and get checked up again. And, by the way, do that after you have waited for 9 to 12 months, and maybe you get all that if you are lucky. Why? Because there the VA doesn't have enough money. We couldn't afford it. The health care system doesn't have enough money. We have plenty of money for people at the top of their income ladder, calling on their friends around here for tax cuts. This is about choices. It is always about choices in this Chamber. What do we choose to do? What is our priority. Someone once said, think of the task of writing an obituary for someone you never met but had a check register with which you could judge that person's life. What would you know about and what would you say about their priorities? Such is true of this budget of ours. One hundred years from now we will all be gone. Yet historians can take a look at what we decided was important. What did we describe as valuable? What were our choices? What was our value system? You can tell something about that by looking at these budgets. What did you choose to spend the taxpayers' dollars on? What did you invest in? Did you do things that kept your promise? Did you do things that invested in the future? That is the choice when we vote on this amendment. I am pleased to have cosponsored the amendment with my colleague Senator Daschle. We live in a region of the country where people drive long distances for health care. We are told North Dakota is one of the least well served regions of America with respect to veterans health care, measured by the number of miles veterans have to drive to access the health care system. We need to change that. Senator Conrad and I and others are working to do so. One way we would change it is to decide now to make the tough choice and say: This is valuable. This is worth providing funding for, to improve health care for America's veterans. One final point: We talk a lot about service to country these days. I and many of my colleagues have been to the veterans hospitals in the DC area, visited with many veterans who have been injured in this Iraq war, injured in other circumstances. Many now will return from Iraq. We have the largest rotation of troops going on since the Second World War, 120,000 or 130,000 troops moving from that region of the world, Iraq, Afghanistan, back into this country, and then rotating a similar number into that region. As these veterans come back to our country, they will be welcomed. Our country will say: A job well done. Thank you for your service. Our communities will have celebrations. Families will open their arms to their loved ones. The question is, will this Congress celebrate their return? Will this Congress open its arms to our veterans by casting votes that say to them: We stand with you and we keep our promise with respect to veterans health care? I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. One hundred thirty billion dollars.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have listened to my colleagues from Illinois and Connecticut discuss this issue. It is interesting to me that the amendment that is offered by the Senator from Connecticut is portrayed by some as some very substantial, potentially devastating piece of public policy that could bring down the roof and undermine this economy. It is, of course, nothing of the sort. It is a relatively modest amendment, as a matter of fact. My colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, said he wants a vote on it. I want a vote on this amendment. They can second-degree it until the cows come home, but in the end we will get a vote on this amendment. If we have this kind of bill on the Senate floor, we have a right to vote on this amendment. The central question that is asked by my colleague from Connecticut is this: Should tax dollars be used to send jobs overseas? I am going to have this followed up with another amendment asking, should we provide tax breaks to send jobs overseas? My colleague, Senator Dodd, says--and I agree with him wholeheartedly--we ought not to have the American people pay tax dollars into our Government and then have various functions of Government decide where we are going to do the essential functions that we have to perform and then make a decision: let's do them in Bangladesh; let's do them in Indonesia; let's do them in India. That is not something we want to have happen with the dollars the American taxpayers pay into their Government. Senator Dodd says let's stop that, with some exemptions and some exceptions. It makes good sense to me. It is absolutely the right thing to do. I am going to offer an amendment which I will describe briefly. Senator Dodd talks about the use of tax dollars. Let me describe my amendment, which is the use of tax breaks. If one is an American company doing business in this country and they decide they want to set up a wholly owned foreign subsidiary and they move their American jobs to this foreign subsidiary, make the same product and then ship the product back into this marketplace, they lose what is called tax deferral. We actually now provide a tax benefit if you do that. We say if you do--shut down your American plant, produce the same product overseas and ship it back into this country--we will give you a tax break. You don't have to repatriate your income. You don't have to pay taxes on that income. So here are two companies. Both produce garage door openers, both are located in the same American city. One moves to Asia. Guess what. The one that moves has a tax advantage over the one that stayed. I am going to offer an amendment that shuts that down for products that are shipped back into this marketplace by companies that move their American jobs overseas. We ought not provide a tax break for that. That is another amendment we will vote on. Again, when we bring this bill to the floor, which is a tax bill, we have every right to offer these amendments and expect we will vote on them. The second degree that has been offered just moments ago represents a desire to prevent a vote on the amendment. Certification--this is an opportunity for an escape hatch, to allow governments, in this case in the Dodd amendment, to keep doing what they have done in some cases, and that is to outsource jobs overseas. This obviously plays right to the question of the larger issue. Senator Durbin said we have globalized. Indeed we have. Globalization has moved very quickly, very rapidly. I don't suggest we can in some way bring it back. This economy is now a global economy. What I do suggest is this: The rules for this global economy have not kept pace with the pace of globalization. We fought for 100 years over some very important issues. Should workers have a right to organize? Should they have the right to expect they are working in a safe workplace? Should they have a right to expect someone is not going to hire 12-year-olds to engage in labor that will be undercutting workers in this country? Do they have a right to expect they are not working in a plant that is dumping chemicals into the air and the water? We fought for 100 years over these issues and resolved them. Now, if a company, or a government can pole-vault over all of those issues and say: You know something, let's just do our business in Bangladesh or Indonesia or India; we don't have to worry about all that; we can hire 12-year-olds and work them 12 hours a day 7 days a week and pay them 12 cents an hour and ship the product to Fargo or Los Angeles or Chicago, in my judgment there has to be some basic admission price to the American economy, to the marketplace in this country. The rules of trade have not kept pace with globalization, and that is what is at the foundation of this great debate of ours about moving jobs overseas. I understand why people move jobs overseas, why corporations move jobs overseas, why some governments do. I don't like it. I want to stop it. But I understand why they do it. It is about money. Huffy bicycles is the best example I know. They were 20 percent of the American marketplace. You could buy them at Sears, K-Mart, Wal-Mart. Huffy bicycles were made by proud people in this country making $11 an hour in plants in Ohio. They used to have between the handlebars and the fender a little decal that was the American flag. Now that is gone. The last job performed in Ohio by the workers at the Huffy bicycle plant was to take that decal off and replace it with a decal of the globe. The American flag is gone, the globe is there. Why? Because Huffy bicycle is now made in China. Not for $11 an hour. Those folks lost their jobs in Ohio because they were too expensive. Those jobs don't exist here anymore. Those workers were fired. Now Huffy bicycles are made in China by people working 12 to 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for 33 cents an hour. They come to this country, not with an American flag on the front but with a picture of the globe. In my judgment, this is an appropriate way to describe what has happened here. Huffy bicycles, if they had human qualities, would have to have citizenship, and they would be American. But somehow they decided they didn't want to be American anymore; they wanted to be Chinese. But they want to be sold in America because there is no marketplace quite like this on the face of the Earth. This is a big issue. This is a really big issue and a set of big questions with which this Congress needs to grapple. We grapple with part of it in the context of international trade agreements. We have a mess. We have the biggest trade deficit in the history of humankind. This is not about Republicans or Democrats; it is about bad trade agreements for long periods of time that undercut the productive capability of this country to decimate our manufacturing base. The reason I care about that is no country will long remain a world economic power without a good manufacturing base. Just one piece of this the Senator from Connecticut attempts to deal with is the increasing likelihood, these days, of companies such as EarthLink--they announced: We are moving our outsourcing overseas. Our servicing is gone. We are going overseas. Companies such as IBM: We are going to outsource and do our servicing overseas. And we also know that governments in some cases have done the same thing. The Senator from Connecticut takes that small piece and says let's stop that. Let's at least stop that as we work on the rest of it. If we can't do this, we are not serious about any of this. Don't come ever to the floor of the Senate and talk about jobs if you are not willing to do this. I don't know of one politician who has ever lost his or her job because they were outsourced--not one. For that matter, no economists have ever lost their job because they were outsourced. It is not necessarily the case they would recognize it if it happened, but no politicians or economists have lost their jobs because they were outsourced. If that were to happen, you would hear a different mantra coming out of economists. If that were happening, what you would have is this Chamber full of people wanting to speak in support not just of this amendment but of the bigger bites that are necessary to fix what is wrong with our strategy with respect to trade and the outsourcing of American jobs. Senator Durbin indicated that the President's chief economic adviser said to us: This is good. Outsourcing is good. I am assuming this comes from the doctrine of comparative advantage, the old Ricardo strategy of saying you do what you do best, then trade with someone who does what they do best, and that is the way the world works best. Of course, Ricardo has been long dead and he described a world that doesn't exist. He described trade between countries, not corporations. What is happening is the comparative advantage, as a doctrine, is not any longer comparative advantage with respect to natural resources. It is a comparative advantage with respect to politics, and the politics is this: If you happen to be in a country in which your government says, ``Oh, by the way, if you try to organize as a worker you are fired or you are put in prison,'' that is a political decision by a country that says we won't allow people to organize. It is a political decision for a country to say we don't care about pollution; we are going to pollute the air and the water. It is a political decision for a government to decide we are going to hire 12- year-old kids in our plants, and we are going to let them work 12 hours a day and pay them 12 cents an hour. That is not the doctrine of comparative advantage Ricardo described. These are political issues and governments decide the conditions of production in their country. Then we have economists who somehow say: Gosh, Ricardo described this comparative advantage, so why shouldn't we access lower cost labor? A country that pollutes the air and hires kids and puts them in unsafe plants and pays them pennies an hour? That doesn't need an answer. We all understand the answer to that question. That should not continue. I am going to conclude because I am going in a broader discussion than Senator Dodd's amendment. But my point is this: If we can't even do this small piece, how on Earth can we deal with the broader issues? I held a hearing recently about some young women who were working in manufacturing plants in Honduras. They were actually making clothing for Puff Daddy, whose name, I believe, now is P. Diddy. I get confused now sometimes when people change their names, but Puff Daddy changed to P. Diddy. Apparently, he has a clothing line and that clothing is made in some plant in Honduras. A couple of young women in that plant came to talk to us about the conditions in that plant. It was exactly as you would expect. There were circumstances where they had no capability to affect their destiny. You are put in that plant; you work in that plant; and if you try to organize, you are fired; you are out. The conditions were terribly unsatisfactory. Since that hearing, I understand that there have been improvements in the Honduras factory I described. But that is just one factory out of many. Conditions there are bleak. Is that what we want? Is that really the global economy that advantages the American people? Or jobs that move from here to there and then we say but that is all right because, if you have young kids producing this product being paid 20 cents an hour, think of how cheap it is going to be for us on the shelf. I am sorry, with what income will the Americans who lost their jobs purchase those products? With what income will they purchase those products when their jobs are gone? One of the interesting things about this U.S. economic engine is that it is the only economic engine on Earth that is as strong. But like every engine, it requires some maintenance. What we have is people hanging around who don't want to maintain this engine. Jobs are at the root of success in this country. There is no social program that is as important as a good job that pays well--none. Jobs are important. When we have the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers--the President's chief economist--saying it is just fine that jobs go overseas, it is fine and you don't understand, that it will all work out--John Manard Keynes said: In the long run we are all dead. If it all works out, 100 years from now--as we struggle through and this all works out--I guess none of us will experience that. I am right now very interested in making sure that the rules of trade keep pace with the pace of globalization. They have not. It is our job to bring them to present day policies and to debate them and discuss them. That is what Senator Dodd is doing with one small piece. Should your tax dollar pay for sending jobs overseas through government contracts? The answer is, of course, not. Are you kidding. This isn't rocket science. I suggest that my colleagues go to Main Street someplace and ask the question, Is it good that your manufacturing plants in your town should be required to compete and your workers should be required to compete with someone in Shrilanka where they are going to be paid pennies and they do not conform to environmental laws and fire people if they try to organize workers? We know the answer to that. This doesn't take a lot of depth in thought. This amendment is a first. Senator Mikulski and I have one that deals directly on taxation. We are anxious to offer it. I suspect we will not be able to do that until after the budget debate on the floor. This is the first step of addressing the question about jobs. Anybody who dismisses this question of jobs fundamentally misunderstands the role of jobs in this economy. It is the enabler that enables everything else to happen. It enables people to provide for their families and to do the other things. One final point, if I might: I have mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating. It is just one example of so many towns, so many workers, and so many manufacturing plants. When those folks came home from their plant one night and said to their spouse and to their children, ``I lost my job today,'' that is a hard thing to do. The family wonders if they weren't good workers. Was there something wrong with what dad or mom did while they worked during the day? Couldn't they keep up? It wasn't that at all. They have to come home and say, ``I lost my job today,'' not because I was making $11 an hour trying to provide for my family but that someone else was willing to work for 33 cents an hour, and that job has now gone 10,000 miles from here. The rules don't exist by which we describe whether there is fair trade, whether that is fair for this country and why that is in this country's interest. When the chief economic adviser to the President says this movement of jobs overseas is really a good thing because in the long run it all works out, I say no, it is not a good thing if you lost your job. I think if economists and politicians lost a few jobs from outsourcing they might understand that a bit. I will vote for the Dodd amendment. I want to cosponsor the amendment. I am just one voice, but I hope Senator Dodd will say it as well. If they try to second-degree this to death thinking that somehow they will avoid a vote on the underlying amendment, as long as this bill is on the Senate floor, this is coming back and back and back. We deserve a vote on the underlying amendment. Let us find out where people stand. Stand up and vote on this rather than try to vote on some diversionary second-degree amendment. I know my colleague is waiting for the floor. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. As the Senator from Michigan indicated, at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning the Democratic Policy Committee is going to hold a hearing on the outsourcing of jobs to other countries. I appreciate that the Senator from Michigan will be there and will be a significant part of that with constituents from Michigan. It occurred to me as the Senator talked about refrigerators, the next time you go to eat at a Mexican restaurant, remember that Fig Newtons are now made in Mexico. Why? They used to be made in the United States. But Fig Newtons jobs have left and gone to Mexico. Why? Lower wages, I am guessing. Levis, Fruit of the Loom underwear, you name it. We could have a hearing that would last for years if we wanted to talk to the people who had good jobs in this country but whose jobs are now gone because even Fig Newtons went to Mexico. I am anxious for the hearing tomorrow, and I appreciate the Senator from Michigan mentioning it.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss S. 1072, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2003. The transportation bill is a needed investment for America's infrastructure. Our Nation's roads, bridges and transit systems need help now. Thirty-eight percent of our Nation's major roads are in poor or fair condition, and 28 percent of our bridges are structurally deficient and unsafe for travel. This bill is important for the economy as well. Transportation surpasses education and recreation and nearly equals health care and food as a contributor to economic growth, and the transportation sector is critical to jobs, employing millions of workers. A 6-year, $311 billion transportation bill will create more than 830,000 jobs across the United States. I want to specifically mention how important transportation funding is to North Dakota. North Dakota has only 17 people per lane mile of Federal-aid highway; the national average is 124. As a result, there is a huge per capita investment by North Dakota citizens to support a national transportation system. That means that Federal aid is critical for ensuring the development, safety and reliability of transportation infrastructure, as it simply does not have the population to support its needs. The $1.463 billion that North Dakota is projected to receive over the next 6 years will benefit the infrastructure, economy, and citizens of North Dakota, and the many others who use North Dakota's roadways for interstate commerce and tourism. Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Jeffords worked hard to ensure that rural States would receive adequate funding in this bill, and I thank them for their efforts. I emphasize that we must continue to work to preserve this funding as this bill proceeds. I also thank them for their work to include two of my amendments in S. 1072. My first amendment will ease the burdens of cumbersome hazardous materials regulations on small farmers. Farmers driving their pickup trucks with a 120-gallon tank of fuel in the back should not have to file security plans. These farmers are not a threat to our Nation's security, and my amendment exempts them from these unnecessary rules. My second amendment will ensure that States prohibit open containers of alcoholic beverages in vehicles. In this day and age, it is unbelievable that someone can still drive with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding an open bottle of Jack Daniels, and my amendment takes action so that States crack down on this violation. Lastly, I want to say that it is unfortunate that we were not able take up amendments that Senator Burns, Senator Rockefeller and I submitted to address current problems with rail policy in this Nation. While more than 40 major railroads existed in 1980, these have now consolidated to seven, with four major railroads generating over 90 percent of the total annual rail revenue. The previous Interstate Commerce Commission, and the current Surface Transportation Board, STB, have failed to implement captive customer protections, and in fact have interpreted the deregulation act to allow railroads to deny rail customer access to rail competition. As a result, today we have a national rail industry that is both deregulated and retains almost unchecked monopoly power over at least 30 percent of its customers. This issue hits home for my constituents and me. Grain production is a major industry in my State. Unfortunately, our grain producers are captive to a single railroad. That railroad consistently charges rates that are so outrageously high that our grain loses access to both U.S. and foreign markets. When we do move our grain at these high rail rates, every dollar for rail transportation comes out of the pockets of our grain farmers in the form of reduced net-backs from their grain sales. It is unfortunate that our rail amendments could not be offered for a full debate and vote. They would have begun to introduce the competition in the national rail system that should have resulted from deregulation 23 years ago. These amendments would have provided some much needed relief to our farmers, manufacturers and electric ratepayers and would help save American jobs for Americans. I will continue to work for a chance to take action on these amendments and move our rail system toward the efficient, procompetitive system this Nation needs and deserves.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to offer a bipartisan piece of legislation. As I will describe, this bill seeks to fill a gaping hole in our criminal justice system, made tragically evident by a recent tragedy in North Dakota. Last November, Dru Sjodin, a student at the University of North Dakota, was abducted in the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall. A suspect has been arrested, and there is significant evidence that he was responsible for Dru's abduction. Dru has not been found. The tragedy of Dru's abduction is compounded by the fact that her alleged assailant, Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., had been released from prison only six months earlier, having served a 23-year sentence for rape in Minnesota. And what's more, Minnesota authorities had known that he was at high risk of committing another sexual assault if released. The Minnesota Department of Corrections had rated Rodriguez as a ``type 3'' offender--meaning that he was at the highest risk for reoffending. In an evaluation conducted in January 2003, a prison psychiatrist wrote that Rodriguez had demonstrated ``a willingness to use substantial force, including the use of a weapon, in order to gain compliance from his victims.'' Despite this determination, the Minnesota Department of Corrections released Rodriguez in May 2003, and essentially washed its hands of the case. Since Rodriguez had served the full term of his sentence, the Department of Corrections imposed no further supervision on him at all. Now, the Minnesota Department of Corrections could have recommended that the State Attorney General seek what is known as a ``civil commitment.'' Under this procedure, a State court would have required Rodriguez to be confined as long as he posed a sufficient threat to the public, even if he had served his original sentence. But the State Attorney General was never notified that Rodriguez was getting out, and there was no chance for the Minnesota courts to consider the case. So upon his release, Mr. Rodriguez went to live in Crookston, MN, completely unsupervised, a short distance from the Grand Forks shopping mall where Dru Sjodin was abducted. To make matters worse, the North Dakota public had no way of knowing that Rodriguez had been released. There is currently no national sex offender registry. Each State has its own sex offender registry, which tracks only its own residents. So although Minnesota listed Rodriguez in its sex offender registry, residents of North Dakota checking their own State's sex offender registry would have no way of knowing this. For all intents and purposes, Rodriguez was free to prey on nearby communities in North Dakota, without fear of recognition. This situation is unacceptable. We must do better. A recent study found that 72 percent of ``highest risk'' sexual offenders reoffend within 6 years of being released. And the Bureau of Justice Statistics has determined that sex offenders released from prison are over ten times more likely to be arrested for a sexual crime than individuals who have no record of sexual assault. We cannot just release such individuals with no supervision whatsoever, and let them prey upon an unsuspecting public. Today, I am offering legislation to that will hopefully ensure that these breakdowns in our criminal justice system do not reoccur, and that will give our citizens the tools to better protect themselves from sexual offenders. This bill, which is co-sponsored by Senators Dayton, Coleman, and Conrad, does the following three things: First, it directs the Department of Justice to create and manage a national sex offender registry, which would be accessible to the general public through the Internet. This database would allow users of the registry to specify a search radius across State lines. This will give residents in the many states that have large population centers close to State lines, like North Dakota and Minnesota, a much more meaningful report on nearby sexual offenders. Second, to 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 their States attorneys of the planned release of any ``high-risk'' sex offender, so that states attorneys can have a chance to determine whether to seek a civil commitment of that offender. And third, the bill requires intensive State supervision of ``high- risk'' sex offenders released after serving their full sentence--that is, offenders who would otherwise go unsupervised--for a period of no less than one year. The cost of these steps would be shared by the Federal Government and the States. The Federal Government would bear the cost of maintaining the national sex offender registry, and the States would bear the cost of supervising high risk offenders upon their release from prison. To ensure compliance with these measures, the legislation would reduce Federal funding for prison construction by 25 percent for those states that did not comply, and would reallocate such funds to States that do comply with those provisions. This will be the ``stick'' that some States may need to ensure that they comply with these important protections. Our thoughts and prayers go to Dru Sjodin's family. I cannot guarantee that that passage of the legislation we are introducing today will prevent such tragedies from ever occurring again. But I believe that it will be a significant step towards making our neighborhoods safer for our loved ones. I look forward to working with my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, to secure passage of this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to offer a bipartisan piece of legislation. As I will describe, this bill seeks to fill a gaping hole in our criminal justice system, made tragically evident by a recent tragedy in North Dakota. Last November, Dru Sjodin, a student at the University of North Dakota, was abducted in the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall. A suspect has been arrested, and there is significant evidence that he was responsible for Dru's abduction. Dru has not been found. The tragedy of Dru's abduction is compounded by the fact that her alleged assailant, Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., had been released from prison only six months earlier, having served a 23-year sentence for rape in Minnesota. And what's more, Minnesota authorities had known that he was at high risk of committing another sexual assault if released. The Minnesota Department of Corrections had rated Rodriguez as a ``type 3'' offender--meaning that he was at the highest risk for reoffending. In an evaluation conducted in January 2003, a prison psychiatrist wrote that Rodriguez had demonstrated ``a willingness to use substantial force, including the use of a weapon, in order to gain compliance from his victims.'' Despite this determination, the Minnesota Department of Corrections released Rodriguez in May 2003, and essentially washed its hands of the case. Since Rodriguez had served the full term of his sentence, the Department of Corrections imposed no further supervision on him at all. Now, the Minnesota Department of Corrections could have recommended that the State Attorney General seek what is known as a ``civil commitment.'' Under this procedure, a State court would have required Rodriguez to be confined as long as he posed a sufficient threat to the public, even if he had served his original sentence. But the State Attorney General was never notified that Rodriguez was getting out, and there was no chance for the Minnesota courts to consider the case. So upon his release, Mr. Rodriguez went to live in Crookston, MN, completely unsupervised, a short distance from the Grand Forks shopping mall where Dru Sjodin was abducted. To make matters worse, the North Dakota public had no way of knowing that Rodriguez had been released. There is currently no national sex offender registry. Each State has its own sex offender registry, which tracks only its own residents. So although Minnesota listed Rodriguez in its sex offender registry, residents of North Dakota checking their own State's sex offender registry would have no way of knowing this. For all intents and purposes, Rodriguez was free to prey on nearby communities in North Dakota, without fear of recognition. This situation is unacceptable. We must do better. A recent study found that 72 percent of ``highest risk'' sexual offenders reoffend within 6 years of being released. And the Bureau of Justice Statistics has determined that sex offenders released from prison are over ten times more likely to be arrested for a sexual crime than individuals who have no record of sexual assault. We cannot just release such individuals with no supervision whatsoever, and let them prey upon an unsuspecting public. Today, I am offering legislation to that will hopefully ensure that these breakdowns in our criminal justice system do not reoccur, and that will give our citizens the tools to better protect themselves from sexual offenders. This bill, which is co-sponsored by Senators Dayton, Coleman, and Conrad, does the following three things: First, it directs the Department of Justice to create and manage a national sex offender registry, which would be accessible to the general public through the Internet. This database would allow users of the registry to specify a search radius across State lines. This will give residents in the many states that have large population centers close to State lines, like North Dakota and Minnesota, a much more meaningful report on nearby sexual offenders. Second, to 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 their States attorneys of the planned release of any ``high-risk'' sex offender, so that states attorneys can have a chance to determine whether to seek a civil commitment of that offender. And third, the bill requires intensive State supervision of ``high- risk'' sex offenders released after serving their full sentence--that is, offenders who would otherwise go unsupervised--for a period of no less than one year. The cost of these steps would be shared by the Federal Government and the States. The Federal Government would bear the cost of maintaining the national sex offender registry, and the States would bear the cost of supervising high risk offenders upon their release from prison. To ensure compliance with these measures, the legislation would reduce Federal funding for prison construction by 25 percent for those states that did not comply, and would reallocate such funds to States that do comply with those provisions. This will be the ``stick'' that some States may need to ensure that they comply with these important protections. Our thoughts and prayers go to Dru Sjodin's family. I cannot guarantee that that passage of the legislation we are introducing today will prevent such tragedies from ever occurring again. But I believe that it will be a significant step towards making our neighborhoods safer for our loved ones. I look forward to working with my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, to secure passage of this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.